Monuments to motherhood, cinematic dreams and a ‘wild beast’ – the week in art

Hannah Perry takes a spectacular approach, John Stezaker offers reality-bending works and classicist André Derain designs for theatre – all in your weekly dispatch

Exhibition of the week

Hannah Perry: Manual Labour
A spectacular multimedia approach goes with introspective themes as Perry explores motherhood, class and gender.
• Baltic, Gateshead, until 16 March

Also showing

John Stezaker: Spell
New works by this surrealistic, reality-bending British artist obsessed with cinematic dreams.
• The Approach, London, until 28 September

André Derain and the Stage
Designs for theatre by the French modern great who started out as a dangerous “wild beast” but became a disciplined classicist.
• Cassius&Co, London, opens 12 September

Spit
Emmanuel Awuni and Divine Southgate-Smith collaborate on a show that straddles media and continents.
• Public Gallery, London, from 12 September until 12 October

Standing Ground
Frank Bowling, Raksha Patel and more look at the landscapes of modern Britain.
• Thames-Side Studios Gallery, London, 7-22 September

Image of the week

Amid a global movement to return artworks to their countries of origin, about 750 pieces by predominantly Black Brazilian artists are being donated to a museum in Bahia after being exhibited across the US and Canada for 30 years. Read more here.

What we learned

Peter Doig’s paintings have achieved combined sales of almost £380m – but he has made barely £230,000

Antony Gormley joined the fight against the destruction of a historic site

The great photographer Alec Soth went back to art school

Pioneering artist Futura 2000 celebrated five decades of groundbreaking work

Scent designer Tasha Marks can make you smell anything, from hell to your grandparents

US army archive images blend fashion with firepower

Award-winning artist Teresita Fernández is reinventing landscape art

A new exhibition offered compelling proof that objects do talk …

Masterpiece of the week

The Wood Gatherer, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, c. 1865-70

Born in the 18th century, Corot lived into the age of Manet and the impressionists. His fascination has to do with this sense of existing out of time, between worlds. This late painting by him is magically archaic. It creates a greenish, silverish pastoral dreamscape where nothing happens – give or take some wood being gathered. Yet in the stillness he suggests so much. There are even hints of the photographic age in the way the trees are silhouetted against the sleepy light. Corot is ultimately a storyteller: he conjures here a lonely, ghostly atmosphere in which you might encounter doubles or revenants. He is a quiet yet spookily great artist.
• National Gallery, London

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