Provocative video artist Takamine is no shock tactics exponent, but his works do provoke uneasy, often contradictory thoughts. In God Bless America (2002), the artist and his partner live a 17-day, post-9/11 ritual in a red room where they eat, sleep, have sex, and attack a head of George W Bush. At Ikon Gallery until 17 July
Photograph: Courtesy of the artist
In the 1980s, Salle turned painting back into a going concern. His remixes of tropes from Rosenquist, Picabia and Polke created canvases where high art references and pop trash collided. Untitled Red Chair (2011) forms part of his first London show since 2003, and shows the iconic female figures typical of his work. At Maureen Paley from Thursday until 17 July Photograph: David Salle
Works such as Paul Housley's Blue Boy (2010) feature in this timely show of paintings that float somewhere intriguingly ambiguous between the figurative and the abstract. At Gallery North until 26 May Photograph: PR
The great string sculptor Sandback comes to London. Installations such as Untitled (Sculptural Study, Seven-part Right-angled Triangular Construction) shows Sandback's propensity for collapsing the space between people and sculpture, turning white cube galleries into landscapes with nothing more than coloured yarn. At Whitechapel Gallery, Wednesday to 14 August
Photograph: Vicente de Mello, courtesy Instituto Moreira Salles, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo
Baselitz's earliest works were appalling – misshapen cocks and monstrous feet that served up brutal truths of the second world war. The 20th century's major trauma continues to haunt his work. His latest series, including Trauerhunde (2010), responds to the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. At White Cube Mason's Yard until 9 July
Photograph: Jochen Littkemann, courtesy White Cube
Marking the opening of the new Holburne Museum building in Bath, Peter Blake reveals the cultural curiosities he's been amassing for decades, including Mr Potter's stuffed animals (above) and Elvis Presley's autograph. At Holburne Museum of Art until 4 September Photograph: Hugo Glendinning
Can colours be the sole subject of an artwork? The Ingleby Gallery thinks so, and have commissioned this charming show which takes its title from the Thomas Pynchon novel. Here, Peter Liversidge scours the streets for any junk as long as it is yellow for this shelf exhibit, Doppelganger (yellow). At the Ingleby Gallery until 30 July Photograph: PR
