Show of the week
Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-70
Abstract expressionism is stereotyped as macho, but here are its female heroes, including Lee Krasner and Helen Frankenthaler.
• Whitechapel Gallery, London, 9 February to 7 May
Also showing
Sonya Boyce
The winner of the Golden Lion at last year’s Venice Biennale embarks on a national tour of her acclaimed work Feeling Her Way.
• Turner Contemporary, Margate, 4 February to 8 May
The Tudor Mystery: A Master Painter Revealed
Haunting Renaissance portraits by the Master of the Countess of Warwick, as well as a picture of Elizabeth I that Shakespeare may have seen at New Place, Stratford.
• Compton Verney, Warwickshire, until 7 May
Stephan Balkenhol
This German artist literally shows off his latest chiselled wooden sculptures.
• Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, until 25 February
Oliver Beer
An installation spanning centuries of British ceramics – and their sounds.
• Bloomberg Space Mithraeum, London, 9 February to July
Image of the week
David by Donatello, 1440
Was Donatello the first artist to express a noble identity? Works to be exhibited at London’s V&A are starting a debate about the master Renaissance sculptor’s sexuality.
What we learned
Do the viewing platforms at Tate Modern, London, compromise living in nearby flats? Apparently yes.
But Oliver Wainwright identifies this supreme court ruling as a worrying trend for public spaces in our cities
Sonia Boyce was afraid of wallpaper
A wooden office block is causing a stir
‘Hip-hop was this movement of people who were not considered worthy of creativity’: New York celebrates 50 years of hip-hop photography
When US artist Mike Henderson’s studio opened there was a chance to get married and have a family
Amsterdam is in line for its chance of a lifetime
‘This is alive for me’: the women avoiding the city life for shepherding in Spain
Was Donatello the first artist in history to express a queer identity?
Adam McEwen is involved in fake deaths
Masterpiece of the week
Bust of Antinous as Dionysos, AD 130-38
When Antinous, the lover of the Roman Emperor Hadrian died, the grieving ruler made him a god and his face was placed on statues throughout the Roman world. Well, it’s one way to cry. His passion for ancient Greek culture influenced Hadrian’s sexuality and artistic tastes, which celebrated gay relationships and idolized male beauty. Hadrian left his mark, and that of Antinous, on the way thousands of years later felt on the classical heritage, as such images were widely imitated. About 1300 years later, Donatello would give David the perfect characteristics of Antinous, the nude that set the Renaissance on fire.
• Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Do not forget
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