Critic's choice: Top 5 exhibitions

The Photographic Portrait Prize 2006
National Portrait Gallery, WC2
The subject of this year's winning portrait wasn't keen on having his photograph taken. A man named Joe, he was minding his own business on Brighton's seafront one hot June day, when 29-year-old photographer Richard Boll appeared with his camera. The encounter lasted just four minutes and resulted in an informal, enigmatic shot of a bare-chested man bedecked with beads, bracelets, a naval piercing and tattoos. Chosen from over 5,000 international entries, it won Boll the 12,000-pound first prize, and is shown here alongside 60 other noteworthy works, including Eitan Lee Al's portrait of flame-haired model Lily Cole as Elizabeth I. (020 7306 0055). Until Sun 18 Feb.

Chola: Sacred Bronzes of Southern India
Royal Academy, W1
The Cholas ruled Southern India until the 13th century. As patrons, they left a hefty cultural legacy that includes poetry, paintings and music, and a large number of ever-grander temples, some of which are still standing today. The 40 bronze sculptures on show here would once have been housed in such temples. Worshipped as physical manifestations of the Hindu gods, they were also portable, enabling them to play roles in religious rituals and processions. Some date back as far as the ninth century and all were created using the lost wax technique, making each one unique. Fluid-limbed and mischievously sensuous, it's no wonder their Western fans have included Rodin and Brancusi. (020 7300 8000). Until Sun 25 Feb.

David Smith: Sculptures
Tate Modern, SE1
Born a hundred years ago, American artist David Smith was a pioneering sculptor. His influences included Picasso and Giacometti, yet the blood of his father, an engineer, flowed through his veins, and he grew up fascinated by railway tracks and locomotives. In his teens, he took a job as a welder and riveter in a car factory, forging a respect for steel and iron that would last his career. The monumental metal sculptures that he went on to make describe America's shift from an agricultural to an industrial society, but they also pack a surprisingly powerful emotional punch, evoking the wide-open spaces of his Midwestern roots. Consisting mainly of mature later works, this impressive exhibition is a timely tribute to a prolific talent, whose life was sadly cut short in 1965. (020 7887 8888). Until Sun 21 Jan.

At Home in Renaissance Italy
Victoria & Albert, SW7
This illuminating exhibition peers beyond Italy's lavish Renaissance edifices to suggest what the period might have meant to contemporaries wealthy enough to make the most of it. Focusing on the main rooms of an averagely affluent home, it brings together works by the likes Titian and Botticelli, together with an extraordinary selection of artefacts beautiful and sometimes bizarre. Among the textiles, furniture and crockery are a steel corset, an ear cleaner and assorted gambling games. By repositioning these objects in their original domestic setting, this rich show offers a through-thekeyhole glimpse of Renaissance marriage, childhood and dining. (020 7942 2000). Until Sun 7 Jan.

LAST CHANCE: How to Improve the World: 60 Years of British Art
Hayward Gallery, SE1
They've certainly been among the noisiest, but have the last six decades in British Art also been among the most fertile? This fiesta of homegrown talent insists that it's so, corralling work by the likes of Francis Bacon and Chris Ofili, Henry Moore and Sarah Lucas. Culled from the Arts Council Collection, its roll call of 130 artists reads like a who's who of the nation's artistic movers and shakers, from post-war austerity to Sixties zaniness and the brash exuberance of the Eighties. Though the exhibits themselves are patchy, it still makes for instructive viewing. (0870 3800 400). Until Sun 19 Nov.