RA Magazine's pick of this week’s art events (27 Sep-3 Oct)

Hughie O’Donoghue
Abbot Hall Art Gallery, until 22 December 2012
Located in the Lake District market town of Kendal, the eighteenth-century house Abbot Hall has been home to an art gallery since 1962, as well as a collection that features Turner and Romney alongside modern and contemporary art.

Hughie O’Donoghue, 'Vulcano: Solfatara III', 2012. Oil on linen canvas. 187 x 253 cm. © the artist, courtesy Marlborough Fine Art.

The gallery’s 50th anniversary exhibition programme culminates in a survey of mesmeric paintings by Hughie O’Donoghue RA, in which landscapes and human bodies merge into abstract fields of colour. For more on the Academician’s art, read his interview with Horatio Clare in the latest issue of RA Magazine.

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Maurizio Cattelan
Whitechapel Gallery, until 2 December 2012
Since the Whitechapel’s expansion in 2009 some of the gallery’s extra space has been used to spotlight major private and public collections not normally on view to the British public.

Until December it turns to the Turin-based contemporary art collection of Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, and specifically her holdings of Maurizio Cattelan, the Italian artist known for his hyper-realist, highly satirical sculptures.

One of the highlights is Bidibidobidiboo (1996), a scene in which a stuffed squirrel slumps on a kitchen table having just committed suicide.

Rashid Johnson
South London Gallery, until 25 November 2012
Chicago-born Rashid Johnson, a rising if not risen star in the American art world, presents his first London exhibition from Friday at the South London Gallery. Johnson will fill the main gallery space with an installation inspired by a psychotherapy practice, with chaise longues surrounded by carpets, plants and the artist’s abstract black paintings.

Rashid Johnson, 'Daybed', 2012. Daybed (1-6) Branded red oak. 64.1 x 185.4 x 91.4 cm / 25 1/4 x 73 x 36 inches.

But, as in Johnson’s previous works, objects always come freighted with wider historical and social significance: the chaise longues are covered in zebra skins, an association with Africa that challenges the perception of therapy as purely Western.

Ed Atkins
Chisenhale Gallery, until 11 November 2012
East London’s Chisenhale Gallery stages the largest exhibition to date of the London-based artist Ed Atkins, known for his high-definition video works and, in particular, his acclaimed work at Tate Britain this time last year, as part of the Tate’s ‘Art Now’ series.

Ed Atkins, 'Us Dead Talk Love', 2012. Tow channel HC video (4:3 in 16:9) with 5.1 surround sound. 37'24", looped. Commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery, Courtesy Cabinet, London.

Chisenhale will unveil a new two-channel installation, Us Dead Talk Love (2012), which, according to the gallery’s statement, will focus ‘on a dialogue between two cadavers’. Expect a strange sensory experience, as the artist blends together computer-generated animation, innovative editing techniques and immersive sound design.

Eric Bainbridge and Simon Martin
Camden Arts Centre, until 2 December 2012
Camden Arts Centre presents concurrently this autumn two solo shows by two British artists: sculptor Eric Bainbridge and Simon Martin, who works in a variety of media, in particular film. The former’s work on view is reminiscent of the open-form metal structures of American David Smith and Anthony Caro RA – three-dimensional collages of found scrap metal that jut at the visitor from every angle.

Eric Bainbridge, 'Bobble Bubble'.

Martin acts as more of a curator or researcher than a traditional artist-maker for his show, in which he groups together objects and images by others, many of which, like the photographs of Stephen Shore, examine our relationship to the built environment.

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Elmgreen & Dragset: Harvest
Victoria Miro, until 10 November 2012
Scandinavian artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset are, like Maurizio Cattelan, known as agent provocateurs, keen to challenge the conventions of the art world, including the art market and how both private and public galleries treat artworks. ‘The Named Series’, on view as part the duo’s new exhibition at London gallery Victoria Miro, features canvases painted white and framed, each bearing the name of a major public gallery, such as New York’s Guggenheim Museum. One then reads that the paint on the canvas is actually from each gallery named: the artist’s employed conservators to carefully remove it from each institution’s walls.

CLOSING: The Wild the Beautiful and the Damned
Until: Sunday 30 September 2012
This Sunday is the last chance to catch Hampton Court Palace’s exhibition about the libertine lifestyle of the Stuart court. Works of art on view include some fabulous paintings of court beauties; read Jenny Uglow’s exhibition preview from the spring issue of RA Magazine to learn more.

Sam Phillips is a London-based arts journalist and contributor to RA Magazine

• Royal Academy of Arts