Jonathan Jones's Blog, page 243

Christmas crackers: the best shows (plus top ways to escape the tinsel)

From the Nutcracker to American Psycho, from Mary Poppins to Kurt Vile, our critics pick their must-sees of the festive season

If you wish it could be Christmas every day

Nutcrackers, various
You know it's Christmas in the ballet world by the number of Nutcrackers touring the world's stages. In the UK alone, there are close to a dozen doing the rounds, but the top three remain the Royal Ballet's exquisitely traditional version, the sparky family friendly production by Birmingham Royal Ballet, and English National Ballet's – with the best snow scene of them all. Royal Opera House, London (020-7304 4000), 4 December to 16 January; Birmingham Hippodrome (0844 338 5000), to 12 December; London Coliseum (020-7845 9300), 11 December to 5 January.

Father Christmas
Does Father Christmas use the loo? Does he secretly long for summer? Does he have strong views on the size of chimneys? You bet he does. Raymond Briggs's gorgeous picture book gets a heartwarming makeover for under-sixes. Lyric Hammersmith, London (020-8741 6850), to 4 January and West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds (0113-213 7700), 6 December to 11 January.

Messiah
The Dunedin Consort's annual performances of Handel's oratorio have become a Christmas tradition. John Butt's choir and orchestra manage to combine scholarly stylishness with wonderfully communicative singing and playing – the best possible kind of historically aware performance. Queen's Hall, Edinburgh (0131-668 2019), 20 December; Kelvingrove Museum, Glasgow (0141-353 8000), 21 December.

The Nutcracker
Not the ballet, but the play based on the ETA Hoffman story. So there's no lush Tchaikovsky, but instead plenty of action and emotion as Clara tries to break the enchantment on the Nutcracker and defeat the dastardly King of the Mice in an age before pest control. Nuffield, Southampton (023-8067 1771), 5 December to 12 January.

El Niño
With texts from the gnostic gospels and Latin American women poets, John Adams's Nativity Oratorio was originally designed for both concert hall and opera house, but it works best as a concert piece. Vladimir Jurowski's performance with the London Philharmonic is the final, climactic event in the Southbank Centre's year-long The Rest is Noise festival. Royal Festival Hall, London (0845 875 0073), 14 December.

Henning Wehn's Authentic German Christmas Do
Henning Wehn bring his festive show to the West End over three consecutive weekends. Expect much gloating about how good the Germans are at Christmas, plus singalong Stille Nacht and lots of jokes about "ruthless efficiency". Leicester Square theatre, London (08448 733433), 1, 8 & 15 December.

Gone with the Wind
Its history and politics look bizarre now, but this extravagant melodrama of America's old south destroyed by the civil war has a potent storytelling force and the performances are something to savour. Clark Gable is the devilishly handsome and uncaring Rhett Butler, Vivien Leigh is the kittenish belle he loves, Scarlett O'Hara. On general release.

Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake
It's 18 years since Bourne premiered his reimagined Swan Lake, with its male corps of swans, witty contemporary design and lost prince. And with some new dancers added to this season's revival, including Liam Mower – the original West End Billy Elliot – its humour and imagination are reasserting themselves for a new generation. Sadler's Wells, London (0844 412 4300), 4 December to 26 January.

Hansel and Gretel
Christopher Hampson's first Christmas ballet for Scottish Ballet is a Hansel and Gretel relocated to 1950s Scotland and mixed with other fairytales to create a new story about lost children battling a cast of magical and sinister dancing characters. Music is extracted from the Humperdinck opera. Theatre Royal, Glasgow, (0844 871 7673), 10 to 28 December.

Festive family fun

Emil and the Detectives
Not a book that's much in fashion any more, but Erich Kästner's tale, set in 1920s Berlin, about a boy who sets out on an adventure on his own, should transpose to the stage very well. Olivier, London (020-7452 3000), to 18 March.

The Wind in the Willows
William Tuckett's delicious version of the Kenneth Grahame classic sets the action in the attic of the writer's imagination, using old clothes and props to drive the storytelling mix of dance, music, puppetry and text. Grahame's words are narrated by Tony Robinson, with a fabulous dancing cast that includes Will Kemp as Ratty. Great for over-fives. Duchess theatre, London (020-7304 4000), 11 December to 1 February.

Matilda
Witty, warm and wise, Tim Minchin and Dennis Kelly actually improve on Roald Dahl's novel. A show every family should see, to remind them that it's never too late to be the hero of your own story. Cambridge theatre, London (020-7494 5080), booking until May.

Saving Mr Bankss
For lovers of Mary Poppins – which celebrates its 50th anniversary next year – this film is a treat. It's the story of how Walt Disney finally persuaded Poppins creator PL Travers to let him adapt her masterwork for the screen. Tom Hanks plays wily Walt and Emma Thompson the schoolmarmish author determined not to be impressed by flashy Hollywood types. On general release.

Oliver!
Foot-stamping songs, winsome urchins and one of the great stage antiheroes in the reprehensible yet somehow lovable Fagin. Crucible, Sheffield (0114-249 6000), 29 November to 25 January.

Mr and Mrs Moon
The latest for very young from Oily Cart who always deliver the moon when comes to kid's theatre. Stratford Circus theatre, London (0844 357 2625), 7 December to 5 January.

Stonehenge Visitor Centre
Britain's most famous prehistoric monument opens its new visitor centre and an exhibition on the origins of this enigmatic site in time for the winter solstice. The mystery of Stonehenge is only equalled by the controversy surrounding its mistreatment by the modern world. Will this new presentation save it? Stonehenge, Salisbury Plain (0870 333 1181), from 18 December.

The Hundred and One Dalmatians
The New Vic always do a great festive show – although quite how they are going to put 101 dogs on stage is a mystery. New Vic theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme (01782 717962), to 1 February.

Antarctica
The fabulous Little Bulb theatre company are leading intrepid little explorers on a journey into a winter wonderland. It may just be an excuse for the company to dress up as penguins, but it should be great for the under-sevens. Bristol Old Vic (0117-987 7877), to 4 January.

The Good Neighbour
The return of BAC's brilliant maze show which takes children and their families on a thrilling interactive journey around the Old Town Hall as they unravel the memories of George, a man who lived nearby a century ago. Part treasure hunt, part like falling down a rabbit hole. Battersea Arts Centre, London (020-7223 2223), 6 December to 4 January.

Silly Kings
A new show for children and adults who haven't lost their sense of fun, inspired by the fairytale flights of fancy of Monty Python's Terry Jones. The setting will include a Spiegeltent in the grounds of Cardiff Castle, the adventures should be madcap, the humour slapstick, and the sound of the horses' hooves will definitely be made by coconut shells. Cardiff Castle (029-2063 6464), 19 December to 4 January.

Wendy and Peter Pan
Why are there no lost girls in Neverland? The gender focus is shifted to Wendy (often portrayed as horribly soppy) in Ella Hickson's new adaptation of JM Barrie's masterpiece. Peter's refusal to grow up is contrasted with her realisation of the need to do so, in a production that promises ticking crocodiles and a murderous Captain Hook. Royal Shakespeare theatre, Stradford-upon-Avon (0844 800 1110), 10 December to 2 March.

Escape the tinsel

Let the Right One In
Bullied boy meets vampire girl in this flesh-creeper based on a Swedish novel and horror movie. Royal Court, London (020-7565 5000), until 21 December.

Coriolanus
Shakespeare's greatest Roman tragedy gets a rare outing with Tom Hiddleston as the uncompromising warrior who turns his back on his native city. Mark Gatiss and Deborah Findlay co-star as Coriolanus's wise counsellor and his militant mum in an ever-topical play that warns of the dangers to democracy of strong men. Donmar Warehouse, London (0844 871 7624), 6 December to 14 February.

Parsifal
The Royal Opera's new production is also its belated contribution to the Wagner bicentenary celebrations – his last and most enigmatic opera, with Simon O'Neill in the title role and the wonderful René Pape as Gurnemanz. Royal Opera House, London (020-7304 4000), 30 November to 18 December.

Ciara
If Christmas is all about families, Ciara's Glasgow gangland clan is one you wouldn't want to meet. The magnificent Blythe Duff reprises her role in David Harrower's award-winning solo about an art dealer who realises she has been traded all her life. Traverse, Edinburgh (0131-228 1404), 3 to 21 December.

Shobana Jeyasingh: Strange Blooms
Jeyasingh's rich, inventive spin on her classical past is showcased in this double bill that ranges from her 1988 collaboration with Michael Nyman, Configurations, through to her stylish take on cities, flowers and the baroque, set to music by Gabriel Prokofiev. Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, (020-7960 4200), 3 and 4 December.

American Psycho
Doctor Whos are everywhere this Christmas. While David Tennant is installed at the Barbican as Richard II, Matt Smith stars in this musical thriller based on the notorious Bret Easton Ellis novel about a serial killer at large in 1980s Wall Street. Expect plenty of shock and schlock. Almeida, London (020 -7359 4404), 3 December to 25 January.

Jordi Savall
If the viola da gamba is your thing, then a solo appearance by Savall on the instrument that established his international reputation is a must. St George's, Bristol (0845 4024001), 6 December.

Nebraska
Veteran actor Bruce Dern is terrific in this bittersweet American road movie about a grumpy, bewildered old man who journeys to Nebraska in search of a lottery payout. On general release.

Protest Song
Rhys Ifans plays Danny, a homeless man living rough by St Paul's, who wakes up one morning to find himself at the heart of the Occupy movement. Tim Price's monologue promises to be funny and savage, while offering a reminder of the thousands who will be homeless this Christmas. The Shed, London (020-7452 3000), 16 December to 11 January.

Festival of Fairytales for Grown-ups
Dare you venture into this Victorian warehouse by the Thames to meet the devil, fly with fairies, and encounter the dead? The Crick Crack Club's annual festival of bawdy performance storytelling also features live music and rum-laced hot chocolate. Barge House, London, 11 to 15 December.

X Marks the Spot
The London jazz underground gets into the festive spirit with a semi-improvised production from Pop-Up Circus and the Chaos Collective. Christmas has gone missing. Can a crack team from Edinburgh-fringe favourites Clout Theatre and the Xmas Big Band including rising-star jazz pianist Elliott Galvin and drummer Mark Sanders save it? Vortex, London (020-7254 4097), 18 December.

Trevor Noah
South African standup Noah made a big impact at the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe with his set about growing up mixed-race under apartheid. Warwick Arts Centre (024 7652 4524), Tuesday, then touring.

Brian and Robin's Christmas Compendium of Reason
Last year, their End of the World Show featured contributions from Steve Coogan, Eric Idle and Simon Singh. This year, TV physics heart-throb Brian Cox and rationalist comic Robin Ince return with another comedy-and-science floorshow. Hammersmith Apollo, London (0844 249 4300), 12 to 14 December.

Jonzi D – Lyrikal Fearta
When hip-hop choreographer and impresario Jonzi D was offered an MBE, the conflicting emotions he experienced inspired him to choreograph The Letter. It returns to the stage alongside a new work that examines old and new school generations of hip-hop artists. Lilian Baylis Studio, London (0844 412 4300), 9 to 11 December.

Shunga: Sex and Pleasure in Japanese Art
For childless adults who plan to spend the holidays in a metropolitan setting safe from cosy family gatherings, this superb exhibition offers fun that's far from Christmassy. Best not to get a print for your grandparents. British Museum, London (020-7323 8181), to 5 January.

Seasonal singalongs

Frozen
Disney's animated musical is a new twist on Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen. Elsa is a princess with the power to control snow and ice. When an evil duke exiles her to a freezing wasteland, her gutsy sister Anna must rescue her. With songs by the Book of Mormon writing duo Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez. On general release.

The Sixteen at Christmas
A beautifully devised touring programme, interleaving early carols with seasonal choral pieces to mark two anniversaries, Britten's centenary and the 50th anniversary of Poulenc's death, including the former's Ceremony of Carols and the latter's Quatre Motets. St John the Evangelist, Oxford, 7 December; then touring).

Meet Me in St Louis
Have yourself a very merry Christmas with UK stage premiere of the 1944 Judy Garland vehicle. This tiny venue should burst with festive goodwill. Landor, London (020-7737 7276), 11 December to 18 January.

That Day We Sang
Lives unfulfilled and missed opportunities are the subject of this play with songs about a middle-aged insurance clerk in 1960s Manchester who thinks that life might have peaked for him 40 years previously when he sang at the Free Trade Hall. Victoria Wood's 2011 charmer is reinvented for a new space. Royal Exchange, Manchester (0161 833 9833), 5 December to 18 January.

Chicago
Murder just got musical with this new revival of Kander and Ebb's tale of 1920s Chicago and femmes who prove pretty fatal to the men in their lives. Paul Kerryson's revival should give rein to the mix of comedy and corruption that exposes this adult musical's dark heart. Curve, Leicester (0116 242 3595), 29 November to 11 January.

Michael Clark
Clark has always claimed rock music as his most formative influence, alongside his Royal Ballet training – and this triple bill is set to Scritti Politti, Relaxed Muscle, Sex Pistols and Pulp. Barbican, London (020-7638 8891), 22 to 30 November.

Kurt Vile and the Violators
Celebrate the end of 2013 with the maker of one of the albums of the year. Wakin' on A Pretty Daze by Philadelphia singer-songwriter Kurt Vile (his real name) is hypnotic and beautiful, packed with long, slowly unfurling songs and surprisingly witty lyrics. Various venues, (kurtvile.com/live), 11 to 17 December.

Warp x Tate
Collaboration between the UK indie label (famed for techno, but far more eclectic than that) and artist Jeremy Deller, Warp x Tate features sound installations by Rustie, Oneohtrix Point Never and Hudson Mohawke, and a performance by Deller's Acid Brass: a brass band performing old rave hits. Tate Britain, London (020-7887 8888), 6 December.

Calvin Harris and Tiësto
Giant EDM festive jamboree: the sheer size of the venues visited by the two DJs showing the commercial impact of this strain of dance music. Various venues , 18 to 23 December.

Perfect pantos

Aladdin and Twanky
Great excitement atBig news from the Royal: tThis year's panto will have an exciting addition – a plot. One of the great annual shindigs with a great dame in Berwick Kaler, spectacular sets and groan-inducing jokes. Theatre Royal, York (01904 623568), 12 December to 1 February.

A Gay in a Manger
The nativity story gets a queer makeover, with lifestyle gurus Tranny and Roseannah giving tips on manger decoration. Should be outrageous trashy fun for adults only. The Arches, Glasgow (0141 565 1000), 12 to 21 December.

Jack and the Beanstalk
Its 30 years since Kenneth Alan Taylor first donned his frock to play Dame Daisy. This will be his last panto, but it's less of swansong than a melodious moo. Nottingham Playhouse (0115 941 9419), 29 November to 18 January.

Peter Pan and the Incredible Stinkerbell
Terrible Tink has always been a tearaway, but now she's got flatulence too. JM Barrie's story remade as a wild romp that will make us all clap our hands and say we believe in fairies. Tron, Glasgow (0141 552 4267), 29 November to 4 January.

Dick Whittington
Will the streets be paved with Olympic gold? Will the cat get the cream? We can't answer those questions, but we're confident this will be one of London's finest pantos in a theatre that lends itself to the art form. Theatre Royal Stratford East, London (020-8534 0310), to 11 January.

Gather round the TV

Moonfleet
A sumptuous new adaptation of J Meade Falkner's 1898 novel of diamonds and smuggling. Sky's Christmas dramas have faltered in the past, but this – starring Ray Winstone, Phil Daniels and Aneurin Barnard – looks like perfect family fare. Sky 1.

Death Comes to Pemberley
Having run out of books by Jane Austen, BBC1 gets as close as possible to a new Pride and Prejudice in an adaptation of PD James's crime-fiction sequel. BBC1, TV timings not yet finalised.

Still Open All Hours
The ghosts of Christmas schedules past haunt some of the BBC's most-anticipated offerings. In the absence of Ronnie Barker, David Jason takes over Arkwright's grocer's shop in a revival of Roy Clarke's sitcom Open All Hours. BBC1.

Nan
Despite repeated suggestions that she had hung up the cardigan of her highest-profile character, Catherine Tate has been persuaded to return in a special edition of Nan, with commissioners hoping it can repeat the success of Nan's Christmas Carol some years back. BBC1.

12 Drinks of Christmas
Christmas is all about two things: alcohol and worrying that Alexander Armstrong lacks the ability to say no. This show – where he and his brother-in-law Giles Coren attempt to assemble the perfect selection pack of Christmas booze – has both. BBC2.

Man Down
Traditionally, sitcoms have to be established and beloved to warrant a Christmas special. Man Down – Greg Davies's brilliant new offering – is neither. How will the show's funniest scenes, usually the ones where Rik Mayall attacks Davies while dressed as a bear, translate to the festive season? Channel 4.

Sherlock
Sherlock finally returns after delays caused by writer Steven Moffat's Doctor Who commitments and Benedict Cumberbatch's soaring movie career. BBC1.

For the parsnip peelers

Iggy Pop's Christmas show
Christmas lunchtime wouldn't be the same without a screaming topless man. Mr Pop will present a two-hour radio show about "joy and compulsion". And then, because there's nothing more festive than cognitive dissonance, you'll watch the Queen's speech. BBC 6 Music.

Desert Island Discs
Would Miranda Hart actually listen to any music if she was on a desert island? Surely she'd be too busy tripping over the gramophone again and again. Nevertheless, the Sunday before Christmas we hear her choices, redundant as they obviously are. Radio 4, 11.15am, 22 December.

National Velvet
This new adaptation of Enid Bagnold's classic starring Alison Steadman and John Sessions sounds like precisely the thing to tune into. Radio 4, 2.15pm, Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

Friday Night is Music Night
Ken Bruce presents a star-studded Christmas concert by the BBC Concert Orchestra. If you've ever wanted to hear what the West End's biggest names sound like doing Christmas standards, this is for you. Radio 2, 20 December.

The Radio 4 Comedy Advent Calendar
Throughout December, acts like Mitchell and Webb, Lenny Henry, Sue Perkins and Johnny Vegas will pop up all over the place – from Today to Woman's Hour – to deliver their politely skewed take on the world. All the fun of a real advent calendar, without the disappointing sliver of chocolate that tastes like cardboard.

Selections by Lyn Gardner, Michael Billington, Andrew Clements, Alexis Petridis, Judith Mackrell, John Fordham, Brian Logan, Stuart Heritage, Mark Lawson, Jonathan Jones

ChristmasTheatreBalletDanceMusicalsTelevisionRadioComedyComedyClassical musicOperaChoral musicIndieDance musicJazzFamilyPeriod and historicalFamilyLyn GardnerMichael BillingtonAndrew ClementsAlexis PetridisJudith MackrellJohn FordhamBrian LoganStuart HeritageMark LawsonJonathan Jones
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JFK, the world's first selfie and Bill Gates – the week in art

Artists remember President Kennedy on the 50th anniversary of his assassination and the world's first selfie is found. Plus, Bill Gates's hunt for the super-condom – in your weekly dispatch

Exhibition of the week

Bloomberg New Contemporaries
Art right now, selected from more than 1,500 submissions by recent graduates of British art colleges. As good a way as any to see which way the wind blows. Participants include Lana Locke, Kate Hawkins, Ophelia Finke, Patrick Cole, Laura O'Neill and Agnes Calf.
• ICA, London SW1Y from 27 November until 26 January

Other exhibitions this week

Man of the Year
Henry Coombes and Carles Congost meditate on art and the male psyche in painting and video.
• CCA, Glasgow G2 from 23 November until 26 January

Urs Fischer
One of the wittiest artists at work today has installed 3,000 plaster raindrops in the gallery.
• Sadie Coles HQ, London W1K until 18 January

Eva Kotátková
A Beckett-like theatrical installation where performers interact in surreal ways with everyday stuff.
• Modern Art Oxford, Oxford OX1 from 30 November until 2 January

Fausto Melotti
Quirky Italian artist who avoided Italy's big art movements but was honoured by the Venice Biennale.
• Waddington Custot Galleries, London W1S until 20 December

Masterpiece of the week

Titian: Bacchus and Ariadne (1520-23)
This painting pulses with energy and action, but within its dazzle lurk images of sacrifice, dismemberment and death.
• National Gallery, London WC2N

Image of the weekWhat we learned this week

How artists all over America are remembering JFK on the 50th anniversary of his assassination

What the world's first selfie looked like

That the greatest painting in Britain is going back on show

What happened when one photographer snapped sleeping sunbathers in Lithuania

That Bill Gates is paying designers $1m in grants to create a next generation super-condom that enhances pleasure

The truth behind what really sells art

Why a band of designers want to create a Playmobil universe for the future

Who the Hitchcock of the painting world is

What the real punk scene looked like in 1977 London

How one of the world's best photographers has captured the wonderful world of Scotland

And finally …

Follow us on Twitter

Send us images of sunrise and sunset near you.

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Is this the greatest painting in Britain?

To my mind, Rembrandt's Kenwood self-portrait is the best we have. And you can see it again, in all its craggy glory, as Hampstead's Kenwood House reopens after refurbishment

What is the greatest painting in Britain? There are quite a few candidates. Van Gogh's Sunflowers, Leonardo da Vinci's Virgin of the Rocks and Piero della Francesca's Baptism of Christ all spring to mind – and that's just in the National Gallery. Or what about Joseph Wright of Derby's Orrery, in Derby Museum and Art Gallery?

For my money, they are all second best. (Sorry Leonardo).

The single greatest painting in a British collection? No question. It is Rembrandt's Kenwood self-portrait.

This majestic work of art is about to go back on permanent public view when Kenwood House in north London reopens its doors on 28 November. It has been closed for repairs and restoration by English Heritage, and if you have been missing it, or have never been, an artistic feast awaits. Kenwood has a staggering art collection, including Gainsborough's Countess Howe and Turner's Iveagh Sea-Piece.

But the Rembrandt is something else. You don't have to take my word for it: when Kenwood was closed, this painting was excitedly borrowed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which showed it as one of Rembrandt's ultimate achievements alongside its own masterpieces by him.

Rembrandt, at the age of about 59, looks at us from the depth of his years, and with the authority of his craft. He has portrayed himself holding his brushes, maulstick and palette, in front of two circles drawn on a wall. Why the circles? Do they represent a sketch for a map of the world? Or is Rembrandt alluding, with this drawing on a brown surface, to stories that say the first picture was a drawing made with a stick in sand?

His eyes contain so much knowledge and melancholy that even looking at this painting on a computer screen, I get the eerie feeling that Rembrandt is looking back and weighing up my failures. You can deduce the power of the original.

He was a failure when he painted this, a proud man reduced to poverty by his enthusiastic spending – but here he throws it back on the burghers of Amsterdam. Art is not a business; it is a struggle with eternity. Rembrandt stands not proudly or arrogantly, but in the full consciousness of the heroic nature of his work.

First there is nothing, then there is a circle. The human hand, guided by the eye and the brain, makes a mark that only we can make – there are no other geometricians but us, no other animal that can draw or presumably conceive a circle.

From the circle to this portrait is another leap. Rembrandt has mapped himself with such craggy truthfulness that we simply stand and look back, wondering if we can ever be as real as he is.

This is a supreme work of art, the best we have.

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An image of death keeps Bloody Sunday's blunt reality alive | Jonathan Jones

Photographs retell the plain truth of Northern Ireland's political murder that some would have us forget

In photographs the killings never stop. One of the strange powers of photography is to make the past into the present. Light that hit a lens in 1972 is preserved in this picture as an unchanging snapshot of time, like light that left a remote star millions of years ago to pinprick the conscience of our night sky.

And a dark night it is. Memory blankets the heads of unappeased victims, justice fumbles on a midnight beach. Northern Ireland's legacy of political murder is getting more obscure with every passing year. John Larkin, the attorney general of Northern Ireland, has now proposed that no more investigations should take place into killings arising from the Troubles before the Good Friday agreement in 1998. The trouble is that photographs like this exist and so does the reality they so lucidly preserve.

This picture shows Father Edward Daly giving the last rites over a man shot by British paratroopers on 30 January 1972. It's a photograph that evaporates time. This is not a remote event long ago. It's a man apparently dying in front of our eyes. Thirteen people died on Bloody Sunday, and another of wounds a few months later. But even that information is redundant when you look at this photograph. The man on the ground next to the gunshot victim is whispering to him, talking to him, trying to get through. A woman helps the priest by holding his hat, an oddly touching attempt to preserve social decencies amid slaughter.

But this is not some scene contrived by an artist to break hearts. It is blunt reality. As if to emphasise that, legs are seen striding past. Someone is walking by purposefully as if this were just an everyday scene – or as if getting ready to take revenge. Someone else is standing looking at action elsewhere. At least that what the legs suggest. No one would have posed a picture like this. It is a mess, visually. That is what gives it such plain truthfulness.

At its heart is the man who has been shot. Lying inert, head on a pillow brought out of someone's house, he is dressed for a demonstration or a football match, not for war. He seems cut off by his injuries from the people around him. Seen in black and white, blood makes an almost decorative pattern on his clothes. The priest's absolution hangs over his stillness.

Not all the people who died in the Troubles were photographed. Some vanished and were buried in unmarked graves, like Jean McConville whose death, also in 1972, was said by the late IRA commander Brendan Hughes to have been ordered by Gerry Adams (Adams says Hughes was lying). Others were blown to pieces.

But photography is an image of memory. Where there are no photos there are recollections, stories, histories and above all, holes. The holes in life where someone was, and isn't.

We don't have to look at this picture. We can shove it in a drawer. But it's there, and when we do look at it the past is not the past. The bullet is in the flesh, searing, the people gathered around helplessly, the voices trying to get through.

Would the convictions of British paratroopers in court – and a case is being prepared – change this picture? It would clearly give satisfaction or relief to survivors and relatives of the dead. But no, clearly, it would not change this picture.

The priest will always be giving the last rites. The woman will always be holding his hat. The dead will never be returned.

Bloody SundayNorthern IrelandPhotographyPhotographyNews photographyJonathan Jones
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The world's first selfie – revealed

Self-portraits are hardly new to art. As the first ever selfie comes to light, Jonathan Jones shows why this simple, democratic act puts us back in artistic control

Selfie-mania knows no bounds. After the Oxford Dictionaries recently named it the word of the year, the "world's first selfie" has been found. The photo? A horrible close-up of someone's chin and mouth.

I have no idea if this picture is a genuine original or a joke; the whole selfie craze is beyond parody. It's funny to watch journalists, and now dictionaries, take so seriously something so daft. We can easily snap pictures of ourselves and share them with the world. So what?

Well, actually, so something. All this posing for oneself, all these records of the self, must mean something, sociologically. The rise of the painted portrait in Renaissance Europe helped to deepen people's sense of individuality. Similarly, we don't doubt that Rembrandt must be exploring deep psychological territory in his self-portraits. What, precisely, are selfies, then? Are they culture, or just a bit of photographic fun? Or, as Jonathan Freedland asks, are they really as self-centred and narcissistic as some people think?

I think the true meaning of the selfie is obvious: it's a rebellion against traditional photography. Photographers have always posed their victims for portaits. In the Victorian age, this meant staying still for a long time, frozen as if dead. For my family in the 1970s, "having your picture taken" was still a formal, awkward experience.

The camera objectifies, it chills. It intrudes. Or it did until now: in the age of the selfie, the camera has become part of us. We take so many shots there's no gap between life and art. It is a moment of democratic genius to realise you don't need to pose for someone with a camera, you can just turn the camera on yourself.

This is part of the break-up of the disciplines of 19th- and 20th-century life. The modern world between 1800 and 1990 was not a constellation of freedoms. As historians such as CA Bayly and Michel Foucault have argued, it emerged as a set of disciplines. From the passport photo to the family snapshot, the camera has largely been an instrument of social control, "stealing souls" and imposing identities.

The selfie is a revolution against the camera's tyranny. It puts the person being photographed in control of the photograph. It is an art of freedom.

PhotographyJonathan Jones
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From St Peter's bones to severed heads: Christian relics on display

As the Vatican exhibits the bones of St Peter, here are the top 10 extant Christian relics, from holy shroud to sacred head

Once, the western world was full of relics. The bones and skin, fingernails and even heads of saints were preserved, bought and sold, stolen and chreished. Relics of holy people and of Jesus Christ were at the heart of medieval Christianity. Today many relics have been discredited. Museums display empty reliquaries, crafted from gold and silver and laden with jewels – but bereft of the body parts that once gave them meaning.

Still, some relics are still cherished. They have survived sceptics, scientists and in some cases detailed exposure, to be revered as holy objects of awe. As the Vatican puts the bones of St Peter on display, here are the top 10 extant Christian relics, from holy shroud to sacred head.

Holy Shroud of Turin

Despite being analysed by scientists and discredited as a medieval forgery, this centuries-old cloth bearing the image of a man is still seen by many as the burial shroud of Christ. Its modern fame began when a photographer noticed it looks more detailed in negative, implying the image itself is a reversed "negative" imprint of a body, which some see as a bit beyond the capacities of medieval forgers.

Head of St Catherine of Siena

This has to be the grisliest relic displayed by the Catholic church – a mummified head preserved in the Basilica Cateriniana San Domenico, Siena, and still shown to visitors. Siena is a beautifully preserved medieval city, famous for its annual horse race as well as the art of Duccio, but the head of St Catherine shockingly transports you to what feels like a dark and primitive living past.

Blood of Saint Januarius

Worshippers in Naples gather every September to see a miracle at the southern Italian city's cathedral. The dried blood of St Januarius, martyred in the 4th century AD, is preserved there and has an organic connection with the city's wellbeing. Every September – and on two other days in the year – the red powder liquefies. It becomes living blood – and the city is safe from volcano, earthquake and plague.

The Holy Foreskin

It is said when the young Jesus Christ was circumcised, his foreskin was preserved. In the middle ages it became a much coveted relic and several churches claimed to own part or all of it. The foreskin was held to have great powers. However, the various relics of it were discredited by the end of the 18th century.

The Tongue of St Anthony of Padua

British Catholics recently gathered at Westminster Cathedral to pay respects to a piece of dried flesh and some facial skin that are said to have belonged to St Anthony of Padua. Seven hundred and fifty years ago the tongue of St Anthony was found to be perfectly preserved – an incorruptible relic. St Anthony was a great preacher, his tongue apparently holy.

The Finger of St Thomas

"Doubting" Thomas was unable to accept the resurrection even though Christ stood there before him. So Christ allowed him to put a suspicious finger inside the wound made in his side by a Roman soldier's lance. It is a moment miraculously painted by Caravaggio. If you doubt the story, you can see Thomas's finger itself, preserved in the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome (they've got three pieces of the True Cross, too).

Relics of Sainte-Chapelle

The French king Louis IX – better known as Saint Louis – was so proud of the relics of Christ he bought from Byzantium that he built a spendid church in Paris to house them. Sainte-Chapelle is the world's largest reliquary and one of the most ravishing of all gothic churches. Today the relics, including Christ's Crown of Thorns, are kept in the cathederal of Notre Dame.

Body of St Mark

St Mark was martyred at Alexandria and his body – natch – was miraculously preserved. It was then taken to Venice in one of the greatest relic heists of the middle ages. A gang of daring Venetians stole St Mark's mummified remains and took them to their own city, which identified deeply with St Mark. The mummy is still kept in a tomb in St Mark's Basilica, whose glories celebrate this stolen relic. The theft itself is portrayed in a masterpiece by Tintoretto.

St Cecilia

The perfectly preserved body of this young saint was found in Rome four centuries ago. The discovery was commemorated by a creepily realistic marble sculpture of the corpse by Stefano Maderno. This can be seen at St Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome, which also preserves her relics.

Head of St John the Baptist

Salome famously asked Herod for the head of John the Baptist on a platter. This most famous of severed heads had a long afterlife as a relic. Amiens Cathedral was built in the middle ages as a shrine for it. A replica of the baptist's head is still kept there, although the original was stolen in the 19th century.

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The Public arts centre is dead. Long live the museum

Funding for 'sexy' digital arts venues is vulnerable, so it would be far better for local governments to invest in established but languishing museums

The news that the Public in West Bromwich is to close makes this a bad day for the arts in Britain. Or so I feel obliged to say. But is it really all that bad? And would a purge of recently opened art venues across the country necessarily be a big loss?

Journalistic opinion on the arts too often falls into predictable political buckets. The Guardian must mourn the Public, while the Daily Mail mocks the project's "idiocy". But I don't feel like getting out my placards in defence of the many, many new public art galleries (the Public showed visual art as well as hosting other art forms) that opened in the years of New Labour.

A few of these art spaces are superb. Others, however, seem strangely superfluous. They are neither essential to their local communities nor significant on the national stage. What exactly are they doing except providing good cafes for solicitors and council executives to grab a cappuccino in?

Worse, one or two new venues actually seem to damage a city's cultural life by taking cash and attention from older institutions that are sadly in need of support.

Britain had great city and town art centres before the cool new cultural buildings started to appear. They are called museums. Built by 19th-century corporations and philanthropists, often filled with art treasures, many museums around Britain were and are in need of an overhaul. Instead of doing that in imaginative ways, some local governments have opted for the "sexier" option of a digital arts venue with the Wilson twins lined up to do the opening exhibit.

That kind of superficial arts funding is utterly vulnerable when push comes to shove, as it tends to nowadays. So the swanky gallery suddenly looks like a folly to the same council that once found it cool.

It's far better to put funding and imagination into older museums, giving them a contemporary edge to set off their historical heritage, and celebrating history alongside novelty. That way, you build something useful, educational and inspiring – a window on the world. We could have a network of great museums across the country, like those in US cities, where you find exciting contemporary art, profound old masters and an excellent cafe – all in the same spacious building.

Instead, "modern" Britain raised a crop of urban art spaces that look like they are part of a Lego cityscape. Obsessed with the new, they already seem old. It's hard to get angry on behalf of such determinedly ephemeral places.

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Bacon sizzles at auction and Apple's spaceship HQ – the week in art

Francis Bacon's Lucian Freud portrait sells for a record $142m, as Norman Foster unveils Apple's mothership. Plus, an artist in Moscow nails his testicles to the floor – in your art dispatch

Exhibition of the week

Thomas Rowlandson
Caricature is one of the great British contributions to world art. Where Hogarth is a gritty graphic novelist of London life, and Gillray a crazed artist of grotesque nightmares, Rowlandson (1756-1827) is the poshest and most urbane of Britain's top three satirical artists – making a royal palace a fitting place to enjoy his wit.
• Queen's Gallery, Edinburgh EH8 from 22 November until 2 March

Other exhibitions this week

Dennis Oppenheim
Signs written in fireworks that say "narrow mind", "mindless less mind" and "mind twist" are part of this survey of a subversive sculptor.
• Henry Moore Institute, Leeds LS1 from 21 November until 16 February

Roger Hiorns
Massive aero engines like the wreckage of a terrible plane crash have materialised outside this gallery in an installation by the 2009 Turner prize nominee.
• Firstsite, Colchester CO1 from 23 November until 1 June

Salla Tykka
An installation showcasing Tykka's trilogy of films that culminates with Giant, co-commissioned by Baltic.
• Baltic, Gateshead NE8 from 22 November until 2 March

Nostalgic for the Future
A sci-fi feel connects the art in this survey of the Lisson Gallery's artists, including Richard Deacon and Haroon Mirza.
• Lisson Gallery, London NW1 until 11 January

Tom Wesselmann
Cheeky erotic images by one of the best American pop artists.
• Alan Cristea Gallery, London W1S until 21 December

Masterpiece of the week

Albrecht Altdorfer, Landscape with a Footbridge, ca 1518-20
I want to go there … This very early example of a pure landscape in European art has a dreamlike pastoral mystery that is deeply fascinating. It is a passport to secret Germany.
• National Gallery, London WC2N

Image of the weekWhat we learned this week

That a Francis Bacon work of Lucian Freud has become the most expensive artwork ever auctioned, at $142.4m

And that the Christie's crowd made it a 'theatre of money'

That Norman Foster's $5bn Apple HQ is a giant shimmering spaceship

That a performance artist nailed his testicles to Red Square …

… instantly competing for the top slot in our 10 most shocking performance art acts of all time

What sex dolls, beef farms and yard sales have in common

That a real-life swan lake is up for a photography award

That a designer known for working with Gary Barlow and Will.i.am has remade the candle

That comedian Sally Phillips is a great teacher of art history – beheadings, bulk-buys and all

And finally …

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Francis Bacon: like Damien Hirst, but with talent | Jonathan Jones

Hirst's admiration for Bacon seems to stem from a belief on his part that they are kindred spirits. He could not be more wrong

I was disappointed to find out that Francis Bacon's record-breaking Three Studies of Lucian Freud has (apparently) been bought by the New York art dealer Acquavella. Just for a moment, I thought the anonymous purchaser might be Damien Hirst.

Britain's best-known contemporary artist has a bit of money. He is also a forthright fan of Bacon. "I think Bacon is one of the greatest painters of all time", he told the Observer in 2008. In fact, he has bought at least five paintings by Bacon.

But the connection between Bacon and Hirst goes deeper than fandom or even ownership. He identifies with the visceral, meaty art of Bacon, even perhaps sees himself as Bacon's double. Talking about his hero in that Observer interview, he contrasted what he claims is Bacon's technical clumsiness as a painter with Lucian Freud's precision. He apparently thinks that, like Bacon, he can get away with lack of virtuosity in his paintings through sheer imagination.

This is a misunderstanding on Hirst's part. Bacon was a gifted painter with a rich sensual mastery. Hirst's own paintings are utterly talentless. Comparing him as a painter with Bacon is like comparing a hundred monkeys at the piano with Glenn Gould.

But in his vitrines, his only significant contribution to modern art, Hirst apes Bacon effectively. The isolation of his shark in its glass and metal tank, with its mouth open wide, is a clever echo of Bacon's series of paintings of a pope screaming in a glass booth. The nightmare natural history of Hirst's A Thousand Years, in which flies are born, feast on flesh, and die, translates the desperate universe of Bacon's paintings into three dimensions.

And then it hit me. Why is Bacon suddenly the man of the hour? Because he fills a need. A need that Hirst cannot satisfy.

There are some people who were never "taken in" by Hirst. They saw through him from the start. Clever them.

But others among us love art, and want it to be fierce and necessary and impossible to ignore. That's why we got excited about Hirst in the 1990s, when his striking images of nature, death and imprisonment said so much more than most of today's art.

Now that Hirst is so abjectly exhausted, the stupendous Bacon looms up in his vacated vitrine.

I am a disillusioned fan of Hirst, a bereft former believer. And now, when I look at the art of Bacon, I feel an old passion stir. It is not too late to believe, after all. Bacon is my new art god, and for a simple reason. He is Damien Hirst – with talent.

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Francis Bacon's painting of Lucian Freud is a portrait of two geniuses

The 1969 work is worth every cent of the record-breaking $142m it fetched at auction in New York

It was a big night for British art. Once, the painters of these rainy islands were regarded as dreary throwbacks while all the glamour and fame went to modern Europeans and Americans, from Edvard Munch to Andy Warhol.

But on Tuesday evening at Christie's in New York, a triple portrait by Francis Bacon of his friend and peer Lucian Freud sold for $142m (£89m), stomping all over the record auction price of $119m (£74m) paid last year for Munch's Scream.

There can be no doubt the night belonged to Freud as well as Bacon. When he sat for Three Studies of Lucian Freud in 1969, this painter of harshly real faces and bodies in sparse London rooms was ever so slightly in Bacon's shadow. Now they orbit one another as the two great British artists of the 20th century, and probably will always be grouped in art history as blunt individualists who defied the supposed inevitable progress of the readymade to paint like modern reincarnations of Velázquez.

The art market is notoriously fickle. This record will be broken, just as Munch's has been. Auctioneers themselves admit that prices are influenced by such bizarre factors as the use of certain colours – this painting is heavy on the Van Gogh yellow. But sometimes, this less-than-rational market gets it right. Bacon is the real thing, and so is Freud. This is a portrait of two geniuses.

Bacon does not paint like a worthy avant garde follower of Matisse or Cezanne. He paints as if he were trained in an Old Master workshop 400 years ago then somehow torn through time into the modern age. Driven mad by the temptations and terrors of the 20th century, his brush creates horrific wounds and knotted masses of flesh with a disturbingly gorgeous painterly texture. It's easy to see why someone would pay tens of millions to have these inside-out Titians on the wall. Bacon's paintings are perversely luxurious. They drip with opulent colour and a velvet magnificence. The pain and brutality that punches through them heightens their strange beauty.

In his triple portrait of Freud he uses the archaic format of the gothic triptych to give the image a three-eyed variety and terrible authority. In the middle ages, many-panelled paintings were hinged so they could fold in and out to tell a religious story. Bacon, who was proud of his Irish origins although he spent his entire career in London, was fascinated by the Christian nature of the triptych. It gave him something to desecrate. From his 1940s masterpiece Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion to Triptych – August 1972, in which he broods on the suicide of his lover George Dyer, a violent vision of a godless universe poisons Bacon's triptychs.

Lucian Freud sits in Bacon's despairing, yet monstrously vital universe, his face taken apart and remade by Bacon's brush. He poses in a white shirt, moving about, full of energy. For both of them art is an act of cruel love. You take someone apart on the canvas to know them from the inside.

Bacon is worth every cent. As he used to say when he was buying the drinks, "Champagne for my real friends – real pain for my sham friends!"

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