The initial attraction here is less the rejigged portrait collection than the elaborate arts and crafts movement splendour of the £17.6m refurbished building itself. Yet the exhibits do full justice to the human history of the nation, from Mary Queen of Scots (pictured, by an unknown artist) to Ewan McGregor. Look out too for the death mask of Dolly the sheep. At the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, ongoing Photograph: Scottish National Portrait Gallery
From beneath the oppressive blandness of British monuments on plinths, pretentious pseudo-modernism, or tedious public art, the 1960s and 70s gave rise to such works as Jeff Lowe's Circular Steel Sculpture (pictured), and Keith Arnatt's Art as an Act of Retraction, a series of photographs of the artist eating each of the words 'Eleven portraits of the artist about to eat his own words'. At Henry Moore Institute until 11 March 2012 Photograph: Courtesy of the artist
Smith's interests lie in the real-life building blocks of imaginary worlds. Her latest film work, We Must Live! (pictured), tackles ritual and faith in a Spanish village where the transformative magic space is a coffin, centrepiece of a procession for locals who have been ill. At Frith Street Gallery, W1, 9 December 2011 until 11 February 2012 Photograph: Courtesy of the artist and Frith Street Gallery
Arnolfini's artists' museums show, staged to celebrate the art space's 50th anniversary, is a must-see for anyone who has issues with authority. Featured artists include Jerusalem-born Khalil Rabah, who explores colonialism and displacement in his Palestinian Museum of Natural History and Humankind. At Arnolfini from 9 December 2011 until 19 February 2012 Photograph: MACRO, Museo D'Arte Contemporanea Roma, Italy
Hulusi's latest film, The EMPTY Near East, chronicling a new Eden on a post-human Cyprus, builds on his mysterious conflation of politics and commercial culture. The London-born, Turkish-Cypriot artist has previously aped advertising's slick appeal, from photorealist paintings of his niece picking flowers in Cyprus, to covering his East End neighbourhood with billboard posters bearing his name in a cool, chunky font. At Max Wigram Gallery, W1, 7 December 2011 until 14 January 2012 Photograph: PR
These drawings from Latin America recognise that our experience of landscapes is one of movement: the landscape moves and the viewer moves through it. There's a drawing made with red brick dust, and an exhibit of a single green pencil; drawings mapping wanderings, and others that treasure random discoveries such as Ishmael Randall Weeks's Fragments (pictured). At Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art until 4 March 2012 Photograph: Courtesy the artist, Galeria Federico Schiavo and Eleven Rivington
This show boasts the cream of postwar British painters: Francis Bacon and Frank Auerbach among them. More than 40 paintings take in major and lesser-seen works, including Bacon's iconic takes on Velázquez's portraits of Pope Innocent X (pictured), and one of Auerbach's lesser-known Primrose Hill paintings, capturing winter sunshine in thick scuffs and smears of pigment. At Haunch of Venison, W1, 7 December until 18 February 2012 Photograph: Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums/The Estate of Francis Bacon
General on Strike, part of Misha Shengelia's Royal Mail Series 2002-2011, featuring as part of her Bruegel Boogie Voogie show. The title hints at her work's air of irreverent art-historical reference and playful narrative improvisation. Shengelia's work shows in tandem with a series of painted shelters by Gareth Griffith, an artist who realises the suggestive connection between studio canvas and campsite tent. At Oriel Mostyn, until 15 January (Griffith) and 26 February 2012 (Shengelia) Photograph: PR
