Exhibition of the week
Marina Abramović: The Life
A hi-tech simulacrum of the revered performance artist materialises to tell the story of her life.
Serpentine Galleries, London, 19-24 February.
Also showing
Elizabethan Treasures
The exquisite and uncanny miniatures of Nicholas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver open tiny bejewelled windows on love and sex in Shakespeare’s world.
National Portrait Gallery, 21 February-19 May.
Franz West
Outrageous humour and dadaish fun from the late Austrian sculptor.
Tate Modern, London, 20 February-2 June.
Life in the City
Superb views of Edo (now Tokyo) in the early 1800s, from bridges to brothels, by Hiroshige and his contemporaries.
Bristol Museum and Art Gallery until 12 May.
Erwin Wurm
Austrian jokes from flattened cars to “one-minute sculptures” by this veteran of witty conceptual art.
Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery, London, 19 February-23 March.
Masterpiece of the week
Farms Near Auvers, 1890, by Vincent van Gogh
There are no people in this roly-poly rustic scene but there don’t need to be. The houses themselves express human tenderness and vulnerability in their cosy yet mysterious gathering. Roofs have fallen into ruin and windows hide inner worlds. Like people – at least as Van Gogh saw us – these battered old farm buildings are at once ordinary, timeworn, injured and lovable. Both the look and suggestiveness of this poetic pastoral are clearly influenced by the landscape drawings of Rembrandt.
National Gallery, London.
Image of the week
More than provoking mere curiosity, Diane Arbus teases our imaginations. Looking at her images we invent backstories and narratives we can never be sure of. She makes us stop and look in the same way that she did, writes Adrian Searle. In the Beginning, an exhibition at the Hayward Galley, London, until 6 May, focuses on her first eight years as an independent photographer.
What we learned
Isa Leshko’s portraits of ageing animals are a tribute to creatures often dismissed
A new book pays lip service to the history of kissing
It’s time to rethink a new UK Holocaust memorial
Niall McDiarmid has gone in search of Van Gogh
Frank Gehry’s Wimbledon concert hall may outshine a £300m City rival
Rock photographer Ethan Russell has relived his legendary moments
Louvre Abu Dhabi is to exhibit Rembrandt and Vermeer masterpieces
Junya Ishigami is to design the 2019 Serpentine pavilion
Axel Rüger has left Van Gogh behind to head the Royal Academy
Afghanistan’s Generation Z have grown up overshadowed by war
Jeff Koons is a master of deflection
What’s really behind Mark Bradford’s ambitious bodycam project
How life is coming back to a California landscape scorched by wildfires
A new exhibition celebrates the history of social and political artwork
… while a new website is digitising millions of watercolours
Artists are predicting the future … and it’s alarmingly bleak
Robert Ryman, known for his white paintings, has died
… our critic Adrian Searle paid tribute
Zilia Sánchez, a 92-year-old artist, gets her first museum retrospective
George Shaw talks about his greatest hits
Why Andres Serrano turned his camera to torture
Tate Modern has won a privacy case brought by owners of £4m flats
Genius Diane Arbus made every picture a story
Rory Doyle resists stereotypes in his exhibition on the black cowboys of Mississippi
A photo essay illuminates life on board Zimbabwe’s only commuter train
Joan Jett Blakk echoed civil rights history in her presidential poster
Rembrandt makes human chaos glorious
Sotheby’s is to exhibit rare works by “cultural magpies” of Bauhaus
Don’t forget
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