Exhibitions on now in London

"These were revolutionary photographs at the time – and they still feel new in their search to express the inexpressible. The dimly lit, subterranean gallery keeps you cocooned in this elegiac, brooding atmosphere. Kawada is drawn to images that trace the extremities of the Earth, the visible outer edges of our existence – the sky, the horizon, water, burning suns and scorching fires."

"In parts of the show, Moore's love of natural forms seems to run counter to the Victorian splendour of Kew. One of his bone-like pieces, Three Piece Sculpture: Vertebrae (1968-69), sits in front of the Palm House. Moore's irregular, undulating tripartite form seems to echo – or mock – the pane-glass and wrought-iron symmetry of the older building."

"Then, in 1865, Whistler suddenly paints the sea as if it was a piece of silk decorated with white lace and a ribbon. Green and Grey, Channel is a stunning declaration of artistic independence. He takes the sea, the element humans can't control, the roaring theme of Turner's visions, and makes it a painterly plaything."

"In a manifesto-like move, all three of this summer's big exhibitions at Tate Modern celebrate an individual female artist; the others are Tracey Emin and Frida Kahlo. This is by far the best."

"The rounded, white plaster objects are cut open to reveal deep blue interiors that seem immemorial, although Hepworth has simply painted them. Across the blue illusionistic depths, red-painted strings are tautly fixed. The red strings might suggest seaweed if, like me, you can't get nature out of your head looking at these abstract yet evocative works."

"Escher, this utterly traditional artist, makes you see that we walk a world we don't understand. We are his funny little people, going up and down the stairs, thinking we ascend or descend when we're on the flat, propping up our everyday lives with cosy assumptions to hide from the infinite, the impossible real."

"Dadd was an interesting artist before Bedlam but became a great one in it – and a modern artist at that. In his own lonely way he overthrows the rules of art, reaching for unsettling new truths akin to those Manet and Whistler were probing, out in the “sane” world."

"And she is magnificent — not merely critically, but commercially. Brown is among the most expensive living female painters in the world, her canvases commanding prices that would make lesser talents weep. The market, for once, is not wrong."

"Less enthusiastic visitors might not care so much about the significance of using Chinon silk versus Mercury satin. However, Paint! Pattern! Print! is undoubtedly a feast for the eyes, with explosions of colour at every turn. Appreciators of technicolour painting, fashion and good design will find plenty to enjoy here."

"Others (like me) may be put off by his somewhat patrician perspective: a landowner surveying a plot in which everyone is busy at work, driving cows or ploughing fields. This small show at Hampstead's Burgh House offers something like an olive branch to Constable haters."

"As an exhibition, it's a leaf through a scrapbook rather than a comprehensive survey. Summers run together, the days seem long and hazy, the irises are always in bloom. I left this evocative and convivial show craving ratatouille, resolving to plant irises and level the earth at the back of the garden for a greenhouse of my own."

"Ultimately, there's a slightly overwhelming quality to this exhibition: the walls are covered in potted biographies, in who's who of US photography, many of them represented by just one or two images. It's telling so many stories at once. But that means that everyone who visits will find something to delight in, as they pull out faces from a crowd of varied, jostling, unsettling perspectives on American life."

"In an era when art often seems content with small, dry efforts, Kapoor soaks the Hayward in the blood and guts of his unfettered imagination."

"That's the trouble with art. It may set out to change the world, as Le Parc and his pals in GRAV did, but ends up as entertainment. This is a very enjoyable exhibition but its revolutionary impulse gets lost in the light."

"In that regard, and in staking her claim as an active participant in how she was perceived during her lifetime, it's a success. But Monroe is so chameleonic, so charming, so conscious of audience and image that – between star and photographer – we only get an occasional glimpse of the human behind the pictures."

"Certainly, blockbusters showing Van Gogh have the most populist pulling power, but credit is due to the National for truly seeking to provide a fuller geographic and historical view of other artists and movements. To this end, this Waldmüller showcase is the art historical equivalent of eating your greens: it may not quicken the heartbeat but is nonetheless a healthy exercise forming a fully balanced palate."

"Tate's blockbuster show about this rightly beloved artist asks how and why she became an "icon". But I've never seen an exhibition about how Picasso got famous or the cultural invention of Rembrandt. We know they are great artists and how they were historically recognised is for scholars."

"But the exhibition does not sing. It spits out theory instead. Every section is framed as an essay, with artworks chosen to illustrate an argument: one bay is based around the ideas of sociologist Stuart Hall, which the works don't seem to illustrate anyway. This is a show that wants to conjure up a utopian place, Panafrica, and make it real, which would be a powerful piece of political enchantment."

"It's rare that an exhibition is so bad you feel compelled to text a friend saying "you wouldn't believe the garbage I just saw" as soon as you get out. And if you can walk around this badly explained, undercontextualised, barely linked, poorly thought through mess of a show without getting a migraine, you have a stronger constitution than me."

"Yet art rock is not art. In a live gig or on vinyl (White's preferred medium), sounds and words, gestures and rhythms, create atmospheres that can be elusive and fragile in their romantic power, even when the lyrics are banal or nonsensical. But as a visual artist, White is a complete nonstarter."