1 Eduardo Paolozzi
In Britain after the second world war, life was grey and consumer products that were routine in the US looked like science fiction dreams. Paolozzi’s early collages of kitchen gadgets and household modernity were utopian fantasies of tomorrow and founding classics of pop art. He participated in the Whitechapel’s famous exhibition This Is Tomorrow in 1956 and that gallery pays homage now to work that encompassed everything from tiled tube station murals to robotic bronze statues. Paolozzi left Britain a more modern place.
Whitechapel Gallery, E1, to 14 May
2 Bruegel: Defining A Dynasty
The sons of Pieter Bruegel the Elder were estimable painters but can they be compared with their dad? Pieter the Younger, at the centre of this show, produced inferior versions of his father’s works while brother Jan created his own style of flower paintings and natural scenes. Neither is anything like as exciting as the Bruegel who created The Hunters In The Snow and The Triumph Of Death, among other icons of imagination and human sympathy. This exhibition explores the curious longevity of the dynasty.
The Holburne Museum, Bath, to 4 June
3 Degas To Picasso
Modern art was born in France between the 1848 revolution and the first world war. It starts with the colour-drugged sensuality of Delacroix and culminates in the philosophical eviscerations of cubism. Why France? Partly, the experience of a revolution that encouraged artists to see themselves as “bohemian”; partly a tradition of visual art going back to Louis XIV that had always embraced intelligence and abstraction. This exhibition shows the spectacular results in works by Manet, Renoir, Chagall and more.
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, to 7 May
4 Nathan Coley
Scottish artist Coley imagines the destruction of a celebrated cultural monuments in his latest work. Tate Modern On Fire is a sculpture of the Bankside art museum in flames. Is this a nightmare? A threat? It is an uneasy image, that’s for sure, and a provocative way for Coley to continue his exploration of architecture, art and the public good.
Parafin Gallery, W1, to 18 March
5 Sidney Nolan In Britain
Nolan was Australia’s greatest modern artist and this exhibition sees him from a British point of view. He came here in the 1950s after he was “discovered” by Kenneth Clark and stayed until his death. Fine, but is there some rule now that every artist has to be claimed as a Brit? Will we soon get Matisse: The Torquay Years?
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, 17 February to 4 June
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