This week's Guardian art roundup highlights Tschabalala Self's new Fourth Plinth statue in Trafalgar Square, described as a joyful, "rollicking" work that critics say echoes the vibrant, saucy energy of the late painter Beryl Cook, whose work is also on show nearby in Bicester. The piece matters as a rare, widely visible piece of public art in central London, prompting comparisons to Cook's popular style of celebrating everyday, unglamorous fun.

Elsewhere, the digest covers Peter Howson's visceral Passion paintings at Flowers Gallery, Liz Larner's mythologically-inspired sculptures at Camden Art Centre, and Monika Sosnowska's installations on Polish history at South London Gallery. It also flags Round About Baths, a finalist for the European Prize for Urban Public Space, in which Swiss architect Leopold Banchini converted a disused roundabout in Logroño, Spain, into a public swimming pool, alongside news of George Lucas's new art museum, a Nazi-looted painting being returned by Argentina, and a National Gallery altarpiece fragment from around 1515 showing a donor portrait beside Saint Paul.