Birds, Mauritshuis, The Hague, until 7 June
It is not often that a work of art is listed as a “co-curator”, but that is how the Mauritshuis has described the role of its beloved painting The Goldfinch (1654) in the new exhibition Birds. The work by Carel Fabritius “needed a little help” to organise the show, the museum says on its website, so the renowned art historian Simon Schama helpfully stepped in. Our fascination with birds—exalted in art, poetry, religion and music, and yet commonly kept in cages—from ancient times to today is explored in the exhibition, while raising bigger questions around the issues of freedom, climate change and consumption. This far-reaching show includes paintings, sculptures, natural history exhibits, audiovisual installations and fashion by artists including Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Tracey Emin and Iris van Herpen.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Sleeping Hermaphroditus from the Rijksmuseum Metamophoses show Rijksmuseum/Amie Galbraith
Metamorphoses, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, until 25 May
“Passion, desire, lust, jealousy, cunning and deceit”—this is not a teaser for Love Island, but rather for the Rijksmuseum’s show inspired by the 15-book-long poem Metamorphoses (around AD8) by the Roman writer Ovid. The epic about vengeful gods, ingenious heroes and high-minded mortals has inspired artists for 2,000 years, and this exhibition brings together examples from Titian, Caravaggio, Auguste Rodin, Brancusi, Magritte and Louise Bourgeois. A collaboration with the Galleria Borghese in Rome, there are more than 80 works on show, including international loans. The cherry on the top is an audioguide voiced by the British actor—and self-confessed ancient history nerd—Stephen Fry.
Yayoi Kusama, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, 14 March-2 August
Museum Ludwig is throwing a polka dot party for its 50th birthday. A major exhibition of the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s work will go on show across the museum, spilling out from the galleries onto the gallery’s two roof terraces. The show will feature more than 100 works and several of Kusama’s large-scale installations that visitors have come to know and love, including a specially made Infinity Mirror Room that will fill the museum’s largest hall. It will also include Aggregation: One Thousand Boats Show, Kusama’s first ever installation created in 1963 and made up of a rowing boat covered in plaster-coated fabric phalluses. Now that’s what we call a party.
Four Times Two: Half a Century of Art from the Collection, Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht, until 14 June
The Bonnefanten Museum is exploring the connections of its own collection with a novel exhibition concept. Each room in the show displays very different works by four artists and invites visitors to find the links between them, with only the titles of each space as clues. The titles include “(un)justice and morality”, “engagement and desire” and “rhythm and transformation”. Paula van den Bosch, the show’s curator, says she “deliberately kept the wall texts brief so as to give visitors as little information as possible. Everything here revolves around looking at art”. The exhibition includes works from 1965 to 2015 and artists such as Francis Alÿs, Sol LeWitt and Laura Owens.
