Our weekly round-up of the best art exhibitions to attend, and engaging reads to keep you up to speed
What’s happening this week

· Mark your calendars – after (10!) long years of delays, the Louvre in Abu Dhabi is set to finally open its doors this November. [Artnet News]

· Art and crime: father-and-son duo caught with 15 stolen Georg Baselitz artworks worth millions. [Artnet News]

· Exhibition opens at the Palestinian Museum exploring the contemporary living culture in Jerusalem. [Hyperallergic]

· Construction workers in NYC discover a Jean-Michel Basquiat tag on a Megacollector’s building. [Blouin Artinfo]

· Museum trials and tribulations as the Met tries to reinvent itself after a period of instability. [New York Times]

· Fall art season – a roundup of some 70 museum exhibitions devoted to Latin American culture, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, opens this week. [Pacific Standard Time]

· This week’s art market news: Christie’s and Sotheby’s up buyer’s premiums. [ArtNews]

Openings 

Our selection of must-see events to put in your calendar: 

Berlin Art Week, September 13th – September 18th, Berlin: The sixth installment of this event marks a week of exhibitions, fairs, artist films, prize award ceremonies and many more special happenings. Held in numerous institutions, galleries and museums throughout the city, visitors will not be disappointed by Berlin Art Week’s rich programming. Art lovers are invited to see comprehensive exhibits showing well-known artists such as Monica Bonvicini, Danny Lyon, Willem de Rooij and a retrospective on the German filmmaker, Harun Farocki.

Video courtesy of: Berlin Art Week

Hernan Bas: Cambridge Living, September 6th – October 21st, Victoria Miro, London: Hernan Bas’ paintings are intimate, and carry an aura of transgression, camaraderie, and eroticism. The artist depicts members of the university’s secret societies and fraternities partying, debauching, disobeying rules, and performing thrill-seeking activities. His works are often linked to history, mythology and iconography of contemporary culture, romanticizing youth, nihilism and abandon. Bas’s paintings link traditional figurative painting and a segment of esoteric youth culture.

Painting: Suicide Sunday (taking on water), Hernan Bas, 2017

Nature Morte, September 7th – April 2nd, Guildhall Art Gallery, London: This exhibition promises its viewers a look at how contemporary artists approach mortality. Vanitas is a recurring symbol in Western artistic tradition, and this exhibition charts its journey through art beginning with 16th century still life. Visitors will see the old and the new, placed side by side, and observe a transition in artists’ presentation of ephemerality, the bodily, and the human condition. Exhibiting artists include Marc Quinn, Gabriel Orozco and Paul Hazelton.

Photograph: Fright Wig, Paul Hazelton, 2013 by Paul Hazelton

 

What not to miss 

Don’t miss your last chance to see these exhibitions, now in their closing week: 

Dreamers Awake, until September 17th, White Cube Gallery, London: The group exhibition aims to expose the enduring influence of Surrealism in the artworks of over fifty women artists. The multimedia show includes works by notable members of the surrealist art movement such as Dorothea Tanning and Leonora Carrington, and also works by contemporary artists Mona Hatoum and Louise Bourgeois. Beyond establishing surrealism’s impact on current art, the exhibition also traces what it has meant to be a woman artist over the past century.

Michaelerplatz 3, Shannon Bool, 2016. Courtesy of Daniel Faria Gallery

 

Catch up 

Recently opened and unmissable. Make sure you save some time to visit these ongoing exhibitions: 

Gregory Crewdson: Cathedral of The Pines, until October 8th, The Photographers’ Gallery, London: Dedicating its three spaces to a solo exhibition for the first time, the gallery presents the photographs of acclaimed American artist Gregory Crewdson. The atmospheric pictures show locals from the rural town of Becket, Massachusetts, along with the artist’s friends and family, interacting within natural environments. The title of the show gains its name from a forested trail that acts as a backdrop in many of the artworks, echoing the ambiguity and imaginary captured in Crewdson’s scenes. The works speak of connection, isolation, intimacy, childhood memories and human relationships – and are definitely worth seeing before the exhibition’s closing.

Photograph: The Haircut, Gregory Crewdson, 2014, Courtesy of Gagosian

Queer British Art 1861 – 1967, until October 1st, Tate Britain, London: Marking the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of male homosexuality in England, this is the very first exhibition dedicated to queer British art. On display are works by a diverse group of British artists, all focusing on LGBTQ issues and identities. It is a prescient show which shares significant events in recent history and how they have been interpreted by influential figures in the art world.

Bathing, Duncan Grant, 1911, Courtesy of Tate
By Yoli at Artvisor

Cover Photo: The Haircut, Gregory Crewdson, 2014, Courtesy of Gagosian