It’s all about Allgarve!

It is definitely the biggest event of the year outside Lisbon. Allgarve 2009 –whether you call it festival or promotional extravaganza- is a massive and complex series of artistic and entertaining events that promise to bring the southern Portuguese region of Algarve into the cultural map of Europe. It includes various independent festivals with top names from the international music scene, carefully planned line-ups, an art exhibition spree, sport and gourmet events, you name it. And all this in a span of an amazing 8-month period, from April 2 to October 25.
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History told through insignia

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the proclamation of Bulgaria's independence (September 22, 1908) the National Museum of History inaugurated an exhibition late last year that brings together more than 500 exhibits from Bulgarian museums, galleries, archives and libraries. The exhibition Symbols of Bulgarian Statehood is a good opportunity to get to know some very interesting chapters of Bulgarian history and a visit is highly recommended until the end of September 2009.
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I Want to Believe

A retrospective of the “explosive” art of Mr. “Beijing Olympics”, aka Cai Guo-Qiang, the man who captured the world with his pyrotechnic displays during the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2008 Olympic Games, is a must-see at the Guggenheim Museum in the Basque city of Bilbao. The show, running until September 20 under the title Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe, presents the full spectrum of the artist's protean, multimedia art in all its conceptual complexity.
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Fan-tas-tic Movies!

Next time you’ll scream “This film is Fantastic!” on your way out of the theatre, think twice. When referring to the movies, “fan-tas-tic” is usually used as a collective term for film genres like science fiction, fantasy and horror. In Lund, on the southernmost tip of Sweden know exactly what the term means although the International Fantastic Film Festival they host does not set narrow limits for what can be screened. If you make it and attend the 15th edition of the festival from 17 to 26 of September, you’ll learn that in short, fantastic cinema is about imagination!
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Modern music in rainy days

“Truly inspired! The cliché that modern music is difficult has been indisputably disproved”. That is what d’Wort daily paper had enthusiastically written of Luxembourg’s Rainy Days Festival last year. Over two long weekends –the last of Autumn and the first of Winter- visitors to the festival of the Philharmonie Luxembourg will have the opportunity to discover a “Message in a Bottle” (theme of this year’s edition). In other words: mysterious communications, objects found by chance, more or less understandable messages –those are some of the exciting new music discoveries that await you in Luxembourg’s rainy late autumn days.
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Protesting with art

Who said art cannot be political? Art is mainly a vehicle for the expression of political views and protest. The Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) gives many examples of “embedded” art and creativity placed in the service of political protest, in an exhibition curated by Guy Schraenen under the title On the Margins of Art. Creation and Political Engagement. The exhibition, running until September 27, brings together some 230 artist’s books, magazines, flyers, posters, postcards and other printed material dating to the period from 1933 to 2008.
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Mazel tov Budapest!

One of the biggest and certainly most interesting annual Jewish festivals held in Europe is organized in Hungary in the last week of summer giving everyone the best opportunity to get to know a rich culture that is still not very well known among the non-Jewish Europeans. By now, the Jewish Summer Festival is one of Hungary’s most important, most visited and most interesting cultural art events. Join it from August 30 to September 7, get a glimpse into millennia-old traditions and enjoy artists and performers who will offer you a once in a lifetime experience.
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Cross culture sounds in Warsaw

With Senegalese composer, vocalist and instrumentalist Youssou N'Dour opening the fifth edition of the Cross-Culture Warsaw Festival, the event gives the signal for a week-long series of concerts that will certainly sweep Poles and visitors off their feet. Get ready for top quality world music with names as big as Tcheka, Sister Fa, Farafina and Jajouka from Africa, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt from India, Márcio Faraco from Brazil, the Orishas from Cuba and many more… Take a note of the date: September 13-19. In Warsaw…
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Izzo’s empty spaces

Creating art out of absolute emptiness is what Maltese designer and artist Jean Karl Izzo does best and this is what he wants us to witness in his first solo show hosted at the Upper Galleries of the St James Cavalier Centre in Valletta. Izzo’s exhibition, titled Spazi, meaning Spaces, will be on show from November 6 to December 13, featuring works on canvas, board and paper with the use of paint and mixed media that reflect his ideas developed within the past four years.
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Celebrating music in Český Krumlov

The annual International Music Festival in Český Krumlov in the southern Czech Republic, close to the Austrian border kicks off once again and from July 17 to August 22 visitors can enjoy 24 exceptional evenings –half of them in the open air- with top Czech and international musicians. Seven different venues host this 18th edition of the festival with predominant the sound of opera and symphony, chamber music, vocals and recitals, with room for jazz, musicals and music and food from European culture, this time concentrating on Greece. play twenty-four concerts throughout festival.
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110 Moments of History

This year the Bank of Cyprus commemorates its 110 years since its foundation in the Mediterranean island. To celebrate the occasion, the bank’s Cultural Foundation organized an exhibition at its re-furbished premises in Phaneromeni in old city of Nicosia. Visit the exhibition 110 Moments in our history not only because it pays a tribute to the power of man’s will and determination, but mostly because you’ll learn a lot about the history of Cyprus herself. The exhibition is running until November 15 but is closed throughout August.
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Three are too many, Two not enough!

This year the International Puppet Theatre Festival of Plovdiv passes to adulthood. The 18th edition of Bulgaria’s most famous festival of this kind promises to be full of colours and excitement. Three are too many, Two not enough! say the artists behind the project run by the State Puppet Theatre of Plovdiv. Using this motto as a title, the festival offers 13 entertaining shows in five days, from 3 to 7 of September. What a wonderful excuse to spend a week in beautiful Plovdiv!
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Electricity as never seen before

After Shanghai in 2008 and Washington DC last March, Visual Voltage hits Europe’s capital like a thunder. Hopefully, the hands-on Swedish interactive show will help enhance our understanding of energy and encourage interest in environmental issues and energy usage. The Visual Voltage exhibition will be on show from September 10 to October 25 at the the Design Vlaanderen in Brussels, before it goes to Berlin in November 2009 and has two more stops in 2010.
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Open-air cinema in Stockholm… in November?

Is it possible to have open-air cinema nights in November in Stockholm? What do they think? This is not Greece, or Italy or the Mediterranean south that good weather allows it. Yes, but… The Swedes think differently and they will celebrate the 20th year of Stockholm’s International Film Festival with spectacular free cinema –in the open air. For four Saturday nights, October 24 and November 4, 14 and 21, get your sweaters and jackets. It’s movie time!
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Clay joins artists from Cyprus and Malta

After four previous occasions where a group of Maltese ceramists exhibited jointly with another group of ceramists from Cyprus. in Mdina (2004) and Valletta (2008) and in Larnaka (2004 and 2007), another group exhibition of works by artists from the two Mediterranean islands is set to take place at the Upper Galleries of the St. James Cavalier Centre of Valletta, from September 12 to October 25.
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The Homo Novus experience

If this is not a good reason to go to Latvia this year, then what is it? Two weeks that guarantee plenty of emotion, happy encounters, surprises, questions raised, constructive talks and time spent in the company of some of the most wonderful artists in Europe and the world is a powerful reason to pack and go to Latvia from August 30 to September 12 to be part of the Homo Novus International Festival of Contemporary Theatre.
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Armin van Buuren in Cyprus!

The world's best DJ of all times comes to Cyprus for one and only spectacular live gig at the Monte Caputo in Limassol on August 20. His Cypriot fans have been anticipating the event for months and this makes perfect sense, since Armin van Buuren is a living legend. For his Cyprus show, he is bringing with him another very good DJ, also Dutch, Dj Remy. Expect anything from live dancing to fire shows, lazers and the whole lot.
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When the poet conversed with Miró

Commemorating the 25th anniversary of the death of the Catalan artist Joan Miró, the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona is presenting an exhibition that examines the artist’s close relationship and affinity with Jacques Dupin. The exhibition Miró–Dupin. Art and Poetry, running through October 18, is also a tribute to Dupin, a trustee of the Foundation since its beginnings, in recognition of his contributions as poet, biographer and art critic to our understanding of Miró’s art.
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Two in one in Sofia’s art gallery

With two different in style and content exhibitions, the Sofia City Art Gallery continues its summer program of shows way down to September. A tribute to the prominent Bulgarian-turned-Italian futurist artist Nikolay Dyulgerov (1901-1982) comes as a commemoration of Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto exactly a century ago and takes art down to the street outside the museum. At the same time, the gallery conducts Dialogues with Time, having gathered more than 80 paintings by three generations of Bulgarian artists who span a period from the years of war in the 40s to our times.
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Dalí prints in Bled

The first ever display of Salvador Dalí’s works in Slovenia can be seen this summer at the Deva Puri art gallery, in the picturesque town of Bled, one of the country’s most popular tourist resorts, less than an hour’s drive from the capital city of Ljubljana. The exhibition, open until November 12, features more than 200 lithographs from two of Dali's most comprehensive opuses, the Biblia Sacra and the Divine Comedy.
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Fashion that freed women

A not-to-be-missed exhibition in Vienna until November 1 might just prove to you that fashion shopping at the end of the 19th century had probably done more for the freedom of women than you ever thought. Owning the city’s and one of Europe’s premiere historical clothing collections with more than 20,000 items, the Vienna Museum Karlsplatz presents an exhibition titled Grand Entrance: Viennese Fashion in the Ringstrasse Era (1860-1910) that does more than illustrating the lifestyle of the Viennese at the end of the 19th century.
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Paul Delvaux under the Greek sun

One of Greece’s most exciting museums -not only for its content but also for its amazing location- is definitely the Goulandris Contemporary Art Museum in the beautiful island of Andros. Just an hour’s sail by ferry from the port of Rafina, close to the Athens airport, every summer the island attracts art lovers with the top temporary shows presented at the museum. This year, have a short or long holiday break in Andros and until the end of September find the time to visit a unique exhibition of works by famous Belgian surrealist painter Paul Delvaux.
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Watching films at Danube’s Delta

It is certainly worth the 5-hour trip from Bucharest east to Sfantu Gheorghe, that magical place, where the Danube meets the Black Sea, to spend an unforgettable week-long holiday and watch the best independent films around the international festival scene these days. If you’re not a cinephile, see the Anonimul International Independent Film Festival running from 10 to 16 of August as an excuse. The unconventional, picturesque Danube Delta with its exploding nature, vividly painted reed-roofed houses is a good enough reason to go.
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Turner and Italy

For the first time the Hungarian public has the opportunity to admire an independent exhibition of works by one of the most significant landscape painters of the 19th century and indeed perhaps in the entire history of art. The J.M.W. Turner exhibition at the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts, which opened July 15 runs through October 25 under the title Turner and Italy and displays over 80 works presented chronologically to show the career of the artist from his early landscapes to his near-abstract, late pictures.
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Sustainable development onscreen

After 36 years of continuous presence, Ekotopfilm in Slovakia is right to proudly declare itself as Europe’s oldest film festival of is kind. And its kind is sustainable development, new technologies, science, research and ecology. The aim of Ekotopfilm is to bring together technicians and environmentalists in order to pass the message that a better world is possible. Last year the festival attracted 40,000 visitors in Bratislava and the other Slovak cities where it toured. This year, the International Festival of Sustainable Development Films, which that takes place from 19 to 23 of October, hopes for even more.
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Italian Futurism show continues in Venice

Exactly one hundred years after the publication in Le Figaro on February 20, 1909 of the Futurist Manifesto, signed by the ‘jeune poète italien’ Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice opened the exhibition Masterpieces of Futurism at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection to celebrate this revolutionary avant-garde movement. The exhibition featuring 24 paintings, 4 sculptures, 5 drawings and 2 woodcuts, runs through the end of the year, so if you have not seen it so far, don’t miss it when in Venice. This is a rare opportunity to see great works by the masters of Italian Futurism!
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Britain rediscovers Spain

A spectacular celebration of Spanish culture, as seen through the eyes of British artists and art collectors, is the highlight of the National Galleries of Scotland exhibition programme during the 2009 Edinburgh Arts Festival. The Discovery of Spain exhibition, running until October 11 at the Royal Scottish Academy building, explores the work of 19th and early 20th-century British artists, such as Sir David Wilkie, David Roberts, John Phillip and Arthur Melville, who were captivated and inspired by Spain.
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Gothenburg’s Wonderful World

Over ten weeks, from 5 September to 15 November, the city of Gothenburg, becomes Sweden's largest meeting place for international contemporary art. Sweden will stand on the world stage for contemporary art and visitors will be able to acquaint themselves with artists from around the world. In this fifth edition, Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art uses as its theme the famous Louis Armstrong song, What a Wonderful World, to reflect on the development of politics in a visual, poetic and sensual way.
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El Greco’s own Toledo

Admirers of the master painter El Greco (Domenico Theotokopoulos) now have an extra reason to visit the Prado museum in Madrid. Until November 1, next to the two permanent galleries devoted to the artist’s work, the museum is giving one more room (Sala 8A in the Villanueva Building) to the great Cretan master, in order to highlight El Greco’s love to the city he lived. There you will appreciate his unique work, View and Plan of Toledo, in contrast to the partial views of the city that appear in other works by the artist.
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Aïda fever in Gozo

For more than six months, this has been the talk of the town in Malta. The forthcoming production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aïda due to go onstage on October 10, 2009, for one performance only at the Teatru ta’ l-Opra Aurora, in Victoria, Gozo, coincides with the tenth anniversary of the first Aïda production of at the same theatre, in April 1999. And it’s more than certain that it will be a sold out before the end of the summer. Should you wish to be there, you must book as early as possible.
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The Rainforest… in Copenhagen

They live in a place that is as close to the idea we have of Paradise as it can get. The Hiwi, Hoti and Panar people have lived in the rainforest region of the Orinoco River in southern Venezuela for thousands of years. The Nationalmuseet in Copenhagen is now presenting an amazing exhibition that follows these Indian tribes deep into the forest. The Indians of the Rain Forest takes visitors to a virtual trip to the rivers and the native villages, where everyday life, dreams and myths fuse together. From October 3 to February 28, 2010, you can live this experience in Copenhagen.
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How Portugal globalized the world

Two years ago, the Smithsonian Institution’s Freer and Sackler Galleries in Washington DC put together a special exhibition titled Encompassing the Globe: Portugal and the World in the 16th and 17th Centuries. It explained “how Portugal brought the world together” during the Age of Discovery and its pioneering role in global trade. It then travelled to Brussels in 2008, and now, from July 16 to October 11, at last it is shown in Lisbon, at the Ancient Art Museum, where you can also see some additional treasures not shown in the previous exhibitions.
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New opera season in Tallinn

The new season of the Estonian National Opera is definitely going to rejoice the visitors with its diverse repertoire and new productions. Fifteen opera productions, two operettas and one musical, eight ballet pieces, a show for the children, and many more delights expect those who will book in advance tickets for this 104th season, which opens September 4 and runs through the summer season in July 2010, with the traditional 3-week wrap-up presentation of the year.
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Have an Electric Picnic

With a host of musical acts, performance art, spoken word, green area, the ever popular Electric Picnic Festival is sure to amuse, entertain, engross and thoroughly engage the mind, body and soul. Back for its sixth year, and held a month later this year, on Friday 4th to Sunday 6th September, the Electric Picnic is Ireland's version of Glastonbury and certainly one of the best festivals in Europe. Don’t miss it at the rolling lawns of Stradbally Hall, a 600 acre estate at County Laois, less than an hour from Dublin.
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Who needs men?

For the first time in the world, a museum is displaying the feminine side of its own collections. This new presentation of the collections of the Centre Pompidou in Paris is entirely given over to the women artists from the 20th century to the present day. The show titled elles@centrepompidou is the third thematic exhibition of the collections of the National Modern Art Museum, following Big Bang in 2005 and the Mouvement des Images in 2006-2007. You can visit it until May 24, 2010.
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Copying Rembrandt

For the first time in history, Rembrandt’s complete oeuvre goes on show in the special exhibition hall at the Beurs van Berlage (Berlage Exhibition Centre) in Amsterdam. The exhibition, titled The Complete Rembrandt, Life-Size, shows all 317 paintings, 269 etchings and the most relevant of Rembrandt’s sketches and drawings in near-perfect reproductions that were made possible with the use of the latest digital photography and printing techniques. A number of Rembrandt’s damaged and mutilated paintings are also reconstructed for the exhibition, which runs through September 6.
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Big in Japan

When you’re big in Japan, imagine how big you must look in Vilnius! The first major exhibition of Japanese contemporary art in Lithuania is a fact and the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) is very proud to present it to the art-loving public. The Big in Japan exhibition runs through August 16 and features works by four distinguished Japanese artists: Yayoi Kusama, Hiraki Sawa, Go Watanabe and the artistic duo Paramodel. Parallel to the show, CAC is also presenting the 11th edition of the European Eyes on Japan/Japan Today photography exhibition.
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Words that changed the world

An once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see some unique historical treasures in Canada’s largest Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition is offered by the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) until January 3, 2010. The Dead Sea Scrolls: Words that Changed the World exhibition is displayed in the Garfield Weston Exhibition Hall of the museum and features sixteen authentic Dead Sea Scrolls during its six month engagement -eight different Scrolls for each three-month period- including fragments from the books of Genesis, Deuteronomy and Psalms.
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‘Picassos’ of Picasso go north

One of the most extensive and ambitious exhibitions that has been organized on Picasso to date, bringing together hundreds of works from the artist’s private collection and those he never wanted to lose, the so-called “picassos” of Picasso, is coming to Helsinki –the only Scandinavian capital to have this honour- for an unprecedented exhibition, which has taken art lovers by storm. All the works on display at the Ateneum Art Museum exhibition (from September 18 to January 6) are coming from the collections of the Musée National Picasso in Paris and had been on show last year at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid.
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Three in one in Danubiana

Fifteen kilometres south of Bratislava at the edge of a narrow peninsula in the middle of the great Danube you will find one of Europe’s youngest Museums of Modern Art. A visit to Danubiana is an inspiring experience by itself, as it is located where Slovakia, Austria and Hungary meet, against a backdrop of wide water way and high sky. A good opportunity to visit from September to November is the presentation of three exhibitions at the same time: works by painters Bert Loerakker and Milan Paštéka from the Netherlands and Slovakia respectively, alongside sculptures by Slovak artist Rudolf Uher.
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Transylvania's calling...

In an absolutely magical place, in the isolated wild mountains of Transylvania near Gara Riului, twenty minutes from the 12th century Saxon town of Sibiu, a special gathering is taking place every two years. The Transylvania Calling Festival is not for everyone. You have to really love nature, be a visionary, out of the mainstream. If you see yourself in this description then go the gathering of the Tribes with the most beautiful and interesting people around from 65 nations. Spend seven days of wonderland from 18 to 25 of August.
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How far can you see?

Twelve Finnish contemporary visual artists, each in their own way, reflect on the finiteness of human vision. Their variations in the form of photographs, video art and installations make up the exhibition presented at the Riga Art Space in the Latvian capital until August 23. The exhibition titled Variations on Transcending the Finiteness of Human Vision is produced by FRAME (Finnish Fund for Art Exchange) in collaboration with the Riga Art Space and the Riga Culture Agency.
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Don't forget '74

Young artists from Cyprus teamed up by poet Stavros Lambrakis join their voices against a collective loss of memory suffered by Cypriots today, 35 years after the dramatic events that culminated in the 1974Turkish invasion to the eastern Mediterranean island. The joined artists present their visual artworks, video clip projections, installations and conceptual works in an exhibition under the title Don’t Forget 74, which can be visited throughout the week from July 20 to September 11 at the old Manor House of Othonos Street, within the walled city of Nicosia.
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Breguet at the Louvre

A retrospective of the works of Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747-1823), the Swiss manufacturer of the watches that became status symbol of the rich and famous, is this summer’s treat at the Louvre in Paris. Running through September 7 at the Sully Wing, salle de la Chapelle, the Breguet and the Louvre: An Apogee of European Watchmaking exhibition assembles exceptional loans –watches, clocks and measuring instruments– alongside portraits, archival documents and patents that span Breguet’s entire career.
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Diamonds are forever…

A landmark show marking the 125th anniversary of the opening of the first Bulgari store in Rome is presented at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, which brings together nearly five hundred objects created between 1884 and 2009. The exhibition, which runs through September 13, intends to illustrate the origin and success of an absolutely distinctive style and, at the same time, celebrate the extraordinary technical and creative quality of the famous Roman maison.
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Matsalu films for nature

The Matsalu National Park is one of the biggest and most important autumn stopping grounds for migratory birds in Europe. It is in that area, 100 kilometres south-west of the Estonian capital Tallinn, that one of the few environmental film festivals in Europe take place. The Matsalu International Nature Film Festival is already presenting its 7th edition, from 16 to 20 of September 2009, with more than fifty films from at least thirty countries around the world.
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Who’s gone to the Croatan?

Social exclusion can take many forms. It may result from unfavorable circumstances, or from an autonomous decision taken by an individual whishing to be excluded. The project presented at the Centre of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu in Toruń, Poland, aims at exploring these practices and their causes with special attention given to the variety of gestures establishing private utopias. The exhibition showcasing video works and photographs by some twenty Polish artists runs until the end of September under the strange title Gone to the Croatan.
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Le Corbusier returns to Berlin

The first comprehensive exhibition since 1987 of the wide-ranging work of Swiss architect Le Corbusier is finally on show at Berlin’s Martin-Gropius-Bau, which is also underlining the architect’s links to Germany and Berlin. A total of about 380 exhibits are included in the exhibition Le Corbusier–Art and Architecture, which provides a chronological survey of his 60 year oeuvre. The exhibition can be visited until October 5.
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It’s our Earth 2!

We’re counting down. Many say that Earth has reached that point of no return, simply because people and their governments have done nothing all those years they were simply looking at the signs. But some people do something about it. By informing and educating there’s still some hope. This is the reason you must visit the exhibition It's our Earth 2 - The Copenhagen objective on show at the Tour &Taxis venue of Brussels, from September 10, 2009, to the end of March 2010. Go there and learn. And then press your politicians…
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A little grand festival in the Grand Duchy

And then, just as you thought that the cultural extravaganza in Luxembourg is gone together with the Summer, you realize you’re wrong. The party continues into the Fall with a particularly attractive October and November, thanks to two of the Grand Duchy’s most distinguished cultural institutions, the Philharmonie and the Grand Théâtre de la Ville de Luxembourg, who jointly present the Luxembourg Festival with an artistic programme of the highest calibre.
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