David Zwirner, 24 Grafton Street, London W1S 4EZ

Jockum Nordström: The Anchor Hits the Sand

David Zwirner recently featured ‘The Anchor Hits the Sand’, a solo exhibition by Swedish artist Jockum Nordström. Upon entrance, visitors encounter a collection of Nordström’s watercolour collages. The motifs that comprise the works illustrate Nordström’s imaginative spirit and oeuvre. Each composition is peculiar and ambiguous, characterised by various scenes, with figures who seemingly have no apparent relation to one another. Review by Sheena Carrington

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Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90024, United States

Lari Pittman: Declaration of Independence

It’s a testament to the strength of the show that it not only introduces us to Pittman’s incredible range, but gives us enough depth to familiarise us with his recurring motifs and hallmarks, allowing us to find a thread through the galleries. Review by Deborah Krieger

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V&A, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL

Tim Walker: Wonderful Things

One corner of the V&A has been transformed into Wonderland. Tim Walker’s exhibition, ‘Wonderful Things’ houses a vast portfolio of his photography, ranging in style from sharp and stark portrayals of singular subjects to impossibly complex ethereal fantasies. Review by Zoe Ettinger

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Hastings Contemporary, Rock-A-Nore Rd, Hastings TN34 3DW

Victor Willing: Visions

Hastings Contemporary’s retrospective ‘Victor Willing: Visions’ is the first of its kind since the British artist’s death in 1988. It includes sixty-five paintings, drawings, and sculptures spanning the entirety of his career. But to describe Willing’s work in this way, like the work of any other artist – with a beginning, a middle, and an end – is to do so incorrectly. Willing’s artistic output has a beginning and it has an end, but it is missing a middle. It is because of Willing’s ‘stasis’, as John McEwan describes the decade-long period during which he stopped painting, that he has remained relatively unknown. But it is also what makes his work so intriguing. Review by Jack Head

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Richard Saltoun Gallery, 41 Dover Street, London W1S 4NS

Matrescence

The business of being a mother is a messy one. Richard Saltoun’s new exhibition is the first of two shows hosted by the London gallery to address the triumphant and tragic path of motherhood. The title ‘Matrescence’ (you’d be forgiven for drawing a blank) refers to an anthropological science developed by American doctor Dana Raphael in the 1970s, which discusses the process of becoming a mother – psychologically and physically speaking. For the uninitiated, it was also Dr Raphael who coined the term “doula”. Review by Claire Phillips

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Victoria Miro Gallery, 16 Wharf Road, London N1 7RW

Celia Paul

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” These are the words that Jane Eyre uttered defiantly to Mr Rochester in Charlotte Brontë’s tale of love and woe. And like Brontë and her sisters, living in the restraints of their father’s parsonage, the British artist Celia Paul spent her youth surrounded by women in the Devonshire and Yorkshire countryside, where her father was the Bishop of Bradford. Review by Claire Phillips

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The Sunday Painter, 117-119 South Lambeth Road, London SW8 1XA

Chips and Egg

‘Chips and Egg’ quotes a classic piece of British cinema,’ Shirley Valentine’. The film tells the story of a Liverpool housewife breaking out of her world of domestic cliché to embark on a spontaneous Greek holiday and find love and adventure only to end up in another set of clichés. This is precisely the self-digesting system of cultural production that’s light-heartedly recognised by this exhibition. The success of ‘Chips and Egg’ lies in highlighting the beauty and sincerity in seemingly futile repetition for the sake of care, survival, indulgence and art. Review by Sonja Teszler

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PhotoAccess, New South Wales Cres, Griffith ACT 2603, Australia

Now You See Me: Visualising the Surveillance State

Smile. Chances are you’re on camera. ‘Now You See Me: Visualising the Surveillance State’ provides an incisive exploration of the ubiquity of surveillance technologies; referencing strategies of observation and power from the 18th century and illustrating their intensified application in our modern world. Underpinning the exhibition, curated by Ashley Lumb with assistance by Kate Matthews, is a structuring dichotomy of visibility and invisibility, with the influence of the Panopticon – an architectural fixture designed by Jeremey Bentham in 1785 for use in prisons – looming large over the history of modern surveillance. Review by Daniel Pateman

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Jerwood Arts, 171 Union Street, London SE1 0LN

Jerwood Collaborate!

For ‘Jerwood Collaborate!’ Jerwood Arts commissioned four emerging and early career collectives and collaborative practitioners, Array, Languid Hands, Shy Bairns and Keiken + George Jasper Stone, enabling the groups to create new work and build on their existing practices. The variety in the practices exhibited demonstrate the different modes and outcomes of working together, encompassing everything from protest banners and marches, zine making and friendship quizzes and video and CGI work. Review by Emily Hale

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Turner Contemporary, Rendezvous, Margate CT9 1HG

Yuri Suzuki: The Welcome Chorus

On a rainy day in Margate outside the Turner Contemporary, twelve large, differently coloured horns play a song. Every two minutes, an AI machine within them generates a new tune comprised of voices that sound eerily like robotic children. This is Yuri Suzuki’s creation: ‘The Welcome Chorus’. Review by Zoe Ettinger

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The Mosaic Rooms, Tower House, 226 Cromwell Road, London SW5 0SW

Praneet Soi: Anamorphosis: Notes from Palestine, Winter in the Kashmir Valley

The exhibition 'Anamorphosis: Notes from Palestine, winter in the Kashmir Valley’ resembles a travelling diary written by a flâneur-cum-researcher, into territories and histories familiar to the artist Praneet Soi. In response to The Mosaic Rooms commission, the artist decided to travel during June 2019 across the Occupied Palestinian Territories including Golan Heights, Jericho and Hebron, and in Israel, in Haifa, Akka and Tel Aviv. Review by Mihaela Varzari

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Royal Hibernian Academy, Gallagher Gallery, 15 Ely Place, Dublin 2, Ireland

SUBSET: Micro Vs. Macro

While there are a number of strands to the on-going topic of the climate that require action, fundamentally at their core is a need for behavioural change. This topic forms the core of ‘Climate’ - a three-part project from SUBSET, which is an anonymous collective of artists known for their arresting street murals. Review by Aidan Kelly Murphy

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FACT, 88 Wood St, Liverpool, L1 4DQ

you feel me_

‘you feel me_’ opened on 31st October 2019―a fitting day on which to interrogate all things systemic and speculative. For one thing it was Halloween, and for another, it was the day on which the UK had been billed to leave the European Union. The press material for FACT’s new group show knowingly invites its viewers to “feel the future and imagine a world without division”, and interrogate power structures both literal and more abstract. Review by Lucy Holt

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180 The Strand, London, WC2R 1EA

Transformer: A Rebirth of Wonder

The space below 180 The Strand feels labyrinthine and immersive – shuffling through the exhibition, there is no real sense of where anything is in relation to anything else. The works occur sequentially, with no overlap between worlds and no deviation from this path. A varied approach to texture, sound, and scent add to the feeling of discrete worlds, as does the lighting, with rooms ranging from almost totally dark or U.V. for Chen’s photographs to the stark, blindingly white light as in Huanca’s installation, or the blue neon strip lighting that extends from the virtual reality of the screen into the space itself in Lek’s work. Review by Katie McCain

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