Exhibition of the week
Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and the Blue Rider
The passion and spirituality of a key movement in early 20th century German art jerks back to life like Dr Caligari’s creature.
Tate Modern, London, from 25 April until 20 October
Also showing
Fruits of Friendship
An exploration of the world of 17th-century British painter Mary Beale.
Philip Mould and Company, London, 25 April to 19 July
Robert Rauschenberg
The great American artist’s attempt to create a global cultural exchange.
Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery, London, 24 April to 15 June
Antony Gormley’s Time Horizon
One of today’s best-known sculptors takes over an 18th-century house and gardens.
Houghton Hall, Norfolk, 21 April to 31 October
In Event of Moon Disaster
Interactive, AI-fed artwork that questions the nature of truth, by Halsey Burgund and Francesca Panetta.
Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, until 1 August
Image of the week
Sound and image do all the work in John Akomfrah’s Listening All Night to the Rain, which fills the British pavilion at the Venice Biennale. I was there two hours and still feel I’ve only seen snatches, the story constantly slipping away from me and leading me on from moment to moment, screen to screen and room to room. Overwhelmed, I’m left gasping. Using archival and found film footage, along with set-pieces staged in the landscape, the work leaves me entranced and unsettled. Read Adrian Searle’s full five-star review of John Akomfrah’s Venice installation here.
What we learned
Faith Ringgold, who died at 93, has left a great legacy for black American artists
Francesco Vezzoli thinks there aren’t enough tears in art, so he’s sewing them on
Caravaggio’s last paintings offer clues to the mystery of who killed him
Our writers chose individual works that explain whole movements
Masterpieces saved from the Notre Dame fire in Paris are back on show
An Edinburgh gallery wants the public to hang their own work on its walls
Ukrainians are remaking the image of the refugee in art
A photo of a gas mask on a tree in Ukraine overwhelmed Geoff Dyer
Photographer Peter Hujar captured the New York demimonde
Artists refused to open Israel’s Venice Biennale pavilion without a Gaza ceasefire
Firefighters raced to save one of Denmark’s most valuable art collections from a blaze
Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum showcases a pioneering black athlete at the 1924 Olympics
Masterpiece of the week
The Virgin and Child With Two Angels by Cimabue, circa 1280-1285
One of the first pieces of art criticism comes in The Divine Comedy by Dante, written in the early 1300s. Cimabue thought he was winning, says Dante, but now Giotto has all the acclaim. It’s a severe critical comparison between artists he sees as rivals. Has the judgment held? This little panel in the new Italian Renaissance rooms at the National Gallery holds you with its simple, heartfelt intensity. The tiny Mary and her tinier child seem all too vulnerably human. Your heart goes out. But also this is a painting whose artistic style is a bit rigid, in the Byzantine fashion, with lots of gold and a posh throne. Paintings by Giotto and his followers in the same gallery have much more animated, active figures, expressive faces, the rudiments of perspective. So Dante’s brutal verdict stands. But what a sweet painting.
National Gallery, London
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