by exhibition of the week
Action, Gesture, Painting: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-70
Abstract Expressionism is stereotyped as macho, but here are its heroines, including Lee Krasner and Helen Frankenthaler.
• Whitechapel Gallery, London, from February 9 to May 7
also showing
sonia boyce
The winner of the Golden Lion at last year’s Venice Biennale begins a national tour of her acclaimed work Feeling Her Way.
• Turner Contemporary, Margate, February 4-May 8
Tudor Mystery: A Master Painter Revealed
Haunting Renaissance portraits by the Countess of Warwick’s master, plus an image of Elizabeth I that Shakespeare may have seen in New Place, Stratford.
• Compton Verney, Warwickshire, until May 7
Stephan Balkenhol
This literally incisive German artist displays his latest chiseled wood statues.
• Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, until February 25
oliver beer
An installation spanning centuries of British pottery and its sounds.
• Mithraeum Bloomberg Space, London, February 9 to July
picture of the Week
David by Donatello, 1440
Was Donatello the first artist to express a queer identity? The works to be exhibited at the V&A in London are reigniting the debate about the sexuality of the masterful Renaissance sculptor.
what we learned
Do the observation decks at Tate Modern, London compromise living in nearby flats? Supossely Yes.
But Oliver Wainwright identifies this Supreme Court ruling as a worrying trend for public spaces in our cities.
Sonia Boyce used to be terrified of wallpaper
A wooden office block is causing a stir
‘Hip-hop was this movement of people who were not considered valuable creating value’: New York celebrates 50 years of hip-hop photography
When American artist Mike Henderson’s studio caught fire, it was an opportunity to get married and start a family.
Amsterdam prepares for the opportunity of a lifetime
‘This is living for me’: women fleeing city life for herding in Spain
Was Donatello the first artist in history to express a queer identity?
Adam McEwen has a knack for fake obituaries.
masterpiece of the week
Bust of Antinuo as Dionysus, AD 130-38
When the Roman Emperor Hadrian’s lover Antinous died, the grieving ruler turned him into a god and put his face on statues throughout the Roman world. Well, it’s a way to cry. Hadrian’s sexuality and artistic tastes were influenced by his passion for ancient Greek culture, in which homosexual relationships were celebrated and male beauty idolized. Hadrian put his, and Antinous’s, imprint on the way he perceived the classical heritage millennia later, as images like this were widely imitated. Some 1,300 years later, Donatello would give David, the nude that set the Renaissance on fire, the perfect features of Antinous.
• Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
do not forget
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