Agenda February Our picks of the month

1 Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind Tate Modern, London 15 February–1 September

During a seven-decade career spanning art, music and activism, the now 90-year-old Yoko Ono has created a body of work as notable for its variety as for the consistency of her pacifist message. This retrospective features some 200 pieces including installations, films, conceptual pieces and photographs: from her Fluxus-like experiments of the 1960s through to recent participatory pieces.

3 Blood: Medieval/Modern Getty Center, Los Angeles 27 February–19 May

Few substances are more symbolically freighted than human blood. This exhibition explores some thousand years of our relationship with the stuff, presenting medieval manuscripts depicting Christian martyrdoms as well as much more recent works such as Nan Goldin’s Nan One Month After Being Battered (1984).

2 Rescued Modernism: Masterpieces from Kirchner to Picasso Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin 2 February–21 April

In 1937, Willy Kurth, a curator at the Kupferstichkabinett, saved hundreds of modernist artworks in its collection from the Nazi bid to destroy so-called degenerate art. This show of works by artists such as Ernst Kirchner, Max Beckmann and Ernst Barlach is a celebration of his achievement.

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4 On the Backs of Camels Weltmuseum Wien 27 February–26 January 2025

The United Nations has designated 2024 the International Year of Camelids: the family that includes llamas, alpacas and – of course – camels. The Weltmuseum Wien celebrates the part camelids have played in human societies from the time of their domestication some 6,000 years ago to the present day through artworks, artefacts, films and photographs.

5 Frank Auerbach: The Charcoal Heads Courtauld Gallery, London 9 February–27 May

From the 1950s to the early ’60s, the young Frank Auerbach created large-scale charcoal portraits of friends and lovers, which he worked and reworked for months apiece – sometimes to the point of breaking through the paper then patching it up. Seventeen of these drawings are on show at the Courtauld alongside six paintings of the same sitters.

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FEBRUARY 2024 APOLLO