Butterflies, bacchanalia and Francis Bacon – the week in art

The Louvre’s pyramid disappears, Tate Modern previews its £260m Switch House and Tracey Emin explains the joys of marrying a stone – all in your weekly art dispatch

Exhibition of the week

Bhupen Khakar
Modern Indian art takes the form of playful figurative paintings here. Will they work in the most 21st century of museums?
Tate Modern, London, 1 June-6 November

Also showing

Félix González-Torres
Influential and engaging interactive art by this artist who died from Aids-related illnesses in 1996.
Hauser & Wirth, London, until 30 July.

Making Discoveries: Rubens’ Ghost
An x-ray image of Rubens’ Mars, Venus and Cupid reveals the great baroque master’s technical secrets.
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, until 3 July.

Maria Merian’s Butterflies
Gorgeous 18th-century butterfly art by this intrepid observer of nature.
Queen’s Gallery, London, until 9 October.

George Shaw: My Back to Nature
Clever paintings that respond creatively to the National Gallery’s collection. Don’t miss the specially marked works throughout the museum that reveal what Shaw has been looking at and which works his own allude to.
National Gallery, London, until 30 October.

Masterpiece

Nicolas Poussin
Ecstasy and sin have rarely been as controlled as they are in this painting. Poussin portrays excess and intoxication with a firm hand, but every precise stroke of his measured composition makes you aware of his moral disdain. It is clearly not how this French artist who worked amid the classical ruins of Rome spent his own time.
National Gallery, London.

Image of the week

What we learned

We take a first look inside the Tate Modern’s new Switch House

Street artist JR has made the Louvre pyramid disappear in Paris

Tracey Emin says the stone she married will never let her down

Gustav Metzger’s art still holds a powerful message for Austria

Cornelia Parker and Jarvis Cocker are sharing their spoils at the Foundling Museum

Tate Liverpool’s Francis Bacon show is “an embarrassment of riches”

Alejandro Aravena’s first Venice Biennale is not just a “biennale of the poor”

Yayoi Kusama says her most treasured possession is her next painting …

... And here is a beautiful gallery of her latest extraordinary artworks

Kusama is among the many art stars Shigeo Anzaï has photographed

The Art Fund wants to raise £10m to buy Elizabeth I’s “Armada Portrait”

The Courtauld Institute of Art is loaning out a Manet to Hull

Indigenous weaver Yvonne Koolmatrie has won a $50,000 art prize

The bones of the HMS Namur are going on show at Chatham Historic Dockyard

We check out the nap pods and rooftop parks of Silicon Valley HQs

Marvel at these beautiful butterfly illustrations by Vladimir Nabokov

This footage of Mount Etna erupting is as pretty as a Joseph Wright painting

Guy Le Querrec can’t explain the handbag flying through his best photograph

We pay tribute to the late artist, photographer and art director David King

Tate hosts the first London edition of the internet Yami-ichi

And finally … people have been mistaking a pair of specs for modern art

Get involved

A-Z of readers’ art – share photos and stories about the objects that have changed you

Don’t forget

To follow us on Twitter @GdnArtandDesign

Contributor

Jonathan Jones

The GuardianTramp

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