There's no denying it: Bridget Riley's art has a physical effect on you. So much so that gallery attendants at Turner Contemporary in Margate for Bridget Riley: Learning to See have been advised to avert their eyes from the paintings regularly. Stand in front of those curves and waves, or the precise narrow brightly coloured vertical stripes that fill some works, and you may feel you are swaying. You become slightly dizzy or a little queasy, even perhaps a bit seasick; well, it can get pretty choppy out there on the North Sea, just beyond the gallery walls. Nothing too alarming or extreme, though; it's just a perception. When we went to see this Bridget Riley show w e knew what to expect, having been in July 2019 to the blockbuster exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh that brought together half a century of pictures in a dazzling extravaganza of Op Art abstraction. It moved to the Hayward Gallery in...
A big theme to start us off this month at London's Royal Academy. Entangled Pasts, 1768-Now: Art, Colonialism and Change brings together more than 100 contemporary and historic artworks to examine empire and slavery. Joshua Reynolds, John Singleton Copley and JMW Turner on the one hand, Lubaina Himid, Yinka Shonibare and John Akomfrah on the other. It's on from February 3 to April 28. Also at the RA, in a free display from February 17, is Flaming June , Frederic Leighton's masterpiece, a sensuous artwork that's absolutely stunning when you see it in the flesh, as it were, even if you don't normally much like Victorian painting. Usually housed in a museum in Puerto Rico, it's on show alongside others by Leighton and his contemporaries and works that inspired him. No rush, it can be seen till January 12 next year. There'll be less classical drapery and a lot more contemporary modishness on display in Sargent and Fashion at Tate Britain from February 22. Jo...