Yahoo News Fantastic Black artists, climate crisis in sound, and a Windrush victory – the week in art
Exhibition of the week
In the Black Fantastic
Visions of technology, history and mythology in this show inspired by Afrofuturism, with Chris Ofili, Kara Walker, Ellen Gallagher, Hew Locke and more.
• Hayward Gallery, London, from 29 June to 18 September.
Also showing
George Shaw
Enigmatic and moving paintings of modern Britain by an artist who is brutally real yet poetically sublime.
• The Box, Plymouth, until 4 September.
Phyllida Barlow
A free show from the Artist Rooms collection of the witty and playful sculptor of everyday stuff.
• Tate Modern, London, until 23 July.
David Batchelor
This connoisseur of found colour gets a retrospective of his uplifting yet gritty installations that celebrate our cities.
• Compton Verney, Warwickshire, until 2 October.
Back to Earth
Brian Eno, Karrabing Film Collective, Carolina Caycedo and “smell researcher” Sissel Tolaas are among the participants in this exhibition about the climate emergency.
• Serpentine North Gallery, London, until 18 September.
Image of the week
The National Windrush Monument by Basil Watson
A poignant monument to the Windrush generation was unveiled at south London’s Waterloo Station. The statue, by Jamaican sculptor Basil Watson, is the culmination of a long campaign to honour the contribution to British society of many thousands of Caribbean migrants, helping to rebuild the UK after the second world war. Another sculpture, by Thomas J Price, was unveiled last week in Hackney, north London.
What we learned
London’s new Africa Centre has injected zing into a once-drab building
David Bowie inspired sculptor Penny Goring
Benin photographer Rachidi Bissiriou captured a seismic period in his country’s history
Nathan Coley has put up a giant sign visible to refugees at sea
Plans to remodel the National Gallery Sainsbury Wing in London threaten its quirky splendour
A new film tells artist Eric Ravilious’s story
Megan Cope creates art out of catastrophe
How Tsang Tsou-choi, the graffiti-daubing King of Kowloon, went from local crank to cult hero
Royal Academy curator Alison Wilding talks us through her climate-focused Summer Exhibition
Masterpiece of the week
Major Oak, Sherwood Forest (1882) by Andrew MacCallum
There are shades of German Romanticism in this compelling Victorian painting. The massive gnarled oak tree with its bare branches and twigs like witches’ fingers that starkly stands against an empty sky is associated with the legends of Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest. But alongside this very British folkloric appeal, McCallum has imported the frozen, eerie look of Caspar David Friedrich’s paintings of similarly spooky German trees. The result is a haunting vision of the woods.
• Nottingham City Museums and Galleries
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