I've been to see some art.
And, unexpectedly, an artist.
Tate Modern
★★★☆☆ Mire Lee: Open Wound (until 16 March)
Time was when a new Turbine Hall commission was big news, but this year's seems to have slipped out last week mostly unheralded. So what have we got? A giant metal motor hanging in mid-air, slowly turning, over which are draped strips of fabric soaked in some manky viscous liquid. This drips gradually into a metal tray underneath, turning a series of fabric skins a mucky shade of brown. These are then laid out to dry before being hung from the ceiling on chains, the idea being that the Turbine Hall gradually fills over the next five months. According to the artist it's an "industrial womb" and also symbolic of systematic decline, which feels particularly appropriate in the setting of a former power station. I like that there's actually something to watch this year, and indeed listen to as the water splashes down, though it won't detain you long. It may well be worth seeing early and then seeing again later once the number of grubby aerial skins has increased. In the 25 year span of Turbine Hall commissions this one's middling, which after a fewrecent duffers is a good thing.
White Cube, Bermondsey
★★★★☆ Tracey Emin: I followed you to the end (until 10 November)
Dame Tracey's latest exhibition is an especially raw outburst of recent work, reflecting emotional and medical trauma in bold impulsive brushstrokes, mostly red. Men have not been good to her, as you can tell from the heartfelt angry scrawl below some of the pieces, and her body has behaved arguably worse. Tracey's sprawled body appears in the majority of the works, usually in one of her trademark beds, generally unclad. Everything's rough enough that intimate body parts are generally only hinted at, that is unless you go into the video room for a 1-minute bleeding loop that bears witness to the aftermath of major surgery. The largest gallery also contains a huge humanoid bronze raised on pained haunches, which like the canvases exudes deep frustrated anguish. Once again Dame Tracey excels in revealing herself, if you're fortunate enough to look.
Serpentine North Gallery
★★★★☆ Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst: The Call (until 2 February)
This is utterly refreshingly different - an exhibition of choral singing powered by AI. It's in three sections, all backed up with actual singing sessions recorded at 15 locations across the UK which were used to train the AI model. I'm still a bit mystified by what I heard in the first two chambers, and that's after reading the 24 page glossy booklet twice, but I don't think the AI does any of the singing, only maybe a lot of the composing. It still sounded magnificently cathedral-like echoing around the gallery. The real gamechanger is the third chamber where small groups (not exceeding four) approach a microphone, sing and the AI essentially joins in. It's been a while since I've sung in public so I started out tentatively, then extemporised more boldly, then threw in the Wombling Song to see how it coped. It was hard to hear fully because when I stopped it stopped, but I worry that one day these models won't require further human input and everyone'll love the output anyway. Expect queues at weekends.
Serpentine South Gallery
★★★☆☆ Lauren Halsey: emajendat (until 2 March)
The LA artist invites you to step round an immersive ‘Funk garden’ brimming with iconography you might see in a black urban neighbourhood. It's culturally dazzling, even underfoot, if a bit brief.
White Cube, Mason's Yard
★☆☆☆☆ Danh Vo (until 16 November)
I can't believe I made a special effort to see this. Some boxed statuary ("charged with restless histories"). Some plywood walls ("temporary spatial interventions to shape corridors of light and shadow"). A couple of open suitcases ("wry commentary on value paradigms"). Two floors of mostly empty space ("an exploration of power structures and their influence on both personal and collective identity"). Sometimes you should take the hint from the online spiel and not bother.
Barbican, The Curve
★★☆☆☆
Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum: It Will End In Tears (until 5 January)
I love the idea, which is to present a walkthrough sequence of painted stills from a film noir about a femme fatale. Follow the ramps and walkways round the curve (she arrives!) stepping through various plywood film sets (a knife glints!) and it's up to you to determine what you reckon the plot might be (the jury decides!). I suspect I'd have got more out of it if I'd walked through again.
Nunnery Gallery, Bow Road
★★★★☆ In the footsteps of the East London Group (until 22 December)
The most successful exhibition my local gallery ever put on was a retrospective of works by the East London Group, a working class collective who met in the late 1920s at a Bethnal Green evening class. Now those beloved canvases are back but - here's the twist - accompanied by contemporary streetscapes in approximately parallel locations. A sepia wharf then, the Olympic Park now. A railway bridge then, a graffitied corner now. Some of the newbies like Doreen Fletcher take an appealingly traditional approach (her 2019 retrospective was another local favourite). Others have a penchant for council estates or are more geometrically suspect, but the contrast is always appealing. A particular favourite was Ferha Farooqui's Lost Highway, a depiction of Stratford High Street cleverly combining now and then, lifted from her Disappearing landmarks series. If you do come don't come this Saturday because it's closed for a symposium, but if you like non-faffy art do come.
Newport Street Gallery
★★☆☆☆ Wes Lang: The Black Paintings (until 9 March)
What's on at Damien Hirst's place is an exhibition devoted to the American artist Wes Lang, never previously displayed in this country. They're an acquired taste. The cast of characters is somewhat restrictive, mostly featuring a skeletal noble posing in front of a black background in some kind of fantastical setting, intermittently accompanied by a bluebird and/or bony acolytes. I was thinking voodoo heavy metal album covers but apparently it's more about Taoist positivity. If nothing else the image of a red devil flying off with a church under its wing will remain with me.
Tate Britain
★★☆☆☆ Alvaro Barrington: Grace (until 26 January)
This paean to the artist's Caribbean family lines the centre of the gallery, a little self-indulgently. I skated past the covered benches, took a little longer to wheel round the steel drums and ended up by the corrugated shed. Hang on, I thought, that person admiring the shed looks like Robert who does that art podcast with Russell. And then I clocked the person standing next to him and it was definitely Dame Tracey Emin. I felt somewhat unnerved because this was the very person whose intimate art had affected me a few hours earlier, and here she was admiring other people's work like a normal punter. Her real target was the Turner Prize exhibition nextdoor, an award her My Bed was nominated for 25 years ago, and I hope she and Robert enjoyed it. Once again Dame Tracey excels in revealing herself, if you're fortunate enough to look.
