Richard Billingham's shockingly frank photographic portraits of his own parents' domestic lot – including Untitled, 1994 (pictured) – show alongside work by artists ranging from Gainsborough to Sarah Jones, the latter of whom introduces a less familiar perspective with her photographic reveries of almost painterly compositional subtlety. The Family in British Art is at Millennium Gallery, until 29 April 2012 Photograph: Richard Billingham, Arts Council Collection
Freud's portraits are hard, disquieting things, attuned to the tough reality of bare, veiny sprawling bodies and the jaundiced walls, gummy sheets and cruel furniture around them. This show spans Freud's entire career, from the early stylistic experiments of the 1940s to his legendary, hit-you-in-the-guts realism. At National Portrait Gallery, London WC2, 9 February to 27 May 2012 Photograph: Private Collection; The Lucian Freud Archive
Taking the geometric abstraction of Frank Stella and Bridget Riley as its guiding aesthetic, this exhibition reveals a host of maverick abstractionists (including Daniel Sturgis, work pictured) working away through an era of postmodernist multimedia. At Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre, to 10 March 2012 Photograph: PR
In West's film installations, film stock from Hollywood blockbusters is subjected to physical attack from the application of chemicals, whisky, urine, smoke, nail varnish and – oh yes – LSD. Film strips are burned, scratched and even bitten. Titles include Heavy Metal Sharks Calming Jaws Reversal Film and Dawn Surf Jellybowl Film (pictured). At S1 Artspace, to 10 March 2012 Photograph: PR
This show's gloomy theme is economic decline and squeezed space in our overcrowded cities. Captured in photography, film and installation, abandoned buildings from the USA to Asia – including Noel Jabbour's photos (work pictured) of squat brick Middle Eastern buildings – the works featured create an unnerving vision of society on the edge. PM Gallery and House, London W5, to 17 March 2012
Photograph: Noel Jabbour
The considerable physical presence of Shaw's sculptures, their ability to animate the atmosphere of a gallery space, lies in the presence of seemingly contradictory characteristics. Rigorously abstract, yet suggesting some kind of cellular or amoebic organisms. At their best in this show, they glow and mutate like eerie things unearthed from some creepy dream of a sci-fi future. Chameleons and Shape Shifters: Sculptures by Michael Shaw is at Gallery Oldham, to 10 June 2012 Photograph: PR
This cosmos-themed show is full of art that offers its own version of stargazing. Participants include Mark Aerial Waller, and Karin Kihlberg & Reuben Henry's film work This Story Is About a Little Boy (still pictured). At Wysing Arts Centre, 5 February to 18 March 2012 Photograph: PR
Kusama is the artist who sees dots – everywhere. Putting an oppressive traditionalist upbringing in Japan behind her, she became a media sensation dubbed the 'princess of polka dots', only to voluntarily retire to a Tokyo psychiatric institute in the 1970s, where she continues to work to this day. This survey promises to trace an artistic career that's certainly taken some unusual turns. At Tate Modern, London SE1, 9 February to 5 June 2012 Photograph: PR
