Mind-melting MC Escher, mesmerizing Marilyn and the greatness of Glasgow – a week in art | Art and design

Show of the week

MC Escher
The Dutch master painter’s stunning visual, brain-melting eye gets the details of his pictures right, with video, music and installations adding to the excitement.
Somerset House, Londonuntil 6 September

Also show

Julio Le Parc: Light. Color. Activities.
An exploration of this Argentinian artist who settled in Paris and has been active in French art.
Tate Modern, Londonfrom 11 June to 3 May 2027

The Black Planet Project
Chris Ofili, David Hammons and William Kentridge are among the stars of the great research of Pan-Africanism in art.
Barbican, Londonfrom 11 June to 6 September

Marilyn Monroe: Portrait
Andy Warhol was not the only artist who created a portrait of Marilyn, this exhibition reminds you. (But he was the best.)
National Portrait Gallery, Londonuntil 6 September

Glasgow International
Victoria Morton, Cathy Wilkes, Luke Fowler and more take part in this bi-annual event in Scotland’s arts capital.
Opening weekend until June 6, other shows continue through the summer.

Picture of the week

Former US president Barack Obama’s $850m library in Chicago has been compared to a ‘Klingon prison’ by some critics, ahead of its opening this month. The library building, located on the shores of Jackson Park in the south of the city, was designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, and its central tower was designed to look like four hands coming together as if protecting a flame – the light of hope. Our architectural critic Oliver Wainwright presents his observations at the Obama Presidential Center here.

What we learned

A forensic exhibition in Berlin marks the first mass murder of the 20th century

The biggest exhibition of North American art ever seen in Britain is coming to Yorkshire

The ‘crinkle crankle’ wall also forms the Serpentine circle

A new biennial klaxon! The first New York Upstate Photography Biennial opens

It’s London Gallery Weekend, and here are the 10 best galleries to see

The Met is celebrating the art of the painting

Jack White’s art is not as good as his music

The newly painted image of a cow in Milan is missing its cojones

Roni Horn made a show in the middle of ‘America’s fall’

The museum’s gift shop is the place to go for all things art

The Australian House Awards gives you the opportunity to view the most loved houses in the country

Mine of the week

Peepshow With Interior Views of a Dutch House by Samuel van Hoogstratenabout 1655-60

MC Escher (see the exhibition of the week) was interested in both visual and architectural, depicting impossible interiors and fantastical worlds. The results are confusing however as an artist who is deeply rooted in Dutch tradition, as the 17th century doll for adults reveals. Hoogstraten painted the interior of a house inside a wooden box: when you look at the nose, it focuses your vision so that you seem to be looking at the real space of the house, taking in the table and chairs, the open door, the spare rooms, even the dog, as if you were thinking about these painted objects in a real, deep space. Hoogstraten uses imagination to trick the mind and make an illusory world seem real, just as Escher did centuries later.
National Gallery, London

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