2022 in the arts — exhibitions and performance in view

It’s like standing on top of a hill looking out at a landscape that constantly dissolves and reforms in front of your eyes. For almost two years now we’ve grown accustomed to a shape-shifting arts scene, the misery of sudden cancellations and closures offset by the vivid creativity of alternative, often digital, models. And if those creative strands are stress-induced, that doesn’t necessarily mean they only have temporary relevance: many have already solidified into genuine advances.

Yet even if the digital sphere has filled many gaps, what we’ve learnt over these plague years is that it just doesn’t meet every need, in cultural terms. The eagerness to return to live performances, real gigs and in-person events of all sorts, to experience art that’s tangible and palpable — none of this has gone away.

So, even though the coming year is sure to be unpredictable, in the spirit of optimism let’s forget the imminent threat of more closed theatres and concert halls, disregard the real possibility of shuttered museums and galleries, and look ahead as if things were all going to go right. As several of my colleagues are ably looking after what’s on in 2022 in other genres, I’ll pick a very few personal top tips in the visual arts, theatre and dance.

The visual arts, after a slowish January, will be bursting into life in public spaces across the world. In London, the Royal Academy cracks out an important Francis Bacon retrospective for the start of the year while the newly reopened Courtauld Institute — whose revamp has been pretty much universally lauded — exhibits Van Gogh self-portraits in February.

The Whitechapel Gallery, moving away from solo shows of great names, launches a show devoted to artists’ studios — a sure-fire hit. The spring exhibition at the Barbican Centre, which has made a powerful splash in the past couple of years with fine shows devoted to Basquiat, Lee Krasner and Dubuffet, is entitled Postwar Modern, a survey of the two decades after the second world war in British art (or at least art made in Britain, since it was a time of movement and migration).

And there’s a returning migrant at the National Gallery: Gainsborough’s “Blue Boy” left home for California exactly 100 years ago on January 25, and is now loaned back by the Huntington Museum for a stay of a few months. Then, in April, the National Gallery wheels out its big guns with a full-career survey of Raphael, whose short life packed an immense punch.

On a more contemporary note, May sees the long-delayed opening of a full retrospective of Cornelia Parker at Tate Britain — not be missed — and at Tate St Ives, which also hosts a homecoming show by Barbara Hepworth, the Vietnamese multimedia artist Thao Nguyen Phan has her first museum solo in the UK.

Paris has had a wonderful line-up this autumn, with a superb Anselm Keifer show still running at the Grand Palais Éphémère, and a powerful Georg Baselitz retrospective on until March at the Centre Pompidou, among many others. One upcoming exhibition that promises to be original and inventive is the Musée de l’Orangerie’s Aux sources des Nymphéas: le décor impressionniste opening in March — surely a mouthwatering prospect.

And there are some very enticing shows in prospect in Italy: highlights in March include Titian’s Women, at Milan’s Palazzo Reale, and — this one perhaps most alluring of all, for lovers of the Renaissance — the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence is staging a mighty display of the works of Donatello.

In New York, a fine show of Jasper Johns continues its run at the Whitney until February, while of the always powerful programme at the Metropolitan Museum, one spring highlight will be an unusual showing of the 19th-century American Winslow Homer. Entitled Crosscurrents, the show promises to explore the artist’s “fascination with struggle” and preoccupation with race and politics from the civil war onwards.

Another, more contemporary, exploration of those issues in American life comes from Faith Ringgold, whose solo show at the New Museum, opening in February, is sure to be a powerful statement. Uptown in Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park, under the aegis of the Studio Museum Harlem, is an equally strong piece of public sculpture, unveiled in October but on show for a full year: Thomas J Price’s 9ft bronze figure entitled “The Distance Within” is a young black man looking down at his cell phone, paused in thought, evocative and somehow haunting.

This, of course, is only a tiny fraction of what will be on show in the visual arts next year. As well as the public institutions, don’t forget to visit commercial galleries too: across the world they get consistently better and better — certainly more ambitious — in their exhibitions, which are freely open to everyone. And, Covid permitting, the Venice Biennale of Art will be back this year, running from late April almost to the end of the year. With the pent-up energy of last year’s delays, it should be more amazing than ever.

One shocking piece of news in the performing arts world in recent weeks was the departure from its home country of the Belarus Free Theatre, a highly inventive, radical group that tells truth to power in that repressive regime. A year ago, chilling and brutal death threats were issued by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko against two of the company’s directors, who have been in exile in the UK for many years already; now, the entire ensemble has had to relocate. At London’s Barbican Theatre in March their new play, Dogs of Europe, is testament to the company’s refusal to give in: it features (no surprises) a dystopian state in which individual rights have given way to authoritarian controls.

All of which goes to show that theatre, especially live theatre, still matters, and still has power. Although many of the year’s offerings are strong on the entertainment side — a survey of top demand for next year’s musicals on Broadway includes faves such as Chicago, Wicked and The Lion King, and magical escapism is an understandable urge right now — there are plenty of new plays coming up that don’t sugar-coat reality.

Aaron Sorkin’s dramatic adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird gets its UK premiere at the Gielgud Theatre in May; London’s Donmar Warehouse has a new piece about Mary Seacole, the Jamaican-British nurse during the Crimean war and, in another stage biopic, The Bridge Theatre launches David Hare’s latest muscular political statement, Straight Line Crazy, in which Ralph Fiennes plays the powerful American Robert Moses.

Just opened at The Shed in New York, and running through February, Cecily Strong is the solo performer in The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, the piece originally written for Lily Tomlin by Janet Wagner: the stories of 12 female characters, all played by Strong, make up a collage of women’s history and experience across the years.

Another generational story is told in Prayer for the French Republic, a new play from award-winning Joshua Harmon presented by Manhattan Theater Club: in this, a French Jewish family’s history examines themes of genocide, enforced migration and lingering anti-Semitism. And, for a musical that’s unlike the mainstream Broadway fare, there’s still time until the end of January to catch the Irish Repertory Theatre’s The Streets of New York, adapted by Charlotte Moore from Dion Boucicault’s 1857 play about financial shenanigans in a city seeing dizzyingly rapid rises and falls in fortunes.

For dance fans in New York, the spring brings a fortnight-long treat: 50 years after the New York City Ballet’s 1972 Stravinsky Festival, the company is putting on four programmes. There are premieres by Silas Farley and Pam Tanowitz; artists from the Dance Theatre of Harlem also perform Tanowitz’s Gustave Le Gray No. 1.

In March, Artists at the Center invites leading dancers to create a programme of their choice: Tiler Peck, a principal at New York City Ballet, starts off with works by William Forsythe, Alonzo King and others. And City Center’s spring Dance Festival is a showcase for Martha Graham Dance Company, Dance Theater of Harlem, Paul Taylor Dance Company and others — a wonderfully welcome return to the stage for many.

In London, Sadler’s Wells has as rich a programme as ever, it seems — once the Christmas fare is out of the way, we’ll see Pina Bausch, the BalletBoyz, Carlos Acosta’s 100% Cuban, and lots more. The flamencistas turn up in force, reliable as migrating birds and much more entertaining to watch, in March. And this year, from February 1, there’s a daring surprise addition to the programme. Think “Stayin’ Alive”, “Night Fever”, “Woman” — yes, it’s Saturday Night Fever, a remake of the 1977 classic that starred John Travolta, now with new choreography, we’re promised, though plenty of old-school ’70s pop hits. So, how deep is your love . . . ?

Follow @ftweekend on Twitter to find out about our latest stories first