Chapman brothers, Von Ribbentrop and Damien Hirst – the week in art

Jonathan Jones's top shows this week Jake or Dinos Chapman They are determined to provoke, but their talent holds them back, ensuring that even their most aggressive gestures win critical respect. Ah well. In a new attempt to confound anyone who thinks they have a handle on their work, the double-act exhibit as two separate individuals, allowing differences of vision and ability to be seen for the first time. Those Chapmans! • At White Cube Hoxton Square and Mason's Yard, London, until 17 September Michelangelo Pistoletto: The Mirror of Judgement There is a louche, baroque insolence to the art of Michelangelo Pistoletto. The art movement Arte Povera to which he belonged was one of the most powerful European ripostes to American art power in the 1960s, and Pistoletto is still going strong, offering troubling mirrors of the world. • At Serpentine Gallery, London, until 17 September Jean Genet, Act 1 and Act 2 A thief, a writer, a human rights activist – Jean Genet was one of the intellectual stars of postwar French culture and a friend of artists including Giacometti. His radical political stance would undoubtedly make him a strong voice now on themes like the Arab Spring. In this ambitious two-part exhibition, his world is recreated and his obsessions are revived. • At Nottingham Contemporary, 16 July until 2 October Von Ribbentrop in St Ives In this intriguing historical investigation, the artist, filmmaker and author Andrew Lanyon wonders what it meant that the Hitler era politician Joachim Von Ribbentrop holidayed in St Ives in the 1930s. Did he meet the British modern painters who were also drawn there? Was he spying on coastal defences? It is well worth a visit to see the entrancing domestic art collection at Kettle's Yard on which this exhibition draws. • At Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, 16 July until 18 September The Wonders of the Invisible World Ghosts and visions abound in this survey of the unexplained and the mysterious in contemporary art. From Susan Hiller 's fascination with reports and recordings of unexplained phenomena to the eerie explorations of the International Necronautical Society, it's spooky stuff for summer. • At Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland, Part One until 8 October Up close: artworks in detail Ford Madox Brown, Work, 1852-1865 The world of work becomes ever more ethereal for those who sit all day at a screen. But in this brilliantly coloured Victorian masterpiece, true work is sweatily physical. Middle-class characters look on as labourers exert themselves in the sunshine. The gallery of faces and social types is like peering into a great 19th-century novel, and the sense of "us" and "them" sums up the inequalities that gave birth to socialism in the 19th century. • At Manchester Art Gallery Damien Hirst, Away from the Flock, 1994 As works by Damien Hirst from the superb national Artist Rooms collection of contemporary art arrive in his hometown Leeds, it is well worth going to see this sculpture of a young sheep preserved in a vitrine. It is one of his most perfect still life icons. Lambs have been painted in Christian art for a long time, for instance by the Spanish 17th-century master Zurbarán, as a symbol of the Passion. Hirst's silent, clear, poignant image invites thoughts about death, pity, and our relationship with nature. • At Leeds Art Gallery from 15 July Patrick Heron, Window for Tate Gallery St Ives, 1992-3 Summer art trips come no nicer than a visit to the artists' colony and fishing town St Ives, where one of the permanent highlights is the soothing and spiritual stained glass window that painter Patrick Heron designed for the Tate there. Like a Matisse whose Mediterranean dream has been salted by the Atlantic air, Heron's painting always gives me a lift. • At Tate St Ives Vincent Van Gogh, Rain – Auvers, 1890 This is one of Van Gogh's very last paintings. The slashes of rain cutting diagonally across the canvas suggest the desperation of his mindset. As with his famous painting of black crows swarming a cornfield, it is impossible to look at this bleak painting without seeing it as a premonition of his imminent suicide. It is one of the greatest paintings in Wales, where it can now be seen in Cardiff's new national gallery of art. • At National Museum of Wales, Cardiff JMW Turner, The Falls of the Clyde, c1840 It is summer and time to worship the sun. No painter ever did that more enthusiastically than Turner, who is said to have cried out on his deathbed: "The sun is god!" This rapturous example of Turner at his most abstract and suggestive is a gold and bronze storm of light, the sun illuminating the spray of a waterfall, the atmosphere a misty veil of colour. A wonderful treasure of a unique art gallery. • At Lady Lever Gallery, Port Sunlight, Liverpool What we learned this week That the truth really may be found in a glass ball How Moscow hit its G Spot for the first time Why a cat named Nancy Bean is sculpting the future of photography How a heap of cardboard is channelling ancient Rome Why artists in Lisbon are sticking it to the man by keeping it inside the box Image of the week Your Art Weekly @rachelguthrie8 Hilary Jack's work(Castlefield Gallery)=witty British installation made from taxidermy,card+rejected furniture @ADEK03 My take on #chihuly http://t.co/T1UKvMv #artweekly What exhibitions are you going to see this week? Have you been to any of these shows? Did you agree with our reviews? Give your review in the comments below or tweet us your verdict using #artweekly and we'll publish the best ones next week. Follow us on Twitter Like us on Facebook