A Picasso-Pollock mashup and Dalí's Hollywood haunts – the week in art
Exhibition of the week
Art & Language
The conceptual art pioneers merge Picasso’s Guernica with Jackson Pollock’s drips in a provocative visual “essay” on the history of modern art.
• Sprovieri Gallery, London, from 17 January until 13 March.
Also showing
Alex Israel
It’s as if the ghost of Salvador Dalí is haunting Hollywood (where the Catalan surrealist did some delirious work in the 1940s) in Israel’s self-portraits of his head full of hyperreal California scenes.
• Gagosian Grosvenor Hill, London, from 16 January to 14 March.
Illuminating the Self
Artists Susan Aldworth and Andrew Carnie work with Newcastle University scientists to reveal the mysteries of the human mind.
• Hatton Gallery, Newcastle, from 18 January to 19 May.
Susan Hiller
London’s drowning … listen to 70 old songs about the capital in a jukebox installation by an artist whose eerie work suits this archaeological site.
• Bloomberg Space, London, from 22 January to 11 July.
Lesley Foxcroft
Minimalist installations that suit a purgative January mood.
• Annely Juda Fine Art, London, until 22 February.
Image of the week
Monument #32: Helter Shelter by Callum Morton
The US president’s head has surfaced in Australia. The sculpture-cum-thinking space has been touring the country, and found its latest home in Ballarat, Victoria – and is proving a confrontational hit with visitors stopping to peek inside.
What we learned
Antony Gormley is branching out into K-pop art
Futurist Tullio Crali saw humanity in the future
Don’t go to Rome to see the Sistine Chapel – go to Goring
Rem Koolhaas has gone back to school in Brighton
Construction firm John Laing’s photo archive reveals the building of modern Britain
… while our Cities team made the case for reusable building materials and a low-tech future
Cecily Brown will explore broken Britain at Blenheim Palace
… while art lovers heading for Ickworth will be left in the dark
Australia’s artists are forging a new politics
Architect Daniel Libeskind found inspiration on his honeymoon
César Manrique explained how he transformed Lanzarote
Yinka Shonibare sees an African artistic renaissance
Lindsay Seers uses VR to conjure a nightmare of elderly care
US artists have entered the debate on reproductive rights
Nadav Kander is celebrating 30 years of portraiture
Gus Powell charted his family’s progress through life, death and car trouble
Bruce Davidson saw a spark of new life in 60s Britain
Ezra Acayan saw a new Philippines – through a layer of ash
Nazi-looted French masterpieces are going to auction
Lucian Freud’s Self-Portrait is the latest exhibition to be explored on screen
We remembered the philosopher and aesthetic critic Roger Scruton
How New York-based artist Darren Bader followed heroin lasagne
Artist Rasheed Araeen has opened a restaurant in Stoke Newington
Architects revealed their favourite hotels
Photographer Larry Niehues captured life in US motels, diners and gas stations
Masterpiece of the week
Inkstand with a Seated Satyr, c.1540-50, from the workshop of Desiderio da Firenze
All art is quite useless – unless it’s an inkstand. But how utilitarian, really, is this intricate bronze delight made for a Renaissance desktop? This everyday masterpiece reveals two things about sculpture in 16th-century Italy. First, art in this era was so sophisticated and skilled that even a trinket for a study could exhibit the superb anatomical detail and intense imagination of this sensual luxury. Yet even as Italian art reached such heights of accomplishment, artists and their audience became divorced from the moral and political values their forerunners believed in. Art was enjoyed for art’s sake. The name for this movement in 1500s Italy is “mannerism” and this wonderful absurdity is a gorgeous example of it.
• Wallace Collection, London
Don’t forget
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