Barbie graces London and the Rokeby Venus heads to Liverpool – the week in art

Exhibition of the week

Dominique White
Subaquatic sculptures that speak a powerful abstract language, by a hugely promising young British artist.
• Whitechapel Gallery, London, until 15 September

Also showing

Lonnie Holley
Retrospective of installations, paintings and salvagings by this artist born in Alabama in 1950.
• Camden Art Centre, London, until 15 September

Barbie: The Exhibition
After the film, comes Barbie: The Exhibition – charting the doll’s evolution and how she has reflected the changes in fashion, design, society and politics around her.
• Design Museum, London, until 23 February

Velázquez in Liverpool
The Rokeby Venus, by any measure one of the greatest paintings owned by the National Gallery, brings its ambivalent sensuality to Liverpool.
• Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, until 26 August

New Life
A tender, captivating drawing of a baby by Rembrandt, the first graphic masterpiece by him to be added to the British Museum collection in 35 years.
• British Museum, London, until 6 October

Image of the week

An inflatable boat carrying dummies of migrants was floated across the crowd during sets by Little Simz and Idles at the Glastonbury festival last Saturday. The boat was at first thought to be an intervention by Idles, but was later revealed to be a Banksy performance piece. The work was condemned by the recently former Conservative home secretary James Cleverly as a “celebration of loss of life”. The artist said Cleverly’s comment was ‘“over the top”. Read our stories here and here.

What we learned

An Australian gallery is asking whether Gauguin was a monster

A new show exhibits rejects from the Royal Academy’s summer exhibition

Tracey Emin and Billy Childish lifted the lid on their blazing 80s romance

Marina Abramović managed to silence Glastonbury for seven minutes

You can view Taylor Swift’s clothes for free at the V&A this summer

Influential avant garde artist Jacqueline de Jong has died, aged 85

Anish Kapoor made billboards encouraging young people to vote

Beatrix Potter meets ancient Rome at a London court building

Masterpiece of the week

Venice: The Arsenal by Francesco Guardi, 1755-60

The decline of Venice as a maritime power is observed with gentle acceptance in this lyrical cityscape. Bewigged and behatted citizens chat in front of the ceremonial gates of the vast Arsenal. All is quiet and picturesque in an 18th-century Venice where tourism was already becoming a big business, and lovely paintings such as Guardi’s were done mostly as souvenirs for aristocratic visitors. But the Arsenal had been built when Venice had a mighty economic and colonial empire, as a phenomenally productive industrial hub that built and armed new ships at a startling rate. Here, those days appear forgotten as the Most Serene Republic sinks into beautiful torpor.
• National Gallery, London

Don’t forget

To follow us on X: @GdnArtandDesign.

Sign up to the Art Weekly newsletter

If you don’t already receive our regular roundup of art and design news via email, please sign up here.

Get in touch

If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email newsletters@theguardian.com