1. Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers
National Gallery, London; September (runs until 19 January 2025)
Show of the year, if not the decade: electrifying, mesmerising, intensely affecting, every brushstroke alive with joyous energy. From the Yellow House in Arles to the asylum at Saint-Rémy, 61 works from the final two years of Van Gogh’s life, many never seen in Britain before. And this is to say nothing of his wildly original drawings…
2. Francis Alÿs: Ricochets
Barbican Art Gallery, London; June
I loved this cinematic update on Bruegel’s Children’s Games by his modern-day Belgian compatriot. Children all over the world making joy in often catastrophic conditions created by adults with ingenuity, beauty, innocence, humour. Snail racing, kite flying, mirrors in the desert: a cross between art, poetry and anthropology.
3. Do Ho Suh: Tracing Time
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; February
What is home: a place, a feeling, a country, family or person? In this exceptionally beautiful show, the South Korean artist remembers the homes of his life from Seoul to London and America in exquisite drawings, embroideries and whole diaphanous buildings. Unforgettable. A major Suh retrospective follows at Tate Modern, London, in May.
4. When Forms Come Alive
Hayward Gallery, London; February
Clouds of twinkling cumuli, shimmering molecules… this marvellous anthology of contemporary sculpture never kept still. From the neon rollercoaster to the mysterious tumuli of beeswax, smelling of honey and emitting an elusive buzz, it felt at once ancient and ultra-modern.
5. The Time Is Always Now
National Portrait Gallery, London; February
Black figures in art – historically a succession of models, ciphers, political emblems or worse – were at the heart of this terrific show of contemporary Black artists, including Lorna Simpson, Amy Sherald, Barbara Walker and Kerry James Marshall. A vision of freedom in which each figure was their own unique and vital person.
6. Paris 1924: Sport, Art and the Body
Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge; July
Brilliantly curated exploration of the 1924 Summer Olympics, how they became a turning point for race, class, politics and celebrity, and their expression in modernist art. From Robert Delaunay’s runners to George Grosz’s cyclists, this riveting show ended with the magnificent classical sculpture Discobolus: a warning of how art would be exploited by Hitler in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
7. Drawing the Renaissance
King’s Gallery, London; November (runs until 9 March 2025)
Leonardo’s dragons, Raphael’s friends, saints and sinners, an ostrich by Titian and a wild Carracci cartoon of a nut-cracking lobster: 160 drawings – for rehearsal, observation, craft, practice and, above all, joy and vision.
8. Artemisia in Birmingham
Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; May
Live, direct, glowing in deep darkness without any barriers, Artemisia Gentileschi’s tremendous Self-Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria, lent by the National Gallery as part of its National Treasures scheme, was thrillingly displayed at the Ikon with classical statues, shifting veils and Jesse Jones’s immersive operatic installation. The martyrdom and magnificence of both saint and painter brilliantly staged.
9. Entangled Pasts
Royal Academy, London; February
Profound, imaginative and complex show juxtaposing contemporary with historical art that considered the RA’s relationship with empire, enslavement and resistance. Any exhibition that included Frank Bowling’s paintings, Kara Walker’s watercolours and Hew Locke’s drifting flotilla of model ships had force enough, but this one didn’t shy from showing British attitudes encapsulated in works by Turner and Reynolds.
10. Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood
Arnolfini, Bristol; March (at Sheffield’s Millennium Gallery until 21 January 2025; at Dundee Contemporary Arts, 19 April-13 July)
Birth, loss, ambivalence, wonder, exhaustion: terrific touring anthology of contemporary art in every medium concerning the twin acts of creating art and children. The revelation, for me, was Bobby Baker’s Timed Drawings – all achieved in a few precious minutes snatched from motherhood – her own head, best of all, suddenly exploding.
