This year promises to provide a diverse range of art exhibits, with events such as global festivities marking the centenary of the Bauhaus architecture and art faculty, and the Christian Dior style spectacular. This season a plethora of exhibits observe the effect of visionary people and institutions.
Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams
The designer’s introduction from the years defined the expression of an age, showcasing the full-skirted, female shape dubbed the New Look. Needing lavish amounts of cloth (and figure-shaping panties), Dior’s garments re-introduced dream to style after years of functional garments, and his home re-asserted war-torn Paris’s standing as the worldwide centre of couture once again. Designer of Dreams investigates Dior’s obsessions – including, but not limited to, British aristocracy, stately houses, gardens, and blossoms – and his heritage up to and including the job of creative manager Maria Grazia Chiuri. The most significant fashion display to be held in the museum after 2015, when Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty was exhibited, the V&A’s Dior series promises silky spectacle.
Van Gogh and Britain
As a young guy, Van Gogh had a passion for hot prints: he built up a private group of 2,000 engravings, many from London magazines. Tate’s first Van Gogh series since 1947 will put 45 of the artist’s paintings — such as Shoes, Starry Night on the Rhône, and L’Arlésienne – in context, revealing the massive impact his job then had on British musicians.
Bridget Riley
The fantastic British artist was messing with our visual area because of her shimmering dot and line paintings of the 1960s. Riley’s abstract experiments using geometric shapes create still compositions that appear to ripple like the ocean or make after pictures on clean space. This retrospective will include freshly commissioned wall paintings intended for the Hayward Gallery’s harsh display spaces, recognisable early monochrome functions, and experiments in vibrant colour.
Verrocchio, the Master of Leonardo
Working in close cooperation, Verrocchio has been a formative influence on artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, with his studio becoming a core part of the Florentine Renaissance. A range of sculptures from Verrocchio survive, but only a couple of paintings are known. His student Leonardo helped complete part of one of those, The Baptism of Christ (c.1474-5) held in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence. In Palazzo Strozzi, artworks by Verrocchio are going to be displayed alongside individuals who collaborated with him, suggesting how he influenced others and supplying insight to Leonardo’s early decades.
All the Rembrandts
Opening proceedings is the once-in-a-lifetime exhibition bringing together the world’s biggest collection of Rembrandt’s paintings – 22, such as The Night Watch and Jewish Bride – including 360 works on paper, lots of them delicate and only seldom exhibited, spending the rest of their time in art storage. Rembrandt parties throughout the city include walking paths and canal tours, in addition to nocturnes in the museum. In July, a scheduled recovery of The Night Watch begins within a customised glass room from the museum, allowing for public opinion to influence the process.
Bauhaus Week Berlin
The centrepiece of the year’s international party of everything Bauhaus sees performances, events and exhibits rolled out over Berlin’s public areas and museums. It is 100 years since the influential architecture and art college was founded in Weimar. Fourteen years afterwards, after moves to Dessau, and afterwards Berlin, the Nazis closed the Bauhaus. The mad creativity of the period continues to affect all aspects of visual culture now, and the Bauhaus design is currently synonymous with modernism. Exhibition showcases will open in four countries including Brazil and Russia: in Berlin, they will be brought together in one gigantic event. Other museums will reveal the Bauhaus faculty’s influence on the architecture and art of now.