Exhibition of the week
Mat Collishaw: Petrichor
Creepy and disconcerting flower pictures, fabricated using AI and resembling Dutch still lifes corrupted by sin.
• Kew Gardens, London, until 7 April
Also showing
Celebrating Picasso Today: Infinite Modernism
Artists including Peter Halley and Genieve Figgis pay homage to Picasso’s living influence.
• Almine Rech, London, until 11 November
RB Kitaj: London to Los Angeles
This painter who mixed pop with history saw himself as persecuted by critics – does he deserve a fresh look?
• Piano Nobile, London, 25 October to 26 January
History in the Making: Stories of Materials and Makers, 2000BC to Now
A tapestry designed by Raphael is among the treasures from Woburn Abbey in this survey of craft traditions.
• Compton Verney, Warwickshire, 21 October to 11 February
Derek Boshier: Reinventor
One of the first pop artists is still playing with contemporary culture in a show of new work.
• Gazelli Art House, London, until 18 November
Image of the week
Manchester unveiled a giant new arts venue, Aviva Studios, designed by architecture firm OMA. The £240m venue will form the HQ of the Manchester international festival, and opened with a stage spectacle, Free Your Mind, directed by Oscar winner Danny Boyle. Architecture critic Oliver Wainwright gave his assessment of the building.
What we learned
Britain’s best new building is no ordinary retirement home
The late Italian leader Silvio Berlusconi’s art collection is ‘mostly worthless’
Pokémon star Pikachu sparked scenes at Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum
A Glasgow museum says its £3m Auguste Rodin sculpture is missing
Fifty years on, the builders of Sydney Opera House looked back at their work
Was the Renaissance a sexually subversive love-in?
Bobby Baker’s landmark 70s work of edible art is being recreated for a vegan age
Indigenous Australian artist Vincent Namatjira said he wields his brush like a weapon
Illuminating: an illustrated guide to some of the world’s most remote lighthouses
Marcel Duchamp’s founding work of conceptual art may have been someone else’s
Velázquez’s famous Black model Juan de Pareja became a renowned artist himelf
Masterpiece of the week
Venus Rising from the Sea (‘Venus Anadyomene’) by Titian, c. 1520
Although this painting is based on a Greek myth told by the poet Hesiod about 2,600 years ago, and echoes an ancient sculpture, it has a sensual directness that leaves classicism far behind. The lofty cultural references feel irrelevant to what is surely a portrait from life of Titian’s model, maybe even his lover, wringing her hair dry. Titian paints life, not art. His bold intimacy with this woman is unmistakable. So is the worship he confesses by depicting her as Venus.
• The National, Edinburgh
Don’t forget
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