Kapoor’s blockbusting blobs, terrible Tudors and Emin’s proteges – the week in art
Lose yourself in Anish Kapoor’s black holes while Horrible Histories’ illustrator visits Preston and Margate hosts Tracey Emin’s students’ graduation show – all in your weekly dispatch
Exhibition of the week
Anish Kapoor
If you are looking for a summer blockbuster, here’s your show – Kapoor’s exhilarating spectacular boasts black holes and a mountain over your head.
• Hayward Gallery, London, until 18 October
Also showing
France-Lise McGurn
Semi-figurative, semi-abstract and ironically pop art-style paintings that add up to an all-over installation.
• Dundee Contemporary Arts, 22 August to 15 November
Tears Final Show
You can still catch this graduation show by the latest batch of Tracey Emin’s art students, curated by Emin – and see the seaside too.
• TKE Studios, Margate, until 31 August
Caroline Walker
Paintings of mothers and children in a social realist style slightly reminiscent of 1970s Ladybird books.
• Newlyn Art Gallery, Newlyn, until 31st October
Martin Brown
Drawings of glorious Georgians, terrible Tudors and other historical favourites by the Horrible Histories illustrator.
• The Harris, Preston, until 31 August
Image of the week
Cheese! These cheerful Carabinieri stand in Parma’s Ducal Palace with three recovered paintings that were stolen earlier this year from the nearby Magnani Rocca Foundation. Escorting the paintings, the authorities returned art worth millions of pounds to the private museum: Cézanne’s Still Life with Cherries, valued around £5.2m, Renoir’s Fish, £2.6m, and Matisse’s Odalisque on the Terrace, valued at £17,000. And the beautiful work behind them? That’s a 1573 fresco by Bertoia: priceless. Watch the footage of the theft here.
What we learned
David Shrigley is finding the funny side of some Dutch old masters
The controversial insides-outside Lloyd’s building is opening to the public
Renaissance paintings by Antonello da Messina have been stolen from a Sicilian museum
Italian police have recovered paintings by Cézanne, Renoir and Matisse after a heist
Katy Perry kissing the Earth after returning from ‘space’ inspired painter France-Lise McGurn
A new Douglas Gordon doc captures the artist smearing himself with silver paint
Masterpiece of the week
Mountain Landscape with Lightning by Francisque Millet, c1675
Your mind can go on a long, solitary hike simply by looking at this Romantic painting of a wild and untamed landscape. Yet this place is not so remote – it’s in the Auvergne region of France, picturesque enough, yet part of a sophisticated modern state. Just as his contemporary JMW Turner found savage windswept scenes in Scotland or braved storms in the Channel, so Rousseau sees the sublime on a trip to this characterful region of his own country. Low, ethereal, stormy light casts the hills in the distance in purple shadow, making them appear huge and terrifying. The valley that leads towards them is green, yet dark and cavernous, a veritable slough of despond. It might be a scene from an adventurous epic set in a fantastic land. But it’s a real, peopled place, and Rousseau reveals the marvellous in his own land.
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