Black art moved centre stage, sculpture couldn’t keep still, Francis Alÿs captured the power of child’s play – but the year belonged to Van Gogh

1. Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers
National Gallery, London; September (runs until 19 January 2025)
Show of the year, if not the decade: electrifying, mesmerising, intensely affecting, every brushstroke alive with joyous energy. From the Yellow House in Arles to the asylum at Saint-Rémy, 61 works from the final two years of Van Gogh’s life, many never seen in Britain before. And this is to say nothing of his wildly original drawings…

2. Francis Alÿs: Ricochets
Barbican Art Gallery, London; June
I loved this cinematic update on Bruegel’s Children’s Games by his modern-day Belgian compatriot. Children all over the world making joy in often catastrophic conditions created by adults with ingenuity, beauty, innocence, humour. Snail racing, kite flying, mirrors in the desert: a cross between art, poetry and anthropology.