Van Gogh dazzles, the Fourth Plinth beckons and Norwich nabs some narcs – the week in art

Vincent scores exhibition of the year, Teresa Margolles prepares for Trafalgar Square, Hew Locke unpicks the royals and Tracey Emin opens her heart – all in your weekly dispatch

Exhibition of the week

Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers
Dazzling, disorientating and beautiful – this is the exhibition of the year and will make you fall in love with Van Gogh as if for the very first time.
• National Gallery, London, from 14 September until 19 January

Also showing

Teresa Margolles
This death-obsessed Mexican artist is likely to create one of the most disturbing works to have occupied the Fourth Plinth.
• Fourth Plinth, Trafalgar Square, London, from 18 September

Power Plants
An investigation of narcotics in human cultures, from peyote rituals to tea ceremonies.
• Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, from 14 September until 2 February

Tracey Emin
Blood, guts and nudity are likely to abound in Emin’s latest heartfelt paintings.
• White Cube Bermondsey, London, from 19 September until 10 November

Hew Locke
Ahead of his forthcoming British Museum exhibition, Locke shows works that deconstruct the image of royalty.
• Hales Gallery, London, until 2 November

Image of the week

Providing safe routes for asylum seekers should be the focus of the UK government if it is to stop small boat crossings, according to the artist Es Devlin, who is unveiling 50 portraits of refugees that she wants to challenge misconceptions. The project, which draws on her research into the plight of refugees across the world and of those attempting to get to Britain, is called Congregation and is a collaboration with the UN high commissioner for refugees. Read the full article

What we learned

Derek Boshier, a pop art pioneer who worked with David Bowie, has died aged 87

A long lost Frederic Leighton painting, which he loved, will go on show in November

Bradford has unveiled its 2025 City of Culture lineup

Michael Craig-Martin talked about nurturing the YBAs but blooming late himself

A major display aims to show why Picasso was one of the greatest ever printmakers

A Lap-See Lam installation uses Chinese restaurants to reflect a changing diaspora

Rebecca Horn, the German artist known for her ‘art machines’, has died aged 80

Seeking advice on painting from his dreams, Gary Hume was told: ‘Put a swan in it’

Viral video artist Jan Hakon Erichsen needed 25 stitches after one recent work

Masterpiece of the week

Christ on the Cross by Eugène Delacroix, 1853

Van Gogh decided when he was working in Arles that his true art hero was Delacroix. Vincent had been liberated by the impressionists and their younger rivals in Paris – he knew Gauguin, Bernard and Signac among others – to use colour with radical freedom. But he wrote most passionately in his letters about the earlier 19th-century painter Delacroix whose works, including Women of Algiers and Liberty Leading the People are charged with bold, enflaming colour. Here, the poetic intensity of Delacroix goes with the modern religious fervour Van Gogh also respected - he made a copy of Delacroix’s Pietà in 1889. This crucifixion might be a baroque painting until you notice that smoky, atmospheric sky and the cadaverous paleness of Christ in this bohemian vision of the abandoned Son of God.
• National Gallery, London

Don’t forget

To follow us on X (Twitter): @GdnArtandDesign.

Sign up to the Art Weekly newsletter

If you don’t already receive our regular roundup of art and design news via email, please sign up here.

Get in Touch

If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email [email protected]