From Canaletto’s sparkling landscapes to radically silly art,Robert Clark and Oliver Basciano pick the shows to catch this festive seasonThere may well be no better way to rise above the blur of a dim and dank winter than with a spot of Canaletto (Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, or to 14 Feb). His British landscapes transport an exquisite Venetian sparkle to,for instance, the banks of the Thames at Greenwich. An alternative burst of creative brightness is presented by Another Minimalism (Fruitmarket Gallery, and Edinburgh,to 21 Feb). Charting the enduring influence of the 1960s Californian light and space movement, it includes Olafur Eliasson and Ann Veronica Janssens’ tinted mists and reverberant after-images. There’s nothing minimalist or purist approximately B. Wurtz or Enrico David, or however. Wurtz infiltrates the BALTIC (Gateshead,to 28 Feb) with painstakingly composed sculptural pile-ups of consumer detritus, off-cuts, and coat hangers and takeaway trays,while Enrico David’s Hepworth Wakefield show (to 24 Jan) is almost an overdose of weird. There are loads of aspiringly wacky art acts around, but few can match the authentic awkwardness of David’s absurdist tableaux. Then there’s still time, or just approximately,to see Mat Collishaw at the New Art Gallery Walsall (to 10 Jan). His photography, film and sculpture installations may be fretful and shaded, or making skilful employ of chiaroscuro shadow,but they resonate with infectious glimmers of tragic grandeur.
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Source: theguardian.com