Yahoo News Indigenous Australia, holograms and the Beano – the week in art
Exhibition of the week
Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters
An epic gathering of Indigenous Australian art, on tour from the National Museum of Australia, that gives a platform to the world’s most ancient living culture.
• The Box, Plymouth, until 27 February
Also showing
Beano: The Art of Breaking the Rules
Artists love the Beano as much as we all do. Sarah Lucas, Phyllida Barlow and many more join curator Andy Holden to celebrate it in a show to entertain all ages.
• Somerset House, London, until 6 March
The Rules of Art?
John Akomfrah, Picasso, Gwen John and Rembrandt are among the artists in this radical questioning of art’s hierarchies.
• National Museum, Cardiff, from 23 October to 16 April 2023
Hélène Binet
Atmospheric monochrome photographs of contemporary architecture celebrating buildings by the likes of Zaha Hadid and Daniel Libeskind.
• Royal Academy, London, from 23 October to 23 January
Chris Levine
Light shows and holograms to illuminate the autumn at one of Britain’s most beautiful and historic stately homes.
• Houghton Hall, Norfolk, until 23 December
Image of the week
On the harbour in Watchet, Somerset, where once a development of luxury flats was proposed, a group of local women have instead created the East Quay arts centre – a remarkable complex of galleries and studios, with a restaurant, classroom, geology workshop, print studio and paper mill, as well as some quirky holiday rentals, with help from a £5.3m grant from the government’s Coastal Communities Fund.
What we learned
Theaster Gates opened up to us about pottery, music and Obama’s library
Gilbert & George chatted over breakfast
London has more statues of animals than of names women
Our art critic made an appearance in the Beano
A robot artist will be showing its work at the Great Pyramids – if it can clear customs
Syrian refugees have turned aid into art
… while Philadelphia artist Lydia Ricci sculpts out of scraps
Spencer Tunick shot another large-scale nude
Artist John Giorno got the FBI interested in poetry
In Düsseldorf, 90s fashion photography is back in vogue
A new show celebrates the architectural eccentricities of Becontree estate
… while Welwyn Garden City turns 100 …
… and change is in the air at the Reach estate in Thamesmead
Grayson Perry is taking questions
Guardian photographer Tristram Kenton selected his finest shots of the ballet
There is more Aboriginal art on show in South Australia
Prolific Holocaust artist Boris Lurie never sold a painting
Little Amal, a 3.5-metre puppet, has been making her way across Europe
… making spectators uncomfortable as well as charming them
Basil Watson has designed a statue to commemorate the Windrush generation
DeLovie Kwagala led the winners of this year’s East African photography awards
Dalí’s “lips” sofa was a collaborative effort
The Garden of Earthly Delights has blossomed into a 21st-century artwork
The National Gallery’s Raphael exhibition has opened in cinemas
Street photographer Janet Delaney caught New York unawares …
… while Sophie Green documents British subcultures …
… and Tom Wood has photographed Ireland over decades
The patrons of Frieze art fair dressed for the occasion
LS Lowry’s Auction is going under the hammer
Enniskillen celebrated its Oscar Wilde connection with a golden work of public art
Mel D Cole’s best photograph captured a moment from the BLM protests in New York
Dimitris Papaioannou has brought myth, optical illusion and slapstick to Sadler’s Wells
We looked inside the famous homes of five artists
Photographer Mario Heller spent three weeks on trains documenting life in Kazakhstan
The Observer reviewed Anicka Yi’s Turbine Hall installation at Tate Modern
… as well as the Barbican’s exhibition of the work of Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi
Ant-whispering photographer Stephen Gill has come up for air in his home town of Bristol
A statue of Maria Callas has hit the wrong note
Ai Weiwei mourned the death of documentary producer Diane Weyerman at 66
Architect Owen Luder has died, aged 93
Ghanaian-born artist Atta Kwami has died, aged 65
Masterpiece of the week
A Bacchanal, follower of Dosso Dossi, 1525
This orgy in the countryside is a raw and racy take on a classical theme. It’s set in a mythical golden age, or at least bronze age, inspired by ancient Roman poetry, where goat-legged satyrs hang out with cupids and nymphs. Bacchus was the god of wine and his followers drunken reprobates. Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne, perhaps the most famous depiction of bacchanalian behaviour, was painted as part of a series of mythic scenes for the Duke of Ferrara in the early 1500s (and today hangs in the National Gallery). This painting also from Ferrara, is in the fierce, intense style of local painter Dosso Dossi. But it playfully takes Titian’s classical revels into more pornographic territory, with dangerous liaisons everywhere you look.
• National Gallery, London
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