Arte: what not to miss in 2009

The Guardian, Tuesday 30 December 2008

Picasso: Challenging the Past

Throughout his life Picasso turned to his predecessors to refresh his art. He stole and borrowed everywhere, parodied and paid homage to El Greco, Velázquez, Ingres, Delacroix, Manet and many others. Following an enormously successful earlier Picasso exhibition at the Prado in Madrid, and a current show in Paris, London's National Gallery revisits the artist's relationship with the past by confronting 60 of his works with paintings in the gallery's collection.

• National Gallery, London WC2 (020-7747 2885), from 25 Feb.

The Russian Linesman

Named for the controversial goal that a Russian linesman awarded England in the 1966 World Cup final, artist Mark Wallinger has curated an exhibition that deals with the murky subject of boundaries and thresholds. A polymath and artistic omnivore, Wallinger should make a good curator, and his touring show includes early Roman busts, Ronald Searle drawings, Victorian stereoscopic photographs, 18th-century trompe l'oeil paintings and artists as diverse as Vija Celmins, Thomas Demand, Albrecht Dürer and Fred Sandback.

• Hayward Gallery, London SE1 (08703 800 400), 18 Feb to 4 May. Then at Art Gallery, Leeds (0113 247 8256), 9 May to 28 June; and Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea (01792 516900), 18 July - 20 Sep.

Isa Genzken

London's Whitechapel Art Gallery re-opens in the spring, after a major development and expansion. With more exhibition spaces and an ambitious programme, starting with a retrospective of German artist Isa Genzken, whose sculptures, collages and assemblages display great wit and originality. The opening shows also include a display of works from the British Council's collection selected by Jeremy Deller, a new site-specific work by Goshka Macuga and photographs by Juergen Teller.

• Whitechapel Art Gallery, London E1 (020-7522 7878), April.

Venice Biennale

Following the success of his film Hunger, Steve McQueen will show new work in the British pavilion, John Cale is the surprise participant for Wales, British artist Liam Gillick inexplicably shows for Germany and Bruce Nauman finally gets the US pavilion in the 53rd biennale. Venice remains the biggest and best of such events. Forget the decadent parties and the schmoozing - no one can afford it any more - and go for the art.

• Venice, Italy, 7 June - 22 Nov; labiennale.org.

Colour Chart: Reinventing Colour, 1950 to Today

However you define or describe it, colour is untamable, and sometimes even unnameable. Originally at MoMA in New York, this show takes many of its cues from British artist David Bachelor's influential book Chromophobia, and features Ad Reinhardt, Blinky Palermo, Richard Serra, Gerhard Richter and many others. As well as paintings, the exhibition includes rarities and oddities, film, video and photography, colour charts and faded swatches.

• Tate Liverpool (0151 702 7400), 29 May to 13 Sept.

Roni Horn aka Roni Horn

Roni Horn has spent much of the last quarter-century commuting between her native New York and Iceland - a country she uses as both her studio and as material for an art that slips between genres and combines sculpture, drawing, photography, installation and making books. Horn has no problem conflating the poet Emily Dickinson with Baywatch star Angie Dickinson, building a library of melted glaciers, or compiling books about the weather.

Tate Modern, London (020-7887 8888), 25 Feb to 25 May.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/dec/30/visual-art-guide-2009

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