Every May The Chelsea Flower Show Brings A Floral Paradise To Central London.
In May, the Chelsea Flower Show presents stunning show gardens and the latest trends in garden design. This year 20 gardens will include creations from top designers. Here's a taster of the kind of garden you can expect to see at the show. These are from the 2006 show:
--Inspired by the west coast of Auckland, the 100% Pure New Zealand Garden reflected the close relationship between the city and the natural coastline. 
-- The Jurassic Coast Garden, designed by Nick Williams-Ellis, raised awareness of the dramatic Jurassic Coast – England’s first world heritage site. 
-- The Jungle Garden was inspired by a West African forest environment.
Also on display will be around 30 small gardens divided into three categories—chic, city and courtyard. 
Another regular show highlight is the Great Pavilion. More than 100 nurseries and growers exhibit thousands of plants. These impressive displays are the result of months of painstaking work. Leading British nurseries will present roses, bonsai, orchids and much more. Providing an international flavor will be Borneo Exotics (from Sri Lanka), The Horticultural Society of Trinidad & Tobago and the Barbados Horticultural Society.
The annual flower show takes place on the grounds of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, London, SW3. Admission: £12.50 - £44. All tickets must be booked in advance and no tickets will be available to purchase on the gate. Daily show times: 8 am – 8 pm
Nearest Tube station is at Sloane Square
For booking and more information the Royal Horticultural Society website at www.rhs.org.uk/flowershows.

Swan Lake To Be Presented At Royal Albert Hall In June
Ballet Director Derek Deane's critically acclaimed ballet production of Swan Lake caused a sensation at its world premiere in 1997 and has since been enjoyed by over 300,000 people, captivating audiences worldwide. In June, the Royal Albert Hall is transformed into a magical lake for this spectacular fully staged 'in the round' production, with an all-star line-up of international guest artists together with English National Ballet's company of over 120 performers. Tchaikovsky's score is performed by the Orchestra of English National Ballet.
The Royal Albert Hall is located at Kensington Gore in London SW7AP. Dates: June 13 to 23, 2007. Performance times: Sat, Sun 2:30 PM; Tue - Sat 7:30 PM
Price: Adult: £19.50 to £49.50 per ticket. Telephone: +44 (0)20 7589 3203; fax: +44 (0)20 7823 7725. 

Picasso Exhibition Opens At Bellagio in Las Vegas May 25
The Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art is proud to announce the opening of an important and rare Picasso exhibition. Five years in the making, In the Master's Hands: Picasso's Ceramics, Treasures from the Estate of Pablo Picasso features more than 30 unique ceramic objects by the legendary 20th century artist. The exhibition will be on view from May 25, 2007 through January 14, 2008.
Just as famed artist Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) revolutionized painting at the turn of the 20th century through Cubism and sculpture in the 1920s and 1930s, he also transformed another art form: ceramics. Picasso created many of his masterpieces in the South of France and for more than two decades, beginning in the late 1940s, he pursued an intense artistic exploration with ceramics at Madoura, a celebrated workshop in Vallauris, a town known for its ceramic tradition since Roman times.
In the Master's Hands: Picasso's Ceramics, Treasures from the Estate of Pablo Picasso displays rare ceramic figurines from 1947 -- the year the artist began working in the medium -- including his famous zoomorphic pots of an owl, fish, bird and bull; fine examples of water pitchers and vases; Still-life with fish, fork, and slice of lemon (1953), which follows in the tradition of Bernard Palissy, the celebrated 16th century French potter; portraits on tiles, plates, and plaques including one of the artist's son Claude as a child (1956) and Portrait, after El Greco (1962); as well as an exquisite example of a scene from a bullfight Corrida: the picador (1953).
Tickets for In the Master's Hands: Picasso's Ceramics, Treasures from the Estate of Pablo Picasso are $17 per person, $14 for Nevada residents and seniors 65 and older, and $12 for students. Audio-guides are included in the price of admission. Tickets and information are available by calling (702) 693-7871 or (877) 957-9777, or on the following Web sites: www.bgfa.biz  and www.bellagio.com .
Tickets may be purchased online by logging onto www.ticketweb.com. Annual membership to the gallery, The Blue Card, is available for $45. Annual member benefits include unlimited admission for two, special invitations to gallery events and discounts in the Gallery Store. The gallery and Gallery Store are open Sunday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art is located 3600 Las Vegas Boulevard South. Website: http://www.bellagio.com  

2007 Affordable Art Fair New York City Opens June 14
Here’s a chance to purchase original art at an affordable price. Over 70 exhibitors from across the U.S. and the world, including Australia, Canada, Germany, Mexico and the United Kingdom will be exhibiting at the annual Affordable Art Fair (AAF) in the Big Apple. AAF features original contemporary art including paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography and prints, all priced under $10,000, with the majority of the art for sale priced under $5,000.
At the show a lecture series hosted by the School of Visual Arts (SVA) with “First Steps: Beginning and Developing Your Art Collection,” is scheduled for Saturday, June 16 at 2 pm; and “The Paper Chase: Collecting, Owning and Preserving Works on Paper,” on Sunday June 17 at 2 pm. Also scheduled is a Children’s Art Workshop with Children’s Museum of the Arts (CMA) available to young visitors on Saturday, June 16 and Sunday, June 17 from noon to 5pm.
The show will be held at the Metropolitan Pavilion and The Altman Building located at 125 West 18th Street (between 6th and 7th Avenues and easily accessible by major subway and bus routes, including the No. 1, 2, 3, A, C, E, and L subways and the 7th Avenue and 6th Avenue bus lines. General Admission $15/day; $10 for students and seniors. Children under 12 are free.  More information at http://www.aafnyc.com

King Henry Reigns Once More at Hampton Court Palace
The story of King Henry VIII's reign lives again at Hampton Court Palace, celebrating the 500th anniversary of his accession to the throne. A permanent exhibition opens June 28, 2007 telling the real story of Henry's early reigning years.
The exhibition highlights the Tudor dynasty, beginning with the Henry VIII's defeat of Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth. The painting "The Family of Henry VIII with St George" depicts Henry with his parents, Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, and brother Arthur, Prince of Wales.
Royal Collection paintings, audiovisual and hands-on displays tell the story of Prince Henry, who inherited the crown and his widowed sister-in-law. Henry's 20-year relationship with Katherine of Aragon is explored. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Henry's right-hand man, is the final character in the exhibition narrative.
Admission prices range from $10.53 to $47.92. Membership prices range from $46.08 to $90.82. For more information regarding the exhibition and admission prices visit www.hrp.org.uk.

60th Cannes Film Festival Opens May 16
This year the 60th Annual International Film Festival held in Cannes, France will run from May 16 to 27. Each year, about twenty feature films are selected to be in Competition and in the running for the prestigious Palme d'Or, the French equivalent of the Oscar. They make up the main part of the Official Selection which is screened at the Grand Theatre Lumière. More information at http://www.festival-cannes.fr.

New Conductor Named for Los Angeles Philharmonic
Esa-Pekka Salonen will leave the LA Philharmonic in 2009 after being its music director for 15 seasons. His successor will be Gustavo Dudamel, 26, from Venezuela, where he is music director of the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra that he joined as a violinist at age 11.  Dudamel has conducted or is scheduled to guest conduct at the Berlin, New York and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras, the London Philharmonia and the Boston and Chicago Symphonies. He made his US debut at the Hollywood Bowl conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2005.
Dudamel’s contract is for five years and he begins his first season September 2009.
Meanwhile, the search process continues for new music directors for other major American orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony and Philadelphia Orchestra.

Kennebunkport Maine Wears Art On Its Sleeves
The Third Annual Arts in the Inns Festivals will take place May 30 to June 3, 2007 at various venues in the resort town of Kennebunkport, Maine. More than 13 inns will display art by more than 20 artists, to complement gourmet offerings executed by local chefs. The piece de resistance will be a Twilight Soiree on Friday, June 1, held five feet from the ocean in the newly restored St. Anne’s Rectory. This will be the first time the local community will see the restored interior of what was known as the Atwater Kent Cottage, a regional landmark. The excitement of this evening will be enhanced by the culinary team of the five-star White Barn Inn, led by Executive Chef Jonathan Cartwright. Art drawn from land, sea and sky will inspire their presentation.
For Festival ticket and lodging information please visit www.artsinitheinns.com or call 1-207-967-4554.

Cancun International Film Festival Announces Dates for Fall 2007 Film Festival
The Cancun International Film Festival will run consecutively over 5 days from November 14 through November 18, 2007. Dedicated to the discovery and development of Mexican, Latin American and International film, filmmakers and audiences, the Cancun International Film Festival will truly be a "Film Festival for the Americas."
The inaugural Cancun International Film Festival (CIFF) will be held over five days this November, 2007 in Cancun, Mexico. The CIFF feature film program will consist largely of Latin American premieres and programs supporting and awarding filmmakers, screenwriters and actors from Mexico and the Americas. The CIFF is devoted to the promotion and recognition of emerging filmmaking talents from Mexico and throughout Latin America. In addition to this focus on Latin American talent, the secondary mission for the CIFF is to showcase the best in international filmmaking. More information at www.CancunInternationalFilmFestival.com

 

April, 2007

Cultural News
2007 Art Fairs In Europe & US
Cultural Arts Calendar

 
Solitude                                                 CAM

 

                                                Cultural News

 

AMNH To Present First Ever Exhibition of Roots of Mythological Creatures
 Mythic Creatures:  Dragons, Unicorns & Mermaids, the first-ever exhibition to trace the cultural and natural history roots of some of the world’s most enduring mythological creatures, opens at the American Museum of Natural History in New York on May 26, 2007.  On view through January 6, 2008, 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.

Tutankhamun Treasures to Return to Britain After 35 Years
Marking the first time the treasures of Tutankhamun have visited Britain in more than 30 years, it was announced that National Geographic, AEG Exhibitions and Arts and Exhibitions International, with cooperation from the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities and sponsored by Credit Suisse, will bring an extensive exhibition of more than 130 treasures from the tomb of the celebrated pharaoh, other Valley of the Kings tombs and additional ancient sites to The O2 in London on November 15, 2007.

Martin Luther’s Birth House Reopens
Martin Luther’s birth house in Eisleben, located in Saxony-Anhalt, is reopening for visitors after half a year of renovations. The historic building which was awarded UNESCO world heritage status has undergone extensive restorations. Added to the building has been a connection to the neighboring free school for poor, which extends the exhibition area to a total of 13 rooms. The opening exhibition shows social and political environment around 1500, and gives insight into the spiritual life of the late middle-ages, which strongly influenced Luther’s life work as a reformer.
The birth and death house of the Reformer gives an idea about the life of a man, whose opinions changed the face of the world. Martin Luther was born in 1483 in Eisleben. He died there during a visit in 1546.
Luther’s birth house, built during the 15th century, belongs to the late Gothic architecture style and got its actual form between the 17th and the 19th century. The authentic ambience is perfectly adapted to the presentation of objects showing and describing Luther’s origins, childhood and youth. Luther’s grave sheet, an exceptional reliquary, and his death room can be admired at the Luther’s Memorial (Andreaskirchplatz 7). Worth seeing is also Luther’s baptism Church Saint Petri-Pauli as well as the Memorial, built up in 1883 for the 400th anniversary of Luther’s birth (Market Place). This Market Place and its City Hall from the Middle-Age, the St. Andreas Church and the reconstructed houses allow a precise picture of the city during its blooming time in the 16th century. From the “Weinberg” you can see the “Süssen See” (Sweet Lake), which invites you to relax and practice some water sports.  More information at www.sachsen-anhalt-tourismus.de

Recent Awards in the Arts Announced
Richard Rogers Wins 2007 Pritzker Prize
British architect Richard Rogers, 73, was awarded the 2007 Pritzker Prize for Architecture, the field’s highest honor. Awarded annually since 1979, the Pritzker Prize recognizes a living architect for producing "consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture." It comes with $100,000 and a bronze medallion. Rogers is the fourth British winner, following James Stirling in 1981, Norman Foster in 1999 and Zaha Hadid in 2004.
Rogers, who lives in London, is famous for his sometimes controversial architectural designs. He is most famous for the Pompidou Centre of Art in Paris which he co-designed with architect Renzo Piano. Current commissions in New York include an expansion to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center and a planned 71-story office tower for the World Trade Center
In picking Rogers to receive the award, the eight-member Prizker Prize jury that consists of an international collection of distinguished architects, stated: "We celebrate Richard Rogers, a humanist, who reminds us that architecture is the most social of arts."
Rogers will receive the award in London on June 4.
Philip Roth Wins Saul Bellow Award
American author Saul Bellow was awarded the first PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American fiction. The biannual $40,000 prize was named for the late Nobel laureate and honors a distinguished living American author of fiction whose body of work in English possesses qualities of excellence, ambition and scale of achievement over a sustained career. "To my mind, Saul Bellow and William Faulkner form the backbone of 20th-century American literature," the 74-year-old author said in a statement. Roth’s novels include “Portnoy’s Complaint” and “American Pastoral” and more recently “Everyman.”
Nadine Gordimer Awarded French Legion of Honor
South African novelist Nadine Gordimer was awarded the French Legion of Honor in ceremonies held at the French Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa. Winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature, Gordimer wrote 15 novels, of which three were banned by the South African apartheid regime that ended its reign in 1994.

Boston’s Museums New And Old To Visit This Spring
The new waterfront Institute of Contemporary Art features 17,000 sq. ft. exhibition space; a 325-seat performing arts theater with glass walls that face Boston Harbor, a media center; educational facilities and the new Wolfgang Puck Water Café
Boston’s Children’s Museum on Boston’s waterfront  will complete its  $45 million expansion & renovation in April 2007 featuring a new three-story  23,000 sq ft addition which will feature a 30-foot climbing wall, a new theatre, and 50,00 sq ft of renovated space for arts, culture, sciences, & health exhibitions.
The 163-year-old Bunker Hill Monument  is undergoing a $3.7 million renovation and a new Bunker Hill Museum, to be completed on June 17, 2007.

London’s Kew Palace Reopens
In March, Kew Palace, the countryside retreat of King George III and his family, reopened its doors to the public after a brief winter closure period. After a hugely successful opening season in 2006, when this petite royal palace opened its doors following a decade-long £6.6 million conservation and restoration project, visitors will once again be able to enjoy this most modest and unexpected of royal residences. Entrance to Kew Palace is £5 for adults, £3 for children and £4 concessions.

Seven New Productions for Metropolitan Opera in 2007/08 Season
Metropolitan Opera General Manager, Peter Gelb together with Music Director James Levine recently announced plans to expand the number of new productions, high-definition transmissions into movie theaters, and other audience outreach initiatives for the 2007-08 season. The season will open on Monday, September 24, with Mary Zimmerman’s new production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, conducted by Maestro Levine. With the company currently experiencing a dramatic increase in attendance – the first box office improvement in six seasons – Gelb announced plans for seven new productions in 2007-08, the most new productions the Met has presented in one season since its inaugural 1966-67 season at Lincoln Center. He also announced plans to increase the number of high-definition transmissions into movie theaters from six to eight, a reflection of the significant success of this new method of reaching opera lovers throughout the world.
The Met’s efforts to revitalize its repertory next season begin with an accelerated schedule of new productions. In addition to the season-opening production of Lucia di Lammermoor (September 24), which stars Natalie Dessay, Marcello Giordani and Mariusz Kwiecien, the other new productions include Verdi’s Macbeth (October 22), staged by former Royal Shakespeare Company artistic director Adrian Noble, conducted by Levine, and starring, Željko Lucic and Andrea Gruber; Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride (November 27), directed by Stephen Wadsworth and conducted by Louis Langrée, with Susan Graham in the title role and Plácido Domingo as Oreste; Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel (December 24), the Met’s winter holiday presentation, in a new staging by Richard Jones and conducted by Vladimir Jurowski, featuring Christine Schäfer and Alice Coote; Britten’s Peter Grimes (February 28), directed by John Doyle and conducted by Donald Runnicles, featuring Neil Shicoff and Anthony Dean Griffey in the title role; Philip Glass’s Satyagraha (April 11), directed by Phelim McDermott of London’s Improbable theater company in the work’s Met premiere, conducted by Dante Anzolini, with Richard Croft, as Gandhi; and a critically acclaimed production of Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment (April 21), directed by Laurent Pelly and conducted by Marco Armiliato, featuring Dessay and Juan Diego Flórez. All the directors, except for Wadsworth, make their Met debuts this season, as well as Maestros Langrée and Anzolini.
In addition to the new productions of Lucia di Lammermoor and Macbeth, James Levine conducts two important revivals, Manon Lescaut and Tristan und Isolde. In 2007-08, Maestro Levine presents the MET Orchestra at Carnegie Hall for the 18th consecutive season. The series includes three concerts, one led by the Met’s Principal Guest Conductor, Valery Gergiev, who returns to the Met to conduct War and Peace and The Gambler – the first time two Prokofiev operas have been performed in a single season at the Met.
Lorin Maazel, Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, conducts five performances of Wagner’s Die Walküre, beginning January 7, 2008. The performances mark Maestro Maazel’s first Met conducting engagement in 45 years. His last appearance with the company was during the 1962-63 season, when he made his Met debut leading performances of Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier.
Website: http://www.metoperafamily.org

Munich’s New Jewish Museum   
In Munich’s new Jewish Museum, which reopened in March, visitors can experience a world of insights into Jewish life and culture. Located on St. Jakobs-Platz in the center in the Bavarian capital, the building is designed as a flexible, dynamic meeting space offering space for temporary and touring exhibitions. A special section provides in-depth information on Jewish history and religion. The Jewish center will host a public elementary school, a kindergarten and a youth center as well as community auditorium. A daily event calendar will be available online, with comprehensive, up-to-date information on events related to Jewish culture in Munich.  More information at www.juedisches-museum-muenchen.de  

Paris Louvre to Build Satellite Museum In Abu Dhabi
The Louvre Museum in Paris plans to open a branch of the world famous museum in Abu Dhabi. Despite strong public protests, the 30-year agreement signed by French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres and Abu Dhabi’s tourism authority head Sheik Sultan bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan opens the way for the satellite museum to exhibit works from some of France’s top museums.
Plans call for the art works to be exhibited in an inverted saucer-shaped museum designed by French architect Jean Nouvel. Nouvel's design renderings reveal a white discus-shaped building with galleries illuminated by shafts of sunlight streaming through irregular-shaped windows in the roof.
The museum, slated to open sometime in 2012, will cost an estimated 400 million euros ($528 million), though the final cost may be considerably higher. According to press reports, the French government will receive $525 million for use of the Louvre brand alone, plus a gift of $33 million to renovate a wing of the Paris Louvre, which will be named for longtime Emirates ruler Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.
Critics of the deal in the French art world have accused their government of exploiting art for trade and diplomacy and said the lending of art will overburden French museums.
The new museum will be built as part of Saadiyat Island (Island of Happiness), a $27-$29 billion luxury tourist resort that will have marinas, shops and five art centers including the world's largest Guggenheim, designed by Frank Gehry.
The Paris Louvre will staff and manage the museum and lend it works of art, but it will also build up its own major art collection. UAE officials said there would be no restriction on the type of art to be displayed.

Met Opera Presents Gallery Show Of Original Art Inspired By Opera
Original art work inspired by the opera and created by contemporary artists John Chamberlain, Chuck Close, George Condo, Barnaby Furnas, William Kentridge, Guillermo Kuitca, Richard Prince David Salle, Cindy Sherman, Sophie von Hellermann William Wegman and Robert Wilson will be on display from Friday, April 27, through Wednesday, May 2, 2007 at the Arnold and Marie Schwartz Gallery Met at the Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center. Among the works, the exhibition will include two portraits of soprano Renée Fleming -- one by Chuck Close and the other by Robert Wilson.
The six-day exhibition will culminate with a private auction of the artwork, all of which were donated by the artists. Proceeds will help underwrite production costs for the Met Opera’s 2007-2008 season.
The Arnold and Marie Schwartz Gallery Met is located in the south-side lobby of the Metropolitan Opera house. Viewing hours: Monday through Saturday from 1 pm to 11 pm. Sunday: 12 pm to 6 pm. Free admission.

Tribute to Her Highness Princess Grace In Monaco
Its been a quarter of a century since the death of H.S.H Princess Grace (a.k.a. Grace Kelly) and a show of her personal belongings is being held at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco from July 12 to September 13. The Grace Kelly Years will offer a peak at the life of the Philadelphia-born actress who went on to wed her prince—Prince Rainer of Monaco. Other commemorative events will be held in Monaco and New York. Website: http://www.visitmonaco.com/mtny/princess_of_monaco.html

Exhibition Celebrating the Life of Princess Diana Now Open in Cleveland
Western Reserve Historical Society is hosting a final US engagement for Diana, A Celebration, featuring 150 objects, including 1981 Royal Wedding gown, 28 designer dresses, home videos, photos and personal mementoes on loan from the Spencer Family
Exhibition on Princess Diana Being Held At WRHS In Cleveland. Featuring 150 objects on loan from the Spencer Family, the poignant exhibition will be on view through June 10, 2007.
This 10,000 square-foot exhibition tells the story of Diana through nine galleries: Tiara; The Spencer Women; Childhood; Engagement; Royal Wedding; Charity; Tribute; Style; and Condolence. The centerpiece is the glorious, show-stopping Royal Wedding gallery, featuring Diana's resplendent gown from her 1981 marriage to Prince Charles, along with her diamond tiara, veil, 25-foot-long train, shoes, parasol and bridesmaid's dress. Other highlights include a selection of Diana’s designer wear, jewelry, personal photos and letters. One entire section of the exhibition is devoted to Diana's energetic, multi-faceted public life and involvement in myriad charities and causes.
Ticket information: $20 for adults, $17 for seniors, $10 for children (6-12), and $15 for WRHS members. Tickets are available through www.Ticketmaster.com or by calling 216-721-5722 ext. 286. For group ticket information, call 440-954-4414 or 216-721-5722 ext. 320. Website:  http://www.wrhs.org  

The 28th Annual Montreal Jazz Festival Announces New Prestigious Concerts
The 28th Annual Festival International de Jazz de Montreal and General Motors of Canada in collaboration with Alcan are announcing 14 additional prestigious concerts that will take the stages of Montreal this summer. These concert tickets for Montreal Jazz Festival, taking place from Thursday, June 28, to Sunday, July 8, 2007, are now on sale. --- For the first time in North America, the five musicians of The Spaghetti Western Orchestra will bring spaghetti westerns back to life, and through much more than a “simple” musical rendition. With some 100 different musical instruments, the group’s multi-instrumentalists literally and ingeniously reconstruct the scenes from the Italian westerns that marked the film industry worldwide, recreating the sound effects from the immortal scenes of Once Upon a Time in the West, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, among others. In an evocative setting embellished by film projections, this dramatic and comedic show stands as a veritable tribute to the greatest film-score composer, Ennio Morricone, who was recently honored for an Honorary Lifetime Achievement Award at the Oscars. The Cinquième Salle at PDA from Wednesday, June 27 – Monday, July 2; 7:30 p.m.
-- Wynton Marsalis presents Congo Square, featuring the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis & Yacub Addy and Odadaa.
Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier at PDA Thursday, June 28; 8:00 p.m. (opening concert) (Pleins feux General Motors series)
--Roy Haynes Quartet—With a career spanning over 60 years, drummer Roy Haynes has influenced jazz with his highly personal style and contagious laughter. This royal percussion giant will once again be heating up the stage. Now 81 years old, this stage legend has also become a legend on paper, with his induction into DownBeat magazine’s “Hall of Fame” in 2004.
Spectrum de Montréal Saturday, June 30; 10:00 p.m. (Jazz Beat TD Canada Trust series)
--Manu Chao at Parc Jean-Drapeau—This year, the Festival will relocate to Parc Jean-Drapeau, which this former polyglot singer of the band Mano Negra will fill with his unique blend of Latin, rock, reggae and blues rhythms.
Île Sainte-Hélène Sunday, July 1; 5:00 p.m. (in collaboration with Groupe Spectacles Gillett)
-- Cesaria Evora and Seu Jorge—Cesaria Evora and Seu Jorge are back again in a captivating double-feature program with a Portuguese touch. The famous Cape Verdean singer will tread barefoot on Montreal soil presenting her new show based on her most recent album, Rogamar. Seu Jorge, one of the leading names in Brazilian music and cinema and who warmed the floorboards of the Spectrum last summer is about to join the ranks of the world’s best known performers.
Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier at PDA Monday, July 2; 8:00 p.m. (double-feature program) (Pleins feux General Motors series)
-- Didier Lockwood, Billy Cobham, Victor Bailey and Sylvain Luc: String Quartet
Jazz fusion, a type of music demanding both mastery and technique will be presented by the group.  Joining them are the renowned Victor Bailey, ex-member of Weather Report, who marked the world of the bass, and top-notch guitarist Sylvain Luc.
Théâtre Maisonneuve at PDA Monday, July 2; 6:00 p.m. (Grands Concerts TD Canada Trust series)
--The Derek Trucks Band—Making his festival premier, Derek Trucks had his first paying gig at age 11 and was the youngest player ever to make the Rolling Stones’ “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” list. The Derek Trucks Band also stars Todd Smallie (bass), Yonrico Scott (drums and percussion), Kofi Burbridge (keyboards), Mike Mattison (vocals) and Count M'Butu (congas and percussion).
Spectrum de Montréal on Wednesday, July 4; 6:00 p.m. (Couleurs SAQ series)
-- Mark Murphy —After a prolific five-decade career, numerous Grammy nominations and a repertoire ranging from Broadway to Coldplay, Murphy is still considered one of the greatest living jazz vocalists and will make his festival premier with a clear tone and ever-inventive phrasing.
Club Soda on Wednesday, July 4; 7:00 p.m. (Voix du monde Bell series)
-- Double-feature concert: Tortoise and Kieran Hebden (Four Tet) & Steve Reid                            
This duo, which often sounds like a duel, the drums are strongly inspired by the African rhythms of Steve Reid, who hails from a jazz background, and the electronic samplings of former-Fridge member Kieran “Four Tet” Hebden face off, exchange repartee and blend together, creating music that is at times abstract and hypnotic, but always unique. Métropolis on Wednesday, July 4; 8:30 p.m. (Rythmes Hyatt Regency Montréal series)
Tickets for the Festival International de Jazz de Montreal concerts previously announced are currently on sale. These performers include: Trio Beyond with Jack DeJohnette, John Scofield and Larry Goldings; Dave Holland Quintet; Holly Cole; Wayne Shorter Quartet with the Imani Winds: Terra Incognita; Pink Martini; An Evening with Joshua Redman; Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette; The Bill Frisell Trio featuring Joey Baron & Tony Scherr; An Evening with Branford Marsalis, George Thorogood & The Destroyers; Buddy Guy and his musicians. 
The 28th edition of the Festival International de Jazz de Montreal will be held from Thursday, June 28, to Sunday, July 8, 2007.  For more information on the festival and its performers, please call toll-free, 1-888-515-0515, or visit www.montrealjazzfest.com.
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2007 Art Fairs In Europe & US

There are 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 at different venues in early March around the city 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-calibre 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 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. Running concurrently with the Biennale are four other major arts festivals— 5th International Festival of Contemporary Dance (June 14 – 30); the 39th International Theatre Festival
(July 18 – 29); the 64th Venice International Film Festival (August 29 - September 8) and the 51st International Festival of Contemporary Music (October 4 – 13). 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

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 
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

Art Brussels will be held April 20 to 23 in Brussels. The 25th annual contemporary art fairis an event where foreign galleries and artists find an ideal platform to present themselves to Belgian collectors, and where young Belgian talent can introduce itself to the international market. Art Brussels offers a choice of 150 galleries, nominated in accordance with a rigorous quality-based selection procedure. The international selection committee places particular emphasis on the contemporary works of young artists. More than 20 countries are participants at the spring fair this year. Website: www.artbrussels.de

Art SantaFe is a contemporary art fair held biannually in Santa Fe, New Mexico. This year it runs from July 12 to 15 at Santa Fe’s El Museo de Cultural. The 2007 lineup of exhibitors will include galleries from Asia, a strong contingent of Europeans, an exciting array of work by Latin American artists, and outstanding galleries from the United States. Exhibiting galleries range from edgy to establish while cutting-edge media groups return with a fresh matrix of interactive installations. It is considered a boutique fair that allows visitors a more in-depth view of the contemporary art market. Website: http://www.artsantafe.com.

Art Chicago will be held April 27 to 30 at The Merchandise Mart.  Galleries selected for Art Chicago will show works of more than 2,000 artists from over 125 selected top international galleries in a variety of media including painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, prints, multi-media and performance art.  Website: http://www.merchandisemart.com/artchicago/showInfo.html

 

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The Cultural Arts Calendar

 

Cultural Arts Calendar

Cities featured this month are Atlanta, Berlin, Boston, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Charleston, Chicago, Copenhagen, Dresden, Dueseldorf, Florence, Hamburg, Las Vegas, London, Madrid, Miami, Milan, Montreal, Moscow, New York, Paris, Philadelphia, Rome, San Francisco, Singapore,  Stuttgart, Sydney NSW, Toronto, Venice, Washington, D.C. and Zurich.

Atlanta

High Museum of Art
Website: www.high.org  
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
March 3 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.

 

 

Berlin

Jewish Museum
Website:  www.juedisches-museum-berlin.de   
Home and Exile
To April 9, 2007
The Jewish Museum Berlin is dedicating its biggest special exhibition to the Jewish Germans who were driven from their homeland by the National Socialists. Between 1933 and 1945 the refuges found shelter in over eighty countries and five continents. The exhibition traces the refugees’ routes into exile and includes many items lent from private possessions and are now being shown publicly for the first time. A vivid impression of the time is conveyed through documentary and feature film sequences, video interviews, music clips and excerpts from radio programs.
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: Adults: 5 euros; Students and Seniors: 2.50 euros; Children under the age of six: free of charge; Family ticket (2 adults and up to 4 children):10 euros
Transportation: U1, U6 Hallesches Tor; U6 Kochstraße
Bus M29, M41, 265

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

Museum of Fine Arts
Website: www.mfa.org 
Edward Hopper
May 6-August 19, 2007
An exhibition of works by one of the most enduringly popular American painters of the twentieth century
The Romance of Modernism: Paintings and Sculpture from Scott M. Black Collection
To May 6, 2007

Paul Signac painted what he called a "portrait of a cloud" in Antibes, on the southern coast of France, in the years of the First World War. In Antibes, the Pink Cloud (1916), a French sailboat is at center under the glorious sky, but at right is a group of German gunboats, which the painter called a black squadron.
The Romance of Modernism features selections from the private collection of Scott M. Black, including impressionist paintings by Cézanne, Degas, Monet, Pisarro, and Renoir; post-impressionist paintings by Bernard, Denis, Luce, Van Rysselbergh, and Signac; modern paintings by Magritte, Matisse, Miró, and Picasso; and sculpture by Rodin, Maillol, and Lipchitz. Scott M. Black is the founder and CEO of Delphi Management Company, a prominent investment management firm based in Boston and a longtime supporter of the MFA.
Donatello to Giambologna: Italian Renaissance Sculpture
January 24 to July 9, 2007
This fascinating collection has never been shown as a whole and remains virtually unknown to the general public and to scholars alike. Several of the masterpieces on display were only recently rediscovered after being long hidden away in storage—like St. John the Baptist, a completely unknown early-sixteenth-century glazed terracotta recently attributed to the Florentine sculptor Giovanni Francesco Rustici, an associate of Leonardo da Vinci. Because many of the objects have been in storage and need extensive work to stabilize, clean, and restore them to their best possible state, the exhibition explores some of the challenges and issues involved in the care and preservation of such a deep and old collection by showing some objects mid-way through conservation. Also included in the exhibition is Donatello's beloved marble relief of Madonna of the Clouds, and what is considered to be one of the finest versions in the world of the bronze statuette representing Architecture, signed by Giambologna.
Through Six Generations: The Weng Collection of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy
March 10 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
March 20 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
http://www.jfklibrary.org
Jacqueline Kennedy Entertains: The Art of the White House Dinner
April 12, 2007- March 1, 2008
Jacqueline Kennedy Entertains: The Art of the White House Dinner
April 12, 2007
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. Please 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.

 

Brussels

Palais des Beaux-Arts
http://www.bozar.be 
The Forbidden Empire: Visions of the World from Chinese and Flemish Masters
To May 6, 2007
This exhibition compares the art of China with that of the southern Low Countries, the result of a collaboration between Luc Tuymans, one of Belgium's most famous contemporary artists, and Yu Hui, director of the Palace Museum in Beijing. The exhibition compares compare artistic traditions to explore each region’s techniques, such as how artists depict movement, depth and shadow, or whether they incorporate narrative into their work. The artists on display include Van Eyck, Brueghel, Rubens and Van Dyck shown beside works from the Ming and Qing dynasties and the early days of the republic. After Brussels, the exhibition will travel to Beijing to be shown at the Palace Museum.
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.

 

Buenos Aires

Centro Cultural Borges
Website: http://www.ccborges.org.ar   
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera: Drawings and Photographs
Ongoing
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Frida Kahlo’s birth, the Centro Cultural Borges has compiled a modest collection of works by both Kahlo and Diego Rivera, her husband. The exhibit’s showpiece is a large pencil study by Rivera for a mural; the other images on display are more modest, consisting mainly of Rivera’s renderings of Aztec rituals. The show’s most notable works by Kahlo are intensely personal: a detailed lithograph of a pregnant female body, created after she suffered a miscarriage, and a jarring depiction of a road accident she survived, but which left her with health problems for the rest of her life. Photographs of the artists, particularly one of a hulking Rivera towering over Kahlo as she paints a self-portrait, are nearly as appealing as the drawings themselves.
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.

 

Charleston

Spoleto Festival USA
May 25 - June 10, 2007
Originating from a festival celebrated annually in Italy, the Spoleto Festival begins Memorial Day weekend and runs for 17 days.  Historic Charleston hosts the festival with an array of international artistic performances. Opera, Jazz, theatre, orchestral, chamber, contemporary music, literary and visual arts fill the area theatres and halls during this special two weeks. For more information, call 843-722-2764 or visit www.spoletousa.org. 

 

 Chicago

Art Institute of Chicago
Website: http://www.artic.edu/aic
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
Cezanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde
February 17 to May 12, 2007
After a smash success in New York’s Metropolitan Museum, the show travels to AIC.
In 1887 Ambroise Vollard (1866–1939) arrived in Paris with few contacts and no credentials to pursue a career as an art dealer. He began representing artists that were undervalued, exhibiting them at a time when many galleries were not willing to take the risk. In 1895, Vollard hosted Cézanne’s first solo exhibition, and in doing so he made the artist’s reputation as well as his own. By the early 20th century, Vollard had become the principal dealer of artists such as Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, and a number of Fauve artists, and lent early support to artists who are well known today—Pierre Bonnard, Aristide Maillol, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Édouard Vuillard—as well as many who remain relatively unknown. His shrewd mind for business and artistic sense made him the leading contemporary art dealer of his generation.
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
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
www.visitcopenhagen.com
National Museum of Denmark
http://www.nationalmuseet.dk/sw20379.asp
Tyco Brahe’s World
To April 9, 2007
The astronomer with the silver nose, noble scientist and man of the world, Tycho Brahe’s (1546-1601) checkered life reveals many aspects of living during the 1500s.
The National Museum (The Prince's Palace) traverses the cultural history of Denmark. It includes the Children’s Museum, Ethnographical Collection, The Royal Coin Collection and Classical and Near Eastern Antiquities.
The National Museum is located at Ny Vestergade 10. Open Tuesday-Sunday 10am-5pm. Mondays closed. Free admission

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
 http://www.louisiana.dk/
Cindy Sherman: 30 Years of Staged Photography
To May 20, 2007
Throughout the thirty years Cindy Sherman (born 1954 in Glen Ridge, New Jersey) has worked as an artist, she has almost exclusively used herself as a model for her works. Sherman stages, directs and photographs herself in constantly changing disguises which are not, however, self-portraits. Each picture reflects a new identity taken from the mass media's stereotyped views of women. She always works in series and never gives her works titles. Instead they are given a number. In the exhibition Sherman's works are presented in large chronologically ordered series, each of which is held together by a theme.
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
http://www.kglteater.dk/Forestillinger/Ballet.aspx
2006/2007 Season
Copenhagen, home of the world-renowned Royal Danish Ballet, has long been a global ballet capital. The Royal Danish Ballet 2006-2007 season  includes “Trio Extravaganza,” three modern highlights choreographed by Finland’s Jorma Uotinen; France’s Angeline Preljocaj and China’s Yuan Yuan Wang. Other productions in the repertoire include premieres of “Schumann’s 2nd Symphony Etudes, Dance Mozart!, Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps and the modern American Mixture and Ailey & Zuska, plus revivals of Requiem, choreographed by Tim Rushton and Bournonville’s La Sylphide and Napoli among others.
Det Kongliege Teater (Royal Danish Theater) is located at Kongens Nytorv in the center of Copenhagen since 1748. Tickets can be purchased online at http://www.kglteater.dk/Billetter.aspx .

 

Dresden, Germany

Royal Palace
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. 

 

Duesseldorf

Sammlung Museum
www.kunstsammlung.de
Picasso:  Painting against Time
To May 28
Pablo Picasso spent the final years of his life in the French city Mougins (1960-1973), where his art was dominated by pastoral love scenes, disparate couples, nudes, self-portraits and cloak-and-dagger masquerades. Sixty paintings, sixty drawings, sixty graphic sheets and several "collapsible sculptures" serve to vividly embody this period of his life.

 

Florence

Palazzo Strozzi
www.cezanneafirenze.it 
Cézanne a 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.
 
Maggio Musicale Fiorentino 2007
www.maggiofiorentino.com 
April 24 to June 20, 3007
The oldest music festival in Italy, and one of the most famous, the Maggio Musicale in Florence was founded in 1933 and features two months of opera, concerts, ballet and exhibitions. Having only missed a few years during the war, in 2007 it celebrates its 70th edition. Along with Bayreuth and Salzburg, the Florence Music Festival ranks among the oldest, most important European music festivals. More than this, it incorporates annual concert, opera and ballet seasons. Today the festival resides at the centre of musical life in Florence, based in the 2,000-seat Teatro Comunale and neighboring Piccolo Teatro, a small, modern theatre accommodating an audience of 600.
Program details at www.maggiofiorentino.com or phone  +39 055 213 535. Most evening performances at 8.30pm. 

 

Hamburg

Bucerius Kunst Forum
www.buceriuskunstforum.de  
New World: The Invention of American Painting
February 24 - May 28, 2007
The forum hosts a three-year exhibition cycle on 150 Years of American Art: 1800 - 1950. It starts with the exhibition of 60 paintings of the first American school of painting, the Hudson River School, followed by Portraits of the Gilded Age in May 2008 and American Realism in 2009. The project examines the origins of a genuinely American school of art and brings to life the rich and interesting art legacy of the United States with masterpieces from Thomas Cole, Frederick E. Church, John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassett, James Whistler, Jorge Bellows and Edward Hopper.

Las Vegas

Guggenheim Hermitage Museum
Website: http://www.guggenheimlasvegas.org /
Treasures from the Guggenheim and Hermitage Collections
Opens Spring 2007
The Guggenheim Hermitage is located at The Venetian, 3355 Las Vegas Blvd South
Open daily from 9:30 am to 7:30 pm. Admission.

 

London

Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery
www.courtauld.ac.uk
Cuercino: Mind to Paper
February 22 to May 13, 2007
The exhibition focuses on 34 drawings by Guercino (1591-1666). Called the ‘Rembrandt of the South’, Guercino was one of the most versatile and accomplished Italian draughtsmen of the 17th century.  Born Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, and nicknamed ‘il Guercino’ (‘the squinter’) after a childhood accident left him with a pronounced squint, the painter had a long and successful career in his native Cento (near Ferrara), in Rome, and in Bologna.  The exhibition will investigate the nature of his appeal and examine what makes Guercino such an extraordinary draughtsman for his period.  The drawings cover a variety of subject matter, including landscape, caricature, and informal studies from life, each illustrating the remarkable virtuosity and freedom of Guercino’s technique as well as his inventiveness and energy. 
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

Docklands Museum
Journey to the New World: London 1606 to Virginia 1607
To May 13, 2007.
The new exhibition at the Museum in Docklands marks the 400th anniversary of the first permanent English settlement in Jamestown, Virginia. The exhibition tells the story of hope and despair, conflict and failure, tragedy and triumph, and shows how ordinary and extraordinary men, women and children helped to create an emerging nation—a New World for the English and the American Indians. Admission is free.

Imperial War Museum
Website: http://www.iwm.org.uk   
The 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.

National Gallery of Art
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk
Renoir Landscapes 1865 to 1883
February 21 to May 20, 2007
This is the first exhibition to examine this vital aspect of Renoir's achievement, and brings together some 70 landscapes.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) painted landscapes throughout his life. However, during the first two decades of his long career they constituted an especially important area of experimentation for the artist where he explored composition, paint handling and pictorial structure in innovative new ways.
It begins with works of the 1860s, when the young artist was meeting and working beside the painters who would become his fellow Impressionists. These works show his remarkable ability to emulate technical and stylistic innovations and then turn them to his own uses.
In the 1870s Renoir defined his distinctive quick, silvery brushstrokes and began to explore color and structure in order to gain an audacious painterly freedom.
In the early 1880s he traveled to the South of France, Italy and North Africa, where new intensities of sunlight and color had a profound impact on his landscape art.
The exhibition ends in 1883 with the vibrant oils he executed on a visit to Guernsey.
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 successful activities of its merchants and entrepreneurs - and in sharp distinction 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 
The Unknown Monet: Pastels and Drawings
To June 10, 2007
This exhibition is the first devoted to Monet’s drawings and pastels. It offers a ground-breaking exploration of the role of draftsmanship throughout the artist’s long career, overturning the conventional notion that Monet painted his impressions of nature directly onto the canvas. New light is shed on Monet’s working methods by presenting a significant body of his preparatory studies, finished drawings and pastels, alongside representative examples of his paintings. In demonstrating the relationship between his works on paper and in oil, Monet’s hidden talent as a draftsman is revealed, a gift that he publicly disavowed.
Citizens and Kings:  Portraits In The Age Of Revolution, 1760-1830
To April 20, 2007
The exhibition will give an in-depth view, through sculptured and painted portraits, of an era characterized by sweeping political and social changes. The exhibition will consist of 145 works drawn from some of the finest collections in the world, depicting not only kings and queens but also the new revolutionary heroes and rising bourgeoise, and enlightenment thinkers, writer and artists.
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
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
The Unilever Series: Carsten Höller
To April 9, 2007
Carsten Höller is the seventh artist to undertake the challenge of creating an artwork to fill Tate Modern’s vast Turbine Hall. Höller is used to working on a grand scale and previous pieces include a series of electronic sliding doors with mirrored surfaces, which gallery visitors pass through on a seemingly endless and puzzling journey, as well as an installation of gigantic mushrooms which hang, suspended from the ceiling by their stalks and rotate in a mesmerizing fashion. Entitled Test Site, the work will comprise of five giant spiraling slides which descend from different levels of the gallery into the Turbine Hall. Two will run from Level 2, one will run from Level 3, a further slide will go from Level 4 and there will be a final one from Level 5. Visitors are invited to take part, thus completing the art work through their involvement.
Gilbert & George: Major Exhibition
February 15 to May 7, 2007
This long-awaited exhibition is the largest ever to explore the remarkable art of Gilbert & George. Gilbert & George have created art together since meeting at St Martin's School of Art in 1967. Their impact on the international art world was immediate, radical and subversive with the declaration that sculpture need not be confined to the production of three-dimensional objects and that their own lives could be classed as living sculptures. Since then, their joint existence has been one long art journey which has led to major exhibitions in five continents, including pioneering shows in Russia and China.
The exhibition begins with a documentation of the legendary Living Sculptures together with the idyllic Nature Pieces which include the rarely seen Charcoal on Paper Sculptures. This is followed by pictures of increasingly powerful social engagement including the Drinking Pieces and Human Bondage and culminating in the infamous, black white and red Dirty Words Pictures of 1977.
The 1980s and 1990s saw an explosion of color in their art through which Gilbert & George continued to confront fundamental human issues. Among the comprehensive selection of works from this compelling period are the Tate's own vast quadripartite Death Hope Life Fear, the phantasmagorical Life without End, the scandalous Naked Shit Pictures and the instinctive Fundamental and New Testamental Pictures featuring the artists' own blood, tears, spunk, piss, shit and sweat. The final section of the exhibition explores Gilbert & George's visionary twenty-first-century art. Beginning with the promiscuous New Horny Pictures and mesmerizing lice-infested East One Pictures, followed by the Gingko Pictures of Venice Biennale fame, these works continue to ask provocative questions about sexuality, identity and religion. The show ends with the controversial Sonofagod Pictures including the epic Was Jesus Heterosexual? which led to accusations of blasphemy. Gilbert & George have also created completely new pictures for this exhibition.

Tate Britain
Website: http://www.tate.org.uk/britain 
Hogarth
To April 29, 2007
Witty, satirical, subversive and hugely talented, William Hogarth remains one of the most fascinating and innovative artists from the eighteenth century. This superb exhibition is the most comprehensive showing of the artist’s work in living memory and incorporates the full range of Hogarth’s work.
Tate Britain is located at Millbank in London’s southwest end. Open Daily, 10.00 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: Surrealism and Design
To July 22, 2007
While many exhibitions have explored Surrealism as a movement in literature and the fine arts, Surreal Things is the first to examine its impact on architecture, design and the decorative arts. It presents a new approach to the subject, focusing on the creation of surrealist objects, whether unique works of art or examples of modern design. Alongside paintings by Magritte, Ernst and Dali will be some of the most extraordinary objects of the 20th century, from Dali's Mae West Lips sofa and Lobster Telephone to Elsa Schiaparelli's dramatic Tear and Skeleton dresses, and Meret Oppenheim's Table with Bird's Legs.
Kylie: The Exhibition
To June 10, 2007
This exhibition will look at Kylie Minogue as a popular style icon and international performer and will feature performance costumes, accessories, photographs, music and videos exploring Kylie's career and changing image.
Victoria and Albert Museum is located on Cromwell Road, London SW7. Tel:
+44 (0)20 7942 2000. 
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     
Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Gore, SW7. Tube: South Kensington.

 

 

Madrid

Museo del Prado
www.museoprado.mcu.es
Tintoretto: Retrospective
To May 13, 2007
Madrid’s Museo del Prado will present a major retrospective of one of the most renowned names in the history of painting beginning January 30. Tintoretto will showcase about 60 works from more than 20 leading European and American museums – the first such comprehensive show in 70 years—and the first exhibition in Spain to be devoted solely to the artist. One of the great Renaissance painters, Venetian-born Jacobo Tintoretto (1518 -1594) was regarded as a daring and prolific painter during his lifetime, being cited in the early 17th century as one of the three great masters of Venetian painting along with Titian and Paolo Veronese. Tintoretto shared their use of a new language characterized by the bravura of the brushstroke and a pronounced chiaroscuro, both deployed in a new style of narrative painting. He went further, creating a style that fused the Tuscan with the Venetian, combining Titian’s loose handling with Michelangelo’s skilled draftsmanship. And Tintoretto also perfected a highly efficient painting method allowing him to produce a large body of work.
Revealing Tintoretto’s range, the exhibition’s 49 paintings, 13 drawings and three sculptures also show his interest in all the major artistic genres. His religious narratives will be a main focus of the exhibition. For the first time in 400 years, art lovers will be able to see side by side his two masterpieces painted for the church of San Marcuola: The Last Supper (from the church in Venice) and Christ Washing the Disciples’ Feet (Museo del Prado). The exhibition will bring together some of his most important mythological paintings Venus, Volcan and Mars (Alt Pinakothek, Munich) and The Origins of the Milky Way (National Gallery, London) as well as examples of his work as a portraitist, including self-portraits from the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia) and the Musée du Louvre (Paris), and the Portrait of Lorenzo Soranzo from the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna).
The Prado Museum is located on Paseo del Prado in Madrid, call: 011-34-91-330-28-00, e-mail: museo.nacional@prado.mcu.es or go to.  The museum is open daily except Mondays from 9 AM to 8 PM and closed January 1, May 1, Easter Friday and Christmas Day.  General admission is about $7.80 (6 euros), except Sundays, when it is free.  Visitors under 18 and over 65 and students from the EU are admitted free of charge.  Other students pay about $3.90 (3 euros). For further information about Spain, contact the Tourist Office of Spain in New York (212-265-8822); Miami (305-358-1992); Chicago (312-642-1992) or Los Angeles (323-658-7188) or go to www.spain.info

Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum
Website: www.museothyssen.org 
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
Revelations: Art in Latin America 1492-1820
February 21 to June 24, 2007
This massive, illuminating exhibition of 250 works spans the history of Latin America under Spanish rule, from Columbus’s arrival to Simón Bolívar’s revolutions, when the colonial power began breathing its last gasps. The paintings, objects and sculptures from diverse collections do well to illustrate the artistic evolution of this period. Most captivating, perhaps, is the palpable tension between conqueror and conquered in much of the region’s art.
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 
Andy Warhol: Moving Pictures
March 2 to April 1, 2007
LeWitt x 2
February 23 to June 3, 2007
This two-part exhibition features both the work of Sol LeWitt and an insider's look at the contemporary art collection that he and his wife Carol created. It offers a unique and intimate view of the aesthetic of one of America's most distinguished artists. Sol LeWitt: Structure and Line includes 45 drawings, gouaches and structures by the artist dating from the 1960s to the present.
Miami Art Museum is located at 101 West Flagler Street. Open daily except Mondays.

 

Milan
Castello Sforzesco
Website: http://www.milanocastello.it 
Castello Sforzesco, Piazza Castello, 3. Open: Tues-Sun, 9am-1pm, 2pm-5.30pm.

International Center For Photography
Website: http://www.formafoto.it
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.

Palazzo della Permanente
Palazzo della Permanente, Via Turati 34 and Fondazione Stelline, Corso Magenta 61. Tel: +39 (0)2 655 1445. Open: Tue-Sun 10am-8pm (Thursday until 10pm). Entry: €8.

 

 

Montreal

Biodôme de Montreal (Botanical Garden)
www.museumsnature.ca
jardin_botanique@ville.montreal.qc.ca
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
www.grandsballets.com
info@grandsballets.com
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
http://www.osm.ca  or http://www.osm.ca/index_en.cfm
Place des Armes

Museum of Fine Arts (Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion)
Website: http://www.mbam.qc.ca 
Once upon a Time Walt Disney:  The Sources of Inspiration for Disney Studio
March 8 to June 24, 2007
Regarded by some as a paragon of mawkishness and popular entertainment, by others as a storyteller of genius, Disney’s entry into the museum elevates him de facto to the ranks of great artists in the history of Western art, where some will undoubtedly fail to understand his presence. For the author of these lines, the answer is, as one might expect, obvious and a firm belief: Walt Disney belongs alongside the most important figures of cinema and, more generally, twentieth-century art.
To that end, the exhibition establishes for the first time a parallel between the original drawings of The Walt Disney Studio and the works of Western – and sometimes other – art that inspired them, from the Gothic Middle Ages to Surrealism. The art of Gustave Doré, Daumier, the German Romantic painters, Symbolists and English Pre-Raphaelites, as well as Early Flemish painters and Expressionist film, profoundly influenced the Disney Studios’ productions.
The Museum is located at 1380 Sherbrooke Street West. Open Tuesdays through Sundays.

Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal
www.macm.org
Jean-Pierre Gauthier
February 10 to April 22, 2007
The works of Montréal artist Jean-Pierre Gauthier reveal a variety of components, incorporate sound into the visual and are notable for their modes of installation. Pipe fittings, funnels and electrical wires are transformed, in the artist’s hands, into an astonishing investigation of order and chaos, permanence and fragility, usefulness and gratuitousness. This is the first survey of the artist’s work. It comprises 12 major installations produced between 2002 and 2006, with some pieces—“reinterpretations” of earlier ones—actually dating back as far as 1997.
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

 

 

Moscow

Bakhrushin Theatre Museum
Bakhrushin Theater Museum is located at 31/12 Ulitsa Bakhrushina. Metro Paveletskaya. Tel: +7 (095) 953-4470.

 

Munich

Lenbachhaus
Muenter and Kandinsky
To July 3, 2007
The exhibition house Lenbachhaus in Munich presents Gabriele Muenter, the well-known woman painter and founder of the Blue Rider Group, in her almost unknown role as a photographer. The Blue Rider was an association of expressionism artists located in Murnau close to Munich. This exhibition comprises photographs of her journeys with Wassily Kandinsky, and her beloved house in Murnau. Website: www.muenchen.de 

 

 

New York

American Museum of Natural History
Website: www.amnh.org    
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.
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.
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 Butterfly Conservatory
To May 28, 2007
Now in its ninth year, the Butterfly Conservatory within the museum houses tropical and subtropical butterflies. A wonderful learning experience.
The American Museum of Natural History is located at Central Park West and between West 77 and 79 Streets.

Asia Society
Website: www.asiasociety.org/arts   
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 fee.

Frick Museum
Website: www.frick.org  
George Stubbs (1724 – 1806): A Celebration
February 14 through May 27, 2007
The exhibition of approximately twenty paintings by the celebrated artist comes in early 2007 to The Frick Collection, its only North American venue. The exhibition marks the bicentenary of Stubbs’s death by presenting some of his greatest contributions to the tradition of British eighteenth-century painting, all notable for their originality and beauty. The exhibition exclusively draws upon British-owned examples, some of which have never crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and thus offers an important viewing opportunity in this country. Stubbs is renowned for the precise and noble treatment of animals in a style ordinarily reserved for the human figure, and he spent many years studying and documenting the anatomy of horses, dogs, and wild animals. His understanding of the physical structure of these animals provided him with the exceptional ability to convey accurately their beauty, strength, and dignity. The Frick showing devotes much attention to animal paintings and also features quintessential English landscape and genre scenes, representing nearly the full range of work in oil that Stubbs produced over the course of his career. 
The Frick is located at 1 East 70 Street.

Guggenheim Museum of Art
Website: www.guggenheim.org
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.

Metropolitan Museum Of Art
Website: www.metmuseum.org 
Barcelona and Modernity: Gaudí to Dalí
March 7, 2007–June 3, 2007
Don’t miss the first comprehensive survey of its type ever mounted in America, which explores the diverse and innovative work of Barcelona's artists, architects, and designers in the years between the Barcelona Universal Exposition of 1888 and the imposition of the Fascist regime of Francisco Franco in 1939. The outstanding exhibition features some 300 works, including paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, posters, decorative objects, furniture, architectural models, and designs. Barcelona and Modernity offers new insights into the art movements that advanced the city's quest for modernity and confirmed it as the primary center of radical intellectual, political, and cultural activities in Spain.
Venice and the Islamic World, 828–1797
March 27–July 8, 2007
This exhibition examines the relationship between Venice and the Islamic world over a thousand-year period, focusing on artistic and cultural ideas that originated in the Near East and were channeled, absorbed, and elaborated in Venice, a city that represented a commercial, political, and diplomatic magnet on the shores of the Mediterranean. The underlying theme of the exhibition focuses on the reasons why a large number of Venetian paintings, drawings, printed books, and especially decorative artworks were influenced by and drew inspiration from the Islamic world and from its art. "Orientalism" in Venice was based on direct contact with the Islamic world, which brought about new technological, artistic, and intellectual information. A continuous thread throughout the exhibition deals with the works of Islamic art that entered Venetian collections in historical times and explores the nature of the artistic relationship between Venice and the Mamluks in Egypt, the Ottomans in Turkey, and the Safavids in Iran.
A symposium will be held on Sunday, April 22, 2007, in conjunction with this exhibition. The symposium is free with Museum admission and does not require tickets or reservations. For more information, please contact lectures@metmuseum.org
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).

Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
Website: www.moma.org
Armando Reverón
February 11–April 16, 2007
This retrospective exhibition introduces the work of the celebrated Venezuelan artist Armando Reverón (1889–1954) to international audiences. The exhibition is divided into sections of figurative and landscape painting, and also includes the life-sized dolls and many of the imitation practical objects that Reverón and his partner Juanita Ríos created to fill their secluded home in the small Caribbean village of Macuto. Early in his artistic career, Reverón painted coastal landscapes with monochromatic palettes imitative of the bright white light of the seashore. These highly tactile paintings are unique in early modernism, and seem to anticipate later monochromatic abstract art. Later, Reverón began to paint depictions of industrial activity in a nearby port. Reverón’s figurative works seem to replicate the perceptual experience of puzzling out forms in shadowy interiors. Surprisingly, the subjects of these figure paintings were, increasingly, not human figures but Reverón’s life-sized dolls. The exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue, the first major publication on Reverón in English. 
Jeff Wall
February 25–May 14, 2007
Jeff Wall (Canadian, b. 1946) is widely recognized as one of the most adventurous and inventive artists of his generation. This retrospective surveys his career from the late 1970s to the present through some forty works. The exhibition features his major lightbox photographs and trace the evolution of his principal themes and pictorial strategies.
Following the New York showing the exhibition travels to The Art Institute of Chicago, and concludes its tour at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in the fall of 2007.
MoMA is located at 11 W. 53rd Street.

Neue Galerie New York
www.neuegalerie.org
Van Gogh and Expressionism
March 2 to July 2, 2007
The exhibition explores the crucial influence of Vincent van Gogh on German and Austrian Expressionism. More than 80 paintings and drawings will be on view, including a number of major canvases by Van Gogh, as well as important paintings by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Otto Dix, and others. This exhibition, organized by curator Jill Lloyd, the well-known scholar of Expressionism was organized in conjunction with the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. It is the first exhibition to examine in detail the influence of Van Gogh’s art on the Expressionists. Nearly a decade passed after Van Gogh’s death in1890 before his paintings began to emerge from obscurity. German and Austrian Expressionist artists, who first saw his work at exhibitions in Dresden, Munich, Berlin, and Vienna, responded not only to the formal qualities of his paintings but also to the passionate intensity of his vision and the dramatic story of his life.
Artists reinterpreted Van Gogh in the light of their own concerns. For Vasily Kandinsky, he represented the way forward to abstraction, while for Oskar Kokoschka, he signified a vital figurative tradition based on the great humanist art of the past. Erich Heckel was already experimenting with broken brushwork, but he found in Van Gogh a new sense of visual drama. Emil Nolde engaged with Van Gogh at a spiritual level, seeking like his mentor to “grasp what lies at the very heart of things” and “transform nature by infusing it with one’s own mind and spirit.” The Expressionists saw Van Gogh as the trailblazer of modern art.
Concurrent with the exhibition, a distinguished group of scholars will present lectures on aspects of Van Gogh’s life and art. Lectures will take place on selected evenings at 6:30 p.m. and are free for members. Regular admission will be $8 (students and seniors, $5). Tickets can be purchased the day of the lecture at the main admissions desk. Seating is limited and is on a first-come, first-served basis.
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 
The Fifth Annual Orchid Show
To April 8, 2007
The Orchid Show at The New York Botanical Garden is distinguished as the only curated and designed, museum-quality orchid exhibition. The centerpiece of the Botanical Garden-wide orchid experience is the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory where thousands of orchid plants Visitors are exposed to these coveted plants in ingenious ways. The colors, shapes, sizes, and textures of the orchids as well as the rich information provided about them are a feast for the eyes and nourishment for the intellect.
Open year round Tuesdays through Sundays, the NY Botanical Garden is located at 200th St. and Kazimiroff Blvd. in the Bronx. Transportation to the Garden is available via the MetroNorth rail line from Grand Central Station in Manhattan. Parking also available.

New York Historical Society
www.nyhistory.org
Audubon's Aviary: Natural Selection
March 30–May 20, 2007
The Society's Audubon collection is the largest single repository of Auduboniana in the world.  The jewel in this crown are the 435 watercolors by John James Audubon (1785-1851) preparatory for his sumptuous, double-elephant folio print edition of the world-renowned The Birds of America (1827-38).  Following in the successful wake of two highly successful installments of "Audubon's Aviary," the Society over the next three years will exhibit a new selection of 40 of these one-of-a kind watercolors by Audubon, together with other objects and documents from the N-YHS's unparalleled collection of Audubon material.  Supplementary audio and visual components will illuminate Audubon's passions for birds as part of a multi-media exploration of his life, art, and legacy within a historical context.
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: http://www.whitney.org/noflash.html 
Terence Koh
To May 2007
For his first solo museum show in the United States, Terence Koh is creating a new installation for the Whitney's Lobby Gallery. In Koh's immersive, typically monochromatic environments in which minimalist and baroque aspects of his sensibility vie for dominance, a seemingly unknown ritual is about to take place, where a sense of loss simultaneously suggests regeneration. From drifting powder silencing rooms, and constellations of cryptically linked objects that move from literally disjunctive realms (upstairs/downstairs, inside/outside, dark/light) as well as more conceptual ones, to pristine, perfectly crafted containers that become coffins for shattered glass and mirror, the glitter of black beads, burnt objects, residing within, Koh's gestures evoke isolation and secrecy, but also protection and ecstasy.    
Gordon Matta Clark
February 22, 2007-June 7, 2007
During the brief but highly productive ten years that he worked as an artist, and even more so since his death, Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-1978) has exerted a powerful influence on artists and architects who know his work. This retrospective will bring together the breadth of his practice to reveal the unique beauty and radical nature of his punnings, plans, performances, and interventions evident in the many media in which he worked: the sculptural objects (most notably from building cuts), drawings, films, photographs, notebooks, and documentary material.
Lorna Simpson
March 1 to May 6, 2007
One of the leading artists of her generation, Lorna Simpson is well known for her photographic and film works, which often examine racial and gender identity. In works such as Call Waiting (1997), she depicts people of color engaging in intimate yet incomplete conversations that elude easy interpretation but seem to plumb the mysteries of identity and desire. Organized by the American Federation of Arts, this comprehensive first mid-career survey will feature her image and text works, serigraphs on felt, film installations, and a selection of recent work.
The Whitney Museum is located at 945 Madison Avenue between 74th and 75th streets.
Open Wednesday–Thursday 11 am–6 pm; Friday 1–9 pm (6–9 pm pay-what-you-wish admission); Saturday–Sunday 11 am–6 pm. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays.
The Museum is open Tuesdays for prearranged school programs. For more information, please contact the Education Department at schoolvisits@whitney.org, (212) 570-7721 or fax (212) 570-7711.

Lincoln Center For The Performing Arts
www.lincolncenter.org
Website information 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 www.metopera.org
New York City Ballet www.nycballet.com
New York City Opera www.nycopera.com
New York Philharmonic www.nyphil.or

 

 

Paris

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)

Jeu de Paume
Website: http://www.jeudepaume.org
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.

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 
 Thomas Chimes: Adventures in 'Pataphysics
February 27, to May 6, 2007
This retrospective exhibition celebrates the life and work of Thomas Chimes, arguably one of the most important artists to emerge on the Philadelphia art scene since World War II. It includes approximately one hundred paintings and works on paper, many previously unseen, along with extensive biographical and archival material.
Ike Taiga and Tokuyama Gyokuran: Japanese Masters of the Brush
May 1 to July 22, 2007
This exhibition marks the first time an exhibition in the United States focuses on the eighteenth-century Japanese master of ink painting Ike Taiga (1723–1776) and his wife Tokuyama Gyokuran (1727–1784), with 200 exceptional and rarely seen works of art.
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 is partnering locally with The Franklin Institute (website: http://www2.fi.edu) which will host the blockbuster Tutankhamun show opening February 3, 2007.
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
- 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
www.scuderiequirinale.it   
Dürer and Italy - Rome
March 10 - June 9, 2007
The exhibition is the first to engage in an in-depth investigation of this extraordinary artist's complex relationship with Italy—a relationship marked by a profound, reciprocal influence. The show considers both how much Dürer was affected by the great Italian art of the time (in a series of paintings by the Nuremberg master alongside others by Mantegna, Giovanni Bellini, Pollaiolo, Leonardo, Agostino da Lodi, Lorenzo di Credi ...), and how Italian artists in turn felt his influence: Pontormo, Raffaello, the Carracci brothers, Caravaggio and his followers Domenico Fetti and Carlo Maratta.
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
Grande antologica di Arturo Martini
To May 13, 2007
Mambor:  Separè. Oggetti scultorei
To April 29, 2007

 

San Francisco

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
 http://www.sfmoma.org/
Picasso and American Art
To May 28th 2007
This exhibition explores Pablo Picasso’s influence on the American artists who flourished in his immediate wake. Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky, Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein are just a few of the renowned painters in this exhibition who had to emerge from Picasso's long shadow. The breadth and diversity of the 150 works presented show Picasso's revolutionary and unique genius in a new way.
Brice Marden: A Retrospective of Paintings and Drawings
To May 13, 2007
Among the most esteemed American artists working today, Brice Marden tirelessly pushes the bounds of his aesthetic, producing paintings and works on paper that display remarkable elegance and lyrical beauty. This first U.S. retrospective of the artist's work explores his dynamic oeuvre in its entirety. Featuring more than 100 pieces ranging from the 1960s to the present, the presentation encompasses Marden's celebrated monochrome panels of the 1960s and 1970s and the serpentine designs produced in more recent years — plus two new paintings in their public debut. The breadth of the selection offers an unprecedented appraisal of the artist's career and showcases his inimitable ability to unite color, light, and surface
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 
September 2006 to June 14, 2007 season
For its 95th season, the San Francisco Symphony under Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas has prepared a rich program that reaffirms its mission: to give fresh interpretations of canonical works and highlight the best music of today. Expect concerts of the usual suspects—Beethoven, Mozart and Brahms—but also look out for some young stars, such as Joshua Bell, Midori and Sarah Chang, all violinists. The program includes the world premiere of John Adams’s “A Flowering Tree”, a one-act opera (March 1st-3rd).
San Francisco Symphony performs at Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Ave. Tel: +1 (415) 864-6000.

 

Stuttgart

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
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. 

 

Singapore

Asian Civilisations Museum
http://www.nationalmuseum.sg/
Mystery Men: Finds from China’s Lost Age
January 16 to April 15, 2007
The accidental discovery in the 1980s of a sacrificial burial pit in China's Sichuan province yielded a beautiful collection of artifacts ranging from masks to bronze heads. Experts, some of whom consider the haul superior to the Terracotta Warriors in Xian, have dated the pieces to before 1,000BC. Over 100 of them will be displayed at the museum, marking their first trip to Southeast Asia.
Asian Civilisations Museum, 1 Empress Place, Singapore 179555. Tel: +65 6332 7791. Entry: S$8. MRT: Raffles Place.

 

Stuttgart

Art Museum Stuttgart
www.kunstmuseum-stuttgart
CROSS-BORDER: Photography and Video Art from the MUMOK Vienna
March 24 to June 17, 2007
Whether it is a street barrier or a club membership card, an academic title or waiting for your number to be called at the employment office –one is surrounded by visible and invisible boundaries. The current exhibition deals with this extremely complex subject. In order to point out gaps in the museum’s photography and video art collection, the search beyond Germany’s borders has turned up some successful findings in the Vienna Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig (MUMOK). The resulting photography and video art show in Stuttgart examines about 200 works by internationally renowned artists such as David Goldblatt, Nan Goldin, Gelatin, Louise Lawler, Thomas Ruff, The Atlas Group, and Anna and Bernhard Blume, focusing on the subject of crossing borders.
 

 

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.
Gifted
To April 15, 2007
This magnificent exhibition is showing 100 works by some of Australia's leading aboriginal artists. The art has been chosen from a collection of more than 300 works owned by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, bought with funds donated by Mollie Gowing, the widow of Jim Gowing, a member of an old Sydney department store family. Mrs. Gowing began donating money to the gallery in the early 1990s, when aboriginal art was gaining popularity. Since then, a fund in her name has underwritten one of Australia's most significant indigenous art collections. There are pieces on display here by artists such as Gloria Petyarre, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Ginger Riley and Judy Watson.
Art Gallery is located on Art Gallery Rd, The Domain, Sydney. Tel: +61 (0)2 9225 1744. Admission: A$10. Open: daily, 10am-5pm.

 

Toronto

Ontario Science Centre
http://www.ontariosciencecentre.ca
Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition
Opens June 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.
Open seven days a week except December 25, the center is located at 770 Don Mills Road (at the corner of Don Mills Road and Eglinton Avenue East) in Toronto. Admission: CAN$17 (adults) / $12.50 (youth / seniors) / $10 (children) Tel:

 

Venice

Museo Correr
www.museiciviciveneziani.it 
Sargent and Venice
March 24 to July 22, 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
 

 

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
http://www.phillipscollection.org  /
Moving Pictures: American Art and Early Film
February 17–May 20, 2007
This exhibition will present American realist painting from the late 19th and early 20th centuries side-by-side with the earliest experiments in film. Approximately 100 works, including nearly 60 short films (a few minutes long) by Thomas Edison, the Lumière Brothers, and the Cinématheque Française, along with works by American masters such as George Bellows, William Merritt Chase, Thomas Eakins, Maurice Prendergast, and John Sloan, will provide a new context for looking at the artists’ choice and presentation of subject matter. For the first time, film will be fully integrated into the history of American art. Moving Pictures is organized by the Williams College Museum of Art.
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.
East of Eden: Gardens in Asian Art
February 24 to May 13, 2007
Some 65 works of art reveal the garden traditions throughout Asia are on display in the 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
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
Edvard Munch: Signs of Modern Art
March 18 to -July 15 2007
A sweeping retrospective of Edvard Munch (1863-1944). There have been countless shows to celebrate the haunting work of the Norwegian painter and printmaker, but this exhibition promises to be one of the finest. The exhibition features some 140 paintings, drawings and prints from throughout Munch’s career.
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
http://www.kunsthaus.ch/
Auguste Rodin: Retrospective
To May 13, 2007
In the late 19th century Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) revolutionized sculpture. The retrospective of his work includes 160 bronzes, works in plaster, and drawings – including world-renowned works such as The Kiss and The Thinker, as well as rarities such as the marble sculpture The Earth and the Moon. The earliest works in the exhibition date back to the early 1880s when Rodin’s work was first recognized by a circle of writers and artists; the selection concludes with his ground-breaking designs for public monuments and memorials. The exhibition was organized with the Musée Rodin in Paris and London’s Royal Academy of Arts. The formidable Gates of Hell, which has adorned the exterior of the Kunsthaus since 1948, was extensively restored for this show.
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.