Exhibition of the week
Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-70
Abstract expressionism is stereotyped as macho, but here are the female heroes, including Lee Krasner and Helen Frankenthaler.
• Whitechapel Gallery, London, February 9 to May 7
Also show
Sonya Boyce
The winner of the Golden Lion at last year’s Venice Biennale kicks off a national tour of her acclaimed work Feeling Her Way.
• Turner Contemporary, Margate, February 4 to May 8
Tudor Mystery: A Master Painter Revealed
Impressive Renaissance portraits by the master of the Countess of Warwick, plus a picture of Elizabeth I that Shakespeare may have seen in New Place, Stratford.
• Compton Verney, Warwickshire, until May 7
Stephen Balkenhol
This literally astute German artist shows his latest hammered wooden sculptures.
• Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, until February 25
Oliver Beer
An installation that spans centuries of British ceramics – and their sounds.
• Mithraeum Bloomberg Space, London, February 9 to July
Image of the week
David by Donatello, 1440
Was Donatello the first artist to express a strange identity? Works soon to be seen at the V&A in London are sparking debate about the sexuality of the master Renaissance sculptor.
What we learned
Are the viewing platforms in London’s Tate Modern endangering life in nearby flats? Apparently so.
But Oliver Wainwright identifies this Supreme Court ruling as a worrying trend for public space in our cities
Sonia Boyce was terrified of wallpaper
A wooden office building causes commotion
‘Hip-hop was this movement of people who were not considered valuable’: New York celebrates 50 years of hip-hop photography
When American artist Mike Henderson’s studio burned down, it was a chance to get married and start a family
Amsterdam is preparing for the chance of a lifetime
‘This is life for me’: the women who eschew city life for herding in Spain
Was Donatello the first artist in history to express a queer identity?
Adam McEwen has a knack for fake obituaries
Masterpiece of the week
Bust of Antinuous as Dionysos, 130-38 AD
When Antinous, the lover of the Roman emperor Hadrian, died, the grief-stricken ruler made him a god and had his face put on statues all over the Roman world. Well, it’s a way to grieve. Hadrian’s sexuality and artistic tastes were influenced by his passion for ancient Greek culture, which celebrated homosexual relationships and idolized male beauty. Hadrian left his mark, and Antinous’s, on the way later millennia perceived the classical heritage, for images such as these were widely imitated. About 1300 years later, Donatello would give David, the nude that ignited the Renaissance, the perfect features of Antinous.
• Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Do not forget
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