Critic's choice: top five exhibitions

Hephzibah Anderson picks the best of this week's exhibitions, including Tate Britain's first major photography exhibition, Anthony Gormley's latest show at the Hayward, and Monet at the Royal Academy...

How We Are Now
Tate Britain, SW1
The awesome scope of How We Are Now more than makes up for the fact that it is Tate Britain's first major photography exhibition. Journeying through 150 years of the medium's history, from its pioneering beginnings to its hi-tech latter-day embodiment, curators have assembled a vast haul of works by names known, unknown and long lost. Julia Margaret Cameron's mesmerising early portraits exude an eeriness that transcends their feyness, David Bailey provides some glamour and Dan Holdsworth brings things edgily up to date. Along with images by the likes of Lewis Carroll, Bill Brandt and Martin Parr, you'll also find anonymous postcards, family snaps and medical photographs. It all adds up to a rich history of both British photography and Britain itself - almost too much to absorb in a single viewing, so leave time for a long visit.
(020 7887 8008). Until 2 September.

Antony Gormley: Blind Light
Hayward Gallery, SE1
The undoubted star of Antony Gormley's largest London show yet is a huge glass box filled with vaporous mist. Blind Light, his labyrinthine pea-souper, is all about hiding the body, but elsewhere, the familiar form of Gormley himself is central. In Space Station, he creates a crouching, supersize version of himself in foetal position from steel boxes, and in Capacitator, his form bristles in steel rods. Meanwhile, more than 30 nude casts of the artist loiter precariously around the Hayward Gallery's exterior - grey, metallic body-doubles who together make up Event Horizon. Strewn with references to DNA, architecture and urban alienation, it's an ambitious exhibition that hints promisingly at new directions.
(0870 3800 400). Until 19 August.

Paul Chan: The 7 Lights
Serpentine Gallery, W2
Innovative American artist Paul Chan has made his name with "lo-fi" video art and digital animations, blending art history and pop culture references to create frequently dystopian narratives. His latest series, which is premiered here, evokes the seven days of creation. It's made up of drawings and large-scale digital projections, and fuses notions of the sacred and profane with a hauntingly poetic aesthetic. Cast onto floors and walls or glimmering mysteriously in corners, these animated projections seem almost like natural occurrences - the result of light and shadows falling through a window, perhaps.
(020 7402 6075). Until 1 July.

The Unknown Monet: Pastels and Drawings
Royal Academy, W1
Claude Monet's paintings weren't quite the spontaneous creations you'd expect from the founder of Impressionism. As this surprising exhibition reveals, he was a thoughtful draughtsman. Curators have trawled collections public and private in search of his works on paper, surfacing with a haul that spans his early landscape studies, his luminous Views of the Thames series and the drawings he made of his own paintings for reproduction in journals. When he switches from pencil and chalk to pastels, something glorious happens, and the light and colour and liquid movement for which he's so loved flood the paper.
(020 7300 8000). Until 10 June.

LAST CHANCE: Face of Fashion
National Portrait Gallery, WC2
Work by a clutch of top fashion photographers from Europe and America comes together in this stylish survey. Corinne Day, well known for her work with pal Kate Moss, favours an anti-glam aesthetic; Steven Klein draws out dark narratives; Paolo Roversi opts for ethereality; and Mario Sorrenti explores passions and fears. The exhibition argues that as boundaries between advertising, fine art and editorial dissolve, it's this crowd who are shaping our ideas of beauty, sexuality and fame.
(020 7306 0055). Until 28 May.