5 amazing art shows to see this April

From stunning ceramics in London to unforgettable faces in Dublin, here are five of this month’s top exhibitions to see

Cheng Tsung Feng’s Fish Trap House. Image: Courtesy of the artist

1. Taiwan comes to London

Expect experimental dance, haunting music, immersive VR experiences and large-scale installations at London’s first major festival of contemporary Taiwanese arts and culture, taking place at The Coronet Theatre in Notting Hill this month. Its Taiwan Festival will include a stunning new commission encasing the venue’s façade by acclaimed installation artist Cheng Tsung Feng, known for his collaborations with high-profile brands including Cartier, Hermes, Apple, Nike and many more. Feng often takes inspiration from traditional Taiwanese crafts, as in his Fish Trap House (above), made using techniques learned from the indigenous Thao people living around Sun Moon Lake.

12–27 April

thecoronettheatre.com

Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with the Red Hat, c.1665–67. Image: Andrew W Mellon Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington

2. Face to face

One of Vermeer’s smallest paintings, Girl with the Red Hat nevertheless grabs our attention, thanks to the informal air and disarmingly direct gaze of its young sitter. Rarely exhibited outside the United States, it’s one of many gems in the National Gallery of Ireland’s exhibition Turning Heads: Rubens, Rembrandt and Vermeer. Well worth a visit if you’re in Dublin this spring, the show focuses on the art of the tronie, which roughly translates as ‘face’ in Dutch. Intended as an interesting character study rather than a portrait, the tronie were a common subject in Dutch Golden Age and Flemish Baroque art. Alongside pieces by its three big hitters, the exhibition also includes wonderful examples of the form by Michael Sweerts, Jacob Jordaens and Anthony van Dyck.

Until 26 May

nationalgallery.ie

Miche Follano's Urban Sketch series. Image: Courtesy of the artist

3. Clay for today

Ceramic Art London, the UK’s foremost exhibition of contemporary studio ceramics, returns this month with more spectacular pieces by stellar makers. After regularly selling out at its former home at Central Saint Martins, the show is moving to a bigger venue at London’s Kensington Olympia West for this, its 20th year. Returning exhibitors include Bedfordshire-born and -based maker Miche Follano, whose colourful recent body of work draws on urban landscapes as well as the artist’s love of collage, painting and typography. Her terracotta pieces suggest city walls that have been endlessly overlaid with layers of paint and print.

19–21 April

ceramicartlondon.com

Antony Gormley installs his work Time Horizon at Houghton Hall in Norfolk. Image: © Pete Huggins

4. Houghton horizon

One hundred of Antony Gormley’s cast-iron human forms will be populating the house and grounds at Norfolk’s Houghton Hall this spring as part of his vast installation Time Horizon. Previously exhibited on the site of a former Roman city in Italy, the superstar artist’s work has been recreated in this Palladian country house setting for its first-ever UK showing. Each life-sized sculpture is mounted to stand at the same height, meaning that some are buried in the ground while others stand on concrete columns, according to the local topography. Together, they form a single horizon, which Gormley hopes visitors will roam freely: ‘Time Horizon is not a picture, it is a field, and you are in it.’

21 April–31 October

houghtonhall.com

Robert Organ’s School Children, 1981. Image: owned by Truro School Art Collection

5. Truro’s treasures

It’s not every artist that attempts the tricky task of depicting children, but this vivid piece is one of a number of such paintings by West Country painter and teacher Robert Organ, who passed away last year at the age of 90. It’s a fitting highlight of a new exhibition of works owned by Truro School, currently on show at the Royal Cornwall Museum. Since the 1980s the school has amassed an impressive collection of late 20th- and early 21st-century art to inspire students, and now the general public is getting a rare peek at some of its treasures. Many of the school’s holdings are by artists who lived or worked in Cornwall, including Peter Lanyon, Jeremy Le Grice, Kate Nicholson, Terry Frost and Patrick Heron.

Until 18 May

royalcornwallmuseum.org.uk

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