Where to get your cultural fix for 2019 in two of the world’s art capitals.

With fairs, biennials and new museums opening around the world, art in the 21st century is truly global, but two cities, London and New York, continue to set the tone for the industry. And across modern and contemporary, in photography, painting and conceptual art, 2019 looks set to be a particularly interesting year for exhibitions on both sides of the Atlantic. Here, MR PORTER breaks down the five must-see shows in each city from now until summer.

Tracey Emin: A Fortnight Of Tears

White Cube Bermondsey6 February – 7 April

In 1999, Ms Tracey Emin scandalised the art world and tabloid press alike by exhibiting a dirty, unmade bed. Two decades on, a major show at White Cube’s Bermondsey space sees the most famous YBA mount a less conceptual exhibition of painting, sculpture, film, photography and drawing – though traditionalists should still be suitably shocked by her powerful, unflinching take on sex, death and femininity.

whitecube.com

Pierre Bonnard: The Colour Of Memory

Tate Modern Until 6 May

History has been unkind to Mr Pierre Bonnard. Described by Mr Henri Matisse as “the greatest of us all,” Mr Bonnard – perhaps on account of his subject matter; calm landscapes and interior scenes, painted from memory in vibrant colours – has not achieved the same renown as contemporaries such as Messrs Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin and André Derain. A new exhibition at the Tate Modern attempts to reassert Mr Bonnard’s position in early 20th-century art.

tate.org.uk

Don McCullin

Tate Britain 5 February – 6 May

Sir Don McCullin’s arresting portrait of a shell-shocked Marine has become one of the most iconic images of the Vietnam War. Exhibited at Tate Britain with some 250 photographs from Syria, Cambodia and Northern Ireland, all hand-printed by Sir Donald himself, this exhaustive retrospective encompasses 60 years of work, forming a more nuanced portrait of one of Britain’s most celebrated photographers – showing work documenting working-class life in London’s East End and the industrial North, and landscapes of Somerset, where he now lives, alongside his war photography.

tate.org.uk

Hanna Moon And Joyce Ng: English As A Second Language

Somerset House, Terrace Rooms Until 28 April

Centred around a new series of works commissioned by Somerset House, responding directly to the 18th-century building, English As A Second Language sees two pioneering fashion photographers, Ms Hanna Moon and Ms Joyce Ng, present an alternative perspective on Western aesthetics and ideals. Through fashion photography, a medium that is uniquely placed to question ideas of beauty, style and taste, both artists interrogate the concept of “otherness”.

somersethouse.org.uk

Phyllida Barlow: cul-de-sac

Royal Academy of Arts 23 February – 23 June

Before she was thrust onto the international stage as Britain’s representative at the 2017 Venice Biennale, Ms Phyllida Barlow, who turns 75 this year, was almost as well known for her academic career at the Slade School of Art, teaching Turner Prize-winner Ms Rachel Whiteread, as for her so-called “anti-monumental” sculptures. Now, however, her work – towering, room-filling installations – have been accepted into the mainstream, taking the form, at a new RA exhibition, of a vast, exploded residential cul-de-sac.

royalacademy.org.uk

Joan Miró: The Birth Of The World

The Museum of Modern Art 24 February – 6 July

Focusing on the great Catalan painter’s signature work “The Birth Of The World”, from 1925, this new exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art explores Mr Miró’s relationship with poetry. There are also around 60 paintings, drawings, prints, books and objects, that date between 1920, when Mr Miró made his first formative trip to Paris, and the early 1950s, when his very particular surrealist language gained worldwide renown.

moma.org

Leonard Cohen: A Crack In Everything

The Jewish Museum 12 April – 8 September

The Jewish Museum will be continuing its series of experimental programming with an exhibition dedicated to the life and work of Mr Leonard Cohen. More than a collection of artefacts devoted to the celebrated Canadian singer-songwriter, the exhibition brings together work by a dozen contemporary artists, including Mr Jon Rafman and Ms Tacita Dean, as well as presenting covers of Mr Cohen’s songs recorded by Feist, Moby and Mr Sufjan Stevens.

thejewishmuseum.org

Implicit Tensions: Mapplethorpe Now

Guggenheim Until 10 July 2019; 24 July 2019 – 5 January 2020

This year marks three decades since the death of celebrated American photographer Mr Robert Mapplethorpe. Working exclusively in black and white, Mr Mapplethorpe rose to prominence shooting the creative scene in New York – most notably his friend, lover and long-term collaborator, Ms Patti Smith – but he is also celebrated for exploring the human form and themes of love, sex and, controversially, homoeroticism. A year-long exhibition at the Guggenheim, split into several parts, charts his career, from early experiments with Polaroids to a moving series of self-portraits, documenting his struggle with HIV/Aids, from which he died aged only 42.

guggenheim.org

Lucio Fontana: On The Threshold

The Met Breuer 23 January – 14 April

Mr Lucio Fontana is perhaps the most vilified artist of the 20th century. His iconic cut paintings – monochrome canvases slashed with a Stanley knife – have become emblematic of a my-child-could-do-that type of modern art, a but new exhibition at The Met Breuer, The Met’s space for modern and contemporary art, places these paintings in a wider context – his role in establishing the Spatialist movement, as well as the figurative work in ceramic and sculpture his conceptual pieces were developed from.

metmuseum.org

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