Exhibition of the week
Liza Lou
Abstract “paintings” made with beads in collaboration with a group of Zulu women in South Africa explore connections between craft and minimalist art.
White Cube Bermondsey, London SE1 until 18 January
Other exhibitions this week
The Two Roberts
This exhibition looks back at the bohemia of 1940s London and the two Scottish artists, Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun, who took it by storm.
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh until 24 May
Stanley Spencer
The war art of this religious visionary is characteristically gentle, tender and redemptive.
Manchester City Art Gallery, Manchester until 1 March
The Chapman brothers and Goya
Why do Jake and Dinos Chapman keep fiddling with Goya’s devastating Disasters of War? This exhibition explores an unlikely relationship between Romantic genius and contemporary provocation.
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge until 8 February
Magnum Photos
A celebration of the great photographers’ agency and a look at how its archive shapes modern history.
De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea until 4 January
Masterpiece of the week
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo – An Allegory with Venus and Time (c 1754-8)
Strictly speaking this painting should hang on the ceiling – it was painted to hang in the heights of a Venetian palace. Even displayed at eye height it lures you into an unreal world of dizzy perspective in which the action melts into a kind of abstract ecstasy.
National Gallery, London WC2
Image of the week
What we learned this week
That a Mr Turner work has sold for £30.3m at auction, a new world record for the artist
That the Thames garden bridge could cost the public £3.5m a year
That Duncan Campbell has won the 2014 Turner prize
And what Campbell thinks about Christmas stockings and Das Kapital
That Clip Art may be gone – but will never be forgotten
That the Parthenon marbles have been loaned to Russia
The beauty of a red-headed man
What Russian bathers, LGBT South Africans and the largest towerblock in Johannesburg have in common
How Afghan Girl, Ansel Adams, a Russian bodybuilder and a hippo changed photography
Why Chinese artists are going back to the land
That William Blake’s strange, amazing studio has been recreated in Oxford
That Miley Cyrus has been turning heads at Art Basel in Miami
That a team of Spanish subversives are building the 2015 Serpentine summer pavilion
