Obama's new portrait and Richard Serra's dark thoughts – the week in art

Anthony McCall’s psychedelic light sculptures, Van Gogh’s arrival at the Tate Britain and a celebration of Virginia Wolf– all in your weekly dispatch

Exhibition of the week

Richard Serra
The dense black drawings and prints of this modern giant have the power and gravity of his steel sculpture, concentrated in paper, pregnant with the darkest thoughts.
• Alan Cristea Gallery, London, to 17 March

Also showing

Anthony McCall
Fascinating and entrancing light installations by a British pioneer of the genre.
• The Hepworth Wakefield to 3 June

Jason Brooks
The painter known for his 1990s hyperrealist portraits shows more experimental and poetic works.
• Marlborough Contemporary, London, to 10 March

Leonard Rosoman
Paintings inspired by John Osborne’s 1965 play A Patriot for Me that challenged Britain’s conservative censorship, by the Lord Chamberlain, of plays.
• Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, until 29 April

Virginia Woolf
Who’s afraid of this exhibition that celebrates a great modern writer through the art of Eileen Agar, Claude Cahun and many more, including Woolf’s sister, Vanessa Bell?
• Tate St Ives until 29 April

Masterpiece of the week

The Virgin and Child before a Firescreen, about 1440, by Follower of Robert Campin
The down-to-earth yet poetic realism of Flemish art nearly 600 years ago is vividly exemplified by every detail of this painting, from the lovely town scene through the window to its brilliant observation of breastfeeding. As the Virgin feeds a very human baby Jesus, a wicker screen behind her happens to give her a halo. Fifty years earlier, none of the technical skill that allows this artist to paint a real world existed. This is a revolutionary work of art that insists on the beauty of everyday life and the holiness of unconsidered things.

• National Gallery, London

Image of the week

President Barack Obama, by Kehinde Wiley

The Smithsonian Institution unveiled the official portrait of the 44th US president – a more colourful image, in many ways, than those of past leaders – alongside Amy Sherald’s portrait of first lady Michelle Obama. Could the latter become an American generation’s Mona Lisa? They will hang in Washington DC’s National Portrait Gallery.

What we learned

Ai Weiwei’s political awakening was an earthquake

Graffiti artists have won $6.7m damages over the demolition of New York’s 5Pointz building

The state of UK museum collecting is ‘deeply depressing’

Mark Dion finds the natural world a strange place

Structural engineers are the true artists of architecture, says Roma Agrawal

Emil Nolde embraced the Nazis who went on to denounce his art as degenerate

Many Italians claim to be The Diver in Nino Migliori’s best photo

Sydney is having a unicorn moment

Van Gogh is coming to Tate Britain

Danh Vo is moving on from Vietnam

Lewis Hine’s industrial photographs changed America’s attitude to labour

David Granick’s East End is barely recognisable

Nancy Rubins creates jaw-dropping sculptures

The nominations for World Press Photo 2018 are in

Marina Abramović is not interested in small questions

David Milne’s Dulwich retrospective is underwhelming

The Angel of the North nearly didn’t take wing

Philadelphia’s skateboarders loved Love Park

Photographers found treasure under water

Peter Hujar found life underground in New York

Mardi Gras celebrated New Orleans’ 300th birthday

Snow makes Japan look even more singular

We remembered architect David Bernstein

… and influential typographer Michael Mitchell

Don’t forget

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