A gallery glow up, spooky sculpture and a magical modern – the week in art
A grand survey of light art illuminates Durham, St Ives gets macabre and London goes big on land art – all in your weekly dispatch
Exhibition of the week
Victory Over the Sun
A Russian futurist spectacle from 1913 gives this grand survey of light art its title. Luminous works by Olafur Eliasson, Ceal Floyer and many more mark the opening of Durham’s new art gallery.
• The Light, Durham, until 17 January
Also showing
Ana Mendieta
Don’t on any account miss this magical journey through the imagination of a great modern artist.
• Tate Modern, London, until 17 January
Sgàire Wood
Heraldry, fashion and sectarian politics are among the themes this Irish artist brings to a wooded sculpture park near Edinburgh.
• Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh, until 18 October
Claire Curneen
Spooky sculptures that brood on death, if your day by the sea needs a macabre salting.
• Anima Mundi, St Ives, until 4 September
Eyes in the Soil
Art that engages with the earth, featuring Neal Jones, Vivian Lynn and more.
• Phillida Reid, London, 1 September to 1 October
Image of the week
One of the most prolific and beloved artists of our age, Yayoi Kusama died this week at 97. The Japanese artist became a global superstar many times over in different eras for her sculptural works, her political artistic “happenings” and the spotty style and selfie-inducing infinity mirror rooms that came to be synonymous with her name. Kusama’s work was often centred on ideas of the infinite and “self-obliteration”, a concept inspired by the hallucinations that would engulf her. Despite her superstar success she identified herself as an outsider artist until her death. The image above shows her in June, painting a work from her My Eternal Soul series. Read more here
What we learned
Betye Saar, whose found object assemblages explored racism and religion, died aged 99
Freddie Mercury’s ‘splendid things’ – eight iconic costumes – are to go on display
A plan for a waterfront site in Rotterdam looks ‘like something Shrek would throw up’
Gao Zhen, known for sculptures of Mao, was jailed for slandering ‘heroes and martyrs’
The Wulz sisters defied fascist Italy by shooting modern women – and their cat
Photographer William Yang looked back on 60 years of capturing LGBTQ+ life
The Nazis hounded out the Bauhaus; now the far right is turning on them again
Korean painter Ha Chong-Hyun, 91, believes abstraction is a form of rebellion
A priceless collection of bronze age gold artefacts were stolen in a Spanish heist
Masterpiece of the week
A Herdsman with Five Cows by a River by Cuyp Aelbert, 1650-55
There’s not much happening here, but that’s what is so revolutionary. Cuyp is centuries ahead of his time in simply showing a moment in the countryside without feeling he has to make it more significant by adding a story from Greek mythology or the Bible. Artists including Constable and Turner would be imitating his accepting natural eye almost 200 years later. They would also be thrilled by the subtle but omnipotent sunlight that Cuyp sees pervading everything here, from the gold-fringed clouds to the luminous river. Light was being understood in new ways in the 1600s by Galileo, Newton and other early scientists. Cuyp uses the very quietness of his rustic scene to let our minds focus on the ethereal magic of reflective water, set off by the brown, black and bronze masses of the cows. It is a lesson in weightless light and weighty flesh, a painting in which nothing happens and everything does.
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