ArtBeryl Cook: Pride and Joy<\/p>\n
For her centenary year, The Box presents the largest ever show of self-taught painter Beryl Cook. Her work may not be great art, but it is a bawdy slice of Plymouth and postwar British life. An unlikely pairing with Tom of Finland, at Studio Voltaire<\/a> in 2024, recast Cook\u2019s reputation as a queer ally. There will be drinking and smoking and ogling and people getting up to all sorts. Adrian Searle Gwen John: Strange Beauties<\/p>\n Silence and solitude pervade the visionary art of this quiet hero of modernism. John didn\u2019t take on the British art establishment \u2013 she simply ignored it. This graduate of the Slade ploughed her own route, living in France with almost no money, having a steamy affair with Rodin, for whom she also modelled, and painting simple, clear, spiritual images of women alone, and free like her, at a cost. Wales is right to be proud of her. Jonathan Jones Lucian Freud: Drawing into Painting<\/p>\n One of the greatest British portrait artists of all time can\u2019t have enough exhibitions. This one delves into his creative process, exploring how his drawings grew into paintings \u2013 although he also demanded his models be there right through the work of painting. He wanted the subject present, even when he was painting floorboards and background. Freud\u2019s drawings reveal the exactness of his eye, and are so precise they can be painful to look at. JJ Seurat and the SeaThe Beach at Gravelines, 1890, by Georges Seurat Photograph: Courtauld<\/p>\n This may sound soft but, if so, take a closer look at Seurat. This restless, deep-seeing artist followed his elders, the impressionists, to the shores, ports and seaside towns of northern France but his pointillist fragmented views \u2013 a rock towering over the sea; an eerily still and unpopulated harbour; a long lonely channel connecting Gravelines, near Dunkirk, with the sea \u2013 are brilliant and achingly desolate visions of modernism. JJ Beatriz Gonz\u00e1lez<\/p>\n Depicting tabloid crimes of passion and political murders, Latin American feminism and social commentary, the Colombian painter and sculptor Beatriz Gonz\u00e1lez developed during La Violencia, the decades-long civil war that gripped the country. Her simplified, brightly coloured paintings, assemblages, furniture and installation, are a kind of vernacular pop art, reflecting on troubled times. Gonz\u00e1lez\u2019s largest show in Europe, this will be a revelation. AS Tracey Emin<\/p>\n It is incredible to think that only a few years ago, critics were still sneering or even laughing at the wildest of the 1990s Young British Artists. What changed? Emin\u2019s readiness to acknowledge she was no longer young, and to ruthlessly chronicle ageing, loneliness and a devastating illness, have made it clear to everyone her honesty is no stunt. Beyond that, her paintings have kept getting better, with her recent Crucifixion<\/a> her greatest yet. Genuinely popular and truly original, Emin will give Tate Modern a boost in ticket sales and, if there is justice, rave reviews. JJ Angela de la Cruz: UprightTransfer (White) with armchair (2011) by Angela de la Cruz. Photograph: \u00a9 Courtesy the artist and Galerie Thomas Schulte.<\/p>\n Slapstick and tragedy, pathos and humour come together in Angela de la Cruz\u2019s paintings and assemblages. Everything is abstract, everything is figurative in this survey of the artist\u2019s career, which includes a new commission made in collaboration with Birmingham Royal Ballet. AS Frank Bowling: Seeking the SublimeOceans of colour \u2026 Frank Bowling\u2019s Pondlife (After Millais), 2007. Photograph: Damian Griffiths\/\u00a9 Frank Bowling. All rights reserved, DACS 2025<\/p>\n Continents swim in luminous oceans of colour. Frank Bowling\u2019s art carries with it memories of places and people, journeys taken, voyages across the surface of the canvas as much as around the world. He was born in British Guiana (now Guyana), and his peripatetic art has taken him to London and New York and back again, in a show that maps his influences and affinities. AS Zurbar\u00e1n<\/p>\n Haunting and mysterious, the paintings of the Sevillian artist Francisco de Zurbar\u00e1n (1598-1664) are filled with dramatic lighting, impenetrable dark and magisterial greys. His stilled, enigmatic figures have a theatrical, sculptural presence, and for all the inescapably Spanish baroque religiosity and tailored drapery, Zurbar\u00e1n\u2019s art appears peculiarly modern and strange. AS Nancy Holt<\/p>\n From pierced concrete tunnels in the Utah desert to the systems hidden beneath the floors and walls of our buildings, Nancy Holt\u2019s art puts you in touch with the cosmological and the everyday. A pioneer of land art, environmental art and conceptualism, Holt (1938-2014) puts magic back into the world. AS WhistlerKeeping Mum \u2026 Whistler\u2019s Mother is being lent by the Mus\u00e9e d\u2019Orsay in Paris. Photograph: Fine Art\/Corbis\/Getty Images<\/p>\n \u2026 and his mum! The painting Whistler\u2019s Mother (Arrangement in Grey and Black No 1) will be lent by the Mus\u00e9e d\u2019Orsay for this survey of an American in Paris and London. Whistler was au fait with the French avant garde: in an 1860s group portrait of them he looks like a wild west gunslinger, putting Manet and Baudelaire in the shade. He then brought their modernist ideas to London, painting a sleazy gathering at Wapping and dreamy impressions of the Thames, all while taking the critic John Ruskin to court. The original modern art star. JJ Anish Kapoor<\/p>\n You can\u2019t go wrong with Kapoor \u2013 he turns art galleries into adult playgrounds full of riotous visual spectacle and sublime fun. His recent work has explored new, provocative ground with sculptures and paintings that plunge into a red, visceral imagery of human flesh. At the same time, he has been exploring the nature of the ultimate black in pieces that are as much physics as art. This readiness to follow new, unexpected ideas on top of an already stunning career makes him a dangerous and exciting artist who is sure to keep you on your toes. JJ Frida Kahlo: The Making of an Icon<\/p>\n The paintings, diaries and courageous life of this surrealist artist are endlessly compelling and a guaranteed hit for Tate. And why not? I think she is underrated. Our tendency to see her as a kind of performance artist and pop star belittles how good her paintings and drawings really are: so truthful, so frank, yet infused with mythology, religion and dreams. She invented this confessional approach decades before anyone else thought of it. Embrace this encounter with one of the truly great artists of the 20th century. JJ Ana Mendieta<\/p>\n Working in sculpture, performance, film and photography, the Cuban-born artist Ana Mendieta put her body, its imprint and silhouette, at the core of her art. Displacement and absence were a recurrent theme. Mendieta left her trace everywhere, using water, flowers and fire, in film and photography, performance and sculpture, in all too short a career. In a career overshadowed by the circumstances of her death, her art remains vital and alive. AS Richard Dadd: Beyond Bedlam<\/p>\n Before surrealism there was Richard Dadd. Monstrous fairies do unspeakable things in the overgrown grass of an out-of-scale garden, doctors and orderlies pose for staring portraits in lurid nature \u2013 Dadd\u2019s world is a psychedelic hallucination, or bad-trip nightmare. His best known paintings were done in the asylum after he murdered his father while in the grip of psychosis. He was treated kindly and his art flourished, free from Victorian respectability. Venture down the rabbit hole. JJ Bayeux TapestryContemporary meaning in age-old embroidery \u2026 the Bayeux Tapestry. Photograph: Bayeux Museum<\/p>\n The art event of the year, by some distance, has to be this once-in-a-lifetime triumph of cultural generosity by France. The greatest and most popular early medieval artwork comes to the country whose invasion by the Normans in 1066 it depicts in epic human detail. You can, and people will, find all manner of contemporary meanings in this vast embroidery, from a condemnation of war to nationalistic nonsense to proof that Britons are Europeans \u2026 but it is almost 1,000 years old and portrays another world, other ways of being. It will move and astonish you. JJ Mike Nelson<\/p>\n In 2004, Mike Nelson buried a shack in a sand dune<\/a>, in the upstairs gallery at Modern Art Oxford. Nelson\u2019s work, with its mix of fact and fiction, history and fabulation, is always as engrossing as it is disturbing. For the 60th anniversary of the gallery, Nelson returns to Oxford with a new work, currently under wraps. AS Beverly Buchanan: Weathering<\/p>\n Remnants and ruins, sculptural versions of sharecroppers\u2019 shacks and other fragments of lives lived and hardships endured, are key elements for Buchanan (1940-2015). In her evocations of the complex conditions of rural African American life, Buchanan\u2019s art was often sited outdoors, where tides and weather would eventually sweep them away. What remains is a key question, both as metaphor and memory. Belatedly, Buchanan\u2019s time has come, in this first European travelling retrospective. AS LS Lowry<\/p>\n Industrial northern scenes, sometimes teeming and sometimes empty, melancholic seascapes and weirdly vacant landscapes: you think you know Lowry\u2019s art \u2013 and perhaps dismiss him \u2013 but there\u2019s so much more to him than the matchstick-men cliches. Fifty years after his death, MK gallery mounts this first major retrospective in more than a decade. AS Van Eyck: The Portraits<\/p>\n The early 15th-century magic of Jan van Eyck will captivate you in this show of his mesmerising portraits. Van Eyck used oil paint to mirror reality. He also pioneered perspective. These huge artistic innovations make him the first true Renaissance artist. Yet he worked in the medieval world of the Burgundian court and the merchant city Bruges. His masterpiece, the Arnolfini Portrait, takes you into a merchant\u2019s house to ponder an enigmatic relationship between a woman and man: it will be presented here alongside other uncannily true-seeming images of grave, pale faces looking back at you like ghosts with secrets. JJ ArchitectureShimmering \u2026 the Santa Giulia Arena, designed by David Chipperfield for the Milano-Cortina Olympic and Paralympic Games. Illustration: Onirism Studio \/ David Chipperfield ArchitectsSanta Giulia Arena, Milan: David Chipperfield<\/p>\n It\u2019s snowtime as the Winter Olympics glide off in Milan and Cortina d\u2019Ampezzo, with David Chipperfield\u2019s 16,000 capacity Santa Giulia ice hockey stadium at the heart of the slippery action. Based on the elliptical form of Milan\u2019s ancient Roman amphitheatre and wrapped in a trio of shimmering metallic rings impregnated with LED lighting, it gives modern expression to a historic archetype and will have an Olympic afterlife as a sports and entertainment venue for the city. Catherine Slessor Yrj\u00f6nkatu Swimming Hall, Helsinki: V\u00e4in\u00f6 V\u00e4h\u00e4kallio<\/p>\n Finland\u2019s oldest indoor swimming pool reopens after an extensive glow-up that preserves the character and ambience of the original pool hall. Dating from 1928, it\u2019s a sybaritic example of Nordic classicism, designed by V\u00e4in\u00f6 V\u00e4h\u00e4kallio, one of Finland\u2019s most versatile early 20th-century architects. As swimsuits are optional, men and women partake of separate bathing sessions, while cabins around the pool\u2019s upper level encourage patrons to relax with a glass of gin and lingonberries. CS Maggie\u2019s: Architecture that CaresMaggie\u2019s Edinburgh, by Richard Murphy with garden design by Emma Keswick. Photograph: Eoin Carey<\/p>\n Over three decades, a growing network of Maggie\u2019s cancer care centres across the UK has created memorable and much-needed spaces for those dealing with the impact of cancer, away from a clinical hospital environment. Shaped by founder Maggie Keswick Jencks\u2019 ambition to help people \u201cnot lose the joy of living in the fear of dying\u201d, this exhibition explores Maggie\u2019s pioneering approach to design, bringing together the voices of centre visitors, staff and architects. CS Architecture Against Architecture by Reinier de Graaf<\/p>\n Architecture, as we know it, may be coming to an end, contends Dutch architectural theorist Reinier de Graaf, and architects have only themselves to blame. The profession is out of touch, fixated by glitzy \u201cstarchitects\u201d, and disdains to respond to wider social, political and economic change. In a provocative 14-point manifesto, De Graaf calls for unionisation, a mandatory retirement age, explains why we should stop building, and considers whether an architect should refuse a project on moral grounds. CS V&A East Museum, London: O\u2019Donnell + Tuomey<\/p>\n The sculptural tailoring of Spanish couturier Crist\u00f3bal Balenciaga provides a jumping-off point for the V&A\u2019s major new outpost in Stratford, east London. Designed by the Irish architects O\u2019Donnell + Tuomey, the building appears as a crisply angular \u201cfolded dress\u201d, giving the museum a distinctive form and striking identity. Helmed by Gus Casely-Hayford<\/a>, it will radically reinterpret the V&A\u2019s collections through a contemporary lens, exploring aspects of representation, identity, wellbeing, craft practice and social justice. CS David Geffen Galleries, Los Angeles County Museum of Art: Peter ZumthorLos Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma) by Peter Zumthor. Photograph: Iwan Baan<\/p>\n The long-awaited public opening of the David Geffen Galleries sees Lacma\u2019s permanent collection arrayed within a concrete and glass amoeba conceived by Peter Zumthor, who brings his USP of Swiss asceticism to LA\u2019s contemporary art world. Elevated above a plaza, the exhibition level is a single flowing space with no prescribed visitor route, which the museum sees as a means of \u201celiminating traditional cultural hierarchies\u201d, placing \u201call works of art on the same plane\u201d. Literally. CS Skate Space 50<\/p>\n Emerging out of a labyrinth of concrete ledges, pillars and stairs below Southbank\u2019s Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Undercroft Skate Space lays claim to being the world\u2019s oldest continually used skateboarding locale. First informally adopted by London\u2019s skateboarders in the 1970s, it is now a permanent fixture on the skate circuit. As part of the Southbank Centre\u2019s 75th anniversary, an exhibition will explore 50 years of the Undercroft Skate Space through photography, moving image and sound. CS Bas\u00edlica de la Sagrada Fam\u00edlia, Barcelona: Antoni Gaud\u00ed<\/p>\n A century after its architect was knocked down and killed by a tram, the fever dream of Barcelona\u2019s Sagrada Fam\u00edlia, a molten, kaleidoscopic basilica for the ages, reaches a climax of sorts. Construction will finish on the final, focal, Jesus Christ spire soaring 172 metres above the city, in time for the 100th anniversary of Antoni Gaud\u00ed\u2019s death on 10 June. Originally, his elaborate stone forms were laboriously carved by hand, but digital technology now makes his febrile visions a reality. CS Google headquarters, London: Bjarke Ingels Group and Heatherwick Studio<\/p>\n Google\u2019s UK headquarters is a 330-metre-long landscraper, as long as the Shard is high, butted up against King\u2019s Cross station. \u201cContinuously cascading work environments will connect Googlers across multiple floors,\u201d says Danish architect Bjarke Ingels somewhat gnomically, but work drudgery will be leavened by an expansive roof garden, swimming pool, gym and cafe. Critics have called it the \u201cZombie Garden Bridge\u201d, after co-designer Thomas Heatherwick\u2019s now aborted proposal to connect the Thames with a landscaped crossing. CS Kanal, Brussels: noAarchitecten, EM2N and Sergison Bates Architects<\/p>\n Housed in a remodelled and expanded former Citro\u00ebn garage and showroom, Kanal is a bold new museum of contemporary art for Brussels. The former showroom is transformed into a \u201cdisplay cabinet\u201d for installations, performances and concerts, while an internal street connects a trio of boxes containing exhibition spaces and a 400-seat auditorium. Energetically mining a quasi-industrial Tate Modern-style vibe, it is a tripartite production between Brussels-based noAarchitecten, Swiss practice EM2N and Londoners Sergison Bates. CS
The Box, Plymouth, 24 January<\/a> to 31 May<\/a><\/p>\n
National Museum, Cardiff, <\/a>7 February to 28 June<\/a><\/p>\n
National Portrait Gallery, London, <\/a>12 February to 4 May<\/a><\/p>\n
Courtauld Gallery, London, <\/a>13 February to 17 May<\/a><\/p>\n
Barbican, London, 25 February <\/a>to 10 May<\/a><\/p>\n
Tate Modern, London, <\/a>27 February to 31 August<\/a><\/p>\n
Ikon, Birmingham, 25 March <\/a>to 6 September<\/a><\/p>\n
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 27 March <\/a>to 17 Jan 2027<\/a><\/p>\n
National Gallery, London, 2 May<\/a> to 23 August<\/a><\/p>\n
Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex, <\/a>2 May to 1 November<\/a><\/p>\n
Tate Britain, London, <\/a>21 May to 27 September<\/a><\/p>\n
Hayward Gallery, London, <\/a>16 June to 18 October<\/a><\/p>\n
Tate Modern, London, <\/a>25 June to 3 January 2027<\/a><\/p>\n
Tate Modern, London, 9 July <\/a>to 10 January 2027<\/a><\/p>\n
Royal Academy, London, 25 July to 25 October<\/a><\/p>\n
British Museum, London, opens autumn<\/a><\/p>\n
Modern Art, Oxford, opens autumn<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n
Spike Island, Bristol, 26 September <\/a>to 10 January 2027<\/a><\/p>\n
MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, <\/a>24 October to 28 February 2027<\/a><\/p>\n
National Gallery, London, 21 November to 11 April 2027<\/a><\/p>\n
Opens February<\/a><\/p>\n
Opens 2 February<\/a><\/p>\n
V&A Dundee, 6 March to 1 November<\/a><\/p>\n
Verso Books, 24 March<\/a><\/p>\n
Opens 18 April<\/a><\/p>\n
Opens April<\/a><\/p>\n
Southbank Centre, London, 7 May to 21 June<\/a><\/p>\n
Opens 10 June<\/a><\/p>\n
Opens August<\/a><\/p>\n
Opens November<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ArtBeryl Cook: Pride and Joy For her centenary year, The Box presents the largest ever show of self-taught…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[449,458,459,64,63,460,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-378534","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}