Exhibitions

RUSSIA! Guggenheim Museum, New York
As the viewer walks up through the gallery, following the chronological layout, it becomes apparent that the exhibition has achieved a kind of brief history of the development of human subjectivity, and its expression in art.
Tara McCormack

Diane Arbus: Revelations V&A, London
The picture of a dominatrix at work would have been considered 'far out' four decades ago. It's different now. Changed sexual mores, and fly-on-the-wall documentaries purporting to show the unvarnished, unedited truth of human situations, have made the once strange a regular part of life.
Nicky Charlish

Rubens: A Master in the Making National Gallery, London
The dreadful paintings in this exhibition are what make it so exceptional and so brave. It explores the early development of an artist loathed at least as much as he is liked, and it shows that his first steps were faltering, and his early works often failures.
Michael Savage

Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia British Museum, London
It is difficult to comprehend that the art of Iran - along with a 'can-do' spirit that would gladden the heart of a modern technocrat - has been seemingly almost completely eclipsed by recent change there. But who knows what sort of changes could be initiated by remembrance of an Iran that was powerful long before it received the word of the Prophet?
Nicky Charlish

Universal Experience: Art, Life and the Tourist's Eye Hayward Gallery, London
Thomas Hirschhorn conflates tourism with war and consumerism and all of us as 'holiday makers' are in the dock. That tourism and mobility is presented in such a repugnant way indicates that for some there's no holiday from Western liberal guilt.
Peter Smith

Edvard Munch by himself Royal Academy, London
This archetypal image, 'The Scream', is said to be emblematic of our anxious times, an iconic picture symbolising the culture of fear pervading our lives. But does it?
Aidan Campbell

Who was Henri Cartier-Bresson? Dean Gallery, Edinburgh
A cynical view that purports that everything has been done, that nothing is new in an image-saturated world, quickly becomes dispelled when browsing the 200 images that are displayed in this retrospective.
Nathalie Rothschild

Frida Kahlo Tate Modern, London
This exhibition makes us think about how different styles of cultural and artistic expression can be reconciled with each other. Kahlo's work is multiculturalism at its best, a rebuke to those who, in the name of diversity, would impose a sort of Balkanisation upon culture.
Nicky Charlish

Destiny Manifest - Eden's End Café Gallery Projects, London
By opting for candour over melancholy, the artists manage to inject realism into a story many historians have disingenuously chosen to embellish, and deal with its consequences head on.
Gavin Bower

Anarchy in the UK? The Carnival for Full Enjoyment, Edinburgh
There were almost no overt political statements to be seen. Some people wore stickers reading 'capitalism is boring' and one or two placards were waved (one of which read 'unemployed and loving it') but that was it.
Chris Wilkinson

Conquering England: Ireland in Victorian London National Gallery, London
The achievements of the Irish within the visual arts, literature, theatre, journalism and politics within Victorian London were substantial. For as George Bernard Shaw pointed out 'England had conquered Ireland, so there was nothing for it but to come over and conquer England.'
Nicky Charlish

Red Bull Art of Can Truman Brewery, London
A friend who hadn't seen the exhibition commented to me that it would have been far better if the government had set up an art competition with unbranded cans. I must say I think the entries in this hypothetical competition would have been a lot duller than what I saw at the Truman Brewery.
Anna Pearson

Küba The Sorting Office, London
It is as a political message that the installation doesn't convince. The project relies on the supposition that living in unusual circumstances makes the people of Küba interesting and important to listen to. But I was not alone in struggling to sit through a handful of video testimonies, let alone all 40.
Hannah Knowles

Mark McGowan, 'On the Road to a Miracle' House Gallery, and various parts of South London
By depicting an objectified drug-fiend being physically beaten into submission, Mark satirises the actions of a society in which desperate individuals - whether drug addicts, beggars, or the homeless - are coerced and expected to suffer before being given help.
Gavin Bower

Frida Kahlo: Portraits of an Icon National Portrait Gallery, London
Mexican artist Frida Kahlo remains a figure simultaneously well known and obscure. There's the crippling accident, the bisexual high jinks, the affair with Trotsky. Yet she remains somehow shadowy. Now, a photographic exhibition reveals - well, partly - the life of this mysterious painter.
Nicky Charlish

Lee Miller: Portraits National Portrait Gallery, London
Who today would take Surrealism's melting watches or sliced eyeballs all that seriously? But an exhibition of portraits by Lee Miller gives us a chance to see the work or one of its practioners whose output was very serious indeed.
Nicky Charlish

Turks Royal Academy, London
The sword of Süleyman the Magnificent of 1526-27 is an ivory, steel, gold and ruby killing instrument that manages to be very simple and yet to have an air of mysterious floaty curviness about it, as if it's going to take-off in flight somewhere.
Nicky Charlish

Citizens PM Gallery, London
Though few of us living in the West question the inclusiveness of our own citizenship, the limitations of the nation-state are exposed as it encounters non-citizens. 'Citizens' portrays this in various installations.
Gavin Bower

Futurist Skies: Italian Aeropainting Estorick Gallery, London
Aeropittura was a magnificent blossoming of creative art at a time when everyone else in Europe was battening down the hatches, readying for the war to come.
Aidan Campbell