Pink Floyd, Jane Austen and virtual reality – the week in art

The V&A’s blockbuster Pink Floyd show opens, along with Mat Collishaw’s recreation of an 1839 photography exhibition – all in your weekly dispatch

Exhibition of the week

Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains
From psychedelic odysseys to melancholy musings on the rock star’s fate, the relics of Pink Floyd’s epic story are laid out.
• V&A, London, 13 May–1 October

Also showing

Mat Collishaw
This pioneering experiment in making serious art in virtual reality transports you back to a Henry Fox Talbot photography exhibition in 1839.
• Somerset House, London, 17 May–11 June. Advance booking essential.

Isaac Julien
The artist and film-maker revisits his 1989 film Looking for Langston.
• Somerset House, London, 17 May–21 May

The Mysterious Miss Austen
The life of the great Georgian writer is explored in the 200th anniversary year of her death in Winchester.
• The Gallery, Winchester Discovery Centre, 13 May–24 July

Anderson and Law
Turneresque photographs of model ships from the Science Museum’s collection seen as if through eerie mists on the high seas.
• Science Museum, London, until 25 June

Masterpiece of the week

Giovanni Antonio Baffo, the Baffo Harpsichord, 1574

“Grotesque” originally meant not something ugly or monstrous, necessarily, so much as a playful painted decoration with no message or meaning. It derives from from the Italian word for cave, and became an artistic term after Renaissance painters broke into the underground ruins of Nero’s palace in Rome and were amazed by the abstract strangeness of the ancient Roman murals they found there. This 16th-century Venetian harpsichord has grotesques painted on it that make it a sumptuous work of Renaissance art – one that sounds good, too.
• V&A, London

Image of the week

Part of Folly, the latest and most significant work by British sculptor Phyllida Barlow, which went on show this week in the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2017. The Guardian’s Charlotte Higgins wrote a feature on Barlow this week, talking to those who know her best, and exploring her late-flowering fame; Adrian Searle reviewed the Venice show, while Hannah Ellis-Petersen was on hand to hear from Barlow as she opened it to the public.

What we learned this week

Also in Venice, Iceland’s pavilion is being curated by two fictional trolls, Ugh and Boogar...

... Israeli artist Michal Cole’s work is made from 27,000 neckties...

... and indigenous Australian artist Tracey Moffatt exhibited in her country’s pavilion (with mixed results, according to Adrian Searle)

Judith Mackrell told the story of Peggy Guggenheim and the women who turned Venice into an art powerhouse

Shezad Dawood talked us through his gargantuan 10-film cycle Leviathan, also showing in Venice

A new Banksy work – depicting a man chipping away at an EU flag – appeared in Dover

Tate Modern’s Giacometti exhibition is a five-star triumph ...

... and Alice Fisher headed to the Swiss countryside of the Giacometti family

Oliver Wainwright previewed the Design Museum’s exhibition of Californian design, looking at how acid-fried programmers shaped our world

Alexis Petridis gave five stars to the V&A’s blockbuster Pink Floyd exhibition ...

... and explored Exist to Resist, a new book charting the intersection of protests and raves in the 1980s

Rowan Moore examined how Chester Storyhouse is transforming the city’s culture

In My Best Shot, Chi Modu told us about his tender photograph of Tupac Shakur

A volcano and earthquake museum is to open in Iceland

Mike Mandel discussed his shots of a single Hollywood intersection in the 1970s

Tomohiro Muda talked us through his shots of artefacts left behind after the Japanese tsunami of 2011

Our A-Z of Readers’ Art series continued with your best artworks on the theme of spray paint

Get involved

Guardian members can book now for an exclusive private view: True Faith, a group show exploring the impact of Joy Division and New Order on the art world, part of Manchester international festival.

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