Negotiable Values, Manchester

Manchester’s Chinese Arts Centre continues to highlight the speedy changes taking place in China – as well as increasing interchanges between Chinese and western artistic cultures – with an exhibition of works that question the concept of progress. Wang Jun’s installations hint at moments of social alienation; Zheng Li paints oversized babies, grotesquely aged well beyond their years; and Rachel Goodyear’s take on cultural suspense is seen in a series of delicate drawings of enigmatic dreams.

Chinese Arts Centre, to 3 Apr

Robert Clark

Richard Grayson, Bexhill-on-Sea

Crank lore clashes with mainstream dogma in Richard Grayson’s suggestive remix of religious mania, apocalyptic prophecy and music. In this retrospective, one video has Handel’s Messiah interpreted by a country & western band. In another, a choir sings a libretto splicing end-of-the-world predictions with sci-fi, inspired by the writings of the Christian cult The Family. But religious fanatics aren’t the only ones heralding our imminent doom. Photographs of giant particle accelerators, potentially able to suck the world down a giant black hole, are shown alongside messages posted by anxious bloggers. Meanwhile, in a new commission, folk-rocker Roy Harper monologues on his experiences with superstition and the end of politics.

De La Warr Pavilion, to 14 Mar

Skye Sherwin

Aubrey Williams, Liverpool

Guyanese-born Aubrey Williams’s paintings are a high-spirited mix of Caribbean vibrancy, abstract gesturing and a belief in art’s evocative potency derived from a study of the ritual cultures of indigenous Central and South America. He quotes the West Indian Arawak term for the creative impulse Timehri. “Now, Timehri to the Arawak means the mark of the hand of man … the act of painting, the act of daring to make art.” It is this intensity of creative faith, combined with an eye for radiant colour and a fearless determination to take influences from a disparate range of sources (he based a series of paintings on the work of Russian composer Shostakovich), which takes his best work beyond retrogressive abstract expressionism.

Walker Art Gallery, to 11 Apr

Robert Clark

The Real Van Gogh, London

He might not have been so thrilled about it, but Vincent Van Gogh is the unrivalled crowd-pleaser: a poster child for overlooked talents everywhere, whose paintings grace countless knick-knacks. The Royal Academy’s must-see show is, staggeringly, the first major London offering of his work in 40 years, and boasts a revelatory take on one of art history’s most over-exposed stars. While Van Gogh is also famed as a prolific scribbler, his original letters are rarely seen. Presenting these alongside major paintings like his Self-Portrait As An Artist and The Yellow House, the show emphasises the methodical, intellectual and literary side to the mad genius portrayed in movies and pop songs.

Royal Academy Of Arts, W1, Sat to 18 Apr

Skye Sherwin

Spasticus Articus, Liverpool

“Hello to you out there in Normal Land!” So the legendary Ian Dury set out his outsider status in Spasticus Autisticus, the song which inspired this exhibition’s title. Curated by Jota Castro and Christian Viveros-Fauné, who here jointly work under the half-respectable designation Bureau des Visceralists, it gathers together an array of defiantly irreverent artists – artists whose work challenges the art-as-commodity art world and unashamedly impertinent and immature artists whose work comes on like a kid throwing a tantrum. So we get Mauro Vignando from Italy, The Bruce High Quality Foundation from the USA, Romanian artist Simona Homorodean (work pictured) and our own UK neo-dadaist mock-con-artist S Mark Gubb.

Ceri Hand Gallery, to 27 Feb

Robert Clark

Alex Pollard and Clare Stephenson, London

Scottish artists Alex Pollard and Clare Stephenson make flamboyance look edgy. Drag queens, dandies and criminals are among the well-dressed cast who caper about in their work. For this joint show, they’re turning the four floors of Pump House gallery into a “hyper-theatrical” setting inspired by medieval nonsense poetry. Stephenson’s outsize cardboard cutouts feature screenprinted images of androgynies in jaunty designer outfits, collaged together from fragments of gothic architecture and sculpture. Pollard’s lushly coloured, decorative paintings turn outlaw folk heroes – from Robin Hood to the 18th century serial jail breaker Jack Sheppard – into glamour-boys. Alongside fighting the establishment, their stockings and coiffed facial hair suggest a serious pride in personal grooming. It all cleverly conflates decadence as a form of resistance and rebellion’s decline into a fashionable pose.

Pump House Gallery, SW11, to 14 Mar

Skye Sherwin

David Mackintosh, Manchester

Just when you think life is going along normally in David Mackintosh’s drawings – a man walking a dog – you are bound to come across something as grim as a warship or grotesque as a severed head. His deceptively naively delineated graphic narratives are presented in a range of disjointed and fragmented formats, dangling like wind-blown scraps from sculptural trees, or brought further to laconic life through lo-tech stop-frame animation. The theatre-of-the-absurd futility of his overall worldview, while always brightened by sardonic humour, is indicated by the title of his recently published monograph Imagine You’re In A Room Full Of Blind Fools Desperately Grasping At Nothing.

Cornerhouse, Sat to 28 Mar

Robert Clark

Matthew Barney, London

Matthew Barney is one of art’s big stars. Renowned for excess, when it comes to elaborate symbolism, bodily orifices and, his favoured substance, glistening Vaseline, his films, performance and sculptures don’t hold back. Budgets are huge, the locations are global and the players include cultural icons, from Norman Mailer to Barney’s other half, Björk. His latest show is comparatively low-key. New drawings feature delicate pencil lines and washes of ink, gorgeous gold leaf and collage. The subject matter, though, is classic Barney. Made in connection with Ancient Evenings, his ongoing seven-part opera based on Mailer’s erotic novel set in Egypt, the drawings collide Egyptian mythology with the 21st century.

Sadie Coles HQ At South Audley Street, W1, Wed to 6 Mar

Skye Sherwin

The artist says: Thanks for reading my contemporary art blog! If you are involved in the art and culture industry in any way, and would like to syndicate content from or to this blog, or if you simply enjoy art and would like to get in touch, please leave a comment! This article has been kindly provided by: Art and design: Art | guardian.co.uk