It's a month before the Pergamon Museum in Berlin moves some of its most treasured exhibits as part of an extensive renovation programme. Until March 15, the Museum of Islamic Art at the Pergamon Museum is showing a collection of photographs documenting the extraordinary story of the Mshatta Palace. Excavated from the desert in Jordan in 1840, the beautifully carved facade of the eighth-century Umayyad palace was eventually given to Kaiser Wilhelm II by the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II in 1903. It now resides in the Pergamon in Berlin. Photographs of the facade have been crucial in documenting its history, from its excavation to bomb damage in the Second World War and its subsequent restoration in the 1950s. For more information, visit www.smb.museum
Tune in to a different way of thinking about light
James Turrell: A Retrospective explores nearly 50 years in the career of the 71-year-old American artist who uses the fundamental ingredient of sight and art – light – to create works that "make us begin to see how we see". The exhibition includes Turrell's early geometric light projections, prints and drawings, installations that employ sensory deprivation to explore perceptions of colour, space and light, and the gallery's permanent installation of Within Without (2010). A special section is devoted to Turrell's masterwork, Roden Crater, a naked eye observatory in an extinct volcano on the edge of the Painted Desert, Arizona. The show runs until June 8 at the National Gallery of Art, Canberra. Visit www.nga.gov.au
Discover new works by a prominent painter
A show of more than 100 paintings and drawings by the renowned South African artist Marlene Dumas will open at Tate Modern in London on February 5. The artist, who is known for exploring the physical and psychological nature of human existence through charged themes such as love and shame, also references popular culture and current affairs. Her subjects include her family as well as public figures such as Amy Winehouse, Naomi Campbell, Princess Diana and even Osama bin Laden. Marlene Dumas: The Image as Burden runs from February 5 to May 10 at Tate Modern. For more information, visit www.tate.org.uk
