Free art in London

A contemporary of Robert Mapplethorpe and Nan Goldin, and a close friend of Paul Thek and David Wojnarowicz, Peter Hujar rubbed shoulders with countless artists and literary luminaries from New York’s downtown scene in the ’70s and ’80s. Many of these photographs are on display in this landmark exhibition, alongside tender, poised, compassionate, beautiful work spanning a huge variety of subjects.

Standing in front of ‘The Vision of Saint Jerome’ is like slipping down a water slide. The most important painting by sixteenth century Italian maestro Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, aka Parmigianino, is an exercise in sinuous, surreal psychedelia, and it’s stunning.

The camera is meant to be a tool of truth, an instrument that captures reality. But it captures something else in Rotimi Fani-Kayode’s work: fantasy. The Nigerian-born artist lived in Brixton until his early death in his 30s in 1989. In the privacy of his studio, he was able to use the camera to explore ideas of difference, identity and a whole lot of desire.

Everyone in 1970s Lagos was cooler than you. At least they were on the evidence of this show, which collects together the best work of Abi Morocco Photos, a husband and wife duo who documented life in Nigeria as prosperity blossomed and the economy boomed.

It’s hard to know if Italian Renaissance master Andrea Mantegna was issuing a doom-laden warning or just a doe-eyed love letter to history. Because written into the nine sprawling canvases of his ‘Triumphs of Caesar’ (six of which are on show here while their gallery in Hampton Court Palace is being renovated) is all the glory and power of Ancient Rome, but its eventual collapse too.

A vast engine spins, spilling noxious, viscous liquid onto the floor of the Turbine Hall. Mire Lee’s machine is draped in tentacles which ooze and flop around, drenching the cavernous space.