Art: The Five Best Shows in London

1

Louise Bourgeois Serpentine Gallery

Veteran French-American sculptress, still a leading light at 87, shows new installations in which a giant mother/ spider (left) presides over images of spin and weave, restore and decay. To 0 Jan

2

Rosemairie Trockel Whitechapel Gallery

Influential German artist; includes a sculpture of a seal called No one under the sun is more miserable than the man who has a fetish for a lady's shoe and must make do with the whole woman. To 7 Feb

3

Duane Hanson Royal Festival Hall Ballroom

Hanson's meticulously life-like figure sculptures find their perfect setting in the sociable space of the RFH. Ordinary people, with props to match. To 7 Jan

4

Grinling Gibbons Victoria & Albert Museum

Fruit, flowers and foliage - the finest chisel-work of the master 7th-century woodcarver, who made intricacy and the abundance of nature his trademark. To 24 Jan

5

Claude Lorrain British Museum

One hundred drawings by the great French classical landscape painter, including his remarkably vivid outdoor studies of woods and streams. To 0 Jan

... AND BEYOND

Patrick Caulfield Luton Central Library Gallery

A set of vibrant screen-print still-lifes by the renowned Pop artist illustrate the work of the symbolist poet Jules Laforgue. To 23 Jan

2

Bridget Riley Abbott Hall, Kendal

A small retrospective, spanning Riley's career as top British abstractionist - from the shimmering monochromes of her early Sixties Op Art fame, to colour, stripes, diagonals, curves. To 3 Jan

3

Oppe Watercolour Collection Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Classic 8th- and 9th-century British watercolours, including Alexander Cozens' blot-derived sketches, John Sell Cotman, Constable and Francis Towne. To 24 Jan

4

Edward Burne-Jones Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

Centenary exhibition gathers together many favourites illustrating Burne-Jones's romantic and mediaevalist nether world. To 7 Jan

5

Chris Ofili Whitworth Gallery, Manchester

The 998 Turner Prize winner, this painter is an upbeat original, his surfaces dense and decorative, with swirls of dots, eyes, Afros and black icons, and incorporating mutant balls of elephant dung. To 24 Jan