Carl Andre: Mass & Matter - Turner Contemporary

Carl Andre, Timber Piece (Well), 1964/70

Carl Andre: Mass & Matter is at Turner Contemporary until 6 May 2013.
I am so looking foward to a trip to Margate to see this exhibition. I love Andre's clear, simple and direct arrangements of wood, metal and bricks.
Read a review by Alastair Sooke and an article by Emma Brockes.

Carl Andre, Phalanx, 1981

Carl Andre, Weathering Piece, 1970

Carl Andre installing a work in 1964. Photograph: Martin Ries

Manet: Portraying Life - Royal Academy

Edouard Manet, Portrait of Stéphane Mallarmé, 1876

Manet: Portraying Life is at the Royal Academy of Arts until 14 April 2013.
This exhibition contains some wonderful paintings (my favourites are illustrated here); but, as a whole, the show is a little overstretched and is padded out with a number of minor works.
Music in the Tuileries Gardens is, rather oddly, given an entire gallery to itself: making this painting the centrepiece of this paying exhibition seems a little ironic given that, as Adrian Searle points out in his review, usually it can be seen for free in the National Gallery, down the road.
A flawed Manet exhibition is, nevertheless, a wonderful exhibition and well worth seeing.
Read reviews by Laura Cumming and Adrian Searle and an article, Manet's Portraits: the Artist on the Knife-Edge of Photography, by Philip Hensher.

Edouard Manet, Luncheon in the Studio, 1868

Edouard Manet, Portrait of Emile Zola, 1867-8

Edouard Manet, Portrait of Zacharie Astruc, 1864

Edouard Manet, Berthe Morisot with Black Hat and Violets, 1872

Edouard Manet, The Railway, 1873