You’re reading The Grand Tourist Curator, our weekly newsletter with the latest handpicked news and insights from the worlds of art, design, style, food, and travel. Sign up here to get The Curator delivered directly to your inbox.
100 Years of the King of Pop Art; a British Nigerian Painter Suspends Boundaries; Two 19th-Century Artists and Their Objects; and More
Berlin, “Autoportret, Part III” (Until Apr. 6)
This is the third part in a trilogy that presents paintings by women from the Carpathian region, related not only by geography but by their poignant expression of alienation and absence. Moldovan artist Valentina Rusu Ciobanu’s playful work from the 1960s endows robots with faces, speaking to a technologizing society that’s all the more relevant today. Contemporary painter Ioana Batranu, living in Bucharest, paints landscapes that should feature people—like school corridors, hospitals, and prisons—but are instead neglected and empty. plan-b.ro
London, “Yinka Shonibare CBE: Suspended States” (Opens Apr. 12)
“My work has always been about the crossing of boundaries; geographically, visually, historically, and conceptually,” says interdisciplinary British Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare. The showcase marks his return to the Serpentine, where he first exhibited 30 years earlier as a finalist in the Barclays Young Artist Award. Through sculptures, pictorial quilts, and woodcut prints, Shonibare examines themes of colonial power, migration, and conflict. newexhibitions.com
Paris, “Ingres and Delacroix. Artists’ Objects” (Opens Mar. 27)
The Eugène-Delacroix museum is one of Paris’ lesser-known museums. Following six months of closure for renovations, it will reopen with an exhibit devoted to two leaders of 19th-century French painting, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Eugène Delacroix, who were rivals in the debate between neoclassicism and Romanticism. Their private lives are examined not only through their art, but their objects and trinkets, which include a tobacco pot in the shape of a fish, a golden laurel wreath, and painting palettes. musee-delacroix.fr
San Francisco, “Rachel Jones: !!!!!” (Opens Mar. 27)
Following her graduation from the Royal Academy Schools in 2019, British artist Rachel Jones has garnered worldwide attention for her large-scale abstract compositions rendered in rich pastel strokes. Her aesthetic expresses what can’t be put into words and examines Black interiority and identity. The Museum of the African Diaspora presents Jones’ newest body of work in her first solo show in the United States. moadsf.org
Tokyo, “Nick Doyle: American Blues” (Until Apr. 27)
Nick Doyle explores themes of greed and consumerism through denim-washed sculptural wall works of mousetraps, vending machines, cigarette packs, and other mundane objects. The Los Angeles–born, New York–based artist presents his first solo exhibition in Japan at Perrotin, where he introduces a new series of large-scale denim works and macabre sculptures. perrotin.com
Vienna, “Roy Lichtenstein: A Centennial Exhibition” (Until July 14)
Roy Lichtenstein’s comic-esque Pop works helped to redefine the conventions of fine art. On what would have been his 100th birthday, the Albertina Museum presents a retrospective with 90 paintings, sculptures, and prints that feature the beloved Ben-Day dots and melodramatic speech bubbles of his most well-known pieces. albertina.at
We meet Carol Woolton, a renowned jewelry editor on the rich photographic legacy of the French house of Chaumet. Plus, Basquiat’s Swiss Inspiration; Artists Across the Black Diaspora; and More.
A connected New Yorker shares his picks in Savannah and Charleston; Our travel correspondent Maura Egan returns to London's West End to discover what's new and rediscover her old favorites.
Some celebrity chefs transcend the art of simply cooking an amazing meal by understanding how food brings people together as part of contemporary culture. On this episode, Dan speaks with Italian chef Massimo Bottura about the keys to his success; his latest book, “Slow Food, Fast Cars,” and much more.
