Exhibition of the week
China’s Hidden Century
Blockbuster survey of China in the 19th century, when the imperial era was coming to an end.
• British Museum, London, 18 May to 8 October
Also showing
Gwen John: Art and Life in London and Paris
Introspective portraits by the Welsh Vermeer.
• Pallant House, Chichester, 13 May to 8 October
Patrick Caulfield
Early work by one of the most ironic and haunting British modern painters and printmakers.
• Josh Lilley, London, 18 May to 20 June
Melati Suryodarmo
This acclaimed performance artist brings her vision to Birmingham.
• Ikon, Birmingham, 17 May to 3 September
Julian Stair
Thought-provoking modern versions of funeral urns, some of which incorporate human ash.
• Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts, Norwich, until 17 September
Image of the week
After panic and distress on finding herself doxed, US artist Qualeasha Wood decided to work the experience into tapestries. “Now I don’t have to worry about holding back in a lot of ways in my art,” she told the Guardian. Read the full interview here.
What we learned
A bomb shelter in Ukraine has become an artistic haven for children
A show called Writing Her Own Script celebrates pioneering female photographers
Economic woes could consign many British craft skills to history
A New York museum has become a hub for banned books
Street artists have descended on Glasgow
South Korea is thirsty for Indigenous Australian art
‘Man of 1,000 faces’ Samuel Fosso won the Deutsche Börse photography prize
Johnny Depp has cast Al Pacino in his forthcoming Modigliani biopic
Pakistani architect Yasmeen Lari is aiming to build a million homes
Masterpiece of the week
Guiding (Yinlu) Bodhisattva by unknown Chinese artist, 851-900 AD
This ravishing, subtle and superbly preserved painting on silk was found in a complex of caves near Dunhuang, an oasis on the edge of the Gobi Desert. In ancient times and the middle ages, this was a fortified point on the Silk Road, the long and arduous trade route that connected China with central Asia and even Europe. One of the Mogao Caves, as they are known, was a repository of paintings and manuscripts whose modern discoverers called it the Library Cave: hundreds of items from this precious repository of Silk Road history are in the British Museum. In this painting, a Buddhist guiding deity leads a woman into the spiritual realm. Waves and pulses of abstract colour set off precise figurative details in a masterpiece between worlds.
• British Museum, London
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