2013-04-16 10:05:26 +02:00

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# Top 10 art exhibitions of the week
## The best art exhibitions on now across the UK - Alastair Sooke and Richard
Dorment's pick of the week.
![Woman Wearing a Mantle Over Her Head and Shoulders, c. 1718-19
][1]
Image 1 of 3
Woman Wearing a Mantle Over Her Head and Shoulders, c. 1718-19 Photo: Jean-
Antoine Watteau
![Three Studies of a Young Girl Wearing a Hat c.1716][2]
Image 1 of 3
Three Studies of a Young Girl Wearing a Hat c.1716 Photo: Jean-Antoine Watteau
![Three Studies of Soldiers Holding Guns, 1715][3]
Image 1 of 3
Three Studies of Soldiers Holding Guns, 1715 Photo: Jean-Antoine Watteau
10:48AM BST 20 May 2011
[Comments][4]
[**See our regularly updated slide show of pictures from current and
forthcoming exhibitions **][5]
**1. [Paul Graham][6] | Whitechapel Gallery; until 19 Jun**
In 1981, the British photographer Paul Graham set off on a journey, taking
pictures as he went. He began outside the Bank of England in the City of
London, and followed the A1 as it unfurled north.
Seventeen photographs from the series can be seen in the Whitechapel Gallery's
new retrospective of Graham's work - and, like most of the pictures in the
show, I loved every one.
## Related Articles
* [Winning ways with watercolour][7]
15 May 2011
**2. [Dutch Landscapes][8] | Queen's Gallery until October 9**
The Royal Collection's new exhibition offers a reminder that art from the
Netherlands hasn't always found favour in Britain. Horace Walpole, the 18th-
century antiquarian and man of letters, deplored Dutch artists as "drudging
Mimics of Nature's most uncomely coarsenesses".
One of the chief pleasures of this exhibition is the close observation of
everyday life by masters such as Philips Wouwermans and Aelbert Cuyp. There
are several scenes of merrymaking, replete with people boozing, smoking,
swaggering and dancing. There are country fairs abuzz with activity, as well
as busy vistas of agricultural labour.
**3. [Joan Miro: The Ladder of Escape][9] | Tate Modern until September 11**
Along with Picasso and Dali, the great Catalan modernist Joan Miro belongs to
a triumvirate of Spaniards who dominated 20th-century art. The exhibition
covers six decades. There are early masterpieces such as The Farm (1921-22),
once owned by Ernest Hemingway.
Look at the mischievous, misshapen creatures that crowd the wonderful early
paintings of his maturity. They are dredged from a private place, a realm of
terror as well as exultation in which reality seems heinously unstable.
4. [**Tracey Emin: Love Is What You Want**][10]** | Hayward Gallery; until 29
Aug**
Emin has shared with us graphic details of her abortion, her alcoholism and
her inability to find love or have a child. Her solipsistic obsession with her
own trials and tribulations becomes a strength - for the first time - in this
show. Carefully selected and beautifully installed, the exhibition looks at
Emin's whole life as a performance, a soap opera in real time, like The Truman
Show.
5. [**Antoine Watteau**][11]** | Royal Academy and Wallace Collection; until 5
June **
Watteau's influence on French art during the 18th century and beyond was
profound. His chief contribution to art history was the invention of a
strange, mercurial genre known as the fete galante, defined in a contemporary
dictionary as "festivities by decent folk".
The Wallace Collection in London has some of the finest examples. To
complement the superb exhibition of his sketches at the Royal Academy, all
eight of their canvases, plus two loans, are being shown in the West Gallery
at the Wallace Collection's home, Hertford House in west London.
6. [**Ai Wei Wei: Zodiac Heads**][12]** | Somerset House; until 26 June **
In a semi-circle behind the fountains at Somerset House he's arranged 12
oversized bronze heads of animals, each about 4ft high and weighing about
800lb, and each representing a sign of the Chinese zodiac - rat, tiger, rabbit
goat, pig and so on.
The heads are inspired by the water-spouting originals that adorned an 18th-
century fountain-clock commissioned by the Emperor Qianlong for his summer
pavilion outside Beijing.
7. [**The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement**][13]** | Royal Academy of
Arts, London W1 (020 7300 8000), until June 5**
Though ridiculed in Punch cartoons, the Aesthetic movement was a serious
philosophical view that placed aesthetic values to the front of human
experience. The V&A's unforgettable exhibition at last does justice to the
artists, designers and architects.
8. [**Jan Gossaert**][14]** | National Gallery; until 30 May **
Gossaert's ability to humanise characters from the Bible and mythology is of a
piece with the way he was able to enter imaginatively into the lives of the
men, women and children whose portraits he painted. His double portrait of an
elderly couple, to take an obvious example, is as harrowing a depiction of old
age as I know in art, in which the artist misses no opportunity to chronicle
the indignity of decrepitude.
9. [**Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World**][15]** | British Museum;
until July 3**
Thanks to men who risked their lives for art, some of Afghanistan's most
prized relics are on show, which reveal the country's ancient culture, its
immense fragility and its remarkable place in world history.
As curator Dr St John Simpson puts it: "To me, what these objects speak of is
the world of the steppe. These are nomads who are migrating possibly on a
seasonal basis. The finds from Tillya Tepe open up the wealth of these nomads.
These are all personal possessions, made to be worn on the saddle. This whole
idea of personal ornaments stitched onto cloth is a steppe tradition, so too
is the lavish use of turquoise."
10. [**Manet, the Man who Invented Modern Art**][16]** | Musee d'Orsay, Paris,
[www.musee-orsay.fr][17], until July 3 **
A hugely enjoyable show which highlights Manet's ability to make ordinary
things beautiful simply by the way he painted them. He could turn a pile of
discarded clothing or a few dead fish into a work of art that sends a shiver
down your spine.
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