Exhibition of the week<\/p>\n
Cecily Brown: Picture Making Also showing<\/p>\n Phoebe Collings-James: A Rose, A Bridge, A House Veronica Ryan: Multiple Conversations Frank Bowling: Seeking the Sublime<\/a> Portals to Place: Three Papunya Tula Artists Image of the week Photograph: Peter van Agtmael\/ Magnum<\/p>\n War is once again tearing the Middle East apart, just as it did 20 years ago when Peter van Agtmael took this photograph of an American soldier having a break in a daffodil yellow living room on a night raid in Rawa, Iraq. All that weaponry and hi-tech tactical gear contrasts so awkwardly with the kitsch interior of this everyday Iraqi home. But the real incongruity is the soldier\u2019s face. Whether he\u2019s bored to tears or frozen in emotionless inability to process his situation, his blank expression tells you that war isn\u2019t just dull most of the time, it\u2019s totally pointless too. Read the full story here<\/a>.<\/p>\n What we learned<\/p>\n An epic retrospective of Henri Matisse explodes with stunning colour<\/a><\/p>\n After an $82m expansion, New York\u2019s New Museum is on the \u2018threshold of a new age\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n Donald Trump installed a new statue of \u2018American hero\u2019 Columbus in Washington DC<\/a><\/p>\n Hurvin Anderson\u2019s paintings explore his black heritage with startling intensity<\/a><\/p>\n Works by Michaelina Wautier misattributed for 300 years make an astounding show<\/a><\/p>\n Ministers are considering charging tourists to access UK national museum collections<\/a><\/p>\n Monet has taken to greasepaint and burst into song in a new musical about his life<\/a><\/p>\n Masterpiece of the week<\/p>\n Paul C\u00e9zanne, Montagne Sainte-Victoire with Large Pine, c 1887 <\/p>\n Photograph: Album\/Alamy<\/p>\n C\u00e9zanne ditched the glitz, glamour and opportunities of Paris for good in the early 1880s, leaving behind his circle of impressionists and all of their ideas in the process. With a hefty inheritance from his Proven\u00e7al father, C\u00e9zanne could dedicate himself fully to his one great muse: a big lump of a mountain on the outskirts of Aix-en-Provence called Mont Sainte-Victoire. He painted it over and over and over. It was an obsession, a compulsion. People talk about it as if he were just exploring all the ways light bounced off its grey surface, turning it pink and yellow, or trying to paint new moods and atmospheres, or use it as a symbol of the area and its people. But I see it as almost total abstraction, a conceptual devotion to a single subject, painted so many times that its form and meaning totally dissolve, leaving behind only shape and colour. I can barely see the mountain and pine tree in this stunning landscape painting, I see only triangles and curves, greens and greys and yellows, painting in its purest, simplest form. Jonathan Jones is away<\/p>\n Sign up to the Art Weekly newsletter<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t already receive our regular roundup of art and design news via email, please sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Get in Touch<\/p>\n
New nature-tastic works of kaleidoscopic, richly textured, painterly experimentation by the YBA who never felt cool enough to really be a YBA. Springing to life just as the blossoms around the Serpentine really start to bloom.
Serpentine Gallery, London, until 6 September<\/a><\/p>\n
Politically inclined ceramics \u2013 formed into armour and clay paintings \u2013 riffing on cuneiform writing and Ashanti folklore.
Pitzhanger <\/a>Manor, London, 1 April-14 June<\/a><\/p>\n
A big celebration of the Turner prize-winning artist\u2019s career, filled with over 100 works of ultra-conceptual sculpture.
Whitechapel Gallery, London, 1 April-14 June<\/a><\/p>\n
This mini-retrospective of the pioneering British-Guyanese painter takes you from his earliest figurative exploits all the way to his super-influential approach to abstraction.
The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, until 17 January<\/a><\/p>\n
Dizzying abstraction is a vehicle for ancient knowledge in this show by three indigenous Australian artists, Lorna Ward Napanangka, Yukultji Napangati and John West Tjupurrula.
Edel Assanti<\/a>, London, until 16 May<\/p>\n
Courtauld Gallery, London<\/a><\/p>\n