RA Magazine's pick of this week’s art events (18–24 Oct)

Anthony Eyton RA, 'Self-Portrait'. Oil on canvas. 46 x 38cm. Courtesy Kings Place Gallery. Ruth Borchard Collection: Next Generation
Kings Place gallery, until 15 December 2012
A Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, Ruth Borchard spent the post-war years purchasing self-portraits from then-rising stars of British art, including Patrick Proctor RA, Euan Uglow and Roger Hilton.

Borchard died in 2000, but her original collection of 101 self-portraits has since been added to, thanks to Kings Place Gallery’s regular self-portraiture competition in her name; the work of the winner and several nominees are acquired by the collection’s administrators.

This week 30 recent acquisitions have gone on view at the gallery, alongside some of the best works Borchard bought herself.

LAST CHANCE: Toby Ziegler
Q Park, until 20 October 2012
If you are planning to visit the Cork Street galleries or Royal Academy this Saturday, take 20 minutes to submerge yourself in an art-historically aware art installation in a subterranean car park on Old Burlington Street. Presented fourteen stories down by the British artist Toby Ziegler, The Cripples riffs on a painting by Bruegel the Elder of the same name (completed in 1568 and also known as The Beggars).

Installation View – Toby Ziegler, The Cripples, Q-Park, 2012. Courtesy of the artist and Simon Lee Gallery.

The five figures in the foreground of the oil-on-wood work are projected into three dimensions by Ziegler, in the form of five semi-abstract white sculptures sited across the space. The basement is illuminated by eight panoramic light boxes that show images of horses legs and hooves, appropriated from a battle sequence from Piero della Francesca’s fresco cycle The Legend of the True Cross (c.1466).

LAST CHANCE: Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin
Paradise Row, until 20 October 2012]
London-based artistic duo Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, born in South Africa and Britain respectively, explore and challenge the conventions of documentary photography. This Saturday sees the last day of their conceptually minded show at Paradise Row, a gallery just off London’s Oxford Street – one could combine a visit to space with one to the nearby Photographers’ Gallery.

Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, 'To Photograph The Details Of A Dark Horse In Low Light'. Installation view. Paradise Row, 13 September - 20 October 2012. Courtesy Paradise Row and the artists.

The exhibition considers the connections between the practice of documentary photography and race, taking as its starting point a commission to document Bwiti initiation rituals in Gabon – the pair used 1950s Kodak film, and then outdated and unstable chemical processes to develop the stock.

Elizabeth, Lady Vaux By Hans Holbein the Younger, c.1536. © The Royal Collection Photo: Supplied by Royal Collection Trust / © HM Queen Elizabeth II 2012. The Lost Prince: The Life and Death of Henry Stuart
National Portrait Gallery, until 13 January 2013
One of British history’s great ‘what if?’ questions concerns Henry Stuart (1594–1612), who was to become King Henry IX, had his early death not meant that the ill-fated King Charles I came in his place.

The young prince was an enlightened patron and collector of art and, to mark 400 years since his death, the National Portrait Gallery focuses from today on artworks, artifacts and literature from Henry’s court, as well works before and after that put his life and Stuart culture in context.

Highlights include portraits by Hans Holbein and Nicholas Hillard, and if that whets your appetite for Stuart painting, you can also visit the Courtauld to see their wonderful show of court painter Peter Lely’s work.

Castera Bazile, 'Judgement Day', c.1950. Private Collection of Aderson Exume, Washington. Kafou: Haiti, Art and Vodou
Nottingham Contemporary, 20 October 2012 - 6 January 2013
Photographer Leah Gordon, whose recent work in Haiti was a subject of a show in London this summer, co-curates an expansive overview of the country’s culture and spirituality, on view at Nottingham Contemporary from this weekend.

Western pop culture presentations of Vodou have often been superficial and sensationalist (think the 1973 James Bond film Live and Let Die), but, as an extraordinary synthesis of African religions, Catholicism, Islam and the indigenous Taino beliefs, it has a rich and fascinating heritage, inspiring both Haitian artists and the European avant-garde, especially the Surrealists.

Nearly 200 works of art comprise the UK’s largest exhibition on the subject in many years.

Sam Phillips is a London-based arts journalist and contributor to RA Magazine

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