After years of war in parts of Africa and the Middle East — with its ensuing famine and economic collapse — a mass of people are on the move in search of safety and sanctuary. The EU policy of Fortress Europe is designed to keep them out. The result is a human catastrophe, as we witness years of harrowing images of migrants forced to make the desperate sea crossing to try and reach a place of safety.
Lee Miller, the iconic woman who modelled for some of Man Ray’s most evocative images, was far more than an object of beauty. This photographic exhibition is testament to that.
It tells the story of Miller’s life chronologically, with photographs of her modelling in front of the camera and images taken by her behind the camera.
Tate Modern, London, until 7 September
Shortly after Henri Matisse's death the writer and artist John Berger wrote a short illuminating essay on Matisse's work in which he remarked, "I can think of no modern artist with less interest in history or psychology." He was born in the year that the Cutty Sark was launched and died the year in which the first hydrogen bomb was tested.
Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, until 23 March
Hannah Hoch was one of the great revolutionary artistic innovators of the early 20th century. Along with Raoul Hausmann, George Grosz and John Heartfield she led the way in developing what has become known as photomontage or collage.
The avant-garde Berlin Dadaist group, of which Hoch was a member, was the most politically developed of the Dadaist groupings that sprang up across Europe and the US from around 1916. The Berlin Dadaists would use their new method of working not as a mere innovative technique in their "art practice" but, crucially, as a weapon.
Tate Modern, London. Until 9 March 2014
Paul Klee has been described as "the left's favourite artist". This reputation stems in no small part from the use by the German critic and writer Walter Benjamin, in a typically poetic analogy, of one of Klee's works in his Thesis on the Philosophy of History:
Iniva, Rivington Place
It is somehow fitting, given the subject matter of this very good exhibition, that it is housed in Rivington Place which is located in the heart of the now fashionable and expensive lanes of Shoreditch in East London, once home to numerous factories, workshops, breweries and working class houses that supplied much of the capital's furniture and building trades.
