After a typical sleepy summer season, the UK arts scene has returned with a vengeance, with exhibitions in neon, 3D, and even virtual reality. And to match every new development is a master from the past, including Michelangelo, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Durer, alongside contemporary artists including Martin Creed, Tracey Emin, and Maggi Hambling. Read on (and click through to the accompanying slideshow) for the week’s best art.Exhibition of the Week:“You Say You Want a Revolution? Records and Rebels 1966 - 1970” at V&ARuns until: February 26, 2017 | Price: £16.00We said: Featuring hundreds of items — from Paul McCartney’s handwritten letter to Apple Corps announcing the breakup of the Beatles, to the first computer produced by a very different company called Apple — the exhibition charts the last five years of the sixties, when idealistic revolution was both on the streets and recorded on thousands of 12-inch vinyls. And, to put it quite simply, it is a triumph; further proof of something already clear to many: no one puts on an exhibition quite like the V&A. (Read more here)London“Björk Digital” at Somerset HouseRuns until: October 23 | Price: £15.00We said: For the most part, these works are a triumph. VR technology might be a bit of an art world gimmick at the moment, [...] but Björk’s use of it transcends this faddishness. This is the case particularly with “Notget,” in which the singer’s body is made up of neon lines and shapes that one can walk through, dispersing them around the viewer’s body. Also of note is “Mouth Mantra,” which positions the viewer within a distorted version of Björk’s mouth as she sings, creating a dark, beguiling piece that made us wish Samuel Beckett was still around to create works in VR. (Read more here)“The Infinite Mix” at 180 Strand (Hayward Gallery Off-Site Exhibition)Runs until: December 4 | Price: FreeWe said: For what is its only major off-site exhibition during the renovations, Hayward Gallery has pulled out all the stops, offering “holographic illusions, multi-screen installations and cinema-style 3D projections.” All of these, with the exception of Creed’s “Work No. 1701” — a sort of music video of people crossing a New York street to the accompaniment of one of his own songs, “You Return” — are making their UK debuts in this exhibition. (Read more here)“Maggi Hambling - Touch: Works on Paper” at British MuseumRuns until: January 29, 2017 | Price: FreeWe said: The British artist is showing works on paper spanning five decades, dating from her time as a student at Ipswich Art School in the early '60s through to the present. In these works, [...] Hambling shows the process by which she builds a face or body through a system of curved, free-flowing lines — a characteristic style that also manifests in her sculpture, such as the ever-controversial “A Conversation with Oscar Wilde,” 1998, located by Charing Cross Station. (Read more here)“French Portrait Drawings from Clouet to Courbet” at British MuseumRuns until: January 29, 2017 | Price: FreeWe said: The exhibition begins with Francois Clouet’s pictures of members of the court of Henri II in the mid-1550s, past the work of Gustave Courbet, ending at the later (but less alliterative) Toulouse-Lautrec paintings showing the seedier side of French cities in the late 1890s. Works by Ingres, Henri Fantin-Latour, and Pierre Dumonstier are also featured. As is clear from this progression from palaces to prostitutes, the exhibition also traces the volatile history of France during this period. (Read more here)Blackpool“NEON: The Charged Line” at Grundy GalleryRuns until: January 7, 2017 | Price: FreeWe said: “Neon: The Charged Line” showcases works by nearly 25 artists, created using light tubes, providing a summary of the medium over the last five decades. It traces the first experiments with neon right from the Pop art boom by artists François Morellet (who died in May this year, and is still relatively unknown in the UK) and Bertrand Lavier, to today, when neon has very different associations than it did in the 1960s. (Read more here)Oxford“KALEIDOSCOPE: It’s Me to the World” at Modern Art OxfordRuns until: October 16 | Price: FreeWe said: Works surrounding the theme of the body by artists including Marina Abramović, Yoko Ono, and Richard Long feature in this exhibition — the fourth in their series of 50th anniversary shows. Reflecting its title “KALEIDOSCOPE,” the exhibition presents a shifting and vibrant account of the way “artists from different generations […] use the body and its relationship to nature to explore memory, space, the politics of representation, and the environment. (Read more here)Poole“Lines of Thought: Drawing from Michelangelo to Now” at Poole MuseumRuns until: November 6 | Price: FreeWe said: The exhibition [...] spans over five centuries of art history, beginning with “A Nude Seated Figure,” circa 1508-12 by Michelangelo, to artists still producing work today, such as Bridget Riley. It offers an overview not just of the history of drawing, but of the British Museum’s Prints and Drawings Collection, of which these works represent a tiny fraction. (Read more here)Hastings“Graham Keen: 1966 and All That” at Lucy Bell Fine ArtRuns until: October 22 | Price: FreeWe said: The exhibition, which is subtitled “Swinging London: Pop and Protest,” looks at this fascinating but tumultuous time in history through some of its biggest names, as seen through Keen's lens. He started his career taking pictures of pop TV shows such as “Top of the Pops,” before moving onto commissions from legendary radical publications. As a result, he has photographed everything from Marc Bolan to the British Black Power movement. (Read more here)Welbeck“Gardens for the Duchess: Autochromes of Welbeck’s Gardens” at Harley GalleryRuns until: October 23 | Price: FreeWe said: In “Gardens for a Duchess: Autochromes of the Gardens at Welbeck,” the Nottinghamshire museum exhibits a number of photographs that, although dating from between 1911-1928, are in color and, through the use of the stereoscopic process, in three dimensions, showing the gardens of Welbeck in their full Edwardian majesty. (Read more here)
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