Exhibition of the week
Ai Weiwei: Making Sense
Lego and marble are among the materials in this exhibition of Ai Weiwei’s grand designs.
• Design Museum, London, 7 April to 30 July
Also showing
Steve McQueen: Grenfell
Not easy watching, the Oscar and Turner prize-winner’s new film remembers Grenfell.
• Serpentine, London, 7 April to 10 May
Lindsey Mendick
Slapstick sculpture, surreal ceramics and a comic horror journey into the soap history of Brookside.
• Yorkshire Sculpture Park until 3 September
Alberta Whittle
The biggest show of Whittle’s work to date, including tapestry and film among her passionate installations.
• Scottish National Museum of Modern Art, Edinburgh, until 7 January
I saw the other side of the sun with you
This survey of women surrealists from eastern Europe introduces such figures as Teresa Żarnower, Alina Szapocznikow and Zofia Rydet.
• Cromwell Place, London, 12–30 April
Image of the week
These robots are among the 100 artists and designers taking part in this year’s NGV Triennial, opening in Melbourne in December, alongside artists such as Yoko Ono and Tracey Emin. They will work for four months using sticks of oil paint, having been programmed to understand a range of commands, which they will execute in whatever order they see fit – down to the direction the arm moves, how hard it presses the canvas and whether it paints a dot or a line.
What we learned
Elizabeth Siddal, immortalised in the painting Ophelia by John Everett Millais, was an artist
The king’s coronation invitation makes it look like he’s planning to be crowned Lord of Summer Isle
Painter Kehinde Wiley was confronted with a difficult question by his model, Barack Obama
South African artist-potter Hylton Nel has made autobiographical plates for 60 years
An all-female exhibition at Hepworth Wakefield expands the expectations of what a sculptor can be
The standout talent in the Tate Britain Rossettis exhibition isn’t who you’d think
Funding cuts and the cost of living crisis have caused Newcastle’s Side gallery to close
Sri Lanka-born painter George Beven and the sculptor Rory Young died this week. Picasso died 50 years ago this Sunday
Masterpiece of the week
Costanza Caetani, in the style of Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1480-9
Costanza Caetani, who was born a Medici, looks out boldly in a pose that emphasises dynamism and personality: she almost swaggers as she leans her elbow confidently over a parapet, holding orange blossoms that symbolise her recent marriage. Her big characterful face doesn’t point sideways in static profile, as was the case in many earlier Italian portraits of women, but engages you directly. Such strong and sensitive portraiture of women started in Flemish art in the early 1400s and was brought to Florence by Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci. The anonymous artist who did this was part of that revolution in the female image.
• National Gallery
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