Cultured cuppas, a stab-proof Banksy and 1.5 million…

Cultured cuppas, a stab-proof Banksy and 1.5 million maps – the week in art

Science meets art … Olafur Eliasson. Photograph: Olafur Eliason/Jens Ziehe. Boros Collection, Berlin, Germany.

Exhibition of the week

Olafur Eliasson
The artist who gave Tate Modern an indoor sun returns with more sublime experiments on the border of science and art.
• Tate Modern, London, 11 July to 5 January.

Also showing

Ibrahim Mahama
The Ghanian artist has created an installation that explores the history of his homeland for Manchester international festival.
• Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, to 29 September.

Talking Maps
A survey of the power and wonder of cartography that draws on the Bodleian’s stupendous collection of 1.5m maps.
• Bodleian Library, Oxford, until 8 March.

A Tea Journey
The rituals and artworks that have made tea a global cult are brewed together in this rich and enlightening blend.
• Compton Verney, Warwickshire, 6 July to 22nd September.

Ivon Hitchens
This modern painter of the British landscape was the 20th century’s answer to Constable.
• Pallant House, Chichester, to 13 October.

Masterpiece of the week

Judith in the Tent of Holofernes, 1622, by Johann Liss
This is actually quite a mild version of the gory story of Judith, who according to the Book of Judith in the Old Testament Apocrypha was a virtuous and godly young widow. When her city was besieged by the mighty Assyrian general Holofernes and the menfolk wanted to surrender, she visited the merciless warrior pretending to be a traitor. After a few days’ flirting she cut off his head. Liss depicts her preparing to escape with the severed head to show the Israelites. His radical point of view pushes the bloody neck of the decapitated corpse towards the onlooker. Yet his florid fleshy style stresses movement and energy more than horror. Liss was a German artist who worked in Italy and this is his response to all the visceral decapitations in the art of his biggest influence, Caravaggio.
• National Gallery, London.

Image of the week

Stormzy performs on the Pyramid stage on 28 June. Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA

Union Jack stab-proof vest, credited to Banksy
Grime star Stormzy’s opening headline set at last weekend’s Glastonbury festival was a landmark in black British culture. Unbeknown to the singer, the vest he wore as he took to the stage had been made by the street artist Banksy, and the collision of art and music was quickly hailed as a symbolic statement on a divided nation. Meanwhile, a TV interview was unearthed that could leave Banksy, who guards his identity carefully, unmasked.