1 Superflex
Tate Modern’s vast Turbine Hall may seem custom-made for spectacular sculptures by Jeff Koons or Damien Hirst, but in recent years its installations have stressed participation and engagement. That continues with this intervention by the Danish collective Superflex, whose diverse projects propose alternative commercial models. Their activism ranges from challenging copyright laws to creating a political opera. Be ready for anything subversive.
Tate Modern, SE1, 3 October to 2 April
2 Opera: Passion, Power and Politics
Before contemporary art was mixing media, opera synthesised visual design, drama and music. This exhibition surveys its history, from baroque Italy, through the Romantic age, and to recent radical reinventions. Think of it as a high-cultural continuation of the V&A’s exhibitions of Kylie and Pink Floyd. Art by Degas, Manet and others features among the props, costumes and scores.
Victoria & Albert Museum, SW7, 30 September to 25 February
3 Waqas Khan
This gifted and visionary artist from Pakistan creates abstract drawings on a sublime scale. Working long hours in his studio in Lahore, Khan uses a pen in the traditional manner of Islamic court miniaturists to create subtle webs of marks. Like nebulae or spiders’ webs, these networks of delicate line and colour hang in space, dissolving all boundaries between real and imaginary, body and soul.
Manchester Art Gallery, 30 September to 25 February
4 Degas
Degas’ centenary is one worth celebrating: he died in 1917 after creating some of the world’s most visionary art. A voyeur, said to be celibate, he sublimated his sexuality into portraying the human body. As he got older, he became more daring, his bronzes and pastels of women bathing anticipating the radicalism of Picasso. He was also one of the first painters to experiment with photography. Anyone who thinks he just depicted ballet dancers is missing out on a legacy of genius.
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 3 October to 14 January
5 Everything at Once
Susan Hiller, Richard Long, Ai Weiwei, Marina Abramović, Ryan Gander: the list of artists represented by London’s Lisson Gallery since its birth in 1967 is a who’s who of contemporary art, and they are all here in a blockbuster celebration of its success. Taking over the brutalist interior of the Store Studios, this claims to be much more than an advert for one of Britain’s leading art dealers. It should be fun.
The Store Studios, WC2, 5 October to 10 December
