Exhibition of the week
Spain and the Hispanic World
Goya, medieval Al-Andalus and the New World all feature in this treasure chest.
• Royal Academy, London, from 21 January to 10 April.
Also showing
Antoni Tàpies
Paintings as raw as the streets, scoured with blackness and hung with relics, by this Catalan modernist.
• Timothy Taylor, London, until 4 March.
Redd Ekks
Freakily imaginative ceramics from countercultural California.
• Arcadia Missa, London, from 26 January to 6 April.
Shemza Digital: Across Generations
The abstract art of Anwar Jalal Shemza gets a digital reboot by his granddaughter Aphra Shemza.
• Wolverhampton Art Gallery, until 16 April.
Executions
Don’t miss this epic journey into London’s bloody rites of judicial killing. It brings history to death.
• Museum of London Docklands, until 16 April.
Image of the week
A 22ft-tall, 19-ton bronze depicting Martin Luther King and his wife Coretta Scott King embracing has inspired praise, jokes and bile since it’s unveiling last week. Read the full story here.
What we learned
The mayor of Amiens wants a loan from Madonna
A hidden Munch painting is up for auction
Rachel Whiteread has had enough of the fourth plinth sculptures
A court agreed with acclaimed painter Peter Doig
A Beta Band musician is making waves with his paintings
Madrid has a new eye-popping school complete with rainforest and drawbridge
AI is reimagining household appliances as works of Gaudí
Arsenal unveiled their latest star
An Irish photographer has the scent for drag hunting
Masterpiece of the week
A Lady in Profile, about 1490, by Follower of Sandro Botticelli
Botticelli revolutionised the depiction of women, putting the female image at the centre of his mythological paintings. Venus radiates authority and benevolent magic in his art, as she glides over the sea or gathers the gods in a woodland. In fact in Botticelli’s Primavera it is Venus, not Jupiter, who rules the classical pantheon. This painting appears to be an imitation of his style, and the market for such knock-offs proves how popular his vision was. This bejewelled woman in profile is the embodiment of a heightened, mythical beauty – but could she also be a portrait?
• National Gallery, London.
Don’t forget
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