A soldier’s vision, astro masterpieces and the treasures of Kazakhstan – the week in art

Exhibition of the week

Marcus Jansen
Visceral paintings of a world gone mad by this US army veteran.
Almine Rech, London, from 13 Jan to 22 February

Also showing

Turner in January
The swirling, luminous landscapes of JMW Turner get their traditional new year airing in Edinburgh. Who says there are no fireworks this year?
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, until 31 January

Rana Begum
Paintings and installations that explore the nature of colour.
Warwick Arts Centre, from 13 January to 13 March

Astronomy Photographer of the Year
Stunning pictures of the night sky that prove anyone can create a masterpiece of astrophotography.
National Maritime Museum, London, until 7 August

Gold of the Great Steppe
With Kazakhstan currently in crisis, this exhibition uncovers its long and rich history as a land of nomads before the Soviet era.
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, until 30 January

Image of the week

This is a painting by the pseudonymous artist Rhed, who has been exhibiting in London since 2018 and whose work – inspired by Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon and Paula Rego, according to his gallerist – has sold for five-figure sums. This week Rhed was revealed to be Rocco Ritchie, the 21-year-old son of Guy Ritchie and Madonna. Read the full story here.

What we learned

Italy is returning a Parthenon fragment to Greece amid UK row over marbles

Tracey Emin is to launch a “revolutionary” art school in Margate

Crypto tycoons helped drive global art market records in 2021

A Tory minister wants to change the law after topplers of the Colston statue in Bristol were cleared by a court

The Royal Academy will show how Francis Bacon created his own mythology of the perverse

The ‘democratic’ painting of AR Penck, which made him an enemy of East Germany’s Stasi, will go on show

Eminem is reported to have paid $450,00 for an NFT of a bored ape “Eminape” …

… but Melania Trump is selling an NFT portrait of herself for just $180,000

The radical Blk Art Group rocked Thatcher’s Britain

A New York exhibition, Doomscrolling, explores our appetite for hearing the worst

Fresh proof has been uncovered that the Nazis used fake auctions and paperwork to disguise their art theft

Wayne Thiebaud, famous for his paintings of cakes and pies, died aged 101 …

Pioneering British photorealist painter John Salt died aged 84 …

and humanist photographer Sabine Weiss also died

Masterpiece of the week

Francisco de Goya: The Sleep of Reason produces Monsters (El sueño de la razon produce monstruos) 1797 – 8
Made long before Sigmund Freud or Surrealism, this etching looks into the dark recesses of the mind. If this man of the 18th-century Enlightenment was awake, he would be going about his rational business of improvement, indicated by the book over which he slumps. But his sleeping psyche is populated by sinister creatures of the night who personify bestial passions and unholy terrors. Goya created this profound image as the French Revolution degenerated into the Terror and, with it, hopes of liberal reform in his native Spain started to look like fading dreams. Things would soon get worse when Napoleon conquered Spain, bloody resistance ensued and Goya witnessed real monstrosities. Here he shudders at what he senses is about to unfold in reason’s twilight.
British Museum, London

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