Exhibitions Not To Miss

Bakersfield Museum of Art, California
Through 8 January 2022
The radical nature of Californian art from the 1970s to the 1990s is centre stage in an exhibition of works from the collection of Joan Agajanian Quinn, a friend of Andy Warhol, and her late husband Jack. Notable Californian artists such as Ed Ruscha and Larry Bell are featured in the show at the Bakersfield Museum of Art. It also includes artists who were inspired by the Golden State, including New York painter Jean-Michel Basquiat and British Pop artist David Hockney.

The show traces the emergence of the Light and Space movement, Finnish Fetish, West Coast minimalism, and mega-gallerist Larry Gagosian. Rachel McCullah Wainwright, the curator of On the Edge, says the show “explores the vital connectivity between artist and collector, especially when those artists were at the beginning of their careers.”

Joan Quinn was the West Coast editor of Warhol’s Interview Magazine and helped to promote many creatives in the region. “She's a master marketer, master networker and gave a lot of these artists an opportunity,” says Wainwright. Jack Quinn was a lawyer who would help artists with issues such as copyright, sometimes accepting works of art as payment. Like Joan he was “incredibly passionate about the collection,” Wainwright says.

This connection between the artists and the collectors is evident throughout the exhibition, the curator adds. “When you look at this collection, you understand the work through a friend's eyes.”

IMS Paulista, São Paulo, Brazil
Through 24 April 2022
Mario Cravo Neto’s career began in the mid-1960s and by the time of his death in 2009 he had become one of Brazil’s most celebrated photographers. This retrospective brings together around 250 images focusing on African-Brazilian culture and ritual, alongside sculptures, illustrated notebooks and letters.

Tate Britain, London
Through 3 April 2022
Over 70 years of cross-cultural history of the Caribbean and Britain will be explored through this major show. It includes work from 40 artists – many of Caribbean heritage as well as others whose work is inspired by the region – working in the mediums of film, photography, painting, sculpture and fashion. Highlights include abstract painter Frank Bowling, fashion designer Grace Wales Bonner and filmmaker Steve McQueen.

MMCA, Seoul
Through 17 April 2022
Chinese-born artist Ai Weiwei is arguably the most famous artist-activist working today. This survey includes recent films examining censorship, surveillance and the pandemic. It will include Coronation, a film made in Wuhan City in lockdown last year, and Omni, 2019, a virtual reality video immersing viewers in migrant experiences.

Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town
15 December–3 July 2022
South African artist Tracey Rose often uses her body to explore ideas around race and femininity in her performances, photography and films. This will be the largest retrospective of her work to date. The name comes from the installation Shooting Down Babylon (The Art of War), which Rose made in 2016, a work reflecting on exorcism and other non-Western cleansing and healing rituals.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,  San Francisco
18 December–1 May 2022
Tauba Auerbach is best known for trompe l’oeil paintings of paper and cloth. These are included in this exhibition, her first major survey show fittingly in the city of her birth, San Francisco, as well as infrared photographs and glass sculptures covering the past 17 years of her work.

Royal Academy of Arts, London
29 January–17 April 2022
From his early depictions of biomorphic creatures in the mid 1940s to his final painting in 1991, the works in this landmark survey bring to life Bacon’s fixation with the animalistic nature of humankind. Among the highlights is his 1991 painting Study of a Bull, on public view for the first time in the UK.

The Morgan Library & Museum, New York
11 February–15 May 2022
Hans Holbein the Younger, known for his closely observed paintings of King Henry VIII’s court, was one of the great 16th century portraitists. In the first major exhibition of the artist’s works in the US, prints, printed books and jewels will be on display as well as his painted portraits.

Grand Palais Éphémère, Paris
17 December–11 January 2022
Anselm Kiefer takes over the 10,000 sq m Grand Palais Éphémère, a gigantic temporary structure showing art exhibitions and art fairs while the Grand Palais is closed for renovation. The renowned German painter and sculptor will show new works reflecting on the history of European politics, war and the poems of Romanian-born German language writer Paul Celan.

M Woods, Beijing
Early 2022
Pakistan-born, New York-based artist Salman Toor makes vibrant oil paintings exploring the lives and struggles of queer men of colour. In his newest works, created for this exhibition in Beijing, he says he is “exploring narratives of self-love and the perception of difference as a conversation among the cultures of the Global South”.

_{Cover image: Tauba Auerbach, Extended Object, 2018 (detail). © Tauba Auerbach. Photo: Steven Probert. Courtesy: the artist and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York}