Art Weekly Dispatch: Floral Exhibitions and Provocative Masterpieces
This week in the art world heralds the arrival of spring with a grand survey of botanical influence, alongside provocative abstract paintings and a deep dive into Japanese printmaking. From Oxford to London and Manchester, galleries are showcasing diverse exhibitions that explore how plants shaped history, the boundaries of erotic abstraction, and the legacy of iconic artists.
Exhibition of the Week: In Bloom at the Ashmolean Museum
In Bloom: How Plants Changed Our World opens at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford from 19 March to 16 August. This exhibition features lovely flower paintings, including a detail from Orchids by Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema, on loan from a private collection in the USA courtesy of the Richard Green Gallery in London. However, the show reveals that all is not as it seems, delving into how science, trade, and historical tulip crazes have profoundly shaped the modern world. It offers a unique perspective on the intersection of art, botany, and global commerce.
Also Showing This Week
Alexis Ralaivao presents paintings that provocatively hover between abstraction and fleshy erotica at Pilar Corrias in London, running until 23 May. Meanwhile, Beneath the Great Wave at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester, from 14 March to 15 November, gives the Turner and Constable treatment to Japanese print masters Hokusai and Hiroshige, offering a fresh perspective on their iconic works.
Other notable exhibitions include Seth Price's video installation at Sadie Coles HQ in London, from 17 March to 2 May, exploring themes from cave paintings to the digital revolution. Additionally, Swords of Lucknow at the Wallace Collection in London, until 22 March, provides a last chance to view shimmering 18th and 19th-century blades from Lucknow's court.
Image of the Week: Art Activism and Environmental Risks
Performance artist Zack Mennell waded into British waterways to highlight sewage pollution and societal labels on benefit claimants, metaphorically becoming "the parasite." However, their activism took a literal turn when they contracted Weil's disease from rat urine in the water. This incident underscores the real-world dangers artists face when addressing environmental and social issues through their work.
Key Art World Insights
This week, we learned that world heritage sites in Iran have been damaged by US-Israeli bombing, and the European Commission may cut funding for the Venice Biennale if Russia is included. The Deutsche Börse photography prize spans from real prison life to invented facts, while a new show on George Stubbs is criticized for being too small. Other highlights include the V&A's redesigned Gilbert Galleries, David Hockney's nature vision optimized for phones, and the rediscovery of painter Harold 'the Kangaroo' Thornton's extraordinary life. The Sydney Biennale blends politics with nuance, beauty, and heart.
Masterpiece of the Week: A Bowl of Flowers by Marie Blancour
A Bowl of Flowers, painted in the 1650s by Marie Blancour, is her only known work and is currently held at the National Gallery in London. This 17th-century French artist demonstrates remarkable talent, with tulips, a daffodil, a poppy, and other blooms rendered in flamboyant, flowing sheets of colour. The painting delivers intense hits of yellow, red, and variegated white and pink, embracing the baroque style's spectacular curvaceous theatre. On a modest scale, Blancour explores bold aesthetic ideas with a blazing paintbrush, raising questions about her identity, the fate of her other works, and why this rare piece by an early modern female artist is not currently on display.
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