In January 2019, the Royal Academy of Arts brings together the work of the pioneering video artist, Honorary Royal Academician Bill Viola (b. 1951), with drawings by Michelangelo (1475 -1564). Though working five centuries apart and in radically different media, these artists share a deep preoccupation with the nature of human experience and existence. Bill Viola / Michelangelo creates an artistic exchange between these two artists and is a unique opportunity to see major works from Viola’s long career and some of the greatest drawings by Michelangelo, together for the first time. It is the first exhibition at the Royal Academy largely devoted to video art and has been organised in partnership with Royal Collection Trust. The exhibition comprises 12 major video installations by Viola, from 1977 to 2013, being shown alongside 15 works by Michelangelo. They include 14 highly finished drawings, considered to be the high po

Tate Modern presents the UK’s first major Pierre Bonnard exhibition in 20 years, showing the work of this innovative and much-loved French painter in a new light. The exhibition brings together around 100 of his greatest works from museums and private collections around the world. It reveals how Bonnard’s intense colours and modern compositions transformed painting in the first half of the 20th century, and celebrates his unparalleled ability to capture fleeting moments, memories and emotions on canvas. Spanning four decades from the emergence of Bonnard’s unique style in 1912 to his death in 1947, this exhibition shows how the artist constructed his vibrant landscapes and intimate domestic scenes from memory. At once sensuous and melancholy, these paintings express moments lost in time – the view from a window, a stolen look at a lover, or an empty room at the end of a meal. These motifs can be seen in breakthrou

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam said Thursday its version of “Sunflowers” will no longer be allowed to travel after restoration work showed it was in a “fragile” condition. The museum in the Dutch capital is one of only five in the world with a copy of Vincent van Gogh’s masterpiece, and it rarely goes abroad, with the last time being in 2014. But international experts involved in the restoration said that even that was too much for the 130-year-old painting, meaning that it will now “stay at home in Amsterdam”. “An important conclusion of the research is that the soil and paint layers are stable, but very sensitive to vibrations and changes in air humidity and temperature,” Van Gogh Museum director Axel Rueger said. “It is therefore important that the painting is moved as little as possible and in a stable climate. To avoid taking any risks, the museum has decided that it will no longer be possible to let Sunflowers travel.” The restoration found that the painting wa

Lithuanian-born American director Jonas Mekas, one of the leading figures of avant-garde cinema in the United States, died Wednesday. He was 96. “Jonas passed away quietly and peacefully early this morning,” the New York-based Anthology Film Archives, which Mekas co-founded, posted on Instagram, saying he died at home with his family at his bedside. “He will be greatly missed but his light shines on.” Born in 1922 in a northeastern Lithuanian village, Mekas was imprisoned in a labor camp in Germany during World War II. He settled in New York in 1949, where he went on to become a pillar of independent film. Mekas approached cinema from multiple angles — as a filmmaker, but also