THE FIVE BEST SHOWS IN LONDON

1

Bruce Nauman Hayward

Video, neon, noise, messages, repetition, claustrophobia, surveillance: a sensory and intellectual assault on the viewer. The work of this US artist since the 60s has been widely influential on/ripped off by later artists. Here, the horse's mouth.

2

Chagall Royal Academy

94-22 were his best years. The works for the Russian State Jewish Theatre - long thought lost - reveal a surprisingly vigorous and public- spirited artist, before his lapse into sweet-dreaminess.

3

Patrick Heron Tate Gallery

Heron's "all you need is colour" plan for painting - at one time, it looked like hot progress, now it looks like a weird experiment, worth doing to find out its limitations.

4

Robert Capa Photographers' Gallery

Whether or not his most famous sequence - the falling militiaman - was staged, Capa remains the war photographer of the century. The show covers it all, from Spain, through D-Day, to Indo-China.

5

Loose Threads Serpentine Gallery

Sewing like you've never seen it: a round-up of stitchers, spoolers and weavers, all contemporary, most new to the UK, proving that the homely arts of our grandmothers have not been lost on the ironical generation.

... AND BEYOND

Jock McFadyen Edinburgh

Recent work by leading British figurative artist, mainly pictures of buildings in London and Edinburgh - grand, disused, dilapidated cinemas, bingo-halls, etc. Urban mess made paint with grace.

2

Thomas Joshua Cooper Leeds

The sea is the subject of Cooper's intense, painterly photographs, made with long exposures, low light, and the photographer often up to his chest in water.

3 Disasters of War Brighton

"I saw this" - three ages of European war through the eyes and etchings of Jaques Callot, Goya and Otto Dix. Scratched-out, search-lit, black-and-white visions from the blackest of times.

4

Claude Lorrain Oxford

00 drawings by the great French classical landscape painter, including his remarkably free, vivid and sensitive outdoor studies of woods and streams. It's hard to believe they're 350 years old.

5

Renaissance to Impressionism Southampton

In 992 a load of old masters turned up in the basement, and now they're on view. Among them are works by Renaissance woman artist Sophonisba Anguisola and the only Archimboldo in Britain.