Green Mountain Mist 
Craig Mooney

Cultural Briefs
2007 Art Fairs In Europe & the United States
Cultural Calendar

                       

 

Cultural Briefs

 

 

New Emigration Museum Opens At The Port of Hamburg

A new museum opened recently at the Port of Hamburg. The Museum of Emigration or otherwise known as the BallinStadt museum, is located on the peninsula Veddel at the Port of Hamburg. Visitors can experience an emigrant’s way of life at the original historical scene.
More than 150 years ago emigrants embarked here for the New World. To reconstruct the past, the visitors can walk through six different theme halls to experience an emigrant’s way of life—from leaving home, the transatlantic crossing, and the arrival in New York and the beginning of a new life—presented in an engaging, interactive form. The museum’s comprehensive database, featuring more than 600 million entries, enables visitors to research the emigration history of their ancestors.
For the cruise passengers the BallinStadt museum is an attractive point of interest and is easily reachable from the Hamburg Cruise Center. For more information visit www.ballinstadt.de  or www.hamburgcruisecenter.de.

Amsterdam Now Boasts A New Museum Dedicated To Bags And Purses
The Museum of Bags and Purses, which opened in June, is a unique museum that through its collection of over 3500 bags and accessories shows the history of the handbag in Western culture. The museum is located in a magnificent 17th century building along a canal. on Herengracht 573.The building dedicates two ornate rooms to a diverse collection of over 3500 bags, pouches, suitcases, purses and other accessories that includes 17th century pouches and alms purses, 18th century thigh bags, wallets and framed bags, 19th century reticules and stocking purses and classical, exceptional and special models from the 20th and the 21st century. More information at
www.tassenmuseum.nl.

The Annual Newport Chamber Music Festival 2007 Now In Session
The Newport Music Festival 2007 is celebrating its 39th season of chamber music from now through July 22 in Newport, Rhode Island. The Festival will present 67 concerts (three to five per day) in the famous Newport Mansions with American and international artists.  Morning concerts are at 11 am, afternoons usually at 4 pm or 6 pm and evenings at The Breakers, the queen of the Newport Mansions, at 9 pm. For additional Festival information, visit http://www.newportmusic.org /

British Museum Planning a Multimillion Dollar Expansion
The British Museum is planning a new £100 million ($131 million) 1,000-square meter space to house its blockbuster exhibitions. The museum is responding to beyond-capacity crowds that have been flocking to the institution, especially for large-scale exhibitions such as last year’s shows on Persia and Michelangelo. "For the Michelangelo we could have had three times as many visitors if we'd had space," said Neil MacGregor, the director of the museum. The museum also recently had to turn down the traveling exhibition Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs* for lack of space. Architects Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners will design the new complex, which will also include a conservation center.
*The exhibition will open at the 02 Arena in the London suburb of Greenwich in November.

The 2007 Opera Festival Opens At The Arena di Verona  
The 85th Opera Festival of the Fondazione Arena di Verona opened June 22 but there is still time to catch a performance or two. Held in the old Roman amphitheater in Verona, the festival, which closes September 1, is presenting five opera productions and 49 performances.
Nabucco by Giuseppe Verdi inaugurated the summer season with a new stage design. After Aida and Carmen, Nabucco is the most performed opera in the Arena with 16 editions and a total of 146 performances.
The second opera in the program is Aida by Giuseppe Verdi, with the second new stage design for 2007. The cast of singers includes Hui He, Amarilli Nizza and Micaela Carosi who will alternate in the role of Aida, Piero Giuliacci and Marco Berti (Radames) while Marianne Cornetti, Elena Manistina and Dolora Zajick will be Amneris.
Other operas being presented include Puccini’s La Boheme, Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, and Verdi’s La Traviata. More information at http://www.arena.it/eng/arenaeng.urd/portal.show?c=1.

 

New Web Site Features Historical Art Prints
 The Historical Print Shop is a group of printmakers who specialize in restoration and fine quality printing of historical images. Their collection of prints have now been assembled into a Web site, available for public viewing and online ordering at http://www.historicalprintshop.com.
Well-organized by subject order and alphabetical order, the site also provides background information on each print. Moderately priced, the prints are precise replicas of the original historical images, custom-printed for each order - not mass-produced. Each print is created with heavyweight, archival papers and archival inks.
Historical Print Shop's print selection includes many rare and unusual images, some as old as the mid-14th century.
The Web site can be viewed and prints ordered at: http://www.historicalprintshop.com.

Chateau de Versailles Reopens Its Hall Of Mirrors After Extensive Restoration

The Château de Versailles, one of France’s most outstanding architectural masterpieces, fully reopened its famous Hall of Mirrors after an extensive three-year restoration on June 25, 2007.
Designed in 1681 by Jules Hardouin-Mansart for Louis XIV, the Sun King, the 240-foot hall was a marvel of its time. The king only used it on very important court occasions such as royal weddings or receptions for foreign dignitaries. The original furniture for the Hall of Mirrors was solid silver.
The name comes from the 375 mirrors along the back wall. They are grouped in seventeen arched arcades designed to “mirror” the French windows on the opposite side that overlook the chateau’s garden. The mirrors, the largest that could be produced at the time, cost $6,600 each. They were manufactured in France using a then, state-of-the-art mercury technique, whose fumes caused the death of numerous workers. For the renovation, each mirror was removed and reinforced, or if necessary, replaced by antique mercury mirrors that were stored in the Senate.
Another impressive aspect of the Hall of Mirrors is its 10,800 square-foot ceiling featuring paintings by the king’s “first painter” Charles Le Brun. For the first time, a king would be portrayed in decorative art, instead of mythological subjects. Out of respect, the king would be painted first on a canvas using an easel, then it would be attached to the ceiling and surrounded by painting applied directly to the plaster. These canvases were taken down during earlier renovations and some had been severely damaged or even put back up in the wrong place. Restoring the ceiling paintings was a long and delicate task that required some forty full-time restorers. Much of the work involved “repairing” the previous restorations.
Other decorative features that were refurbished include marble columns and ornamental elements, molded stucco and plaster, gilded bronze statues and hardware. The old parquet floor dating from the 1950’s was entirely replaced and the electrical system was updated. Website: www.chateauversailles.fr

New Video Installation At The Museum in Docklands
The Museum in Docklands is offering visitors the chance to discover a different kind of commuting experience with Rush Hour, a powerful video installation which runs until November 1. Across three huge screens, the work, by artists David Matthews and Paul Howard, uses a montage or real time/still time photography, and a bustling soundtrack centered around a phone-in radio show, to capture a rush hour moment in Sierra Leone. Admission is free with the year admission fee to the Museum in Docklands of £5 for adults and £3 for concessions.

New Museum Of Arts & Design Set To Open In 2008 In New York
The Museum of Arts and Design will open in a new home at 2 Columbus Circle. Set for completion in 2008, the 54,000-square-foot building will for the first time will be able to present and expand its permanent collection of art objects including ceramics, fiber, glass, metal, paper, wood, mixed media and design. The new museum will also provide an entire floor dedicated to a new Center for the Study of Arts & Design.

Lincoln Center Out of Doors Offers Free Performances In August
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is offering a month long festival of more than 100 live performances that are free to the public. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the “Summer of Love” gathering in San Francisco—a defining moment of the era. Lincoln Center Out of Doors, conceived in 1970, was inspired by ideas about arts and community arising from social and cultural changes brought about in the 1960s.
For its own “Summer of Love” 2007, Lincoln Center Out of Doors offers music, dance, street theater, and family events highlighted by artists and styles of the period—soul, gospel, jazz, and folk, the Boogaloo, a 60s-style “Dance In,” tand the noted artist/activists Bread & Puppet Theater. Other performers include Arlo Guthrie, Pauline Oliveros’ World Wide Tuning Meditation, Mingus Big Band and Orchestra, Paul Taylor Dance Company, Howl on the Road, Trisha Brown Dance Company, Dave Brubeck and Ricky Skaggs .
All events take place in the outdoor plazas and Damrosch Park of Lincoln Center. More information at www.lincolncenter.org.

Cuban National Ballet To Perform In Paris
The Cuban National will be performing at the Grand Palais from July 16 to August 3.
in 1948 by Alicia Alonso, now 86, the company has produced skilled classical dancers despite the Castro era.  The company will perform “Giselle”, a French ballet, and “Don Quixote,” which was  choreographed by Ms Alonso. For tickets, visit http://www.lesetesdeladanse.com/edition2007/index_en.php

Berlin In Lights To Be Presented At New York’s Carnegie Hall In November
An important festival to mark on the fall calendar is Carnegie Hall's Berlin in Lights, scheduled from November 2 to 18, 2007.
Berlin in Lights offers a snapshot of Germany’s vibrant capital city through classical, cabaret, world, and techno music concerts as well as film screenings, architecture and photography exhibits, and panel discussions. The festival centers around an eight-day residency by Berlin’s greatest cultural ambassador, the Berliner Philharmoniker and its music director Sir Simon Rattle, with residency activities to include orchestra and chamber music concerts, and special arts education projects in New York City public schools. Additional artists performing as part of Berlin In Lights include Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela; Max Raabe & Palast Orchester performing dance and film music; Nomad SoundSystem with a unique blend of world and electronic music; and the Nevzat Akpinar Ensemble, comprised of members of Berlin’s large Turkish and Kurdish community.
Central to Berlin in Lights’ programming is an increased number of Carnegie Hall collaborations with several of Berlin and New York City’s finest cultural organizations, including the American Academy in Berlin, Center for Architecture, German Consulate General, Goethe-Institut, Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Neue Galerie, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Thirteen/WNET New York, WNYC, and World Music Institute.

Monaco Pays Tribute To Princess Grace In New Exhibition This Summer
A new exhibition that pays tribute to Grace Kelly, the American film actress who married  her prince— Prince Rainier in 1956—is now taking place at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco until September 23. Curated by Frédéric Mitterrand and organized in close collaboration with the Prince’s Palace which is making available items never previously displayed, The Grace Kelly Years, Princess of Monaco uses 15 room settings to reflect the different eras of her life—from her early stage years in New York to movie stardom to her later ones as a real princess in Monaco. More information at www.grimaldiforum.com.

Expanded Prado Museum Reopens In July With New Exhibition Galleries
Madrid’s Prado Museum (Museo Nacional del Prado) has completed the most extensive expansion in its 200-year history with the $202.6 million (152 million euro) restoration of the 17th century cloister of the monastery of San Jerónimo el Real and the opening of new galleries for temporary exhibitions. Increasing the museum’s space by 50 percent, it provides room to present more of the museum’s collection and adds facilities that bring the institution up to 21st century standards. The new spaces will be inaugurated officially in October.
One of Spain’s most distinguished architects, Pritzker prize-winning Rafael Moneo, devised an ingenious and sensitive addition that respects the original structure designed by Juan de Villanueva in 1785.  Moneo’s design links the museum to a new complex that incorporates the cloister of the San Jerónimos church, which was painstakingly dismantled—all 3,000 blocks—and then rebuilt.
The new 167,023-square-foot space includes a large underground area that connects the new building to the original Villanueva structure.  Concealing the link between the old and new buildings beneath a roof garden, Moneo brings to mind the traditional landscaped gardens of the 18th century.  The expansion has added almost 15,000 square feet of temporary exhibition space divided over four rooms. The inclusion of the Cloister into the new building creates an exceptional light-filled space for a sculpture gallery. There’s a lecture hall with seating for 438 people, a large reception area and visitor area, a new gift shop/bookshop, a new cafeteria-restaurant, specially-designed areas for restoration and larger and better equipped storage areas with a sizeable loading bay.
The inauguration of the Jerónimos building is an important step in the Prado’s continuing expansion in which several independent buildings will eventually be joined in a single urban ensemble, creating a “campus.” This new Museo del Prado campus will comprise the Villanueva-Jerónimos complex, the Casón del Buen Retiro (1637), the Salón de Reinos in the Museo del Ejército (the Army Museum, 1633) and the creation of the Loan Management Centre located in Ávila in the Casa del los Águila.
The enlarged and remodeled Casón del Buen Retiro will house the Prado’s library, research activities and an innovative educational project, the Escuela del Prado.  While the Salón de Reinos, or Room of the Kings in the former Army Museum, will provide additional space to exhibit more from the permanent collection and to present temporary exhibitions.
Villanueva’s building first opened to the public in 1819 as the National Museum of Painting and Sculpture with 311 works from the Spanish Royal Collection that originated from the 16th century under Emperor Charles V.  Succeeding Spanish monarchs—both Habsburgs and Bourbons – added to the collection.  Today the Prado has the world’s foremost collection of Spanish paintings dating from the Middle Ages to the 19th century including outstanding masterpieces by Berruguete, El Greco, Goya, Murillo, Ribera, Sorolla, Zurbarán and Velázquez. 

Trier Museums Pay Tribute To Constantine the Great This Summer
The International State Exhibition Constantine the Great is taking place in Trier, Germany's oldest city located at the Moselle River from June 2 to November 4. Constantine the Great ruled as Roman emperor for more than 31 years from 306 to 337 - longer than any other apart from the first emperor, Augustus. In the 4th century, Constantine succeeded in reuniting the Empire after a period of major crisis. Enabling the classical age to enjoy its final heyday, he personally introduced a critical change that continues to shape Europe today: Constantine was the first emperor to actively promote the Christian church and adopted the Christian faith shortly before his death. The exhibition is dedicated to this great ruler in Trier, where he took up his first consulate post as emperor in 307. The exhibition takes place at three museums all situated close to each other and accessible by foot: Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier; Bischöfliches Dom- und Diözesanmuseum Trier; and the Stadtmuseum Simeonstift Trier .How to get here
More information at www.konstantin-ausstellung.de.  

Venice Cruise Terminal Offering Sculpture Exhibit For Cruise Passengers
Passengers embarking or disembarking at the Venice Passengers Terminal 103 will be treated to a collection of bronze sculptures by Venetian artist Gianmaria Potenza. Entitled The Port and the Art, the exhibit is being presented exclusively for cruise passengers—an estimated one million passengers are expected to pass through the terminal this year.
Fifteen giant bronze sculptures will tower over the Terminal Building Dock and the Isonzo Dock, while smaller sculptures will be shown on the first floor of the terminal, in the Sala Torcello. The exhibit lasts until September 30.

Mostly Mozart Festival At New York’s Lincoln Center Opens July 31
This summer, Mostly Mozart 2007 will expand in new directions while continuing to celebrate the extraordinary genius of its namesake composer in performances of some of his landmark works. The Festival under the music directorship of Louis Langrée runs from July 31 to August 25. It begins with a week-long focus on Beethoven and features great ensembles such as the St. Lawrence String Quartet and the Swedish Radio Choir. Osvaldo Golijov, the Mostly Mozart’s first composer-in-residence, lends his curatorial vision to concerts of his own works and those by Monteverdi and Schubert. The Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra continues to be the heartbeat of the Festival, showcasing soloists like Joshua Bell and Christian Tetzlaff. The Mark Morris Dance Group returns with Mozart Dances, which premiered to enormous acclaim last summer and again features the musical forces of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Emanuel Ax, and Yoko Nozaki. Ticket and scheduling information at http://www.lincolncenter.org/load_screen.asp?screen=Mostly%20Mozart%20Festival.

Museum of Contemporary Art Denver Opens New Facility This Fall
The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (MCA | Denver), the city's first institution devoted entirely to contemporary art, will inaugurate its new environmentally sustainable facility designed by David Adjaye, with an inaugural exhibition entitled Star Power: Museum as Body Electric and two permanent commissions. The exhibition, which opens October 28, will feature seven emerging and established artists from seven countries including: Carlos Amorales (Mexico), David Altmejd (Canada), Candice Breitz (South Africa), Rangi Kipa (New Zealand), Wangechi Mutu (Kenya), Chris Ofili (UK/Trinidad & Tobago) and Collier Schorr (United States).
The two permanent commissions, both by Colorado-based artists, include a collaborative design for The Gates Rooftop Garden by artist Kim Dickey and landscape architect Karla Dakin and an exterior site-specific work by artist Clark Richert.
Star Power, while exploring the body and its relationship to architecture, marks a new direction for MCA | Denver by featuring commissioned work by individual artists in an artist-centered program. The subtitle, Museum as Body Electric, is a direct homage to Walt Whitman's poem I Sing the Body Electric.
 In addition to the five galleries and rooftop garden pavilion, the building will also feature three education spaces, a bookshop, other public spaces, as well as office space for the museum staff. MCA's education programs for adults and children will increase substantially in the new building.
Founded in 1996, the Museum of Contemporary Art | Denver was created to provide Denver with its first and only museum devoted exclusively to contemporary art.

San Francisco Ballet Celebrates Its 75th Anniversary In 2008
San Francisco Ballet, America's oldest professional ballet company, announced plans for its 75th anniversary in 2008. Highlights include a festival of ten world premieres by some of the world's top choreographers, appearances by three international ballet companies, a world premiere by San Francisco Ballet Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson and the Company premiere of Jerome Robbins' West Side Story Suite. Other major initiatives include a national telecast, a commemorative book/DVD and a four-city American Tour. The San Francisco Ballet School also celebrates its 75th anniversary in 2008.
The Ballet's 75th Anniversary Season, from January 29 to May 6, 2008, consists of six programs as well as a New Works Festival of 10 world premieres. The anniversary season also includes the revival of Filling Station, one of the oldest American folk ballets, by former San Francisco Ballet Director Lew Christensen; an all-Jerome Robbins Program, (commemorating the tenth anniversary of the choreographer's death) and the Company premiere of West Side Story Suite; appearances by three international companies, including Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, The National Ballet of Canada, and New York City Ballet; and the return of Tomasson's full-length production of the classic Giselle. Prior to the repertory season, Tomasson's Nutcracker runs from December 13 through 30, 2007.
The New Works Festival includes ten world premieres by ten renowned choreographers from April 22 through May 6, 2008. Participating choreographers are Julia Adam, Val Caniparoli, Jorma Elo, Margaret Jenkins (commissioned music by Paul Dresher), James Kudelka (commissioned music by Rodney Sharman), Mark Morris (commissioned music by John Adams and costumes by Isaac Mizrahi), Yuri Possokhov, Paul Taylor, Stanton Welch, and Christopher Wheeldon.
In fall 2008, San Francisco Ballet embarks on a four-city national tour at: Harris Theater in Chicago (September 16-21, 2008), New York City Center (October 8-19, 2008), Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, California (November 11-16, 2008), and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. (November 25-30, 2008).
For more information, visit http://www.sfballet.org/at75  or call 415-865-2000.

Boston Symphony’s 67th Tanglewood Season Now In Full Swing
The Tanglewood Music Center, located in the rolling hills of the Berkshires in Lenox, Massachusetts, is the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the setting for a wide variety of musical performances each year. James Levine opens his third Tanglewood season as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Boston Pops Conductor Keith will conduct a program of music by George Gershwin (August 26). The Pops will also appear with conductor John Williams on Film Night, featuring a tribute to British director David Lean, creator of such landmark movies as Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai, A Passage to India and Doctor Zhivago. The evening concludes with a suite from Williams' magical scores from the Harry Potter movies, to be performed with a special film montage drawn from the films. (August 12)
Other highlights of the 2007 summer season include:
-- Violinist Itzhak Perlman returns to Tanglewood for the first time in three years to perform Bruch's Violin Concerto No. Other guest artists include pianists Emanuel Ax (August 12) , Pierre-Laurent Aimard (August 10) and Leon Fleischer (July 22); violinist Joshua Bell (July 27).
-- The Boston Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Mark Elder, Hans Graf and Jens Georg Bachmann, presents an all-Beethoven weekend. (July 20-22)
-- Guest conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos leads the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, Tanglewood Festival Chorus and soloists in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. (August 19)
-- Tanglewood on Parade will feature a full day of activities, culminating in a gala concert with Levine, Lockhart and Williams. The combined forces of the Boston Symphony, Boston Pops and Tanglewood Music Center orchestras will present works including the traditional performance of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture including fireworks over the Stockbridge Bowl. (August 15)
-- Massachusetts native James Taylor returns to Tanglewood for one night only. (August 24). More information at www.bso.org   or http://www.bso.org/bso/?_requestid=1598176&_requestid=1598176

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Art Fairs 2007 In Europe & United States

Some important Art Fairs scheduled for the rest of 2007 in both Europe and the United States. New York already had its big art event—a five-show spectacular held at different venues around the city in early March highlighting what’s new in contemporary art. But for the rest of the year, some prestigious fairs are scheduled. So mark your calendars. Here’s a sampling:

Art 38 Basel, considered the granddaddy of art fairs, takes place this year from June 13 – 17, 2007. The international art show features about 300 leading art galleries from 30 countries on all continents, presenting 20th- and 21st-century art works by over 2000 artists as well as digital works and videos. During Art Basel, this Swiss cultural city on the Rhine River becomes a world mecca of art reinforced with exhibitions and events hosted all over town. Website: www.artbasel.com
An offshoot of the Art is the ArtBasel Miami Beach fair that takes place this year from December 6 to 9. Art Basel Miami Beach is a new type of cultural event, combining an international art show with an exciting program of special exhibitions, parties and crossover events including music, film, architecture and design. Exhibition sites are located in the city's Art Deco District.  An exclusive selection of 200 leading art galleries from North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia will exhibit 20th and 21st century art works by over 1500 artists. Special exhibitions will feature young galleries and video art. The show will be a vital source for discovering new developments in contemporary art and rare museum-caliber art works. Art collectors, artists, dealers, curators, critics and art enthusiasts from around the world will participate in the event. Top-quality exhibitions in the museums of South Florida and special programs for art collectors and curators, will make this art show a special place for encountering art and the art world – the favorite winter meeting place for the international art world. Website: http://www.artbaselmiamibeach.com

Another important art exhibition documenta12 will take place from June 16 to September 23 in Kassel, one and a half hours north of Frankfurt, Germany. This contemporary art event takes place every five years and is considered a seismograph of the contemporary art scene, drawing attention from all over the world. Every documenta, a new director is chosen and the exhibition is reinvented, a concept which to date has been affirmed by the public's interest. The number of visitors has continually risen. More than 650 thousand visitors came to "documenta11" in 2002. This year's art director Roger M. Buergel was born in Berlin and has been lecturing Visual Theory at Lüneburg University in northern Germany since 2001. The exhibition poses three questions as leitmotifs: Is modernity our antiquity? What is bare life? What is to be done? Website: www.documenta12.de 

The International Sculpture Show in Muenster, Germany will open June 17. Every ten years the town just two hours Northwest of Kassel hosts this internationally recognized sculpture exhibition featuring 35 contemporary sculptors from all over the world, including Michael Asher, Isa Genzken, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and Susan Phillipsz. The sculptures will be installed in different locations around the city, making the small student town, famous for its cathedral, a temporary museum for contemporary art from June 17 to September 30. Apart from the sculpture exhibition the program includes artists’ talks, lectures, readings and films. Website:  www.skulptur-projekte.de 
One of the world’s longest-established fair for modern and contemporary art —Art Cologne—gives a comprehensive overview of 20th and 21st-century art—from classical modernism to the very latest contemporary works on the Cologne exhibition grounds. It serves as an international market where artists and connoisseurs from all over the world meet to inform themselves about the latest art movements and to buy and sell art. This year for the first time Art Cologne, which normally took place in autumn, will move into the spring and open its doors from April 18 to 22. Website: www.artcologne.de 

The 52nd Venice Biennale opens June 12 and runs to November 21. This premier art show held at the Arsenale and in the Italian Pavilion at the Giardini Gardens in Venice will present about a hundred artists from 77 countries, the most ever. Website: www.LaBiennale.com

Turkey presents the 10th Istanbul Biennial from September 8 to November 4 organized by the ?stanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts, and under the curatorship of Hou Hanru, currently Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs at San Francisco Art Institute.
The Biennal will emphasize artistic production based on collective intelligence and the living process of negotiating with physical sites. The biennial will focus on urban issues and architectural reality as a means of exposing different cultural contexts and artistic visions regarding the complex and diverse forms of modernity. The conceptual framework of the 10th International Istanbul Biennial has been announced as Not Only Possible, But Also Necessary - Optimism in the Age of Global War. The venues of the Istanbul Biennial will be the former customs warehouse Antrepo no. 3 owned by the Istanbul Maritime Lines in F?nd?kl?, IMÇ - Istanbul Manifaturac?lar Çar??s? (Istanbul Textile Traders' Market) in Unkapan?, AKM - Atatürk Kültür Merkezi (Atatürk Cultural Centre) and santralistanbul the first power station built in Istanbul during the Ottoman period, now being converted into a Museum of Contemporary Arts under the leadership of Istanbul Bilgi University. Website: www.iksv.org/bienal

London’s Frieze Art Fair takes place October 11 to 14 this year in Regent’s Park. It features over 150 of the most exciting contemporary art galleries in the world as well as specially commissioned artists' projects and a prestigious talks program. Website:
www.FriezeArtFair.com

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                                    Cultural Arts Calendar

Cities featured this month are Atlanta, Baltimore, Berlin, Boston, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Chicago, Copenhagen, Dresden, Florence, Fort Worth/Dallas, Las Vegas, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Mexico City, Miami, Milan, Montreal, Moscow, Munich, New York, Paris, Philadelphia, Rome, San Francisco, Singapore, Stuttgart, Sydney NSW, Tokyo, Toronto, Venice, Washington, D.C. Williamstown, and Zurich.

Atlanta

High Museum of Art
Website: www.high.org  
Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990 – 2005
Through September 9, 2007
The exhibit encompasses 175 images Leibovitz created on assignment as a professional photographer, as well as personal photographs of her family and close friends. personal photographs in the exhibition document many events involving her family, including the birth of Leibovitz’ three daughters and the death of her father. Portraits of public figures include the pregnant Demi Moore; rock star Mick Jagger; actors Chris Rock, Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino and Scarlett Johansson; George W. Bush with members of his Cabinet at the White House; William Burroughs in Kansas; and Agnes Martin in Taos. Assignment work includes searing reportage from the siege of Sarajevo in the early 1990s, and a series of landscapes taken in the American West and in the Jordanian desert.
Cecilia Beaux, American Figure Painter
Through September 9, 2007
This retrospective exhibition features approximately 85 oils, works on paper, and decorative objects, drawn from private and public collections. An internationally acclaimed figure painter, Beaux is widely regarded as the leading woman artist working in the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Her 40-year career represents a compelling and under-examined chapter in the history of American art.
Louvre Atlanta: Kings as Collectors
To September 2, 2007
Kings as Collectors highlights some of the most magnificent paintings and sculptures acquired by Louis XIV (the Sun King) and Louis XVI (the last King of France). The French royal collections are the heart of the Louvre's present day holdings.
Decorative Arts of the Kings
To September 2, 2007
An exhibition exploring the legendary opulence, tastes, and lifestyles of French kings Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI, will showcase tapestries, silver, porcelain and furniture commissioned by the royals for their personal use. The 53 masterworks in the exhibition, drawn from the collections of the Musée du Louvre in Paris, have never traveled to the United States.
The exhibition includes examples of furniture, tapestry, ceramics and silver by manufacturers such as Les Gobelins and Sèvres and by artists such as Germain and Auguste, whose influence can still be seen today. These works—many of which were created for the Palace of Versailles—demonstrate the excellence of the French artisans in the royal factories, which were largely subsidized by the kings. Exhibition highlights include, a 1784 Sèvres porcelain tureen and platter made for Queen Marie-Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI; an inlaid wooden medals cabinet made in 1660 by Dutch cabinetmaker Pierre Gole for Louis XIV, who collected medals and objets d’art as well as paintings and sculpture; a secretary decorated with pietra dura paneled murals designed by Martin Carlin for the court of Louis XVI in 1780; and a nécessaire including silver objects used to prepare tea or chocolate, made for Louis XV’s wife, Queen Marie Leczinska upon the birth of the couple’s first son in 1729.
The High Museum is located is located at 1280 Peachtree Street between 15th and 16th Streets in Midtown Atlanta. Open Tuesday through Sundays.

 

Baltimore

The Walters Art Museum
Website:  http://www.thewalters.org
Ottoman Embroideries and Other Ornament
May 5 to September 9, 2007
This exhibition includes several rarely seen Ottoman textiles and objects dating from the 18th- and 19th centuries.
Deja Vu? Revealing Repetition in French Masterpieces
October 7 to January 01, 2008
The exhibition will feature works by many of the greatest artists of the 18th-20th centuries as it explores the changing significance of repetition and copying within the French painting tradition.
Daily Magic in Ancient Egypt
December 2 to November 18, 2007
This small exhibition of 46 objects illustrates the important role played by magic in ancient Egypt.
The Walters Art Museum is located 600 N. Charles Street; tel: 410-547-9000. Open  Wednesdays to Sundays 11 am to 5 pm; Fridays 11 am to 8 pm. Free admission.

 

Berlin

New National Gallery
www.neue-nationalgalerie.de
19th Century French Masterpieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art
To October 7, 2007
The focus of this remarkable exhibition is a collection of around 130 highlights of 19th century French art from the collections at the Metropolitan Museum, including paintings by Monet, Manet, Degas, Courbet and Delacroix, as well as 16 Rodin sculptures. Around 15 works by artists such as Picasso, Bonnard and Modigliani provide a forward look to the 20th century. Berlin is the only European stop on the exhibition's tour.
New National Gallery is located on Potsdamer Straße 50, 10785 Berlin-Tiergarten.
Accessible by public transport: U-Bahn U2 (Potsdamer Platz); S-Bahn S1, S2, S25 (Potsdamer Platz); Bus M29 (Potsdamer Brücke); M41 (Varian-Frey-Straße); M48 (Kulturforum); 200, 347 (Philharmonie). Open Tuesdays through Sundays. Admission

Martin-Gropius-Bau
www.gropiusbau.de
Cindy Sherman
To September 10, 2007
The Cindy Sherman retrospective, arranged by the Jeu de Paume in Paris, presents works produced by the artist between 1975 and 2005. The American artist Cindy Sherman is one of the leading representatives of staged photography. In her photographs she uses her body as a vehicle for creating all sorts of roles and staging masquerades. By combining the roles of film director, main protagonist and photographer, she blurs the strict dividing lines between posing and viewing, between object and subject.
Angkor: Sacred Heritage of Cambodia
To July 29, 2007
For the first time the great Cambodian art will be presented in an exhibition in Berlin. Spanning more than 1,000 years of Hindu- and Buddhist-inspired art—stone sculptures, a handful of stunning bronzes and a coda of wooden statues—the show makes clear that Angkor was a sophisticated complex led by a succession of kings who held sway over the Khmer people and hundreds of square miles of land studded with beautiful art created for the glory of the gods.
The show travels to the Museum Rietberg in Zurich  where it will be on display from August 19 to December 2, 2007.
Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin is located at Niederkirchnerstraße 7 | Corner Stresemannstr. 110; tel: +49 (0)30 254 86-0.  Open Wednesdays through Mondays from 10 am to 8 pm.

Deutsche Guggenheim
http://www.deutsche-guggenheim-berlin.de/e/
Phoebe Washburn: Regulated Fool’s Milk Meadow
October 20 to January 31, 2008
Jeff Wall Exposure
October 10 to January 31, 2008
Deutsche Guggenheim is located on the ground floor of the Deutsche Bank premises, a sandstone building constructed in 192, located at Unter den Linden 13/1; tel: +49 - (0)30 - 20 20 93-0. Open daily 11 am to 8 pm; till 10 pm on Thursdays during exhibitions. Closed between exhibitions. Admission.

Jewish Museum
Website:  www.juedisches-museum-berlin.de   
Péter Forgács and the Labyrinth Project: "The Danube Exodus - The Rippling Currents of the River"
To July 29, 2007
The interactive multimedia installation "The Danube Exodus" by the Hungarian filmmaker and artist Péter Forgács and the Labyrinth Project focuses on expulsion. Historical amateur film clips, documentary material, and interviews are interwoven into a film on threat, deadly peril, and escape.
Jewish Museum Berlin is located at Lindenstraße 9-14, 10969 Berlin.Open: Monday from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Admittance will be granted until 7 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays, 9 p.m. on Mondays. Admission.
Transportation: U1, U6 Hallesches Tor; U6 Kochstraße or Bus M29, M41, 26.5

Kennedy Museum
Ongoing
The Kennedy Museum, honoring the life and political career of President John F. Kennedy, will display a private collection of artifacts once belonging to the Kennedys, including more than 1,000 photographs, historical documents, books and films. A major focus will be JFK's visit to Berlin in June 1963, scene of his famous Ich bin ein Berliner speech. For information, e-mail info@thekennedys.de.
Located on Pariser Platz close to the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag,

 

Boston

 

Institute of Contemporary Arts
Website: www.icaboston.org
Philip-Lorca Dicorcia
June 1 to September 3, 2007
One of the most important American photographers of past thirty years, Philip-Lorca diCorcia produces photographs that are full of cinematic affect, marrying human drama with technical experiment. The largest museum survey of diCorcia's work to date, this exhibition includes more than 100 prints from the late 1970s to today, touching on all of his acclaimed bodies of work, from early interior tableaux to Hustlers, Streetwork, and A Storybook Life.   
Bourgeois in Boston
To March 2, 2008
In the sixty years since her first solo exhibition, Louise Bourgeois has become one of our most influential living artists. Her emotionally-charged body of work, a distinctive mix of abstraction and figuration, delves into childhood memories and the struggles of everyday life. Utilizing a variety of materials—wood, bronze, marble, steel, rubber, and fabric—she crafts highly symbolic and personally cathartic objects that reference the body, sexuality, family, trauma, and anxiety. Spanning six decades, the exhibition brings together sculptures, prints, drawings, and a rare, early painting, all lent from area museums and private collections. Among the works in the exhibition are a rare, early painting and more than 25 works on paper, which will be rotated over the course of the exhibition (new groupings will be presented on May 22, August 28, and November 26).
The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston is located at 100 Northern Avenue on South Boston’s waterfront. Tel: 617-478-3100. Open Tuesdays to Sundays 10 am to 5 pm; till 9 pm Thursdays and Fridays. Admission.

Isabel Gardner Museum
http://www.gardnermuseum.org/ 
Stefano Arienti: The Asian Shore
June 29 to October 14, 2007
The Asian Shore is an installation work by Stefano Arienti that brings together new drawings, photocopies, a range of rugs by the artist, and a rarely viewed set of XVII century Japanese sliding doors (fusuma) from the Gardner Collection. These objects and drawings are positioned in a way to involve the viewer in an intimate and sensual encounter with art. The exhibition is a result of an autonomous investigation by the artist into the museum’s Asian collection and archives.
The Isabel Gardner Museum is located at 280 The Fenway. Tel: 617 566 1401. Open Tuesdays to Sundays 11 am to 5 pm. Admission.

Museum of Fine Arts
Website: www.mfa.org 
Edward Hopper
May 6 to August 19, 2007
An exhibition of works by one of the most enduringly popular American painters of the twentieth century
Through Six Generations: The Weng Collection of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy
To August 1, 2007
Assembled primarily during the nineteenth century, the Weng Collection has survived the tumult of the last one hundred years of dynastic changes and warfare; remarkably, it remains unscathed and in the care of the original family. Weng Tonghe (1830–1904), the family patriarch who formed the collection, was a preeminent figure in nineteenth-century China. Weng held some of the highest positions at the imperial court, including tutor to two of the last emperors of the Qing dynasty. The Weng collection was passed down through the generations, finally coming to his great-great-grandson Wan-go Weng—the current owner—who brought the collection to the United States for safe keeping in 1948, months before the founding of the People's Republic of China.
This exhibition presents thirty rarely seen masterworks of Chinese painting and calligraphy from the Weng Collection, many of which have never been exhibited. 
Material Journeys: Collecting African and Oceanic Art, 1945–2000. Selections from the Geneviève McMillan Collection
To September 2, 2007
For over sixty years, Geneviève McMillan, a Cambridge, Massachusetts resident, has collected African and Oceanic art, a lifelong passion that began when she was student in Paris during World War II. The more than one hundred objects in this exhibition, range from sculptures to textiles to musical instruments. This exhibition highlights not only the beauty and function of these works, but also traces their voyages and focuses on the social, political, and commercial forces that accompanied collecting in the second half of the twentieth century.
The Fine Arts Museum is located at 465 Huntington Avenue and easily accessible by the Green Line "E" train to the Museum of Fine Arts stop, or the Orange Line train to the Ruggles stop or by the 39 bus to the "Museum of Fine Arts" stop, or the 8, 47, or CT2 buses to the Ruggles stop. Open daily.

John F Kennedy Library Museum
Website: http://www.jfklibrary.org
Jacqueline Kennedy Entertains: The Art of the White House Dinner
April 12, 2007- March 1, 2008
Elegant and uplifting entertaining was a hallmark of the Kennedy presidency. The special exhibit will portray Jacqueline Kennedy's distinctive and innovative approach to entertaining in the White House using the collections of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is located at Columbia Point, close to Interstate 93. Accessed by public transportation. Take the MBTA Rapid Transit, Red Line (any red line train) to JFK/UMASS Station. There is a free shuttle bus to the Library every 20 minutes beginning at 8:00 a.m. and running until Museum closing. Take the buses marked JFK. Tel: 1.866.JFK.1960 or 1.617.514.1600. Open 7 days per week, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. with the exception of New Year’s, Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. The Research Room is open 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. by appointment only and is closed on weekends and federal holidays. To speak to our research room staff, please call 617.514.1629. Admission: Adults $10, Seniors and Students (with valid college ID) $8.00, Ages 13-17 $7.00, Children 12 and under are free. Group visits of 12 or more are eligible for a group visit discount with advance reservations.

Boston Symphony
Website: www.bso.org
67th Tanglewood Season of Concerts
July 6 to August 19, 2007
The Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox, Massachusetts, is the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the setting for a wide variety of musical performances each year in the rolling hills of the Berkshires in western Massachusetts. This summer, Tanglewood celebrates its 67th anniversary, presenting concerts from July to August 19, when the BSO performs Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. More information at http://www.bso.org/bso/?_requestid=1598176&_requestid=1598176.
The Boston Symphony opens its 2007/2008 season in Boston with a gala concert under the directorship of James Levine on October 4 in Symphony Hall. Information and tickets at http://www.bso.org/bso/mods/perf_detail.jsp?pid=27400008.

 

 

Brussels

Palais des Beaux-Arts
Website:  http://www.bozar.be 
Ingenuity. Photography and engineering 1846-2006
June 6 to September 9, 2007
The subject matter of most exhibitions is restricted to a single period, country or artist. INGENUITY, referring to man's talent and natural ingenuity, explores the broad spectrum of our primeval engineering intelligence, which is directed at harnessing the unbridled forces of nature and channeling them into useable forces for the common good. Comprising 345 historical and contemporary photographic works by a total of 164 photographers, the exhibition illustrates the diversity of man's technical and industrial inventiveness.
Palais des Beaux-Arts, Rue Ravensteinstraat 23, 1000 Brussels. Open: Tue-Sun 10am-6pm (till 9pm on Thu). Tel: +32 (0)2 507 82 00.

Royal Museums of Fine Arts
Website: http://www.fine-arts-museum.be/
Rubens:  A Genius at Work
September 14 to January 27, 2008
The museum owns a remarkable collection of more than fifty works either painted by Rubens himself or in collaboration with the studio, in addition to paintings that the Antwerp master produced together with notorious colleagues like Jan Brueghel the Elder and Cornelis de Vos. This collection, which contains oil sketches, paintings on a smaller scale as well as monumental altar pieces, has a unique character : it reflects Rubens’ most productive period during which his creative genius and his entrepreneurial spirit fully developed (1614-1640) at his big workshop on the Antwerp Wapper Street.
The exhibition will reveal the results of an in-depth research project which studied the Museum’s own Rubens belongings during four full years. Quite a number of surprising discoveries will be presented at the exhibition as to the precise way in which Rubens and his team have produced these masterpieces. To put those works in context, the museum has secured the loan of about sixty additional paintings and drawings, most of them produced by Rubens himself. These artworks come from the greatest museums in the world such as the Louvre (Paris), the Prado (Madrid) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York).
ALECHINSKY from A to Y
November 23 to March 30, 2008
The works of Pierre Alechinsky, a famous Belgian artist now aged 80, will be gathered in close co-operation with the artist : paintings, drawings, engravings and books illustrations will be selected in national and international collections.
Royal Museums of Fine Arts consists of four museums—Museum of Ancient Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, both located at Rue de la Régence 3. The Antoine Wiertz Museum is located at Rue Vautier 62  and the Constantin Meunier Museum at Rue de l'Abbaye 59. More museum information at http://www.kmskb.be/site/en/frames/F_infomus.html 

 

Buenos Aires

Centro Cultural Borges
Website: http://www.ccborges.org.ar   
The Borges Cultural Center is located inside Galerías Pacífico, entrance at the corner of Viamonte and San Martín, Centre. Tel: +54 (0) 11 5555-5359. Open: Mon-Sat 10am-9pm; Sun noon-9pm.

 

 Chicago

Art Institute of Chicago
Website: http://www.artic.edu/aic
Poetry of Friendship: Surimono and the Cultural Salons of Japan
July 7–September 16, 2007 (Gallery 107)
The type of surimono featured in this exhibition represent an important and neglected type of Japanese woodblock print. Known for their large size, often prodigious amount of text, and intricate relationship between word and images, the earliest surimono were created in the first decades of the eighteenth century, and the last in the mid-twentieth century.  The many characters seen in surimono are mostly composed of haiku poetry. These short, concise poems, usually incorporate seasonal symbols and nature images, are part of a poetic tradition that has remained popular in Japan for centuries.
The Silk Road and Beyond
Until October 2007
Silk Road Chicago is a year-long celebration of the art and culture that have flourished along the historic route from China to Asia Minor. The program is the brainchild of several leading city institutions, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and, most importantly, the Silk Road Project, a foundation started by Yo-Yo Ma, a cellist and educator. “The Silk Road and Beyond” at the Art Institute comprises the visual part of the festival. The main exhibition, Travel, Trade and Transformation, features work that captures the region's vibrant cross-cultural fertilization. Smaller exhibitions include “Stories of the Silk Road”, with original illustrations of some of the route's most famous explorers
The museum is located at 111 South Michigan Avenue, at the intersection of Michigan Avenue and Adams Street, on the eastern edge of Chicago’s famous downtown Loop. Open weekdays at 10:30 am and at 10 am on Saturdays and Sundays until 5 pm.

The Field Museum
http://www.fieldmuseum.org/
Darwin Exhibition
June 15 to January 1, 2008

The Origin of Species stands as the foundation for all modern biology. Now, 150 years after its publication, discover the man and the revolutionary theory that changed the world. The exhibition, which originally opened at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, is outstanding. It presents the most complete collection of Charles Darwin's manuscripts, artifacts, memorabilia, and other rare personal belongings. This extraordinary portrayal reveals Darwin's endless curiosity, exceptional power of observation, and scientific genius. Family photographs and letters reveal a different side of this famous scientist: Darwin as a family man, husband and father of 10 children. Trace the historic five-year voyage on the HMS Beagle that brought him to the Galápagos Islands, and experience some of the unique animals Darwin encountered on his journey, such as live South American horned frogs and a green iguana. This unique in-depth exhibition includes hands-on interactive displays and interviews with contemporary scientists.
The Ancient Americas
Ongoing
The Ancient Americas takes you on a journey through 13,000 years of cultural evolution in the western hemisphere, where hundreds of diverse societies thrived long before the arrival of Europeans. In this 19,000-square-foot exhibition, visitors will relive the epic story of the people of these continents, from the Arctic to the tip of South America. This exhibition allows you to step into the windswept world of Ice-Age mammoth hunters, walk through a replica of an 800-year-old pueblo dwelling, explore the Aztec empire and examine more than 2,200 fascinating artifacts.
The Field Museum is located at 1400 S. Lake Shore Drive.

 

Copenhagen

National Museum of Denmark
Website:  http://www.nationalmuseet.dk/sw20379.asp
Duodji – Sámi Arts and Crafts
May 12 to August 26, 2007
Birch-rod baskets, wool belts and fishskin bags based on a long tradition of craftsmanship but made by recognised contemporary artists. See the colorful duodji arts and crafts of the Sámi from the far north of Scandinavia to the far north of Russia. In The National Museum’s exhibition the bright colors of the arts and crafts are contrasted with Romantic 18th century paintings depicting the life of the Sámi against a background of snow-clad landscapes and dashing reindeers.
The National Museum (The Prince's Palace) is located at Ny Vestergade 10; Tel.: (+45) 33 13 44 11. Open Tuesdays to Sundays 10 am to 5 pm. Free admission.

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
Website:  http://www.louisiana.dk/
Made In China
To August 5, 2007
The exhibit displays nearly a hundred works from one of the world’s biggest collections of contemporary Chinese art, the Estella Collection, which has not been known to the public until now. The collection comprises more than 250 works from more or less all genres of visual art: painting, sculpture, photography, installation, video, ink drawings and prints. These works offer a fine insight into the many currents that are moving through contemporary Chinese art at present and provide an introduction to art which is becoming known on the international art scene.
Julie Mehretu 
May 11 to August 26, 2007
 Julie Mehretu’s mission is to visualize the complexity of the world. She is a master of creating works whose content interprets both a historical and a concrete reality, sophisticatedly drawn out through layer upon layer of symbols and signs.
Lousiana Museum Louisiana is situated 35 km north of Copenhagen along the motorway E47 / E55, or the coast road Strandvejen along the Sound. By train (ask for Kystbanen) 36 minutes from Copenhagen and a 10-minute walk from Humlebæk/Louisiana Station.
It houses a collection of modern art by international artists such as Arp, Francis Bacon, Calder, Dubuffet, Max Ernst, Sam Francis, Giacometti, Kiefer, Henry Moore, Picasso, Rauschenberg and Warhol. Open daily. Admission

Royal Danish Ballet
Website: http://www.kglteater.dk/Forestillinger/Ballet.aspx
The Royal Danish Ballet performs once again  during July in the courtyard of the Danish Museum of Art and Design This year, audiences can look forward to Balanchine’s Apollon, which the Royal Danish Ballet was the first company to perform outside New York. And naturally another splendid encore of the third act of Napoli.
Det Kongliege Teater (Royal Danish Theater) is located at Kongens Nytorv in the center of Copenhagen since 1748. Tickets can be purchased online.

 

Dresden, Germany

Royal Palace
Websites: www.dresden-tourist.de  or  www.skd-dresden.de 
The Historic Green Vault
Created by August the Strong (1670 - 1733), the historic Green Vault was restored its ten rooms to its original splendor. Nearly 3,000 masterpieces crafted by jewelers and goldsmiths, precious objects made of amber and ivory, vessels made of precious stones, exquisite bronze statuettes and objects made of exotic materials like coral and shells from the South Seas are displayed. 

 

 

Florence

Palazzo Strozzi
Website: www.cezanneafirenze.it 
Cézanne à Firenze
March 2 to July 29 2007
Some of Cézanne’s most important works return to Florence. About a century ago, they were an integral part of the collections found in the Florentine homes of two young collectors, Egisto Paolo Fabbri and Charles Loeser. The exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi is a unique occasion to admire side by side dozens of Cézanne’s masterpieces, usually found scattered to the four corners of the earth.
Palazzo Strozzi is located at Piazza Strozzi, 1 - Florence Phone: 011 39 055 2645155
Open daily from 9 am to 8 pm; Thursday from 9 am to 11 pm. Admission allowed until one hour before closing-time.
 
Uffizi Gallery
Website:  http://www.uffizi.com/uffizi-official-web-site.asp

One of the most famous museums of paintings and sculpture in the world, its collection of Primitive and Renaissance paintings comprises several universally acclaimed masterpieces of all time, including works by Giotto, Simone Martini, Piero della Francesca, Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, Mantegna, Correggio, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo and Caravaggio. German, Dutch and Flemish masters are also well represented with important works by Dürer, Rembrandt and Rubens. The Uffizi Gallery occupies the top floor of the large building erected by Giorgio Vasari between 1560 and 1580 to house the administrative offices of the Tuscan State. All the artwork are divided into rooms in chronological order.

 

Fort Worth/Dallas

Kimbell Art Museum
Website: www.kimbellart.org
The Mirror and the Mask: Portraiture in the Age of Picasso
June 17 to September 16, 2007
The exhibition is the most dazzling collection of modern portraits and self-portraits ever assembled —100 masterpieces of painting and sculpture from 75 collections across Europe and North America. Come face to face with the greatest artists of the modern age in this landmark event—exclusively at the Kimbell Art Museum.
Picturing the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art
November 18 to March 30, 2008
The first major exhibition to reexamine this phenomenon in over thirty years, it draws on new historical research and the latest archaeological discoveries. It tells the story of how the earliest Christians first gave visual expression to their religious beliefs in works of art. The exhibition brings an unprecedented range of these exceedingly rare and treasured objects together, throwing new light on the much-debated questions of how Christians and Jews of Roman times illustrated their religious beliefs and what these images signified. Frescoes, marble sculpture and sarcophagi, silver vessels and reliquaries, carved ivories, engraved gold glass cups, bronze statuettes, seals in semiprecious stones, decorated crosses, and illuminated Bibles, all of the finest quality and of great rarity, recreate the spiritual and artistic world of the early Christians as has never been possible before. Assembled from major museums in Europe, North Africa, and the United States—including the Vatican Museums and other cathedral treasuries in Italy, as well as London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and New York—the exhibition offers a unique opportunity to see in one place many of the greatest masterpieces of Early Christian art. Many of these works have never before been seen in America, and some have never left their churches.
The exhibition is organized by the Kimbell Art Museum, which, because of the difficulty of securing such treasured loans, will be the only venue.
Kimbell Art Museum is located at 3333 Camp Bowie Boulevard; tel: 817-332-8451
Open Tuesdays to Thursdays at varying times. Free admission except for special exhibits.

 

Las Vegas

Guggenheim Hermitage Museum
Website: http://www.guggenheimlasvegas.org /
Modern Masters from the Guggenheim Collections: Monet, Cezanne, Picasso
July 27 to April 27, 2008
This exhibition presents 37 treasured masterpieces from the collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, that chart modern artists’ experimental interpretations of the academic themes of portraiture, landscape, still life, and genre. The juxtaposition of works on the same theme by artists associated with Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Expressionism, and Surrealism invites consideration of the evolution of style during this dynamic period in art history as well as the timelessness of these subjects.
The Guggenheim Hermitage is located at The Venetian hotel, 3355 Las Vegas Blvd South
Open daily from 9:30 am to 7:30 pm. Admission.

 

Lisbon

Berardo Collection Museum
Website:  www.museuberardo.com
Opens June 25, 2007

The new Berardo Collection Museum will open at the Exhibition Belém Cultural Center in Lisbon. Dedicated to modern and contemporary art, the museum will display 862 works in a rotation representing the art movements of the 20th and 21st centuries that compose the Berardo Collection. with the greatest names of the national and international art scene from of the 20th and 21st centuries.

 

London

Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery
Website:  www.courtauld.ac.uk
Temptation in Eden:  Lucas Cranach’s Adam and Eve
June 21 to September 23, 2007
This is the first exhibition in Britain to be devoted to Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) who, along with Dürer, was one of the greatest German Renaissance painters.  Cranach spent the majority of his career in Wittemberg, as court artist to the powerful Electors of Saxony, and was a close associate of Martin Luther (1483-1546).  Eve’s temptation of Adam was a subject ideally suited to Cranach’s outstanding gifts as a portrayer of landscape, animals and the female nude, to which Protestant theologians like Luther did not object.  This exhibition will incorporate much conservation and technical research, a field for which the Courtauld Institute is renowned.  Over twenty loans of paintings, drawings and prints will be drawn from major British and international collections, including the National Gallery, the Musée du Louvre, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, and the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
Walter Sickert: The Camden Town Nudes
October 25, 2007 to  January 20, 2008
This exhibition will be devoted to a remarkable group of paintings of nudes by Walter Sickert (1860-1942), one of the most important British artists of the twentieth century. These paintings are among his most beautiful and complex works; admired both for their virtuoso brushwork and their highly original approach to the nude genre. The exhibition will bring together around fifteen of the principal canvases and will assemble for the first time Sickert’s four so-called Camden Town Murder paintings. Based on new and recent research, the exhibition traces Sickert’s reinvention of the nude from 1905-1912, exploring the ways in which these paintings addressed pressing artistic and social concerns of the early twentieth century.
The Courtauld Institute of Art is located in Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN, tel. 020 7848 2526

Imperial War Museum
Website: http://www.iwm.org.uk   
Camouflage
March 23 to November 18, 2007
The first major exhibition to explore the impact of camouflage on modern warfare and its adoption into popular culture. Find out how and why a revolution in camouflage occurred during the First World War; how teams of artists and designers were employed to design camouflage and how it has influenced contemporary art and fashion.
The Children's War
To March 1, 2008
A major exhibition looking at the home front in Britain through the eyes of children.
Falklands 25th Anniversary Exhibition
To January 6, 2008
Explore the experiences and personal memorabilia of those involved from politicians and Service personnel to Falkland Islanders and war widows.
The main museum is located on Lambeth Road. Near the Thames Path (http://www.thamespathlondon.co.uk ). Open daily (except 24, 25 and 26 December) 10.00am - 6.00pm. Entrance fee is £7 for adults and £5 for concessions.

Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms
Website: http://cwr.iwm.org.uk/
The Churchill Museum, the world’s first major museum dedicated to life of Winston Churchill, is a permanent exhibition housed within the unique setting of the historic Cabinet War Rooms.
Shortly after becoming Prime Minister in May 1940, Winston Churchill visited the Cabinet War Rooms to see for himself what preparations had been made to allow him and his War Cabinet to continue working throughout the expected air raids on London. It was there, in the underground Cabinet Room, he announced “This is the room from which I will direct the war.”
A branch of the Imperial War Museum, the Churchill Museum is located at Clive Steps, King Charles Street in London’s Southwest End. Open daily 9:30 am to 6 pm. Admission tickets will admit visitors to both the Cabinet War Rooms and the Churchill Museum.

National Gallery of Art
Website: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk
Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals
June 27 to September 16, 2007
Following its independence from Spain in the 17th century, the Dutch Republic experienced an era of unprecedented wealth, the so-called Golden Age. Thanks to the rest of Europe, new middle-class elite emerged. Its members became the dominant force in local government and civic institutions, and as a result became the new principal patrons of the arts. Portraits were especially suitable to express their newly found self-confidence and desire for representation, and artists responded by developing new types of portraits to meet the demands of this clientele. 
The exhibition will include some 60 works, all painted between 1600 and 1680.
The National Gallery is located at Trafalgar Square, London WC2. Tel: +44 (0) 20 7747 2885. Open: daily 10am-6pm (until 9pm Wed and Sat). Entry: £12. Tube: Charing Cross, Leicester Square.

Royal Academy of Arts
Website: http://www.royalacademy.org.uk 
Summer Exhibition 2007
June 11 to August 19, 2007
The Royal Academy’s annual Summer Exhibition is the world’s largest open submission contemporary art exhibition, with a tradition of showcasing work by unknown and emerging artists alongside that of more established names. The Summer Exhibition attracts entries from around 9,000 artists, including paintings, sculptures, photographs, drawings, prints and architectural models.
Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, W1. Tel: +44 (0)20 7300 8000. Open: daily, 10am-6pm (until 10pm on Fridays).  Entrance costs £10, £7 for students, £3 for 12-18 year olds, £2 for 8-11 year olds and under 7s go free

Somerset House-- Hermitage Rooms
Website: www.hermitagerooms.com
France in Russia: Empress Josephine’s Malmaison Collection
May 17 to September 30, 2007
This exhibition brings together for the first time in this country a significant part of the Hermitage’s Malmaison collection.  In 1815 Alexander arranged the purchase by private treaty of a collection of paintings belonging to Empress Josephine, former wife of Napoleon, housed in her Malmaison Palace.  The Empress put together a collection of paintings and sculptures here, part of which consisted of trophy pieces seized by Napoleon and presented to his wife as a gift. Alexander purchased 38 paintings from her heirs, Hortense and Eugene Beauharnais, the majority of which had in fact been captured from the Kassel Gallery during the campaigns of the French army.  Despite some political outcry at the purchase - the international powers had agreed that all trophy art should be returned to the original owners - the collection remained in Alexander's hands and was sent back to St Petersburg. 
Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA, tel. 020 7485 4630 

Tate Modern 
Website: http://www.tate.org.uk/modern
UBS Openings: Drawings From The UBS Art Collection
To November 4, 2007
This display presents a selection of drawings from The UBS Art Collection profiling two distinct, yet interrelated, modes of drawing. The first is concerned with instinctive drawing; highly reflexive, sometimes map-like and often abstract. The second mode establishes drawing as the perfect vehicle for the exploration of content, readily lending itself to expressing personal and intimate thoughts. It can be inspired by personal experience, observation or popular culture. By bringing together works which exhibit the characteristics of these two paths, the display explores how they relate to each other.
Dalí and Film
June 1 to September 9, 2007
This unprecedented exhibition brings together more than one hundred works by Dalí, including major paintings, photographs, drawings and films, in order to explore the central role of cinema in his work as both inspiration and an outlet for experimentation
Hélio Oiticica: The Body of Colour
June 6 to September 23, 2007
Hélio Oiticica (1937–80) was one of the most innovative Brazilian artists of his generation and has come to be acknowledged as a significant figure in the development of contemporary art. Among his achievements was the original and uncompromising use of colour that was central to his practice, and this is the first large-scale exhibition focusing on this key element in his work.  Featuring more than 150 works, the exhibition includes several key series from 1955 onwards, some of which have not been seen publicly for more than thirty years.
Tate Modern is located on the south bank of the River Thames at Bankside, near Blackfriars Bridge, opposite St Paul's Cathedral and next to the Globe Theatre. email: visiting.modern@tate.org.uk. Accessible by the underground, boat, train and bus—see instructions at the museum website.  Open Sunday – Thursday, 10 am to 8 pm; Friday and Saturday, 10 am to 10 pm. Admission

Tate Britain
Website: http://www.tate.org.uk/britain 
How We Are: Photographing Britain
To September 2, 2007
The first major exhibition of photography at Tate Britain takes a unique look at the journey of British photography, from the pioneers of the early medium to today.
Prunella Clough
To August 27, 2007
This exhibition focuses on British artist Prunella Clough's figurative paintings of the 1940s and '50s and her late abstract work, highlighting the remarkable consistency that underpins the artist’s distinctive body of work.  Bringing together key paintings such as Lowestoft Harbour of 1951, painted for the Festival of Britain, and the majestic series of landscapes of her final year, the exhibition provides a rare opportunity to reappraise Prunella Clough's place in twentieth century British art.
Tate Britain is located at Millbank in London’s southwest end. Open daily, 10 am to 5:50 pm. More information at email: visiting.britain@tate.org.uk

Victoria and Albert Museum
Website: www.vam.ac.uk 
Surreal Things
This show is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see 300 of the most extraordinary objects ever created, in a spectacular theatrical setting. This exhibition is the first to explore the influence of Surrealism on the worlds of fashion, design, theatre, interiors, film, architecture and advertising. It shows how artists engaged with design and how designers were inspired by Surrealism.
Alongside paintings by Magritte and Ernst are Elsa Schiaparelli's dramatic Skeleton dress, Meret Oppenheim's Table with Bird's Legs, Oscar Dominguez's satin-lined wheelbarrow, and many world-famous works by Salvador Dali including paintings, the Mae West Lips Sofa, the Lobster Telephone and Venus de Milo with Drawers. Other highlights include Giorgio de Chirico's costumes and set designs for Diaghilev's ballet  The Ball, film clips including the dream sequence from Alfred Hitchcock's film Spellbound, and a case study of Monkton, the purple-painted Sussex home of the English Surrealist patron Edward James.
Uncomfortable Truths
This year-long exhibit displays the shadow of slave trading on art and design as
2007 marks the bi-centenary of the parliamentary abolition of the slave trade. It is a landmark year, not just in British history but in human history, signaling the end of 400 years of slavery. To commemorate this, the V&A is running a number of activities throughout the year. Check the website for events schedule.
Victoria and Albert Museum is located on Cromwell Road, London SW7. Tel:
+44 (0)20 7942 2000. Open daily 10 am to 5:45 pm, Fridays until 8 pm. Admission.
Getting there:  London Underground: South Kensington; Buses: C1, 14, 74 and 414 stop outside the Cromwell Road entrance.

Royal Albert Hall
Website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms     
Held annually every summer, the 111-year-old BBC Proms takes place this year from July 13 to September 10. BBC Proms 2007 features over 70 orchestral concerts and series of weekly chamber music recitals at the Royal Albert Hall and at other UK venues. Program events listed on the website.
Every Prom is broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, on BBC TV, and via the Internet with BBC4, the BBC's digital TV service. Almost every Prom can now be heard on demand via the Proms website for a week after broadcast.
Royal Albert Hall is located at Kensington Gore, SW7. Tube: South Kensington.

 

Madrid

Museo del Prado
Website:  http://museoprado.mcu.es/home.html
Patinir and the Invention of Landscape
July 3 to October 7, 2007
The exhibit features a total of 48 paintings, of which 22 are by Flemish painter Patinir and the remainder by his most important predecessors and followers. Patinir is little known to the wider public, possibly due to his small oeuvre and the fact that few collections contain a sizeable group of his paintings. This has made the study of his art difficult up to now, even for specialists.
Among the paintings by Patinir to be included in the exhibition, six come from Spanish collections (four from the Prado, one from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum and one from the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial). Patinir is particularly well represented in Spain and almost a quarter of his entire oeuvre is now to be found in the region of Madrid. The Prado, which houses one of the best collections of 15th- and 16th-century Netherlandish painting worldwide, has the largest collection of Patinir’s works in any collection.
The Prado Museum is located on Paseo del Prado, call: 011-34-91-330-28-00, fax: 011-34-91-330-28-56 or e-mail: museo.nacional@prado.mcu.es.  Open .daily, except Mondays, from 9 am to 8pm.  Admission is about $8, or 6 euros, except Sundays (9 AM to 7 PM) when it is free. Visitors under 18, over 65 and students from EU countries are admitted free of charge. Students from non-EU countries pay about $4 or 3 euros

Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum
Website: www.museothyssen.org 
Van Gogh: The Last Landscapes
June 12 to September 16, 2007
This exhibition is devoted to one of the great names in art: Vincent van Gogh. More specifically, it focuses -for the first time-on the last three months of the Dutch painter’s life in Auvers near Paris. The Auvers period was a brief but remarkably productive one and involved a radical change of direction in Van Gogh’s work which he did not have time to fully develop.
Richard Estes Retrospective
June 19 to September 16, 2007
This retrospective devoted to the work of the painter Richard Estes will cover his artistic activities from the 1960s to the present with the aim of analyzing the career of the main founder and one of the great figures of American photo-realism. Using photography as a direct visual source, Estes focused on the representations of real landscapes. In contrast to other photo-realist artists who directly transferred the photograph to the canvas, Estes only used it as his starting-point, taking various viewpoints of the chosen location and playing with them until he arrived at the definitive image which he transformed into a kind of optical illusion.
The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum is located at Paseo del Prado, 8 and is open Tuesdays through Sundays from 10 AM to 7 PM and during July and August the temporary exhibitions will remain open until 11 PM Tuesdays to Saturdays.  (Closed Mondays.)  Admission to the temporary exhibition is about $5.14 and about $3.85 for students and seniors. Combined tickets for the temporary and context exhibitions and permanent collection range from $9 to $14.50 ($6.40 to $10.30 for students and seniors).  

 

Mexico City

Old College of San Ildefonso
Old College of San Ildefonso is located at Justo Sierra 16, Centro. Tel: +52 (55) 5702-3254. Open: Tue-Sun 10am-5.30pm.Admission: 35 pesos.

 

Miami

Miami Art Museum
Website: www.miamiartmuseum.org 
Tamayo: A Modern Icon Reinterpreted
June 22 to September 16, 2007
A Modern Icon Reinterpreted is the first major exhibition in the US of the work of the Mexican artist, Rufino Tamayo (1899–1991), in nearly 30 years. This retrospective brings together approximately 100 of the best canvases made by Tamayo over a long and productive career that spanned seven decades. The largest section profiles the most notable period of Tamayo’s career, the 1940s and 1950s, when he developed a new form of abstract figuration that made him one of the most recognized and respected modern painters. The exhibition seeks not only to present a careful selection of Tamayo’s finest works, but also to offer a contemporary reinterpretation of this world-renowned artist.
Miami Art Museum is located at 101 West Flagler Street. Open daily except Mondays from 10 am to 5pm; until 9 pm Thursdays. Admission.

 

Milan
Castello Sforzesco
Website: http://www.milanocastello.it 
Indoamerica: Archeologia ed etnografia del Sud America al Castello Sforzesco
To October 28, 2007
LODOLANDIA di Marco Lodola
To September 16, 2007
Castello Sforzesco, Piazza Castello, 3. Open: Tues-Sun, 9am-1pm, 2pm-5.30pm.

International Center For Photography
Website: http://www.formafoto.it
Ferdinando Cioffi. Un fotografo luminista
To August 26, 2007
After having spent time at an early age at the New York studios of great masters like Richard Avedon and Irving Penn from whom he learnt the secrets of photographic portraits, Ferdinando Cioffi, an illuminist photographer, soon developed an extremely personal sensitivity in using illumination in his work. Just like the subjects he portrays, light is the undisputed protagonist of every picture he takes, defining the figures silhouetted against the background in every detail and thus conferring a heroic and solemn tone.
In Cioffi’s portraits, the setting plays a relevant role in unfolding the depth of every human subject - instead of using the homogeneous and neutral background of a photographers studio, many are portrayed in their homes or workplaces, sometimes merging into the area framed by the picture. The scene is then filled with objects belonging to the subjects’ personal history. Portraits always entail a relationship of strength between the photographer and the subject. From his privileged position, Cioffi chooses to remain invisible and to disclose the soul of those who he observes, day after day, for an instant through his camera’s lens.
International Centre for Photography is located at Piazza Tito Lucrezio Caro, 1. Tel: +39 (0)2 5811 8067. Open: Tues-Sun 11am-9pm (Thurs until 11pm). Admission: €6.50.

 

 

Montreal

Museum of Fine Arts (Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion)
Website: http://www.mbam.qc.ca 
Emily Carr: New Perspectives on a Canadian Icon
June 21 to September 23, 2007
This nationally touring exhibition on Emily Carr (1871-1945), the first in more than thirty years, presents some 200 objects – paintings, drawings, watercolors, caricatures, ceramics, sculpture, hooked rugs, books, maps, photographs and ephemera—150 of them executed by the artist. 
The Artistic Legacy of the Montreal Sulpicians
September 12 to December 9, 2007
The Company of the Sulpician Fathers was founded as part of the great movement of Christian evangelization and renewal that grew up in seventeenth century France. In 1657, fifteen years after the founding of Ville Marie, the first Sulpicians arrived in the New World, where they became Seigneurs of the island of Montreal and were appointed priests in perpetuity of the parish of Notre Dame, the only one on the island until 1866. 
The Museum is located at 1380 Sherbrooke Street West. Open Tuesdays through Sundays.

Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal
Website:  www.macm.org
Bruce Nauman
To September 3. 2007
Bruce Nauman’s whole body of work raises incisive existential questions related to life and death, love and hate, pleasure and pain—the very words he uses in the title of his neon work Life, Death, Love, Hate, Pleasure, Pain. American artist Bruce Nauman has had a major influence on succeeding generations of artists for more than 40 years.
Notions of body and identity, the role of language, the phenomena of spatial awareness, and artistic process and viewer participation are recurring themes in Nauman’s art. Following a rigorous, innovative approach, he explores various means of expression—neon, sculpture, film, video, performance, drawing—and is considered one of the pioneers of installation.
Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal is at 185 Sainte-Catherine Street West. Open Tuesday to Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Admission: (Can)$8; group rate available.  Free admission for all every Wednesday evening, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Open holiday Mondays. Information:  (514) 847-6226 (Telephone) or info@macm.org

Biodôme de Montreal (Botanical Garden)
Website: www.museumsnature.ca
Fatal Attraction
To September 3, 2007
Courting rituals in the animal kingdom.
Montréal Botanical Gardens are located at 4101 Sherbrooke Street East. Open: Tuesday to Sunday. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed on December 24 and 25. Information:  (514) 872-1400 (Telephone)

Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal
Website: www.grandsballets.com
The 2007/2008 season opens October 18 with the ballet Cinderella
Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, Place des Arts at 175 Sainte-Catherine Street West.
Tickets: (CAN) $29 to $95; Group Rate available; telephone: (514) 842-2112 / 1 866 842-2112 (Toll Free)

Montreal Symphony
Websites: http://www.osm.ca  or http://www.osm.ca/index_en.cfm
Mozart Plus Festival
July 18, 25, August 1 and 8.
Montreal Symphony Music Director Kent Nagano will conduct three of the four concerts of the 2007 edition of the Mozart Plus Festival. This year, for the first time, the concerts will be presented in the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier at Place des Arts, right in the heart of the Quartier des spectacles! Some of Mozart's major works, such as the Jupiter Symphony, will appear on the program alongside great classics, including Prokofiev's ballet suite from Romeo and Juliet and Strauss's Metamorphosen.
The concerts of the series
Beethoven's Fourth
Wednesday July 18, 2007 at 7:30 PM
Romeo and Juliet
Wednesday July 25, 2007 at 7:30 PM
Mozart's Jupiter Symphony
Wednesday August 1, 2007 at 7:30 PM
Nuits d'été
Wednesday August 8, 2007 at 7:30 PM
Mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, a specialist of the French repertoire and one of the favorite artists at the Salzburg Mozart Festival, will present excerpts from the sumptuous Nuits d’été by Berlioz and arias from two of Mozart’s operas. Kent Nagano will close this year’s festival with one of Shostakovich’s most beloved works, the impressive and riveting Tenth Symphony.
Place des Armes

 

Moscow

Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts
Website:  http://www.museum.ru/gmii/defengl.htm
Art in America: Three Hundred Years of Innovation
July 24 to September 9, 2007
Te largest and most comprehensive exhibition of American art to travel to Russia after being presented earlier this year Beijing and Shanghai is drawn from several dozen museums and collections in Europe and America. The exhibition presents approximately 100 works by artists who hold an important place in America's art history, and systematically outlines the developments of the last 300 years, from the colonial period of the 18th century to the present. Divided into six historical periods, the exhibition demonstrates how the art of each era both reflected and contributed to a complex visual narrative of the nation during times of discovery, growth, and experimentation. The exhibition explores issues of identity, creation, innovation, and scale—characteristics integral to the American consciousness and derived in part from the variety and vastness of the cultural, political, ethnic, economic, and natural landscapes of the United States. The six sections, each marking significant phases of the country's development, are: Colonization and Rebellion (1700-1830), Expansion and Fragmentation (1830-80), Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism (1880-1915), Modernism and Regionalism (1915-45), Prosperity and Disillusionment (1945-80), and Multiculturalism and Globalization (1980-present). Featured artists from the early 18th century to the present include, among many others: John Singleton Copley, Charles Wilson Peale, Gilbert Stuart, George Catlin, Frederic Edwin Church, Winslow Homer, Martin Johnson Heade, John Singer Sargent, Albert Bierstadt, Mary Cassatt, Childe Hassam, Frederic Remington, Marsden Hartley, Robert Henri, George Bellows, Charles Demuth, Georgia O'Keeffe, Stuart Davis, Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Brice Marden, Chuck Close, Lawrence Weiner, Richard Prince, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and John Currin.
Following the Pushkin Museum presentation, the exhibition will travel to Bilbao where it will be on view from October 10, 2007, to early 2008.
The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts consists of six buildings. Four are located at the Volkhonka Street and two more in other parts of the city. E-mail: Finearts@gmii.museum.ru. Admission.

 

Munich

Lenbachhaus
Website: www.muenchen.de
PERSPEKTIVE07
June 30 to November 25, 2007
Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus is located at  Luisenstraße 33; tel +49 89 233 32 00 0; email: lenbachhaus@)muenchen.de  

 

New York

American Museum of Natural History
Website: www.amnh.org    
Mythic Creatures:  Dragons, Unicorns & Mermaids
May 26, 2007 to January 6, 2008
Mythic Creatures:  Dragons, Unicorns & Mermaids is the first-ever exhibition to trace the cultural and natural history roots of some of the world’s most enduring mythological creatures, this enchanting exhibition highlights legendary beasts of land, sea, and air such as dragons, griffins, mermaids, sea serpents, and unicorns.
For thousands of years, fantastical creatures have been a part of human experience through legends and fables, ancient and contemporary art, performance, and even in the accounts of early naturalists.  Mythic Creatures will include spectacular sculptures, paintings, and textiles, along with a number of cultural objects from around the world ranging from shadow puppets to ceremonial masks and helmets that will bring to light surprising similarities—and differences—in the ways peoples around the world have envisioned and depicted these strange and wonderful creatures.
Mythic Creatures will also feature preserved specimens from the Museum’s collections and even fossils of prehistoric animals to investigate how they could have, through misidentification, speculation, and imagination, inspired the development of some legendary beasts.  For example, visitors will discover how narwhal tusks from the North Sea introduced by Scandinavian traders lent credence to the centuries-old belief in the unicorn (a beast that was probably originally a misunderstanding of a rhinoceros), and how dinosaur fossils uncovered by Scythian nomads may have been mistaken as the remains of living, breathing griffins.  And persistent tales of undersea monsters may simply be sightings of real creatures that are just as fantastic as any imaginary beast, including the oarfish, great white shark, and giant squid.
Frogs: A Chorus of Colors
May 26 to September 9, 2007
Brilliant orange, bright blue, dazzling red—frogs come in an astonishing array of colors. From lush rainforests to parched deserts, frogs are found in nearly every environment on Earth, and their survival strategies range from surprising to bizarre. A pioneer in modern frog research, the American Museum of Natural History has one of the largest frog collections in the world. AMNH expeditions to remote mountaintops, as well as surveys of local wetlands, continue to uncover new populations and species—but also reveal environmental changes that threaten frogs' existence. Many efforts are underway to reverse this downward trend globally. As just one example, all of the live frogs displayed in this exhibition have been captive-bred, to protect their populations in the wild.
The Unknown Audubons: Mammals Of North America
March 31 to January 6, 2008
In the renovated and restored Audubon Gallery, a classic, high-ceilinged salon space on the Museum's fourth floor next to the fossil halls, the inaugural exhibition highlights the Museum's rarely displayed collection of original paintings, drawings, and prints by John James Audubon and his sons John Woodhouse Audubon and Victor Gifford Audubon, one of America's most famous families of naturalists and wildlife artists. The exhibition also succeeds in placing Audubon's life and art in the context of a dramatic environmental story—protecting endangered ecosystems—a cautionary scientific message addressed in other Museum galleries, particularly the Hall of Biodiversity.
The exhibit introduces visitors to an unfamiliar side of Audubon and his family. Most identify him with his monumental and groundbreaking work, the 435-plate Birds of America (1827–1838), and even today his name remains synonymous with birds and bird conservation. However, soon after the publication of Birds of America, Audubon decided to pursue an even more challenging project—the documentation of all known North American mammals—an ambitious undertaking that included a six-month expedition to the Missouri River valley in 1843.
The Museum's Audubon collection as a whole has rarely been on public view, and the Museum's exhibition opens concurrently with a showing of Audubon's more familiar bird paintings at the New-York Historical Society, across from the museum at West 77 Street and Central Park West, Audubon's Aviary: Natural Selection (March 30–May 20, 2007). Visitors can enjoy both exhibitions for the price of admission to just one institution. Visitors may present a receipt from one institution to receive a same-day complimentary admission to the other participating museum from March 31 through May 20, 2007.
Gold
To August 19, 2007
Showcasing a vast array of extraordinary objects gleaned from the geology and cultural anthropology holdings of major museums and private collections around the world, Gold will present the fascinating scientific and cultural story of this rare and prized element. The influence of gold throughout history will be examined through the currency of ancient civilizations, displays on the Gold Rush that shaped the American West, and contemporary pop culture items. Historical exhibition highlights will include enormous nuggets of gold such as the famous Latrobe Nugget, a specimen of rare natural crystallized gold; gold bars; rare doubloons retrieved from sunken Spanish galleons; the first gold coins minted in ancient Lydia (now Turkey); gold textiles; and gleaming pre-Columbian jewelry and other objects from the Museum's own collection.
Visitors will experience firsthand the alluring splendor of the finest gold specimens on Earth and learn how gold is located, mined, processed, and turned into both beautiful and useful objects. Among the treasures on display is a reproduction of a 3,000-year-old map–the Turin Papyrus found in Egypt–that pinpoints the location of regional gold deposits. Compelling modern objects that may include Olympic medals, Academy Awards Oscar statuettes, and best-selling gold records, will illustrate the powerful hold that gold continues to have on our imagination. And visitors will discover that gold has amazing physical properties such as extreme malleability, reflectivity, and conductivity that make it invaluable for technological uses from telephones and televisions to satellite circuitry and astronauts' visors.
Throughout the exhibition, there will be numerous opportunities for visitors to explore the unique properties of gold. They can walk through a room completely covered in a single ounce of gold flattened to exquisite thinness, and guess the amount of gold ore found in a boulder.
Hall of Human Origins
Permanent
See the remarkable history of human evolution, from earth’s earliest ancestors to modern man. The new exhibit combines the most up to date discoveries in the fossil record with the latest in genomic science to explore the most profound mysteries of humankind—who we are, where we came from, and what is in store for the future of man. The new 10,000 square foot Spitzer Hall of Human Origins offers the most comprehensive evidence of hum an evolution ever assembled with over 200 casts of the rarest hominid fossils and artifacts documenting how modern humans evolved over millions of years from earlier species and showing how new DNA evidence reveals how closely related we are to each other and to our primate ancestors. There is an educational center within the Spitzer Hall where hands-on experiments are conducted.
The American Museum of Natural History is located at Central Park West and between West 77 and 79 Streets. Open daily, 10:00 am to 5:45 pm. Admission.

Asia Society
Website: www.asiasociety.org/arts  
Condensation: Five Video Works by Chen Chieh-jen 
June 19 to August 5, 2007
This is the first major solo exhibition of leading Taiwanese artist Chen Chieh-jen in the United States. In recent years, he has received significant attention for his video works, which resemble short films.
Asia Society and Museum is located at 725 Park Avenue at 68th Street. Open Tuesday - Sunday, 11:00 am - 6:00 pm, with extended evening hours Fridays until 9:00 pm. Closed on Mondays and major holidays.  Admission.

Frick Museum
Website: www.frick.org  
Rococo Exotic: French Mounted Porcelain and the Allure of the East
March 6 through September 9, 2007
This exhibition explores the design and reception of such rococo luxury objects by focusing on a pair of mounted eighteenth-century Chinese porcelains in The Frick Collection. Purchased by Henry Clay Frick in 1915, the deep blue vases were cut down and the mounts added between 1745 and 1749. Ornamented with elaborate gilt-bronze imitations of natural forms such as shells, coral, pearls, and bulrushes, these costly items fuse a contemporary fascination with natural exotica, largely imported from the East, with the concurrent fashion for Far Eastern porcelains. Drawing on prints, books, and other objects, the exhibition will explore the convergence of the natural and the humanly wrought in the production of such elite wares and probe the fascination with the exotic that lies at the heart of the rococo.
Gabriel de Saint-Aubin (1724–1780)
October 30, 2007, through January 27, 2008
Gabriel de Saint-Aubin (1724–1780), Sheet of Studies Including a Portrait of
An important exhibition and catalogue devoted to the art of Gabriel de Saint-Aubin, co-organized by The Frick Collection and the Louvre Museum, has its exclusive North American showing in New York in the fall of 2007 (opening in Paris in February 2008). The show will bring long overdue recognition to one of the European Enlightenment’s most original and innovative artists. Although highly esteemed by scholars and admirers of eighteenth-century French art, Saint-Aubin is little known to the general public or even to specialists in other fields. The exhibition will present a selection of Saint-Aubin’s prolific and varied oeuvre in the media of painting, etching, and drawing, and is the first effort to include works from both European and North American collections. The exhibition will provide modern visitors with the opportunity to glimpse Paris as it was two hundred and fifty years ago, through appealing depictions of the city’s architecture, theater, the Salon, domestic life, and popular entertainment, each a subject that Saint-Aubin rendered in an immediate, impressionistic style that anticipates those of artists of the late nineteenth century.
The Frick is located at 1 East 70 Street. Open Tuesday to Sunday. Admission.

Guggenheim Museum of Art
Website: www.guggenheim.org
Richard Pousette-Dart: Paintings
August 17 to September 25, 2007
Approximately 40 paintings representing the artist's career will be on display. Richard Pousette-Dart (1916-1992) was a founding member of the New York School, which included Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, Hans Hofmann, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko. Active in New York from the early 1940s, Pousette-Dart made essential contributions to the Abstract Expressionist movement. He was among the first of the Abstract Expressionists to be given a solo exhibition (Artists Gallery, New York, 1941), and between 1941 and 1942 he was the first of the group to paint large-scale canvases, including Undulation (1941-42), which anticipated Jackson Pollock's breakthrough to mural-scale work in 1943. During this period Pousette-Dart's technique began to emphasize gesture, layers of paint, and evocative subject matter that were the first pictorial statements of what came to be known as "action painting," as seen in Crucifixion Comprehension of the Atom (1944).
Divisionism/Neo-Impressionism: Archadia & Anarchy
To August 6, 2007
The Italian Divisionists—so called for the painting technique they employed, namely the "division" of color via individualized brushstrokes—were active in Italy during the 1890s and early 1900s. These painters remained grounded in academic traditions culled from Italy's rich visual heritage, yet they took cues from the modernist practices happening elsewhere in Europe—primarily those of the French Neo-Impressionists, or Pointillists—and drew on chromatics and optics to develop an idiom that was all their own. Arcadia and Anarchy has a subtitle that literally and metaphorically alludes to philosophies shared by many Divisionist and Neo-Impressionist artists. In an era defined by increased industrialization and social upheaval their choice of a radical new style was as anarchic as their allegiance to leftist politics. For some of them, however, art was also an escape from the crises of contemporary life. This spurred a search for the ideal that led to Arcadian evocations in idyllic landscapes and mystical imagery.
The Shapes of Space
April 14--September 5, 2007
Opening in stages throughout the spring and summer and timed to coincide with the ongoing restoration of the Guggenheim Museum's iconic Frank Lloyd Wright building, The Shapes of Space explores various ways in which artists from the early modern period through the present have conceived of and represented space. Drawn from the Guggenheim's extensive permanent collection, The Shapes of Space explores the elastic notion of space in an unorthodox and nonchronological manner. Rather than seek a continuous art historical narrative, the exhibition combines works from different time periods, from the early 20th century through the present, and positions itself as an open-ended inquiry. Several thematic clusters, however, emerge to structure the show, revolving around the delineation and perception of space, the activation of social space, the built or architectural space and its sociopolitical implications, psychologically charged spaces, invented or imagined spaces, and the idea of spiritual or infinite space.
The following schedule highlights works that will be on view and the timing of their installation; because of the museum's restoration project, all dates are subject to change.
Part I, April 14--September 5
Part I of the exhibition encompasses the rotunda floor, High Gallery, and Rotunda Level 2. Works on view include Larry Bell's 20" Untitled 1969 (Tom Messer Cube) (1969), László Moholy-Nagy's Space Modulator (1939-45), Piet Mondrian's Composition No. 1: Lozenge with Four Lines (1930), Sarah Morris's Mandalay Bay (Las Vegas) (1999), Alyson Shotz's The Shape of Space (2004), and Piotr Uklanski's Untitled (Dance Floor) (1996).
Part II, May 26--September 5
Part II of the exhibition is installed on Rotunda Levels 3 and 4. Works on view include Louise Bourgeois's Cell V (1991), Naum Gabo's Column (ca. 1923, reconstruction 1937), Robert Gober's Untitled (1998-99), and Maria Elena González's Untitled (2005).
Part III, June 23--September 5
Pipilotti Rist's Himalaya's Sister's Living Room (2000) opens in Annex Level 5 on June 23, and Rirkrit Tiravanija's Untitled 2002 (he promised) (2002) opens in Annex Level 7 on June 25.
Part IV, July 13--September 5
Part IV of the exhibition is installed on Rotunda Level 5. Works on view include Alexander Calder's Mobile (ca. 1943-46), Tom Friedman's Untitled (2001), Vasily Kandinsky's Several Circles (January-February 1926), Aleksandra Mir's First Woman on the Moon (1999-ongoing), and Paul Pfeiffer's Pier and Ocean (2004).
(Left) Piet Mondrian, Composition No. 1: Lozenge with Four Lines, 1930. Oil on canvas, 75.2 x 75.2 cm, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. The Hilla Rebay Collection. © 2007 Mondrian/Holtzman Trust c/o HCR International, Warrenton, VA, USA. (Right) Sarah Morris, Mandalay Bay (Las Vegas), 1999. Household paint on canvas, 213.4 x 213.4 x 5.1 cm, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Purchased with funds contributed by the Young Collectors Council. © Sarah Morris.
The Guggenheim is located at1071 Fifth Ave. at 89th St., 212-423-3500.

Japan Society
Website: www.japansociety.org
Making a Home: Japanese Contemporary Artists in New York
September 28 to January 13, 2008
To celebrate the strong and historic cultural links between Japan and New York, Japan Society presents this large-scale group exhibition featuring the work of 33 contemporary Japanese artists who call New York City home, including Yoko Ono, Ushio Shinohara and Kunie Sugiura. The show comprises a broad range of media—from painting and sculpture to video and photography—and covers diverse age groups, identities, experiences, and styles that will show the breadth and depth of contemporary Japanese art as developed, practiced, and presented in New York. Visitors will go on a conceptual journey through multifaceted “homes” installed throughout the Society, illuminating the ways in which Japanese artists have made their homes and careers here since the 1950s, often bringing with them and maintaining aesthetic vocabularies that reveal their Japanese roots.
Japan Society is located at 333 East 47 Street between Second and First Avenues. Tel: (212) 832-1155. Gallery hours (during exhibition dates) are Tuesday through Thursday, 11 am - 6 pm; Friday, 11 am to 9 pm; Saturday and Sundays from 11 am to 5 pm.

Metropolitan Museum Of Art
Website: www.metmuseum.org 
Greek and Roman Sculpture Galleries
These majestic new galleries, more than a dozen years in the making, brings one of the world's great collections of classical art to light in a new way. Thousands of pieces from the museum’s collection of Greek and Roman sculpture are handsomely displayed in an area that was once the museum’s major restaurant. The centerpiece is the spectacular Leon Levy and Shelby White Court, a monumental peristyle area for the display of Hellenistic and Roman art with a soaring two-story atrium. Displays the colossal statue of the young Hercules, a lion skin draped over his arm, along with many other works, including great Badminton sarcophagus decorated with more than 40 figures—including Dionysus, the god of wine, shown riding his panther—and the seasons. Visitors will also come to learn about the emperors of Imperial Rome: Augustus, Caligula, the young Nero, Antoninus Pius, Caracalla; and a pantheon of great figures from ancient times: Herodotus, Epicurus, and many others.
Poiret: King of Fashion
May 9 to August 5, 2007
Special Exhibition Galleries, 1st floor
In the annals of fashion history, Paul Poiret (1879–1944), who called himself the "King of Fashion," is best remembered for freeing women from corsets and further liberating them through pantaloons. However, it was Poiret’s remarkable innovations in the cut and construction of clothing, made all the more remarkable by the fact that he could not sew, that secured his legacy. Working the fabric directly onto the body, Poiret helped to pioneer a radical approach to dressmaking that relied more on the skills of drapery than on those of tailoring. Focusing on his technical ingenuity and originality, the exhibition explores Poiret’s modernity in relation to and as an expression of the dominant discourses of the early 20th century, including Cubism, Classicism, Orientalism, Symbolism, and Primitivism. The exhibition and its accompanying book are made possible by Balenciaga.
Neo Rauch at the Met
May 22 to October 14
Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings: The Clark Brothers Collect
May 22 to August 19, 2007
Frank Stella on the Roof
To October 28, 2007
Frank Stella’s metal sculptures grace the roof top of the museum where wonderful views of Manhattan bring an added delight.
The Metropolitan Museum is located at 1000 Fifth Avenue at East 82 Street. Museum is open daily except Mondays from 9:30 am to 5:30 pm; Fridays and Saturdays it remains open to 9 pm. Parking facilities available.

The Cloisters at Fort Tryon Park (An extension of the Met Museum)
The Abbey At Saint-Guilhem-Le-Désert
Ongoing
The Abbey located near Montpellier, France, was a regular stop on the medieval pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. The 140 architectural elements from Saint-Guilhem that were used to reconstruct the 12th-century cloister in New York were acquired by George Grey Barnard around 1900 and purchased for The Metropolitan Museum of Art by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. The stone has recently been cleaned by Museum conservators, the plaster walls have been resurfaced, and a new lighting system has been put into place to supplement the natural light, creating the sense of an outdoor cloister as the Museum’s original designer intended.
The Cloisters opened as a branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1938 devoted to the art and architecture of medieval Europe. 
Recorded Information: 212-923-3700. To get to the Cloisters, take the M4 public bus a block east from the Met Museum at Madison Avenue and 93rd Street to the bus’s last stop (Fort Tryon Park–The Cloisters).

The Morgan Library
Website: www.themorgan.org
From Berlin to Broadway: Ebb Bequest of Modern German & Austrian Drawings
To September 2, 2007
In 2005 the Morgan Library received a superb group of early 20th-century German and Austrian drawings through the bequest of the Broadway lyricist Fred Ebb (1928–2004). Ebb began assembling his collection in the late 1960s following the success of Cabaret, the Broadway musical he wrote with composer John Kander in 1966. Ebb's interest in German popular music of the 1920s and 1930s, reflected in Cabaret, led him to collect art of the same period. Most of the 43 drawings have not been exhibited publicly for nearly 30 years.
The Morgan Library is located on 225 Madison Avenue at East 36th Street. Open Tuesdays through Thursdays 10:30 am to 5 pm; Friday to 9 pm; Saturdays and Sundays to 6 pm. Admission.

Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
Website: www.moma.org
Richard Serra Sculture: 40 years
June 3 to September 10, 2007
One of the pre-eminent sculptors of our era, Richard Serra (American, b. 1939) has long been acclaimed for his challenging and innovative work, which emphasizes materiality and an engagement between the viewer, the site, and the work. In the early 1960s, Serra and the Minimalist artists of his generation turned to unconventional, industrial materials and began to accentuate the physical properties of their art. Over the years, Serra has expanded his spatial and temporal approach to sculpture and has focused primarily on large-scale work, including many site-specific works that engage with a particular architectural, urban, or landscape setting. This exhibition presents the artist's forty-year career, from his early experiments with materials such as rubber, neon, and lead to monumental late-career pieces, including Intersection II (1992) and Torqued Ellipse IV (1999), along with three new works that have never been exhibited before. Works on view throughout the Museum and in The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden.
What Is Painting? Contemporary Art from the Collection
July 7 to September 17, 2007
What Is Painting? is the fourth in a series of installations drawn from the Museum's collection of contemporary art. It presents a selection of artworks made since approximately 1965, including a number of recent acquisitions and many works displayed for the first time since the Museum's reopening. A variety of responses to the question "What is painting?" are proposed in loose chronological sequence, ranging from ironic to sincere; from figurative to abstract; and from an embrace and creative reimagining of painting's possibilities to a critical engagement with its limits. The installation's title derives from John Baldessari's eponymous painting of 1968 (with the addition of a question mark), acknowledging the ongoing debates over the practice of painting and its place within contemporary art.
Focus: David Smith
To November 26, 2007
Focus: David Smith is part of The Museum of Modern Art's series of special collection displays highlighting noteworthy aspects of the Museum's extensive collections. Focus: David Smith presents a selection of work by the American sculptor David Smith (1906–1965), drawn from the Museum's permanent collection. With its forceful and energetic presence, Smith's sculpture conceptually and physically grapples with themes including nature, life, and the self. These ideas ultimately defined the underpinnings of Smith's art and found articulation in his work as well as that of his Abstract Expressionist colleagues.
Present Tense: Photographs by JoAnn Verburg
July 15 to November 5, 2007
The exhibition includes some 60 photographs highlighting JoAnn Verburg's diverse subject matter and personal, intimate approach to portraits, still lifes, and landscapes
MoMA is located at 11 West 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. Open Wenesdays to Mondays 10:30 am to 5: 30 pm; Fridays to 8 pm. Admission

Museum of City of New York
Website: http://www.mcny.org/
The Glory Days: New York Baseball 1947–1957
To December 31, 2007
The exhibition documents such milestones as the breaking of the color barrier in New York City, revolutions in print and broadcast media, and the creation and disappearance of hallowed stadiums. It also spotlights the game's major moments and sensational plays, and celebrates the fans, the larger-than-life managers and of course the outstanding athletes themselves.
The Museum of City of New York is located at 1220 Fifth Avenue at 103rd St. Open Tuesday - Sunday: 10 am to 5 pm. Admission.

Neue Galerie New York
Website: www.neuegalerie.org
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Berlin Street Scene
July 26 to September 17, 2007
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was a founding member of the artists’ group Die Brücke (The Bridge) in Dresden in 1905. In 1912, the group moved to Berlin. Kirchner was enthralled by what he called “the symphony of the great city,” and responded to the intensity of the street life he found in Berlin by recording the urban spectacle around him.
The exhibit focuses on one of the greatest German paintings of the twentieth century and feature a recently acquired Kirchner sculpture from 1909-10, Standing Girl, Caryatid, as well as a selection of paintings and works on paper that survey Berlin during this period done by Kirchner, Otto Dix, George Grosz, and Christian Schad.
Neue Galerie is located at 1048 Fifth Avenue & East 86 Street. Open Thursday to Monday 11 am to 6 pm’ and Friday 11 am to 9 pm. Admission is $15 (students and seniors, $10), which includes the use of the audio-tour. Children under 12 are not admitted and those under 16 must be accompanied by an adult.

The New York Botanical Garden
Website www.nybg.org 
Kiku: The Art of the Japanese Chrysanthemum
 October 20 to November 18, 2007.
This special, month long show is the culmination of a five-year cultural exchange and collaboration with the Shinjuki Gyoen National Garden in Tokyo. It will include an extensive display of chrysanthemums, including several in the traditional Japanese styles, distinguished by their dramatic shapes, vibrant colors and numerous blossoms.
The Botanical Garden is located in the Bronx and easily accessible from Manhattan via Metro-North train service from Grand Central Station. Open Tuesdays to Sundays year round. Admission.

New York Historical Society
www.nyhistory.org
Asher B. Durand: The Artist In The Antebellum
April 13 to September 30, 2007
Along with historical documents that portray Durand in the context of the rich and lively cultural life of New York City in the decades before the Civil War, the exhibition features a liberal display of the landscape paintings and drawings for which he is most famous.
Nature And The American Vision: The Hudson River School At The New-York Historical Society
June 8 through January 13, 2008
The New-York Historical Society will continue showcasing together more than 100 famous paintings by artists of the Hudson River School, including Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, John F. Kensett, Jasper F. Cropsey and Albert Bierstadt, in a series of exhibitions drawn from the Society’s extraordinary American art collection.
New York Divided: Slavery And The Civil  War
To September 3, 2007
The exhibit focuses on New York's relationship to slavery and the abolitionist movement. The period under investigation begins about 1815 and continues through the Civil War and its aftermath.  Hundreds of significant works of art, objects and documents are on display, primarily from the N-YHS collection, but this exhibition has a special focus on lithography, photography and book illustrations. These documents emphasize the special role of New York City, as the nation's publishing center, in the formulating of images on both sides of the sectional dispute in the 1850s.
Carry Me Home: Dispatches From The Civil War
To September 3, 2007
An exhibition of  remarkable letters, sketches, photographs and other historical documents, that  reveal how those on the front lines of the Civil War – soldiers, hospital  workers, prisoners and journalists – communicated their first-hand accounts of  the everyday realities and horrors of war. 
The New York History Society offers historical lectures, art exhibits, musical explorations and much more centering on both the city and the state’s rich heritage.
Located at 170 Central Park West at77 Street. Open Tuesdays to Sundays 10 am to 6pm.

The Whitney Museum of American Art
Website: www.whitney.org
Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era
May 24 to September 16, 2007
Summer 2007 revisits the unprecedented explosion of contemporary art and popular culture brought about by the civil unrest and pervasive social change of the 1960s and early '70s, when a new psychedelic aesthetic emerged in art, music, film, architecture, graphic design, and fashion. The exhibition includes paintings, photographs and sculptures by Isaac Abrams, Richard Avedon, Lynda Benglis, Richard Hamilton, Elliott Landy, Jimi Hendrix (his only known watercolor), Robert Indiana, Yayoi Kusama, Richard Lindner, and John McCracken, among others, as well as a rich selection of important posters, album covers and underground magazines. The exhibition includes films of performances and light shows, and spotlights places such as the UFO nightclub in London and the Human Be-In in San Francisco, featuring Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary.
Rudolf Stingel
June 28 to October 14, 2007
Employing such materials as rubber, carpet, painted aluminum, Styrofoam, and paint, Rudolf Stingel's work questions and disrupts the viewer's understanding and experience of an art object. Although Stingel's work does not always involve paint on canvas, it continually reflects upon some of the fundamental questions concerning painting today, including authenticity, hierarchy, meaning, and context. This is the artist’s first solo museum exhibition in the United States, surveying his career to date and including a new site-specific work.
Neither New nor Correct: New Work by Mark Bradford
September 14 to December 2007
The latest body of work by Mark Bradford, recipient of the Whitney's 2006 Bucksbaum Award, goes on view in the Anne & Joel Ehrenkranz Lobby Gallery on the museum's main floor. Bradford's works allude to the physical layers of the metropolitan environment of South Central Los Angeles, where the artist lives and works.  Repurposing the advertising posters that he finds built up in layers on walls, windows, and light posts in his neighborhood, Bradford creates collage works of extraordinary impact, exploring the concept of place, and reflecting on the social and economic patterns of his community.  Evocative of archeological excavation and the language of maps, these works delve into personal and collective memory, suggesting hidden histories and submerged traces of the past.  Bradford's collages recall the torn-poster works of French affichiste artists such as Raymond Hains and Jacques de la Villeglé, who worked in Paris in the 1950s and 1960s.

Lincoln Center For The Performing Arts
Website: www.lincolncenter.org
Websites for other departments in the center complex are:
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center www.chambermusicsociety.org
The Film Society of Lincoln Center www.filmlinc.com
Jazz at Lincoln Center www.jalc.org
The Juilliard School www.juilliard.edu
Lincoln Center Theater www.lct.org

The Metropolitan Opera
Website: www.metopera.org
2007/2008 Season
September 24 to May 17, 2008
The Metropolitan Opera’s 2007–2008 season features seven new productions, the most in more than 40 years. The new productions include Mary Zimmerman’s new production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, Verdi’s Macbeth staged by former Royal Shakespeare Company artistic director Adrian Noble and Britten’s Peter Grimes directed by John Doyle.

New York City Ballet
Website: www.nycballet.com
New York City Opera
Website: www.nycopera.com

New York Philharmonic
Website: www.nyphil.org 
2007/2008 Season
September 18 to June 13, 2008
Classical music enthusiasts can look forward to diverse programming from the New York Philharmonic with highlights such as Lorin Maazel's leading the opening night gala concert featuring Yo-Yo Ma, Rachmaninoff's Second Symphony and Barbara Cook's 80th birthday celebration.

 

 

Paris

Centre Georges Pompidou (Beauborg)
Website: http://www.centrepompidou.fr/
Airs de Paris
To August 15, 2007
The plastic-arts, design and architecture exhibition delves into how today's cities and city life in general—and, Paris in particular—are evolving.
Annette Messenger
June 6 to September 22, 2007
A major figure in the international contemporary scene, Annette Messager represented France at the Venice Biennial in 2005, where she was awarded the Lion d'Or. The Centre Pompidou features her astonishing repertoire of forms and materials (plush, stuffed animals, fabric, wool, photographs, drawings…) which play with humankind’s sensations and emotions with remarkable virtuosity.
Centre Georges Pompidou is located on Place Georges Pompidou. Tel: +33 (0)1 44 78 12 33. Museums open daily 11 am to 9 pm; Atelier Brancusi: daily except Tuesdays, 2-6 p.m. Admission.

The Louvre
Website: www.louvre.fr
Arts From Islam
To July 1, 2007
The Golden Age – the Age of Enlightenment
July 12 to October 15, 2007
The exhibit displays Spanish drawings from the 17th and 18th centuries.
The Louvre is located at 99 rue de Rivoli. Tel: 33(0)1 40 20 53 17 (information). Open daily Thursdays to Sundays 9 am to 6 pm; until 9:45 pm Mondays and Wednesdays
Admission.
   
Musée de l’Orangerie
Website: http://www.musee-orangerie.fr
Monet’s Water Lilies
Ongoing
Monet’s water lilies artworks languished for decades in a gloomy netherworld in the Orangerie after a botched museum renovation in the 1960s. However, a major revamp of the museum, which reopened on May 17th after eight years, has changed all that.
The eight works, painted between 1914 and 1926, were donated by the artist and hung at the Orangerie in 1927, a year after his death. Impressive in size—each is two meters high; and one is 17 meters long—the paintings help illustrate Monet's influence on nudging art towards abstraction. Some even capture the mysterious sunset light at Giverny, an effect that could woo even jaded anti-Impressionists. The museum also houses the Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist works by Cézanne, Renoir, Soutine, Picasso, Modigliani and others.
Musée de l’Orangerie, Jardin des Tuileries. Tel: +33 (0)1 44 77 80 07. Métro: Concorde. Open: Weds-Mon, 12.30pm-7pm (until 9pm on Fridays)

Musée Jeu de Paume
Website: http://www.jeudepaume.org
Pierre & Gilles: 1976-2007
June 26 to September 23, 2007
This exhibition presents a selection of 120 works made between 1976 and 2007. Pierre and Gilles began working together in 1976, and their distinctive style has enjoyed great success ever since. Their photographs are all painted, making each one unique. They have established a distinctive visual world drawing on popular culture, mythology, magic, slapstick, religion and eroticism. The two artists explore and reinvent popular images, crossing frontiers and fuelling a collective imagination that reaches well beyond the confines of contemporary art.
Their personal pantheon is peopled by stars from the worlds of pop, rock, fashion, art, cinema and the clubbing scene, but also by unknown individuals they have met over the years. They have also produced numerous self-portraits. Each image tells a story, with the effectiveness and often cruel tenderness of tales for children. 
Steichen: A Photographic Epic
September 10 to December 20, 2007
Edward Steichen (1879-1973) was one of the most prolific and influential photographers of the 20th century. This is the first European retrospective of his work and features 450 vintage prints plus a selection of documents. He produced portraits, landscapes, still lifes and nudes, and demonstrated his talent photographing fashion, dance, theatre, flowers and commercial images, as well as in war and aerial photography. With Alfred Stieglitz he helped set up the Photo-Secession group and the journal Camera Work. In 1923, Condé Nast was sufficiently impressed by his pictorialist photos to make him art director of Vogue and Vanity Fair. Steichen became one of the leading figures of modernism. He also served as photography curator at New York's MoMA, where he organized the famous exhibition The Family of Man. This show began touring internationally in 1955 and attracted over 11 million visitors worldwide. It was the crowning event of Steichen's career. 
Jeu de Paume, 1, place de la Concorde. Open daily except Mondays.

Musée de Quai Branly
Website: http://www.quaibranly.fr 
The museum’s permanent collections area presents the great geographical regions in which the Musée de quai Branly’s remarkable collections originated: Oceania, Asia, Africa and the Americas. The visitor makes his way fluidly across them, taking in the major crossroads between civilizations and cultures: Asia-Oceania, Insulindia, and Mashreck-Maghreb. The 3,500 artifacts are presented so as to highlight the historical depth of the cultures that produced them, and the many different meanings that the works themselves possess. The museography encourages the visitor to take the time to inform himself on major thematic areas: masks and tapa in Oceania, costume in Asia, and African musical instruments and textiles form the subjects of a series of fascinating video presentations.
The museum is located at 27, 37, 51 quai Branly 206, 218 rue de l'Université 75007 Paris. Phone: 01 56 61 70 00. Open Tuesday to Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 6.30 p.m.
Admission fee.

Musée de Rodin
Website: www.musee-rodin.fr
Rodin: Le Rêve Japonais
May 16 to September 9, 2007
The museum is located at Place Hôtel Biron. Tel:  33(0)1 44 18 61 10 (Information).Open daily except Mondays from 9.30 am to 5.45 .m (April 1-Sept.30t; ) and from 9.30 am to 4.45 pm (Oct.1- March 31h)

National Museum of Natural History
Muséum Nationale de l’Histoire Naturelle, Grande Galerie de l’Evolution, 36, rue Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 5th arrondissement. Métro: Jussieu or Gare d’Austerlitz. Open: Sun-Fri 10am-6pm, Sat 10am-8pm. Tel: +33 (0)1 40 79 30 00.

 

 

Philadelphia

Philadelphia Museum of Fine Art
Website: www.philamuseum.org
Notations: Kiefer, Polke, Richter
July 21 to November 25, 2007
Anselm Kiefer, Sigmar Polke, and Gerhard Richter are undoubtedly three of the most important German painters of the post-war period. Working in Germany after World War II—a historical moment characterized by philosopher Theodor Adorno as marking the death of lyric poetry after the atrocities of Auschwitz—these artists mounted a vigorous reconsideration of the possibilities of pictorial practice.
This exhibition explores the dynamically different approaches through which Kiefer, Polke, and Richter each question the relevance of history painting, examine the relationship between painting and photography, and redefine the technical possibilities of painting through experimentation. The works on display, ranging from the 1960s to the 1990s, represent the ways in which the artists have restored a profound significance to the act of painting as a means to unearth and transform the collective consciousness.
Renoir Landscapes
October 4 to January 6, 2008
This exhibition is the first to explore the inventiveness and importance of landscapes during the first 30 years of Pierre-Auguste Renoir's (1841–1919) career. Approximately 70 paintings reveal the subtlety of touch, vaporous effects, and lush, full-blown color that mark the painter as one of the most audacious and original landscape artists of his age.  
The museum is located at 26th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Open Tuesdays through Sundays.

University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology
Website: http://www.museum.upenn.edu 
Amarna, Ancient Egypt's Place in the Sun
Through October, 2007
Tutankhamun, ancient Egypt's famous boy pharaoh, grew up 3,300 years ago in the royal court at Amarna, the ancient city of Akhetaten, whose name meant the Horizon of the Aten. This extraordinary royal city grew, flourished - and vanished - in hardly more than a generation's time. A new exhibition offers a rare look at the meteoric rise and fall of this unique royal city during one of Egypt's most intriguing times. Talks, tours, Saturday rash courses on ancient Egypt, theater in the galleries, family workshops, even a "Hollywood on the Nile" film series, are all part of the Year of Egypt.
The exhibit will feature more than 100 ancient artifacts, some never before on display - including statuary of gods, goddesses and royalty, monumental reliefs, golden jewelry, as well as personal items from the royal family, and artists' materials from the royal workshops of Amarna. Most of the show's artifacts date to the time of and the Amarna Period, including many objects excavated almost a century ago from this short-lived royal city. With background information about the childhood home and unique times in which Tutankhamun lived, Amarna is a complementary exhibition to the nationally traveled, blockbuster exhibition from Egypt, Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs.
Penn Museum's renowned Upper and Lower Egyptian galleries, recently refurbished, offer visitors a rich opportunity to view a wide variety of ancient Egyptian artifacts from several millennia. Materials range from monumental architecture to sculptures, pottery, jewelry, tomb goods, and mummies.
The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, located at 3260 South Street in Philadelphia. Tel: (215) 898-4000. Museum hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Sunday, 1 to 5 p.m. Closed Mondays, holidays and summer Sundays, Memorial Day through Labor Day weekends. Admission

Franklin Institute Science Museum
www.fi.edu/
Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs
To September 3, 2007
More than doubling the size of the original 1977 exhibition that was held at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the King Tut exhibit will be bringing close to 130 pieces of Egyptian antiquities, many outside of Egypt for the first time, to The Franklin Institute. The 18th Dynasty, also known as the “Golden Age”, produced some of the most exquisite pieces of art for some of Egypt’s most famous rulers. Within the exhibit witness not only a child-sized throne made of wood, gesso, gold, ivory, and copper alloy but also artifacts from the five other Pharaohs tombs, which ruled during the “Golden Age”.
The Franklin Institute Science Museum is located at 222 North 20th Street in Center City Philadelphia, at the intersection of 20th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Open daily. Admission.

 

Rome

Scuderie Papali al Quirinale
Website: www.scuderiequirinale.it  
Santiago Calatrava: From Forms to Architecture
July 4 to September 2, 2007
Calatrava was born in 1951 and the exhibit is dedicated to the Spanish architect's great body of work. The sculptures on display evoke a sense of movement, a flowing human and animal existence. Created with a wide variety of materials, from Carrara marble to ebony, from granite to silver, the works reveal a fascinating path of personal, creative growth. They also testify to the architect's love for the Italian Renaissance, a period in which the greatest artists were masters of any number of art forms.
International Pop Art 1956-1968
July 4 to September 2, 2007
Fifty years after what is considered the birth of Pop Art (1956 is the year Hamilton did his famous "Just what is it..." collage), the Scuderie del Quirinale have organized an exhibition that offers a comprehensive, high quality vision of the international Pop Art movement's main themes and figures. It covers the period from 1956 to 1968, the symbolic year in which the era came to a close, both culturally and socially.
With some 90 works from 50 different artists, the exhibition - divided into 6 sections - proposes a decidedly international approach to Pop Art, displaying renowned and celebrated American and British work alongside lesser known French and Italian interpretations, as well as singular works from Spain and Germany. The exhibition aims to expose Pop artists as true peintres de la vie moderne and, at the same time, to highlight the many contradictions and complexities hidden beneath their images, which may have been flamboyant, but never superficial.
Scuderie Papali al Quirinale is located at 16, Via XXIV Maggio - Rome
Phone: +39 06 69 62 70

National Gallery of Modern Art/ Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna
www.gnam.arti.beniculturali.it
Symbolism: From Moreau To Gauguin To Klimt
June 7 to September 16, 2007
Goffredo Parise e gli artisti
June 27 to September 2, 2007

 

 

San Francisco

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Website:  http://www.sfmoma.org/
Matisse: Painter as Sculptor 
June 09 to September 16, 2007
Known primarily for his beautiful paintings, drawings, and works on paper, Henri Matisse was also an accomplished sculptor whose radical style left lasting marks on modern art history. The first major U.S. examination of Matisse's sculpture in nearly 40 years, this exhibition assembles more than 150 works in a variety of media to illustrate his inventiveness, dexterity, and historical significance. Side-by-side presentations of two- and three-dimensional pieces showcase the way themes, imagery, and processes overlapped in Matisse's studio practice, while a selection of works by the artist's peers — including Constantin Brancusi, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Alberto Giacometti, Pablo Picasso, and Auguste Rodin — provides a vivid context for considering Matisse's oeuvre.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third St, San Francisco. Tel: +1 (415) 357-4000. Open: Thurs-Sun 11am-5.45pm (till 8.45pm Thurs).

San Francisco Symphony
Website: http://www.sfsymphony.org 
Summer in the City
July 6 to 28, 2007
This year’s summer concert series brings jazz trumpeter Chris Botti, legendary singer/songwriter Neil Sedaka, the eclectic ensemble Pink Martini, Broadway Diva Patti LuPone, and the great Johnny Mathis together in one festival. Associate Conductor James Gaffigan leads the San Francisco Symphony in a series of concerts featuring classical favorites by Rossini, Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and more.
San Francisco Symphony’s 2007/08 Season
Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony Celebrate the Opening of the 2007–08 Season with a Gala Concert on September 19 Featuring Soprano Renée Fleming  performing Ravel’s Shéhérazade plus additional arias to be announced.  The concert will also include Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, Ruth Crawford Seeger’s Andante and John Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine and Prokofiev’s Scenes from Romeo and Juliet.
San Francisco Symphony performs at Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Ave. Tel: +1 (415) 864-6000.

 

 

Singapore

Asian Civilisations Museum
Website: http://www.nationalmuseum.sg/
Under the Crescent Moon
Summer 2007
This two-month festival showcases the rich cultural heritage of the Arab World and Turkey with exhibitions, performances and film presentations that will present a world where cultures are constantly being negotiated, where modern cities develop alongside nomadic communities, where youth and artistic individuals carve out their own distinctive niches in response to rapid social and political change. The events present perspectives on these communities that are different from the images that are shown daily by the media, reporting only from places of turmoil. Instead, the festival illuminates the richness and joy of life in these communities that have embraced Islam and how everyday life has been shaped by political and cultural changes.
Asian Civilisations Museum, 1 Empress Place, Singapore 179555. Tel: +65 6332 7791. Entry: S$8. MRT: Raffles Place.

 

 

Stuttgart

Art Museum Stuttgart
Website: http://www.kunstmuseumstuttgart.com/
Pablo Wendel
June 16 to July 29, 2007
Kunstmuseum Stuttgart's program of exhibitions would not be complete without showcasing young artists. Three times a year, one of the museum rooms is transformed into a provocative and challenging experimental arena. The seventh artist to face this challenge will be the 26-yea-old sculpturer and performance artist Pablo Wendel.
Josephine Meckseper
July 14 to October 28, 2007
A German-born artist who has lived and worked in New York since the early 90s, Meckseper has achieved international recognition with her participation in noteworthy exhibitions and biennial contemporary art shows such as the Whitney Biennale in 2006 and the Moscow Biennale in 2007. The Kunstmuseum Stuttgart is the artist's first solo museum exhibition. More than 150 works from Meckseper's oeuvre consisting of her earliest creations, to new work created especially for the Stuttgart exhibition will be on display. Meckseper is a multimedia conceptual artist using a variety of techniques: She creates large installations, window displays, sculptures, paintings, photographs and films.
The Kunstmuseum Stuttgart is located at Kleiner Schlossplatz 1. Phone: +49 (0) 711 - 216 21 88; email: info@kunstmuseum-stuttgart.de. Open Tuesdays to Sundays 10 am to 6 pm; Wednesdays and Fridays until 9 pm.
Reachable by Bus 42 or 44 to Schlossplatz; Underground lines U5, U6, U7and 15 to Schlossplatz; and S-Bahn transit to Stadtmitte station

Le Corbusier House/The Weissenhof Museum
Website: www.weissenhof.de  
Ongoing 
The Weissenhof Settlement has opened its museum in the Le Corbusier House. When it was founded in 1927, the Weissenhof Settlement was considered the most progressive architectural initiative of its time. In 33 houses with 63 apartments, a total of 17 architects from Germany, France, Holland, Belgium and Austria implemented their ideas of "functionalism." Among the architects, all of whom were under 45 years of age, were Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, Hans Scharoun and others. 

Mercedes Benz Museum
Website: www.stuttgart-tourist.de
A prominent local landmark for car lovers of all ages since its opening earlier this year.  Nearby is the Gottlieb Daimler Memorial Sight, where one can visit Daimler’s former workshop in his garden house where he and Wilhelm Maybach secretly invented the world’s first sprinting motor in 1883. 

 

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Art Gallery of New South Wales
Website: http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au  
ISLAM: Treasures from the collection of Nasser D. Khalili
June 22 to  September 23, 2007
An exhibition of 300 pieces drawn entirely from the Khalili Collection of Islamic Art will provide a comprehensive survey of the art of Islam from the 8th to late 19th century.
Art Gallery is located on Art Gallery Rd, The Domain, Sydney. Tel: +61 (0)2 9225 1744. Admission: A$10. Open: daily, 10am-5pm.

 

Tokyo

Mori Art Museum
Website:  http://www.mori.art.museum/english/
Le Corbusier: Art and Architecture
May 26 to September 24, 2007
2007 is the 120th Anniversary of Le Corbusier's birth and this timely show examines Le Corbusier the man, revealing the individual behind the facade in a comprehensive presentation of about 250 paintings, furniture and architectural artifacts.
His major architectural and urban planning works are exhibited in drawings, models, photographs, and videos, in accordance with the principles that guided them. There are also a number of full-scale reproductions of architectural spaces, which provide a rare chance to experience Le Corbusier's creations firsthand, and view his furniture, paintings and sculptures in their original context. The two biggest attractions are a full-size reproduction of a two-story apartment from his Unité d' Habitation in Marseilles, and a reproduction of le Petite Cabanon, a small wooden hut he built for himself at Cap Martin in the south of France.
Mori Art Museum is located at Roppongi Hills Mori Tower 53F, Roppongi 6-10-1, Minato-Ku, Tokyo 106-6150. Tel: + 81 (0)3 6406-6100. Subway: Hibiya Line to Roppongi station; followed by a 3-5 minute walk. Open: daily 10 am to 10 pm (Tuesdays 10 am-5 pm).

Suntory Museum of Art
Website:  http://www.suntory.com/culture-sports/sma/
Water in Life
June 16 to August 19, 2007
Water" has provided Japan with a rich natural environment. The exhibition features images of "water" widely expressed in Japanese art, and demonstrates Japan's culture which is deeply connected with water, through Japanese sensitivity and sentiments. By focusing on this essential in our daily lives, the exhibition reflects on Japanese traditions.
Some 150 drawings, pots and scrolls fill the rooms of the Suntory’s new museum that recently opened.
The new address for the Suntory Museum is Tokyo Midtown Gardenside 9-7-4 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-8643. Subway: Hibiya. Open Wednesday to Saturdays 10 am to 8 pm;  Sundays and Mondays 10 am to 6 pm. Admission.

 

 

Toronto

Art Gallery of Ontario
Website: http://www.ago.net/navigation/flash/frameset.cfm
Bernini in Focus
June 23 to October 7, 2007
Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1678) was celebrated across Europe as a sculptor, both in marble and bronze. He brought a new naturalism to his portraits and religious subjects that startled his contemporaries. Only a handful of Bernini’s sculptures exist outside of Italy. The AGO is the proud owner of two of them, received as gifts from the Murray Frum family and Joey and Toby Tanenbaum.
Corpus (c. 1650), one of the largest bronzes by Bernini, will be on public display for the time. Bernini cast this sculpture of the dying Christ three times – once for the king of Spain, once for the king of France and once for himself. The AGO bronze was part of Bernini's personal collection until 1665.
Medieval and Renaissance Treasures from the Victoria and Albert
June 23 to October 7, 2007
Hungry God
June 23 to October 7, 2007
The exhibition of contemporary art from India showcases several leading Indian artists including Atul Dodiya, Bharti Kher, Jitish Kallat and Subodh Gupta, who work in a variety of media. As members of three different generations who have seen India emerge from colonialism and become a world economic and cultural power. These artists are at the forefront of that movement with their explorations of issues of globalization, nationalism, class and identity through works ranging from delicate painted miniatures to large-scale installation pieces.
The Art Gallery of Ontario is located at 317 Dundas Street West at the corner of Dundas and McCaul streets. Open Wednesdays to Fridays from noon to 9 pm; Saturdays and Sundays until 5:30 pm. Admission.

Ontario Science Centre
http://www.ontariosciencecentre.ca
Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition
June 28 to September 2, 2007
Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition is an amazing and inspirational voyage telling the story poignantly and passionately through the artifacts, giving visitors a personal perspective on the vessel. RMS Titanic, Inc. is the only company permitted by law to recover objects from the wreck of the Titanic. The Company was granted Salvor-in-Possession rights to the wreck of Titanic by a United States federal court in 1994 and has conducted seven research and recovery expeditions to the Titanic and recovered approximately 5,500 artifacts. Timed tickets are required for this show.
The Ontario Science Centre is located at 770 Don Mills Road (at the corner of Don Mills Road and Eglinton Avenue East) in Toronto. Open seven days a week except December 25, CAN$17 (adults) / $12.50 (youth / seniors) / $10 (children) Tel:

 

 

Venice

Museo Correr
www.museiciviciveneziani.it 
Sargent and Venice
To September 30, 2007
For the first time in the prominent Museo Correr, and in Venice, an entire show will be dedicated to the famed artist John Singer Sargent, one of the most important American impressionists, who had a passion for Venice and a dissimilar talent. This exhibit, dedicated to the various works of Sargent, will focus on roughly 60 pieces of art dating from 1880-1913. These works, both paintings and watercolors, will give visitors a chance to see a number of masterpieces on display by Sargent, on loan not only from institutions in the US, but also from institutions in Europe, as well as from many private collections, thus allowing the visitor to view works going on public display for the first time! A friend of Monet's, Sargent was fascinated by Venice, and this allure of his is very evident in the extent of his works. Not only did he paint such famous monuments as the Doge's Palace and the Rialto Bridge, but he would also capture the traces of daily life in the Venice of that time, which showed how genuinely his heart belonged to this Italian city.
Museo Correr is located at Piazza San Marco 52 Phone: +39 041 5209070

52nd Venice Biennale
Website: www.LaBiennale.com
June 12 to November 21, 2007
Held at the Arsenale and in the Italian Pavilion at the Giardini Gardens, the biannual exhibition will present about a hundred artists from 77 countries.
Other festivals in Venice running concurrently with the Biennale are:
39th International Theatre Festival—July 18 to 29
64th Venice International Film Festival—August 29 to September 8
51st International Festival of Contemporary Music —October 4 to 13

 

Washington, D.C.

National Gallery of Art
Website: www.nga.gov 
States and Variations: Prints by Jasper Johns
March 11 to October 28, 2007
East Building, Upper Level, North West
The focus of this exhibition is 1st Etchings, 2nd State, a portfolio of 13 prints by Jasper Johns that was published in 1969. It includes a title page and two versions each of six motifs: Ale Cans, Paint Brushes, Flag, Light Bulb, Flash Light, and 0 through 9, the latter being a configuration of overlapping numerals. Also featured in the exhibition are prints and two sculpture reliefs, made before and after the 1969 portfolio, presenting variations on the six motifs. In addition, annotated working proofs and trial proofs selected from the National Gallery of Art's recent and ongoing acquisition of Johns' personal collection are on view throughout the show.
Eugène Boudin at the National Gallery of Art
March 25 to August 5, 2007
West Building, Main Floor, Galleries 74, 75, and 79
honor of the centennial of Gallery benefactor Paul Mellon's birth, a special exhibition of 40 paintings and works on paper by French impressionist Eugène Boudin (1824–1898) has been organized, based on the Gallery's extensive collection of works by the artist, one of the largest and most distinguished in this country, acquired largely through gifts from Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon. Small-scale paintings of tourists at fashionable Normandy resorts, a suite of six 1858 graphite drawings of the rural Brittany coastal region, carefully worked studies of terrain devoted to shipping and agrarian pursuits, and images of peasant laborers and port workers from Normandy and Brittany are among the works presented.
Fabulous Journeys and Faraway Places: Travels on Paper 1450–1700
May 6–September 16, 2007
West Building, Ground Floor, West Outer Tier
Approximately 75 works of art on paper, nearly all from the National Gallery of Art's own collection, will lead viewers along an adventurous route through European perceptions of foreign realms from the 15th to the early 18th century. Most Europeans rarely ventured far from home during this period; others were curious and endured great discomforts to reach faraway places. Travel for religious purposes, especially pilgrimages, gradually gave way to the economic purposes of trade and was then joined by the intellectual excitement of exploration. To record their experiences and to satisfy demand for pictorial information about other countries, artists created delightful drawings and printed images. The objects on view are splendid works of art that also yield insights into Europeans' conceptions about the world beyond their borders.
Private Treasures: Four Centuries of European Master Drawings
May 6 to September 16, 2007
West Building, Ground Floor, East Outer Tier
The National Gallery is located on the National Mall between 3rd and 7th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW. Open: Monday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.  Free admission.

The Phillips Collection
Website:  http://www.phillipscollection.org
American Impressionism: Paintings from The Phillips Collection
June 16 to September 16, 2007

Gifford Beal’s On the Hudson at Newburgh
Revisiting The Phillips Collection's artistic roots, this exhibition will highlight paintings that were among the museum's earliest acquisitions. Featured artists will be Childe Hassam, Ernest Lawson, Maurice Prendergast, Theodore Robinson, Robert Spencer, Augustus Vincent Tack, John Henry Twachtman, and Julian Alden Weir, among others. As members of the first generation of American painters to absorb the technique, brighter palette, and subject matter of impressionism from their French counterparts, these artists painted atmospheric landscapes, park and beach scenes, urban views, and charming interiors, with particular interest in optical effects, light, and different seasons. The exhibition will show how American painting around the turn of the 20th century was enriched by the impressionist aesthetic.
Impressionists by the Sea
October 20 to January 13, 2008
The quality of light and movement are among the hallmarks of impressionism, and during the last half of the 19th century the seacoasts of northern France offered artists ample opportunity to utilize their novel techniques, as they attempted to capture the effects of weather and light on the coastline. They also explored their interest in contemporary life; the seaside had become a major holiday destination, and the beaches were transformed as vacationers flocked to areas that previously were of interest only to local fishermen. With approximately 60 works by major figures of 19th-century French painting, the exhibition will focus particularly on the work of Claude Monet, and will also feature major works by Édouard Manet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Berthe Morisot, and Gustave Courbet, along with James Abbott McNeill Whistler and John Singer Sargent.
The Phillips Collection is located at 1600 21st Street, NW. Open daily except Mondays with extended hours Thursday and Sundays. Admission

Smithsonian Museum
Website: www.smithsonian.org
African Vision: The Walt Disney-Tishman African Art Collection
To September 7, 2008
Featured are 88 pieces representing 20 African countries, 75 peoples, and 5 centuries of African art presented in the National Museum of African Art Museum. The show includes most major styles ranging from a highly abstract Cameroon mask to a naturalistic carved wooden male figure from Madagascar. Many of the works inspired such 20th-century artists as Picasso and Juan Gris.
Sackler Gallery.
The Smithsonian Information Center in the institution's first building, popularly known as the Castle, which is open daily 8:30 am-5:30 pm. The Center serves as the focal point for information about the Institution's 17 museums and National Zoo in Washington, D.C., and 2 museums in New York City. This distinctive red, sandstone building is centrally located on the National Mall, and may be entered from either Jefferson Drive on the north or through the Enid A. Haupt Garden on the south. Admission free at most of the museums.

 

Williamstown (Massachusetts)

The Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute
Website: www.clarkart.edu
The Unknown Monet: Pastels and Drawings
June 24 to September 16, 2007
The first exhibition to be devoted to Monet’s drawings and pastels will offer a groundbreaking exploration of a previously undiscovered aspect of his career: his surprisingly significant role as a draughtsman.  This little-known aspect of the artist’s working method will be brought to light, citing largely unknown, never-before-exhibited works that overturn the accepted image of the artist. The Unknown Monet: Pastels and Drawings reveals an extensive group of graphic works created over the course of the artist's career, many of which are unknown to the general public and to scholars: beautiful pastels, stunning black chalk drawings, and fascinating sketchbooks, which include pencil studies that relate to many of his paintings. There will be approximately 80 works drawn together from private collections and museums in the USA, Europe and Japan, that will make the link between the works on paper and on canvas.  The exhibition travels to the Clark after its debut at the Royal Academy of Arts, London where it is on view from until June 10, 2007.
Clark Institute is located at 225 South Street in Williamstown, Massachusetts.  Tel. +1 413-458-2303. 

 

Zurich

Beyeler Foundation
http://www.beyeler.com/fondation/e/html_01start/01_sta__main.php
The Other Collection: Homage to Hildy and Ernst Beyeler
August 19 to January 6, 2008
At Galerie Beyeler, where it all began, will have been in existence for sixty years in 2007, a selection of the finest works of art that have passed through its hands will be made, bringing a dialogue about and placing these works in the historical context of the museum's collection.
Forests of the World: The Other Commitment
August 19 to January 6, 2008
Forests of the World presents a spectacular portrait of the trees and forests of our planet in 100 mostly large-format photographs. The exhibition is not just aimed to please on a superficial level, but to jolt us and draw attention to the urgent need to protect one of the most important foundation stones of our existence. Pictures by Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Ernst Haas, Frans Lanting, and numerous other photographers represented in well-known international museums and collections, are included.
Beyeler Foundation, Baselstrasse 101, 4125 Riehen/Basel. Tel: +41 (0)61 645 9700. Tram number 6 from Basel SBB main train station (around an hour’s ride from Zurich). Open: daily 10am-6pm; Wed until 8pm. Entry: SFr21.

Kunsthaus
Website: http://www.kunsthaus.ch/
Peter Fischli and David Weiss:  Questions & Flowers
June 6 to September 9, 2007
Switzerland’s first retrospective of works by contemporary artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss, the show was mounted by curator Bice Curiger in collaboration with Tate Modern, London. Organized with the artists’ support, it boasts the most comprehensive overview to date of an oeuvre as varied as it is enigmatic. Comprising sculptures, photographs, films and videos, the work of Fischli / Weiss resists glib classification.
Kunsthaus Zurich is located at Heimplatz 1, 8001 Zurich. Open: Tue-Thu 10am-9pm; Fri-Sun 10am-5pm. Tel: +41 (0)44 253 8484. Tickets: SFr16.