Goddesses, she-devils and a tangle with textiles – the week in art
Exhibition of the week
Lonnie Holley: The Growth of CommunicationThis evocative assemblage artist born in Birmingham, Alabama, shows work inspired by recent visits to the UK that use found British stuff.• Edel Assanti, London, until 2 July.
Also showing
Feminine PowerFrom Pele, the Hawaiian volcano goddess, to the disruptive Kali, this exhibition sticks out a tongue at male power by surveying female divinities and demons in the world’s cultures.• British Museum, London until 25 September.
Status Need a World InterludeSue Tomkins, Michael Wilkinson, Eva Rothschild and Jim Lambie create a group show that resembles a single installation. • Modern Institute, Glasgow until 22 June.
CountedPhotography to mark this year’s Scottish census, comparing contemporary shots of Scotland by Kieran Dodds, Arpita Shah and others with the Victorian photographs of David Hill and Robert Adamson.• Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, until 25 September.
What Lies Beneath: Women, Politics,
TextilesTextiles as feminist political art, with Miriam Schapiro, Permindar Kaur, Francisca Aninat and others.Women’s Art Collection, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, until 28 August.
Image of the week
Point of Return, 2021, by Ayobami OgungbeLagos-based Ayobami Ogungbe’s image is shortlisted for the Contemporary African Photography prize, awarded annually to five photographers whose works were made in Africa, or which engage with the African diaspora. “Point of Return,” says Ogungbe, “is based on a historical passage point used for human trade in Badagry, my home town … I intend to show tentative reactions of humans that were traded during that time.” View gallery of shortlisted entries here.
What we learned
A Ukrainian museum is collecting symbols of resistance
Keith Kahn-Harris and Rob Stothard have been smashing Jewish stereotypes
A new show looks at the air we breathe
David Best’s vast wooden memorial to Britain’s Covid dead will be set alight in Warwickshire
Shanghai-based photographer Luo Yang has been documenting Chinese youth
Henrietta Howard’s Marble Hill villa is to open to the public
Gilane Tawadros will be one of few women of colour to lead a big UK arts institution – the Whitechapel Gallery
Glyn Philpot was a master portraitist with a secret gay passion
Cornelia Parker has astonishing alchemy
A ‘lost’ Picasso has been spotted in Imelda Marcos’s home
Masterpiece of the week
The Artist’s Sister in the Garb of a Nun, by Sofonisba AnguissolaThe female Renaissance artist Sofonisba Anguissola depicts the sweet, Mona Lisa half-smile of her sister Elena framed by the head covering of a nun in this tender early work by a mistress of the portrait. It is almost as if Elena is trying the costume on, and with it wondering what the celibate religious life it symbolises might be like. Many young women who did not marry were dumped in convents in 16th-century Italy. But the Anguissolas, a noble couple who lived in Cremona, had other ideas: they got their daughters trained as artists, an almost unheard-of thing. Sofonisba was the most talented. Her gift was recognised by Michelangelo.
She went on to work at the Spanish court and had a long, independent career. Meanwhile, Elena found the habit fitted, and became a nun.• Southampton City Art Gallery
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