A hot ticket … frescoes at the British Museum's Pompeii and Herculaneum exhibition. Photograph: Piero Cruciatti/Barcroft Media
This beautiful and moving exhibition brings you intimately close to the people who lived and died in these ancient Roman cities. Pompeii and Herculaneum were destroyed when the volcano Vesuvius erupted in AD79. The same ash and heat that killed those who could not escape in time also preserved furniture, paintings, graffiti, garden ornaments, kitchens, political posters and the bodies of the victims. This is a magical encounter with their uncannily immediate world.
• British Museum, London WC1B, until 29 September
Other exhibitions this week
Secrets of the Royal Bedchamber
Private lives of the royals revealed … If you think Hampton Court is just for tourists, this intriguing exhibition, which is included in the entry ticket price, is a good moment to discover or rediscover this tremendous place.
• Hampton Court Palace, Surrey KT8, until 3 November
Souzou: Outsider Art from Japan
Visionary artists from outside the art world takeover this excellent meeting place of art and science.
• Wellcome Collection, London NW1, until 30 June
Matt Calderwood
This Northern Irish artist shows sculptures that precariously balance and appear on the edge of disaster.
• Baltic 39, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1, until 23June
Sterling Ruby
Pop culture and extreme psychology inform this Californian artist's intense installations.
• Hauser & Wirth, Savile Row, London W1S, until 4 May
Masterpiece of the week
More erotic art from the Roman empire … the Warren cup, found near Jerusalem. Photograph: Trustees of the British Museum The Warren cup. Ancient Roman, AD5-15
Erotic art is one of the highlights of the British Museum's Pompeii exhibition but such delights were not confined to the Bay of Naples. This cup from the Middle East on which scenes of gay love are depicted shows that hedonism ruled throughout the Roman empire.
• British Museum, London WC1B
Image of the week
Katlego and Nosipho. Photograph: Zanele Muholi/Courtesy of Stevenson Katlego and Nosipho by Zanele Muholi.
This week, Muholi won a freedom of expression prize at the Index on Censorship awards for her photographs of the lesbian life in South Africa, where homophobic hate crime – including "corrective" rape for gay women – is rife.
What we learned this week
A Picasso can actually increase in value after having someone's elbow put through it
The government is conducting the first review into the built environment for 13 years
Fabrice Hyber has put a mountain of dubious white powder in the Baltic, Gateshead
The 90s are being celebrated as a more authentic era
If you want to be a famous artist, it helps if you don't keep changing your name
And finally …
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