Luminous Enlightenment, dark genius and Soviet shades – the week in art

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Exhibition of the week

Wright of Derby: From the Shadows
Two of the greatest paintings ever done about science – in which audiences are transfixed by lectures on an Orrery and Air-Pump – are brought together in this small but luminous show.
National Gallery, London, until 10 May

Also showing

David Hockney
He can’t stop – here are fresh pictures Hockney has made since his hit Paris show opened in the spring.
Annely Juda, London, until 28 February

Diane Arbus
Astonishing, upsetting, haunting portraits by a dark genius of the camera. Read our full review
David Zwirner Gallery, London, until 20 December

Saodat Ismailova
Films about the end of the Soviet Union by this Uzbek artist.
Baltic, Gateshead, from 8 November to 7 June

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Wilding
The first posthumous exhibition by this enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation, who died while it was being planned.
Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, until 1 February

Image of the week

The GRUMPY GUIDE at Kunstpalast Düsseldorf Germany

Joseph Langelinck has become a sellout hit at Düsseldorf’s Kunstpalast museum with €7 “Grumpy” guided tours, where he berates visitors for 70 minutes about their general ignorance. Carl Brandi, the performance artist who conceived of and performs as Langelinck explained his bad-tempered shtick to us. Read the full story

What we learned

David Hockney is still innovating, as proved by his latest London show

Cuban artist Wifredo Lam is getting his first US retrospective in New York

V&A East is targeting gen Z with an array of “unapologetically diverse” contents

Stacey Gillian Abe’s Indigogo project explores how indigo dye was used in the slave trade

The newest form of self-help book is the existential art book

A Nottingham gallery, The New Art Exchange, says it is the first ever run by citizens’ assembly

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Photo Oxford offers everything from historical cottaging locations to attempts to fool an AI

King’s College London has strapped participants to sensors to prove going to art galleries is good for you

Masterpiece of the week

Imitator of Hendrick van Steenwyck the Younger, Interior of a Church at Night, 1632

The dramatic effects of darkness and light that Joseph Wright of Derby brought to British art, which the National Gallery’s show of him celebrates, already had a long history in Europe. From Caravaggio’s intense scenes to Rembrandt’s profound portraits, artists had been experimenting with darkness for centuries. This painting shows how deeply Dutch 17th-century artists were drawn to the dark. It dwells in the darkest part of the church, brooding among shadows. At the sides, we can see the church’s public spaces are brightly lit, presumably with many candles. But in the dark, less visited part, fears and phantoms might dwell. In a great horror story by Sheridan Le Fanu, the similarly dark paintings of Gottfried Schalken turn out to contain a terrifying secret. Perhaps this painting holds a horror story of its own, for a tomb in it bears the name of Hendrick van Steenwyck the Younger – but the canvas is signed by him too. Did he paint it posthumously? A more boring explanation is that it’s by an imitator.
National Gallery, London

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