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Our guide to new art shows and some that will be closing soon.

artnet

Linda Simpson on the 2018 edition of Wigstock

National Gallery, London
The temporary closure of the Courtauld Gallery means some of its great masterpieces can sit alongside the National’s for this sensational exhibition

This is Paris in 1882. In the big mirror behind the barmaid in Édouard Manet’s painting A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, male faces are grey masks under black slivers of top hats, spinning in space like kaleidoscopic shards under the silver glitter of chandeliers and moon-like orbs of gaslight. She places both hands on the cold marble counter in front of her, as if to steady herself in a shifting world of blurs and shadows.

At least there is more solidity in the objects that surround the haunted barmaid with her straw-coloured hair and faraway eyes. The colours of these things are raw and real. Her narrow-waisted top is Prussian blue, one of the modern chemical colours that helped revolutionise painting in 19th-century France. It makes a midnight contrast to the fierce oranges in a crystal bowl beside her. Green and amber liquids, gold foil on champagne bottles, and violet and white flowers in a vase all hook her into sensory reality, and yet she is alienated from the drunken corruption of this place. In the mirror, we see that a moustached man in a top hat is talking to her. He looms dangerously. Murderously.

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The rich variety includes French painters, famed photographers, retrospectives of women and relics from the Medici court.

Nick Pinkerton on RaMell Ross’s Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018)

Architect and educator whose Architecture Research Unit revolutionised the way the discipline was taught

Florian Beigel, who has died aged 76, was a hugely influential architect and teacher. For more than 40 years, Architecture Research Unit, his studio at the Polytechnic of North London (now London Metropolitan University), educated successive generations of architects both directly and vicariously, through his compelling lectures, writings and drawings, its numerous, beautiful publications, and a small but important body of built work. A significant influence on many well-known practitioners, in the UK and internationally, ARU was also instrumental in transforming its host institution from a rather minor London architecture school into an internationally respected one.

Born in Konstanz, southern Germany, to Margreth (nee Grossman) and Heinz Beigel, Florian grew up and went to school in Biberach, Baden-Württemberg. He graduated from Stuttgart University’s school of architecture in 1968 and worked with Günther Behnisch and Frei Otto on the innovative tensile structures for the 1972 Munich Olympics, before leaving for London.

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Christie’s estimates Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) could fetch $80m

A swimming pool painting by David Hockney could become the most valuable work of art by a living artist sold at auction.

Christie’s in New York announced on Thursday that it was selling Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) with an estimate in the region of $80m (£61m). The painting, a star of Hockney’s recent retrospective, is reportedly owned by Joe Lewis, the Bahamas-based billionaire and owner of Tottenham Hotspur.

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Marc Chagall and Kasimir Malevich, professors at the same art school in revolutionary Russia, face off in a new exhibition at the Jewish Museum.

The director RaMell Ross has created a movie that is both a narrative of real lives and an inquiry.

Peter Fischli’s tongue-in-cheek sculptures at Reena Spaulings; Romuald Hazoumè’s “masks” at Gagosian; and indigenous art in “Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay.”

Graeme Williams was astonished to see his iconic 1990 photograph at an art fair, drained of colour, under Hank Willis Thomas. Thomas, however, questions if Williams has rights to the image

A renowned American artist has been accused of plagiarising and profiteering from an iconic image by a South African photographer that came to symbolise the collapse of apartheid.

Graeme Williams said he was astonished to walk into the Johannesburg art fair last week and see his photograph of a group of black schoolchildren taunting despondent, armed white policemen sitting on an armoured car shortly after Nelson Mandela’s release in 1990. The image was reproduced with relatively little change, except that it was drained of colour and lightened in parts, under the name of Hank Willis Thomas.

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Some of the finalists in this year’s competition, sponsored by the Born Free Foundation and designed to raise awareness of the natural world

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The streets and public spaces of Vevey are transformed biannually for its Festival Images

Sixty-one bodies of work by photographers and artists from 19 countries are on display until 30 September. Each illustrates or explores the theme: Extravaganza – Out of the Ordinary.

The festival is enlivened by the inventive staging of its exhibits. Works of both established and emerging photographers are displayed in an astonishing variety of unconventional venues and locations.

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Thinking big in the fight against smog, architects have designed 100m-high pollution-absorbing towers for India’s capital city

The Indian capital regularly tops lists of the most polluted cities on earth and its residents even refer to the months when a confluence of events – crop burning, no rain, fireworks – leads to low visibility and breathability as “smog season”.

But a new concept by the Dubai-based architecture firm Znera imagines a solution embedded into the Delhi skyline: a network of giant towers that would absorb pollution and recycle it back into breathable air.

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It provoked tabloid fury. But this bizarre spectacle, complete with car wreck, posed tough questions about death, royals and the social order. Our writer joined the procession

‘Princess Diana to be EXORCISED in ‘sick and twisted’ FUNERAL re-enactment,” raged a recent tabloid headline, announcing a “satirical remake” at Salford’s White Hotel to mark the 21st anniversary of her death. The paper even quoted Charlie Proctor, editor of regal website Royal Central, who blasted: “Whether you are a monarchist or a republican, some events should be beyond humour, and the funeral of Princess Diana is one thing nobody should be laughing at.”

But are the artists involved in this event really laughing at Diana? Or is something more interesting going on? I decide to find out for myself, and so I join the procession as a coffin draped in flags is carried through the streets of Salford. As requested, everyone is wearing black and many carry flowers. The procession walks in respectful silence while traffic slows, bystanders gawp and people peer from behind twitching curtains. Genuine paparazzi hurry after the procession, just as they chased Diana’s Mercedes before the fatal crash in Paris. Someone says: “This is going to be the weirdest experience we’re going to have this year.”

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The artifact, which scientists think is about 73,000 years old, predates the oldest previously known human drawings from Europe by about 30,000 years.

The new museum boosts local economy but ‘benefits need to be spread across the city’

The opening of a major new V&A museum in Dundee has put “fire in the belly” of the city’s people, boosting their confidence after decades of decline, the city’s council leader has said.

The V&A Dundee, a grey, angular, layered building which juts out over the river Tay, opens to the public on Saturday with the city in a celebratory mood, after an open air concert on Friday featuring the Scots rock band Primal Scream.

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GlasgowLive

‘He was playing Trotsky in a film and she suddenly appeared on set. Something was obviously up. They divorced two years later’

In 1972, I found myself on the set of The Assassination of Trotsky, which starred Richard Burton as the Russian revolutionary. I was there to do ad hoc background shots, capturing rehearsals and that kind of thing. Joseph Losey, the director, would tell me all about Trotsky but I was more interested in Alain Delon, who played his assassin. He was very big at the time.

The film was being shot on location in a villa in Rome. Elizabeth Taylor wasn’t in the cast but one day, just as shooting paused, she suddenly appeared. There was no time to think. By chance, I managed to catch her and Burton sharing this moment. You can see the crew behind, setting up the next shot.

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Dundee's V&A museum, seen here from above, opens to the public this weekend. The architect of the £80m project, Kengo Kuma, said: 'The big idea for V&A Dundee was bringing together nature and architecture, and to create a new living room for the city'

• V&A Dundee – a twisting, thrilling spaceship lands on the waterfront

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Press Release

Intimate possessions of actor murdered by Charles Manson’s followers to be auctioned off

A collection of personal items belonging to Sharon Tate, the actor murdered by Charles Manson’s followers in 1969, is to go on display ahead of an auction of her items.

An ivory silk moiré wedding dress, mini dresses by Ossie Clark and others, peep toe shoes and a black floral lace Dior gown with satin bow that she wore for the London premiere of her husband Roman Polanski’s cult film Cul-de-Sac are among the items in an exhibition at the Museum of Style Icons in Newbridge, Co Kildare, Ireland.

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Exclusive: plans would harm London building regarded as one of Britain’s finest, say activists

A secret plan to install an enormous bar and restaurant on the roof of the Royal Festival Hall has been condemned as shocking, insensitive and harmful for a building regarded as one of the finest examples of 20th-century British architecture.

The Guardian can reveal that the Southbank Centre and a commercial partner, the Incipio Group, have applied for permission to erect a temporary, transparent pavilion on the flat roof. Covering 686 sq metres of floor space, it would be open until 2am at weekends and offer diners and drinkers spectacular views of the Thames.

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The Guardian

The ArtNewspaper

It’s twice over budget and four years late, but this futuristic £80m museum is a magnetic new presence on the Dundee skyline. No wonder Dennis the Menace has already moved in

Part cliff face, part galleon, the new V&A Dundee stands on the banks of the Tay like a curious craft sailed in from another realm. It is at once primal and futuristic, its great hull-like forms covered in slabs of gnarled concrete that fragment in places as they rise, as if already ruined. From some angles, the twisting mass reveals the gaping mouth of a cave. From others, it is like encountering the ribbed carcass of a beached whale, or the bones of a shipwreck.

It is a fitting form, given the rocky ride this £80m project has endured over the last decade, buffeted by multiple storms of cost escalation, construction delays and accusations of gross mismanagement. Originally planned with a budget of £27m, then £45m, and intended to rise out of the churning waters of the Tay, the building has retreated to dry land, and finally been completed at almost double the cost, four years late.

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A major new exhibition in Denmark looks at how the celestial body has fascinated artists, writers and scientists.

Victorian Society also lists east London gasholders and former orphanage in East Sussex

A much-loved seafront “people’s palace” that was transported by barge around the south coast of England more than a century ago without, it is said, a single pane of glass breaking, has been listed as one of the UK’s most endangered buildings in 2018.

The Winter Gardens in Great Yarmouth has over the years been a ballroom, a roller-skating rink, an amusement arcade and a German beer garden. Today it lies empty and unused.

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Marie Foulston is the curator of video games at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Her first exhibition shows how games can break new ground.

As video of the runaway ball went viral again, its creator, Kurt Perschke, discussed how it’s safely traveled the world. But he gets why people love the clip.

Works estimated to fetch £2.6m-£3.8m are highlights of London auction at Sotheby’s

Two works by Van Dyck, the artist favoured by Charles I for his unfailingly flattering portraits of the short, bandy-legged king, are to be auctioned for the first time in almost a century.

The portraits are of the Stuart king’s eldest children, the 11-year-old Prince of Wales, who would become Charles II, and his nine-year-old sister Mary, who would become mother of the future king William III.

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Voice writers reflect on the iconic alt-weekly

Maria Gaspar discusses her collaborative work with incarcerated communities

Press Release

Royal Academy, London
From the Pompidou Centre to the Shard, this exhibition showcases the austere architectural pioneer’s greatest hits

In the short film within this exhibition, Renzo Piano recalls being taken to Genoa harbour by his father every Sunday after mass. As a child, Piano would marvel at the ships, which he likens to moving buildings. “That’s part of the reason my buildings are always flying vessels,” he says. His first design project was indeed a boat. He built it in his father’s garage, only to discover it was too big to get out – they had to break the garage doors.

Piano is hi-tech architecture’s high priest, renowned for buildings such as Paris’s Pompidou Centre, Kansai airport, the New York Times headquarters, the new Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Shard, London. His buildings are not always conspicuously visually “iconic” but this respectful exhibition brings home just how experimental the Italian architect’s career has been. The best of his work combines efficient, lightweight engineering and a love of putting materials together with a sense of social, even spiritual purpose. “You become an architect to change the world not to seduce,” he says, though it helps that he is thoughtful, cultured, softly spoken and charming.

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Works featuring in this year’s Design Museum show tackle some of today’s biggest issues

From the first plastic-free shopping aisle to a library made from ice-cream containers and gender-fluid clothes, designers are coming up with increasingly innovative responses to today’s biggest issues, say the curators of the Beazley Designs of the Year awards.

The Design Museum in London announced 87 nominees for the 11th annual exhibition and awards on Tuesday.

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press

An exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum shows why fantastical creatures from the Middle Ages continue to terrify and inspire awe.

Photographs from the Pioneers of American Modernism exhibition of works by the outstanding American architectural photographer Ezra Stoller – on at the Lumiere Brothers Centre, Moscow until 2 December. The display includes black and white photos of public buildings, offices and private homes from the beginning of his career in the late 1930s through to the 1970s

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Christian Marclay’s epic work – a clock created from film clips that tells the actual time – ought to be bleak. But time really does fly when you watch this 24-hour miracle

It’s 8.10am and I’m late for my appointment at Tate Modern. I watch the faces of passengers as the train pulls into London Bridge. It’s a Monday and the time is going too fast. One man sweats as he checks his watch. On his way to a bank heist, perhaps.

I didn’t think any of that on my train at the time, though. I revisited my journey after sinking into a white sofa and watching The Clock, Christian Marclay’s epic montage of film clips featuring clockfaces that tells the actual time. Only then, gazing at the cinema screen that’s been built at Tate Modern, did I understand that everyone on a rush-hour train is united by something magical: we’re all sharing the same instant in time.

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Iain Sinclair feeds us a rich diet of shrewd insights on contemporary living

There was, in the years of peak Blair, an organisation called the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (Cabe). (It still exists, shrivelled by cuts, as a department of the Design Council.) While it had the laudable aim of raising the quality of the places in which we spend our lives, it tried, in the spirit of the age, to make its case with reference to outputs and outcomes. It wasn’t, for example, sufficient to say that hospital patients should be in good spaces because good spaces are good. Measurable indices had to be sought, proving the link between design and health that common sense tells us must be there.

Now Iain Sinclair, a very different beast from Cabe, has been exploring (the blurb says) “the relationship between our health and the buildings that surround us”. He was asked to do so by the Wellcome Collection, a museum and library that “aims to challenge how we all think and feel about health”, in connection with a forthcoming exhibition called, like the book, Living With Buildings.

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Ms. Boone also used business funds to pay for more than $1.6 million in personal expenses, federal prosecutors said.

press

Press Release

Thirty years ago, British youth culture was transformed by acid house music and the drug Ecstasy — with, surprisingly, a little help from a group of flier designers.

Goldsmiths CCA, London
A multicoloured world of dreck and drudgery, female wrestlers and fake fingernails is revealed in Rottenberg’s mysterious labyrinthine sculpture and video

A man sneezes a live rabbit on to the table. Here comes another rabbit. The man is seated in a characterless room that looks more like a cell. I guess this is his job, sneezing rabbits all day long. Other operatives come and go. Now they are sneezing light bulbs, now a lamb chop. Don’t ask why. Nothing seems to get stuck in their nostrils, but their grotesque, pullulating noses have clearly seen a lot of action. The noses, one hopes, are prosthetic, while the bunnies look real.

The New York-based Argentinian/Israeli Mika Rottenberg is the first artist to show at the new Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art in south London. Rottenberg makes the most of the labyrinthine galleries, designed by the Turner prize-winning architectural collective Assemble. Up on the top floor, in an eerily black chamber that once housed the water tanks for this former swimming pool, Rottenberg has arranged a number of hotplates on the floor, each heating up a frying pan. Water drips from the ceiling. It sizzles on the pans, sending up clouds of steam. Each hotplate and pan is spotlit. The cast shadows and illuminated steam are nice. Tssk, tsssk, goes the water as it hits the pan. Water also drips in a lower corner from an old air-conditioning unit mounted on a wall in another gallery, feeding a pot plant underneath.

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