Exhibition of the week
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster: Alienarium 5
A futuristic installation that brings this artist’s image overload style to bear on the pressing question: what if aliens fell in love with us?
Serpentine South Gallery, London, until 4 September.
Also showing
Nathan Coley: Interim Words Change Everything
The Scottish artist places ominous neon signs in the skies of south-east England. I HAVE NO OTHER GROUND, says Labor at the Bloomsbury Group hangout in Charleston.
Sussex locations including Charleston until August 29.
For the record: the photography and the art of the album cover
Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman and Hipgnosis are among the classic and lesser-known album cover designers in this survey of pop art.
Photographers’ Gallery, London, until 12 June.
Walead Beshty: addendum
Folded sculptures reminiscent of constructivist reliefs from the early 20th century, made from photographic printing papers, with a tender and elegant feeling.
Thomas Dane Gallery, London, until May 28.
Rhododendrons: enigma, obsession, threat
2005 Turner Laureate Simon Starling is among contemporary artists studying the history of this famous genus of flowers alongside Victorian botanical art.
Inverleith House, Edinburgh, until June 5.
Picture of the week
Non-binary artist Sin Wai Kin, who grew up in Toronto, is one of four artists nominated for this year’s Turner Prize, along with Heather Phillipson, Ingrid Pollard and Veronica Ryan. The environmental crisis and our relationship with the natural world are, in different ways, recurring themes in the shortlist, as are issues of identity and belonging. Read our feature, Breadfruit, cherries and drag: It’s a lip-smacking Turner award shortlist.
What we learned
Warhol is now worth more than Picasso
David McKee, creator of Elmer the Patchwork Elephant and Mr Benn, has died
Ukrainian artists respond quickly to war with poignant new works
A gallery on the Tottenham Hotspur pitch could be a game-changer
The young designers had a good laugh
Anonymous artist Foka Wolf put Boris Johnson on a billboard
Art forgers love to trick experts
A lost portrait of actor and civil rights activist Paul Robeson will be put on display
Walter Sickert painted himself in many roles… but not in Jack the Ripper
Doris Derby, the photographer who chronicled America’s civil rights movement, has died
masterpiece of the week
Tobias and the Angel, workshop of Andrea Verrocchioaround 1470-75
A fashionably dressed young man with curly hair, a short cape and red stockings walks arm in arm with an angel on a mission for his blind father, Tobit. As they go, the angel explains that the ointment in a wooden container, made from the entrails of the fish Tobias is carrying, will cure his father’s blindness. With its fairy-tale charm and elegant style, it is typical of the paintings and sculptures that emerged from Verrocchio’s bustling workshop in Florence in the 15th century. But there is a more compelling interest. Verrocchio’s pupil Leonardo da Vinci evidently painted the little dog scurrying past them, his long rivers of fur so delicately touched with ethereal reflections that he looks like a ghost dog. It is the specter of Leonardo’s youthful genius.
National Gallery, London.
do not forget
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