When Patrick Hughes was a toddler, he slept with his mother in a cupboard beneath the stairs to shelter from Nazi bombs. Imagine what a Continental or American artist would have made of this Oedipal dream fulfilled while, as if in retribution, death rained down outside his little womb. For Hughes, however, the significance of this experience was his view of the underside of the stairs. Up became down, in became out, and Hughes never looked back. He has become the master of visual paradox and puzzle – the keyhole-shaped solid that retains the image of what the peeper saw through it, the striped tin of striped paint.

Conversazioni I presents a programme of baroque pieces reflecting the patronage of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, a well-connected young Venetian related to Pope Alexander VII who chose to indulge his passion for music through copious commissions of Albinoni, Handel, and both Scarlattis.

The Azerbaijan government has staged a literal cover-up at this year's Venice Biennale, the world's most high-profile showcase of contemporary art, by hiding the work of one of its own artists beneath a piece of cloth.

Nina Porter is being driven to distraction by her husband Robert's self-righteous rants on the subject of evil bankers and corrupt politicians. According to Nina, the world wouldn't go round without the odd porky-pie. In a bid to illustrate what a fib-free life might actually look like, Nina determines to spend a week telling the truth. But as Cheek's high concept farce so winningly points out, honesty isn't always the best solution.

Europe's largest antiquarian map fair opens in London next week, providing a glimpse of the creative ways cartographers drew the landscape hundreds of years ago.