The Week in Art

The latest edition of Frieze New York is open now and we hear all about this year’s fair from The Art Newspaper’s editor-in-chief in the Americas, Ben Sutton, and our art market editor, Kabir Jhala. Cupid Complaining to Venus (1526-27), a painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder in the National Gallery in London has long been known to have a complicated provenance and was once in the possession of Adolf Hitler. In The Art Newspaper’s May print edition, a photograph of the work in Hitler’s Munich apartment is reproduced for the first time in an English-language publication. Ben Luke talks to Martin Bailey, our special correspondent in London, who has been following this story since the 1990s, about the latest news. And this episode’s Work of the Week is the Glamour Posse series from the early 1990s by the British photographer Ajamu X. The work features in Gender Stories, a UK touring exhibition that this week opens at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, and Ben speaks to the head of the gallery, Charlotte Keenan.

Frieze New York continues until Sunday, 17 May, Esther continues until 16 May and Tefaf is on until 19 May.

Gender Stories, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 16 May-31 August.
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It’s Venice Biennale opening week and so, as ever, this episode is our Venice special. The Biennale comprises many aspects: an international exhibition that this year features more than 100 artists in the Central Pavilion in the Giardini—Venice’s easternmost gardens—and the Arsenale, the historic Venetian shipyards, as well as national pavilions and, across the city, countless official collateral exhibitions alongside major museum shows, performances and other interventions. We bring you our immediate impressions of this year’s offering: Louisa Buck, Jane Morris and host Ben Luke review the main exhibition, In Minor Keys, curated by the late Koyo Kouoh and realised by five of her collaborators. Ben talks to two artists: Gabrielle Goliath whose work for the South African pavilion was cancelled and is being staged in a church in the heart of Venice, and Lubaina Himid, who is showing in the British pavilion in the Giardini. He also meets the writer and thinker Saidiya Hartman, two of whose essays have inspired a production called Minor Music at the End of the World, staged at Venice’s Goldoni Theatre and featuring contributions from, among others, the artists Arthur Jafa, Precious Okoyomon and Okwui Okpokwaseli. And The Art Newspaper’s digital editor, Alexander Morrison, talks to Daniella Kaliada, one of the team behind Official. Unofficial. Belarus., a collateral art project by Belarus Free Theatre. Finally, we always end our Venice specials with a historic masterpiece, and in this episode’s Work of the Week, we look at two: Jacopo Tintoretto’s The Last Supper and The Israelites in the Desert of 1591-92, the pair of paintings made for the presbytery of the Basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore. The paintings have just returned to the basilica after a major conservation project, funded by the charity Save Venice, and Ben spoke to Save Venice’s Senior Researcher, Gabriele Matino, about them.

In Minor Keys, 9 May-22 November
Gabrielle Goliath: Elegy, Chiesa di Sant’Antonin, 5 May-31 July
Predicting History: Testing Translation, British Pavilion, 9 May-22 November
Official. Unofficial. Belarus., Chiesa di San Giovanni Evangelista di Venezia, 9 May-22 November
Visit savevenice.org
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The largest career survey of the great 17th-century Spanish master Francisco de Zurbarán since the 1980s opens this weekend at the National Gallery in London. It presents a more rounded perspective on an artist best known for his austere paintings of saints and other religious subjects. Ben Luke takes a tour of the show with its co-curator, Francesca Whitlum-Cooper. The latest edition of the Carnegie International, held at the Carnegie Museum of Art and several other venues in Pittsburgh, also opens this weekend. This 59th iteration of the exhibition, which happens every four years, is called If the word we, and Ben speaks to the director of the museum, Eric Crosby. And this episode’s Work of the Week is one of the five painted versions of Ennui, made around 1914 by Walter Sickert. The painting features in the exhibition Walter Sickert: Working Notes at Charleston in Lewes in Sussex, UK, part of the organisation based in the former home of the Bloomsbury linchpins Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. Ben talks to Robert Travers, the founder of the gallery Piano Nobile, who curated the exhibition in partnership with Charleston.

Zurbarán, National Gallery, London, 2 May-23 August; Musée du Louvre, Paris, 7 October-25 January 2027; Art Institute of Chicago, 28 February-20 June 2027
If the word we, 59th Carnegie International, 2 May-3 January 2027
Walter Sickert: Working Notes, Charleston in Lewes, 2 May–11 October 2026.

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This Sunday, 26 April, marks the 40th anniversary of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in Soviet Ukraine. It is the most serious disaster ever to occur in the nuclear power industry, with widespread effects then and now. An exhibition at the Nikolaikirche in Potsdam, Germany, called The Chernobyl disaster: 40 years ago and yet still relevant, continues until Monday 27 April, and Ben Luke speaks to one of its organisers, Olha Kovalevska. A new exhibition at Munch, the museum in Oslo, explores the work of Paula Rego, with new research on her interest in the artist after whom the museum is named, Edvard Munch. Ben speaks to the curator of the exhibition, which is called Paula Rego: Dance Among Thorns, Kari J. Brandtzæg. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Convolvulus (1940) by Gluck, the mononymous British painter. The picture is part of the exhibition called Handpicked: Painting Flowers from 1900 to Today, which opens this weekend at Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge, UK. Ben speaks to its co-curator, Naomi Polonsky, about the work.

The Chernobyl disaster: 40 years ago and yet still relevant, Nikolaikirche, Potsdam, Germany, until 27 April.
Paula Rego – Dance Among Thorns, Munch, Oslo, 24 April-2 August; Paula Rego: Story Line, Victoria Miro, London, until 23 May.
Handpicked: Painting Flowers from 1900 to Today, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, 25 April-6 September
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Two museum openings feature on this week’s podcast—V&A East in London and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

In our 300th episode in 2024, Gus Casely Hayford, the director of the V&A East, told us about the community-driven programming at the museum and its connection with its local environment in East London. Now, as the museum opens, he takes Ben Luke on a tour of its commissions, displays and its first exhibition, The Music is Black: A British Story. In California, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma) has just opened its new building by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, which cost more than $700m, and has generated some controversy. Ben speaks to our correspondent in Los Angeles, Jori Finkel, about the new building and the debate about its scale, its cost, its suitability for LA and whether Angelinos and tourists will take to Zumthor’s building. And this episode’s Work of the Week is Satan Smiting Job with Sore Boils (around 1826) by the great 18th-century artist and poet, William Blake. The work is part of a new exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland, called William Blake: The Age of Romantic Fantasy, which opened this week. Ben speaks to the exhibition’s co-curator, Anne Hodge, about the work.

V&A East opens on Saturday, 18 April.
Lacma member previews begin on 19 April, before the full opening to non-members in early May.
William Blake: The Age of Romantic Fantasy, National Gallery of Ireland, until 19 July.
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