Four exhibitions celebrating summer

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Setsuko: Into Nature at Gagosian, Gstaad 

Artist Setsuko Klossowska de Rola’s sculptural terracotta forests have sprung up at Gagosian’s gallery outposts in Paris and Rome in recent years. Now she is expanding her horizons with Into Nature at Gagosian Gstaad, which will see the trees accompanied by flowers, landscapes and still lifes, realised in both sculpture and on paper. 

De Rola draws her inspiration from the pine-dotted countryside around her home in the Grand Chalet of Rossinière, near Gstaad. “I live in the mountains, surrounded by cows and forests, so nature is like my air,” says de Rola. The new exhibition will showcase her blooming magnolia – an experiment in “put[ting] something very fragile like ceramic in combination with bronze. I only made one because it’s very complicated to do”. And although rows of cats line the walls of her Paris studio (prototypes for the ceramics workshop Astier de Villatte, for whom she designs) this is the first time a cat has made its way into one of her tree sculptures, pawing the white enamel trunk of a cherry blossom tree, where a bird perches high in the branches. Marion Willingham
Setsuko: Into Nature is at Gagosian in Gstaad from 1 July to 10 September

Beatriz Milhazes’ Maresias at Turner Contemporary, Margate

In Brazil, Maresias refers to the salty air that washes off the Atlantic Ocean and over Rio de Janeiro. The word has inspired Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes’ new exhibition at Turner Contemporary in Margate, conceived to connect two coastal landscapes and “celebrate the experience of being next to the ocean”. It will be Milhazes’ first solo institutional outing in the UK in more than 20 years, and showcases the evolution of the artist’s kaleidoscopic, swirling paintings and works on paper from 1989 to the present day. “I’m an artist from the Tropics,” she says.

“The context I grew up, live and work in makes me think differently. Baroque, popular art, carnival parade and nature are all sources of contrast and beauty that you can meet in Rio de Janeiro.” The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of carnival-themed events in the lead up to Margate Carnival in August. Baya Simons
Beatriz Milhazes: Maresias is at Turner Contemporary, Margate, until 10 September

Jean-Luc Mylayne’s Mirror at Sprüth Magers, London

Once he’s settled on a bird to capture, French photographer Jean-Luc Mylayne begins a waiting game. Placing his medium-format camera in the same spot each day, he waits for the bird to become accustomed to his presence and even to the sound of the camera shutter. It sometimes takes months before the creatures are relaxed enough and he can take a photograph. The resulting images of Eurasian wrens, goldfinches or mountain bluebirds – captured in flight, at rest or gathered around a water butt as if in conference – become glimpses, earnt rather than stolen, into a world not usually seen.

Seventeen of Mylayne’s photographs, curated around the idea of a fragile ecosystem, are now going on display at Sprüth Magers gallery in London. In one, a delicate red-breasted bird (Mylayne leaves the species of his subjects a mystery) perches atop a log, staring directly into the lens. In another, a springtime landscape reveals, on closer inspection, a tiny feathered creature dangling from a branch, perhaps about to launch into flight. BS
Mirror by Jean-Luc Mylayne is at Sprüth Magers, London, until 9 July

Bathers at Saatchi Yates, London

From Renaissance paintings of Ovid’s Diana bathing with her nymphs to Cézanne’s bucolic lake scenes and Picasso’s cubist nudes, the tradition of painting swimmers is a rich seam. London’s Saatchi Yates is presenting a deep-dive into the genre for its summer exhibition, featuring works by Renoir and Hockney alongside more unorthodox “bathers”, including a 3,000-year-old Egyptian spoon in the form of a swimming girl and Neil Stokoe’s painting of a serene swimmer, floating in an expanse of turquoise.

To complement the works, six of the gallery’s artists have reinterpreted the subject, including Angela Santana, who repurposes material from porn magazines and advertising campaigns to create supersized female swimmers. The topic’s magic lies in the fact it “can continue to surprise artists and viewers”, says gallery co-founder Phoebe Saatchi Yates. MW
Bathers is at Saatchi Yates, London, until 10 August