Silk Road treasures, Turner hopefuls and the wisdom of Jeremy Deller – the week in art

Mind-blowing artefacts that travelled the ancient trade route, Michael Craig-Martin’s conceptual tree and a sliced-up engine – all in your weekly dispatch

Exhibition of the week

Silk Roads
This epic survey of cultural connections between Asia and Europe more than a millennium ago should be mind-blowing.
• British Museum, London, from 26 September until 23 February

Also showing

Turner prize
The once-provocative prize returns to Tate Britain with shortlisted artists Claudette Johnson, Delaine Le Bas, Pio Abad and Jasleen Kaur showing their stuff.
• Tate Britain, London, from 25 September until 16 February

Alison Wilding: Testing the Objects of Affection
Subtle sculptures by this fine and sensitive abstract artist.
• Alison Jacques Gallery, London, 20 September until 26 October

Jeremy Deller
Posters, banners and other witty objects by an artist whose favourite medium is society itself.
• Modern Institute Aird’s Lane, Glasgow, until 21 December

Michael Craig-Martin
Early conceptual works including An Oak Tree are the best reasons to see this otherwise disappointing retrospective of Damien Hirst’s teacher.
• Royal Academy of Arts, London, from 21 September until 10 December

Image of the week

Alexandra Bircken started out in fashion but ended up making art out of everything from carved-up car engines to gimp suits and bits of her body. The German artist reveals how her fascinations began.

What we learned

David Dimbleby and his daughter have curated a heavy-going show

Artist John Stezaker is master of the creepy collage

London’s fourth plinth artwork aims to ‘unite trans community around the world’

This year’s LensCulture street photography awards offer a tour of humanity around the world

Joe Lycett may have left standup behind, but he is anything but a serious artist

Masterpiece of the week

Saint Paul on Malta by Adam Elsheimer, c. 1600

Intense, apocalyptic and primitivist, this night scene brings to life a letter by Saint Paul in which he tells of being shipwrecked on Malta. But he makes it sound very different from today’s holiday island. Paul describes the people of Malta as prehistoric and cut off from the advanced culture of the ancient Mediterranean world around them. Elsheimer shows them naked, surely inspired by stories and stereotypes of New World peoples. He depicts Paul throwing a snake that has bitten him into the fire: Paul writes that when he survived the snake’s venom the Maltese concluded he must be a god. With its swirling seas, fire on a distant hilltop and wild people, this painting has something in common with Shakespeare’s early 1600s play The Tempest. Elsheimer’s idiosyncratic method of painting in oil on copper gives the sparks, fire and sea foam a bright sharp magic.
• National Gallery, London

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