Rodin’s The Burghers of Calais have decamped from their usual perch next to the House of Lords to cosy up to the work of Henry Moore. They can be found at Moore’s home and studio at Perry Green in Hertfordshire, in a tellingly succinct anthology of the towering giants of modern European sculpture. At first glance Rodin’s extraordinary evocations of energy and sensuality, literally embodied in the models he studied so intensively, and Moore’s semi-abstracted helmet heads and upright motives, don’t have much in common.

Richard Wentworth is the eminence not-so-grise of British contemporary art. The perpetually youthful sculptor’s activities span an extraordinary range of eras and ideas: serving as a teenage assistant to Henry Moore in the Sixties; building sets for Roxy Music in the Seventies; kick-starting the New British Sculpture movement in the Eighties with Tony Cragg and Richard Deacon; masterminding the now legendary "Goldsmiths Course" which launched the YBA generation, alongside Jon Thompson and Michael Craig-Martin.

Prehistory – human life before written language - enters art’s mainstream with this seminal and eye-opening exhibition. This one-off show, amplified by excellent labelling and atmospheric lighting, is enormously ambitious:  the largest anthology of portable prehistoric European art there has ever been, unprecedented in its scope with artefacts from museums in Russia, Germany, France, and the Czech Republic, homes to the greatest of the sites.

Carving in Britain from 1910 to Now is an accurate but unalluring title for what is a seminal show. The Fine Art Society is one of the oldest commercial galleries in Britain, founded in 1876 and still in its original building. Due to this longevity the FAS has unusual access to private collections, and an ability to mix the historic and contemporary to fine effect. The result here showcases an original anthology, simultaneously scholarly and commercial, a mix of loans and for-sale.

Imagine that Rodin’s Thinker gets bored with sitting, head-on-hand, contemplating the folly of humankind and, springing to life, descends from his lofty perch above The Gates of Hell. Having been immobile for a century or more, he is extremely stiff and needs to limber up: cue for some first-rate body popping interspersed with the kind of heroic poses usually reserved for life drawing classes. 

A Dancing Satyr leaps into the air, his head thrown back in ecstasy. His alabaster eyes appear like two pinpoints of illumination in the dimly lit gallery. The bronze figure, which is the first work you encounter in an exhibition spanning 5,000 years of bronze sculpture, is believed to be the work of the famous Greek sculptor Praxiteles, who was active in the second half of the fourth century BC.

There is a growing fashion for new public sculpture and anthologies of contemporary sculpture outdoors, inspiring various polemics for and against. Kew Gardens has been at it for nearly a decade: there was a triumphant Henry Moore show several years ago, followed by glass artist Dale Chihuly festooning their lakes and ponds. The current artist-in-residence, David Nash, creates works with wood from fallen trees.

What a mismatch of ambitions was unearthed in this Culture Show special on the ArcelorMittal Orbit. Boris Johnson admitted that he’d wanted slides on it, joking heartily that “there’s nothing too vulgar for me”, whilst Anish Kapoor wished for it to be “up there with the gods”, and mused that it had moments that were meditative and contemplative. Meanwhile, the artist expressed sheer horror that the Olympic Authorities where keen to call it “an attraction”, despite the public’s insistence on calling it a helter-skelter.

There’s a lot of art currently happening under the wing of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. The common denominator, if there is one, is showstopping ambition and the concept of the inclusive spectacle. What there isn’t much of, whisper it softly, is art inspired by sport.

Yesterday I fell in love with a black boy less than half my age and half my size – or, rather, a sculpture of a black boy. At just over two feet tall, Ron Mueck’s Youth is utterly beguiling. His silken skin, slender fingers, low-slung jeans and paisley patterned underpants are seductive enough; what made me lose my head, though, was the suggestion of dirt under his neatly clipped toenails. This beautifully observed detail made me want to kiss his exquisitely modelled feet.