2022 is a wrap, and not many will regret it. But through the political and financial storms around the world, art continues to emerge from the pandemic years. If last year was a time to re-create the normal pieces better – music festivals, for example – 2023 seems to be the moment when the effects of the long closure will definitely be in the rearview mirror.
The visual art looks really strong. The Rijksmuseum’s Vermeer exhibition, opened in Amsterdam in February. For once, all the old terms – “once in a lifetime”, “greatest”, “unique”, etc. – really apply, because the Dutch museum says it will collect from all over the world “the majority” of 35 paintings known by the twentieth-century master -17. An impressive work of international collaboration and organization, it is sure to be an equally impressive exhibition.
In London too, February will be a gala month, with the cream of the crop being the V&A which hosts a magnificent display of Donatello’s work – perhaps the first in the British capital – which has traveled from Florence Bargello and Palazzo Pitti via Gemäldegalerie Berlin. In complete contrast, the beautifully restored Courtauld Gallery (reopening as one of the highlights in 2021) will present an important show of new and new works by Peter Doig, beloved in the contemporary scene whose paintings only gain interest because of their realism. which works very slowly, production maybe half a dozen years. And at the same time, the Barbican – whose recent record shows contemporaries and modernists such as Basquiat, Lee Krasner and Dubuffet have set themselves firmly among the capital’s A-list art scene – opened the biggest show of the American artist Alice yet in the UK. Neel, who died in 1984.
Also promising for February is an important opening in India. MAP Bengaluru (Museum of Art and Photography) is a private museum that has amassed a collection of Indian art, textiles, photography, handicrafts and design objects. With works dating from the 12th century and up to the present day, it juggles tradition and technology in a way that only India can, in a stunning new building by Bengaluru-based architect Soumitro Ghosh: it will be the most important in the south . India.
Further to the spring, a selection of pickings from various streams including Tate Britain’s first wide-ranging showing of Isaac Julien’s films and installation works in April; The British Museum’s flagship exhibition for May, Luxury and Power: Persia to Greece, who argues that luxury became a political tool that was skillfully deployed in the Middle East and then flourished in 550-30 BC; and in New York, the Metropolitan Museum’s exhibition of 50 vibrant paintings, drawings and prints by Cecily Brown (b1969).
The highlight of early April was at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, where the extraordinary artistic collaboration between Andy Warhol and the younger Jean-Michel Basquiat was celebrated in Basquiat X Warhol: Quatre Mains. In 1984 and 1985, he created around 160 paintings at once, working on large canvases in a way unprecedented in the history of art. For a vivid account of the relationship between the pair, including footage of the two artists at work and detailing a complex and passionate link that only ended with Basquiat’s tragic early death, the Netflix documentary series. The Andy Warhol Diaries provide interesting insights.
If all of this seems like a long time to wait, there’s still plenty to brighten up those dreary January days. In New York, Neue Galerie’s 20th anniversary celebrations continue this month with a stunning collection from founder Ronald S Lauder. About 500 works from many centuries, in many genres, displayed in the luxurious setting of Fifth Avenue and, what’s more, some in the recreation of Lauder’s own room, take us to the world of the highest private collection, for money great. connoisseur in style receding into the past.
And my personal favorites: Friends and Relationships, at Gagosian on Grosvenor Hill in London, continues until January 28. It shows a group of British artists that includes Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Michael Andrews and Frank Auerbach with a treasure-trove of works – some well-known, some loans from discreet private collections and rarely seen – which leaves us in no doubt about the importance of these figures. If it seems unusual to mark a commercial gallery rather than a public institution, this show certainly has the quality of a museum, well designed and curated, which brings the artist and the work to life with careful research and thought. A real treat.
Moving on to the performing arts, the prospects seem less confident. Live performances, from theater and dance to all kinds of music, get a real battering in various keys, and all the most starry showgoers have slowly returned – partly because of health fears, but also because the patterns of seeing and habits have been changed by isolation and closure.
Dancers may have been hit the hardest of all artists during the lockdown, due to the intense demands to maintain physical fitness, but the dance world is back in action. When we have passed the Christmas fare – Nutcrackers and Snowpeople as far as the eye can see – there are some very strong programs coming up. To choose only a couple, there New pack at Lincoln Center in New York, resident choreographer Justin Peck’s first work of the evening, and at Sadler’s Wells in London the great Akram Khan. Creatures. Peck uses music by Aaron Copland and collaborates with Choctaw-Cherokee painter and sculptor Jeffrey Gibson: celebrating American culture in all its finest forms. Khan, meanwhile, looks to Frankenstein and German classics Woyzeck to imagine a futuristic unearthly tale of experiments on creatures that are exploited in search of frontiers to conquer.
In the UK, vicious cuts in public funding have raised questions about the future of many beloved venues: the Donmar Warehouse, Hampstead Theatre, the much-discussed English National Opera and more. However, the programs for the future are immediately underway, and the best thing is to participate and enjoy what is offered. At ENO, the first three months of the year bring only three great classics: Carmen, Rhinegold and Philip Glass Akhenaten; in April comes the UK debut of Bluea moving contemporary story of family rift by Tony-winning composer Jeanine Tesori, with soprano Nadine Benjamin and bass-baritone Michael Sumuel.
At the Donmar, February brought Trouble in Butetown by Diana Nneka Atuona, the war story of an African-American GI who went Awol from the barracks to take a chance in a world without segregation. Hampstead Theatre, which has issued a statement about its determination to stay alive as a production house supporting adventurous new work despite 100 per cent funding cuts, is now showing Stephen Karam. Sons of the Prophet.
Elsewhere, it’s not all bleak on the UK scene: there are winners and losers in this funding overhaul. Chine! The Orchestra, the only professional group of black and ethnic classical musicians in England and only seven years old, sees its funding status radically: the players will show their chops in early March at the Queen Elizabeth Hall with a program that includes the recently re-evaluated black English author Samuel Coleridge -Taylor (d1912) and good but until recently neglected American talent Florence Price (d1953). Add to that the US composer Carlos Simon, 36 years old, and Elena Urioste on the violin.
In other music, Elton John announced a farewell tour in Europe, after saying goodbye to the US at Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium in November. This side of the Atlantic will be Glastonbury in June in England, and the last one in Stockholm in July.
But of course we have learned to take farewell tours with a pinch of salt: never say never. And on that topic, perhaps the most surprising announcement for the rock and pop scene of 2023 is the full solo show of Joni Mitchell, the first in 20 years, after a long battle to recover from a brain aneurysm. Mitchell made a surprise appearance at last year’s Newport Folk Festival: now he’s planning shows in Malmö, Sweden, in February and in the small town of George, WA (pop: 833), in June.
That, of course, will be the hottest ticket of the year.