Ben Brown Fine Arts, London, until 3 January 2015
Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges, in his short story The Library of Babel (1941), imagined the universe as an endless library. A new series of paintings by Tony Bevan RA develops this powerful idea of infinite information – repeated grids of bookshelves in acrylic and charcoal appear to expand into the distance beyond each canvas. Ben Brown presents the series alongside the Academician’s pictures of trees.

Old Sorting Office, London, until 17 December
Presented across a former Royal Mail sorting office on New Oxford Street, Here Today brings together a particularly diverse range of artists – from Pop artists Andy Warhol and Peter Blake to contemporary sculptors Bharti Kher and Tony Cragg RA – around the theme of endangered wildlife. The exhibition marks 50 years of the ICUN Red List, which in 2012 reported that approximately 20,000 species of wildlife are threatened with extinction.

Hauser & Wirth, London, until 10 January 2015
Berlinde De Bruyckere is one of an eminent line of artists (think Chaim Soutine or Francis Bacon) whose exhibitions remind one of a butcher’s shop. Animal skin comes together with wax, resin, cloth and rope to create mutilated human and animal shapes, as if stem cells have gone off on horrible tangents, reproducing unspeakable forms of flesh. The Belgian artist visited a skin trader in 2013, and her recent works, on view at Hauser and Wirth from this week, often focus on the bodies of horses.

Transition Gallery, London, 29 November – 21 December
Thomas Gainsborough RA’s famous Mr and Mrs Andrews (1750) has long given rise to a wealth of different interpretations. What relationship do the two sitters have with their land, and each other? Why is a section of Mrs Andrews’ lap unpainted? Ten contemporary painters present varied pictures inspired by the Academician’s masterpiece, at Transition Gallery in London’s Bethnal Green.

Science Museum, London, 2 December – 1 March 2015
The history of photography is a wonderful example of how science and art can be combined for epoch-changing ends. The Science Museum is therefore the perfect place for the presentation of the Royal Photographic Society’s superb collection, which catalogues the changing face of the medium since its inception, from pioneers such as Roger Fenton and Julia Margaret Cameron through to modernists like Edward Weston and contemporary artists including Martin Parr. (By the way, if you have any interest in photography at all, and particularly Fenton, I urge you to read this exceptional serialised essay by Errol Morris in the New York Times.)

Sam Phillips (@SamP_London) is Editor of RA Magazine.