Exhibition of the week
Mark Dion
Science and history become dreamlike in Dion’s surrealist collections of found stuff.
• Whitechapel Gallery, London, 14 February to 13 May
Also showing
David Milne
Canadian modernism with an almost Scandinavian melancholy and hints of Peter Doig.
• Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 14 February to 17 May
Emil Nolde
Potent light and stormy colour shudder in this expressionist’s apocalyptic paintings.
• National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 14 February to 10 June
Virginia Woolf
Claude Cahun and Woolf’s sister Vanessa Bell are among the artists brought together to celebrate this great modern writer.
• Tate St Ives, 10 February to 29 April
The New Kettle’s Yard
New architecture and new ambitions enhance a magical collection of modern art.
• Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, reopening 10 February
Masterpiece of the week
Vanitas Still Life, 1648, by Jan Jansz Treck
Vanity, all is vanity. As if a pipe that has gone out, an hourglass and a straw for blowing bubbles were not enough to suggest the fragility and brevity of life, this Dutch golden age painting also includes a skull to show exactly where we are all heading. In the glare of death, what value do our ambitions or aspirations have? Military courage and boldness are signified by the empty helmet, music by a flute and viol, art by a drawing, science by a shell – yet none of these spheres of human endeavour can hold back death. Chilling thoughts, yet this bizarre collection is painted with a precision and fineness that makes it as lovely as it is provocative.
• National Gallery, London
Image of the week
Hyundai pavilion, Pyeongchang, by Asif Khan
British architect Asif Khan has built the world’s darkest building for this year’s Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. The temporary pavilion (commissioned by Hyundai) is coated in Vantablack Vbx 2, a nanomaterial comprised of optical cavities which, at 1,000th the width of a human hair, absorb 99% of the light that hits its surface.
What we learned this week
The Queen’s Leonardos are going on tour
New York’s Met can keep the Picasso claimed to have been looted by Nazis
Mexican architect Frida Escobedo will design the 2018 Serpentine pavilion
Rolex runs an artists’ mentoring scheme like no other
Edward Burtynsky is 2018’s Master of Photography
Photographer Susan Meiselas sees the world differently from men
Britain may lose Julia Margaret Cameron’s photo album
Ann Hirsch talked about how her art took over her life
A missing Nigerian masterpiece was found in a London flat
SkyPixel aerial photography winners were announced
Jules de Balincourt paints a divided America
New York artist Leon Golub had a nerve
Sonia Boyce shed more light on the removal of Hylas and the Nymphs
A Londoner has renamed a Picasso portrait after his nightclub
Norwich has rediscovered Alfred Munnings’ night school drawings
We asked Google why the Mona Lisa is smiling
The Aftermath Project takes stock of a decade of war
A Yorkshireman’s chapel is his castle
Illustrators are competing to interrogate Sherlock Holmes
Philippe Chancel recalled France’s rockabilly rebels
Photographer Peter Dench warns of the dangers of drink
Ireland’s quirky shopfronts are disappearing
Art and performance have always mixed
Ancient rock art is endangered by industry
Eddie Peake has put his clothes on
Don’t forget
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