The Czech artist Běla Kolářová gets her first posthumous retrospective at Raven Row.  She died in 2010, at the grand old age of eighty-seven, but never really hit dazzling heights as a popular artist.  This wasn’t specifically her own fault -- her works are strong, thoughtful and very well-crafted -- but goes some way to indicating the representation of women in, though revolutionary, less enlightened times.

Most closely associated with photography, Kolářová used a camera-less technique, playing with light, film and shadow to create, in a particular example, ‘artificial negatives’.  Even then, this process of creation via a retrospective analysis (working backward, to create something resembling a negative as the finished product) is an example of Kolářová attempting to rewrite the past, to erase and build over the sins of her fathers.

And not just her own.  Kolářová created work in the fog of war.  Her generation was the one that promoted revolution and rearmament in Cold War Czechoslovakia (remember that, kids?).  She married the poet and artist Jiří Kolář in 1949 and chose to go into exile with him in the 1980s, before the fall of Communism.  Ultimately (because I’m running out of space), Kolářová realised that it was impossible to use the established methods of creation to document the world -- in fact it might have been impossible to document the world at all.  So what we have is a work that straddles the line between photography and fine art, between documentary and conceptualism, between feminism and communalism.  But it’s an art of change and it’s incredibly powerful.

Běla Kolářová is at Raven Row until 07 April.

It’s already been called the first must see show of 2013.  If that’s overly subject to opinion, it should stand to remain that Light Show at the Hayward Gallery is currently the most audacious sensory experience currently on display in any gallery in town.

Over the past few years there has been a marked increase in the amount of exhibitions where the artists have sought to involve their audiences through some kind of sensory enhancement or deprivation.  There was Antony Gormley’s Blind Light, also at the Hayward Gallery, where visitors were plunged into a vapour/smoke-filled box; How It Is, by Miroslaw Balka, in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall (a similar experience to the Gormley, comprised instead of a large, padded black box); there’s Gormley’s current show at White Cube Bermondsey; et al.  A throwback to the immersive theatre created by the likes of Punchdrunk, it’s the kind of art that appeals to fears and desires over much else.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  The Hayward here have put together a roster of twenty-two of arts great and good, names including David Batchelor, Olafur Eliasson (who created the Sun for the Turbine Hall in 2003’s The Weather Project), Nancy Holt, Jenny Holzer, Fischli and Weiss, Conrad Shawcross, Philippe Parreno and James Turrell.  There’s a veritable buffet of work to be eaten up here.  It’s bright, colourful, emotive and pure.  It’s high intensity voltage and low intensity engagement.  It’s possible to spend an entire afternoon wandering these galleries.  Spring is coming, but until it does this is perfect for a grey winter in London.

(As may be expected, some installations contain artificial mist, flashes and/or strobe lighting).

Light Show is at the Hayward Gallery until 28 April 2013.

We’ve never really had the same cinema viewing culture here as they have in the States.  Naturally, it’s a little more stiff upper lip here.  I’m sure it’s a case of Grass is Greener syndrome but sometimes you do want to throw your popcorn at the screen, boo at the villain and be taken away by the sheer pantomime performance of it all.  The Prince Charles Cinema is not only one of the most well-programmed cinemas in (possibly) the whole country, but with their Sing-A-Long-As and special events they know how to get you in the mood of festivities.

Join us at the Prince Charles tomorrow for a Pyjama Party: an all-nighter of films by the suburban king of 80s cinema, John Hughes.  The name may be unremarkable but his films are far from it.  From 9pm, you’ll be treated to a marathon of six classics: Weird Science; Ferris Bueller’s Day Off; Planes, Trains and Automobiles; Pretty in Pink; Uncle Buck, and the one to rule them all, The Breakfast Club.  This is a line-up that includes all the stars of your (my?) youth: Matthew Broderick, Steve Martin, John Candy, Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, Andrew McCarthy.  These are the films that helped launch a new wave of young, teen cinema – films that we’re still feeling the effects of today.

Sure, the chances of everyone in the audience staying awake all night to watch every minute are slim.  But it’s a pyjama party!  Bring your sweats and whatever drinks and midnight snacks you want and your dear Culture Editor can guarantee that by the time Judd Nelson punches the air, walking through the football field, everyone will be singing along to Simple Minds.

Pyjama Party – John Hughes Edition is at The Prince Charles Cinema tomorrow, 02 February, from 2100.