ART.ZIP

How the Narrative Turns Female Solidarity into Patriarchy’s Aftercare 女性情義如何在敘事中替父權善後 Leaving the cinema, I had to admit that Dear You had moved me. Long after the screening ended, many of its scenes continued to linger in my mind. But being moved does not mean that I must follow the film’s narrative logic—to read a life shaped for decades by misunderstanding, kindness and silence, simply as a story of devotion, with forgiveness as its only possible resolution.

London-based curator Xin Liu is part of a new generation of independent curators who conceive the curatorial framework of an exhibition as an environment where history, identity and art intersect. Moving away from the traditional curatorial approach of presenting artworks as tightly organised and interpreted within a rigid framework in a traditional gallery space.

The Zurbarán exhibition at the National Gallery is the first major exhibition in the UK dedicated to the Spanish Baroque master Francisco de Zurbarán(1598–1664). One of the leading Spanish painters of the 17th century alongside Velazquez and Murillo, Zurbarán stands out for his naturalism, directness and deep emotional power—from towering altarpieces and life-size saints to the small panels made for private prayer.

The Zurbarán exhibition at the National Gallery is the first major monographic exhibition in the UK devoted to the Spanish Baroque master Francisco de Zurbarán (1598–1664). Alongside Diego Velázquez and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Zurbarán was one of the leading painters of seventeenth-century Spain.

Held at the Courtauld Gallery, Hepworth in Colour turns its attention to a long-neglected aspect of Barbara Hepworth’s practice: colour. As Hepworth herself remarked in 1970: “In a way my colour has been accepted, but never understood.” This focused, research-driven exhibition brings together around 20 sculptures and 30 drawings and paintings, placing her sculptures in dialogue with her works on paper.

For artist Yang Yang, photography is neither emotional release nor storytelling. With a background in finance and risk management, he approaches photography as a calm and restrained form of observation. He examines how people, objects, spaces and behaviours form relationships, while also attending to forms of value that cannot be measured numerically: memory, silence, intimacy, loss, longing and time itself.

Frida Kahlo: The Making of an Icon, now on view at Tate Modern, traces the extraordinary story of how Frida Kahlo rose from a relatively unknown painter to a worldwide cultural phenomenon and one of the most influential figures in the history of art.

This summer, Kew Gardens welcomes a remarkable group of visitors. In Henry Moore: Monumental Nature, thirty monumental sculptures are placed throughout the world-renowned botanical landscape, forming the largest outdoor presentation of Henry Moore’s work ever staged. As one of Britain’s most important twentieth-century sculptors, Moore drew continual inspiration from natural forms.

The first thing to greet you in Somerset House’s M.C. Escher: The Exhibition is the deep crimson of the galleries — a colour that deepens the mystery already surrounding Escher. What we tend to remember most readily about him are, of course, those vertiginous images: staircases that arrive nowhere, waterfalls that fold back into themselves, fish becoming birds, hands drawing hands, space quietly losing its authority under the pressure of perfect logic.

Held at Tate Britain, this retrospective is the largest exhibition of James McNeill Whistler’s work to be presented in Europe in nearly thirty years. Bringing together 150 exquisite works, it offers a rare opportunity to experience the full breadth of his painting, drawing, printmaking and design.