Top Czech photographers show their work

Six hundred eye-catching photographs are exhibited at Prague’s Old Town Hall giving everyone the opportunity to see what the top Czech and Slovak photo journalists captured in 2009 to win the annual prizes of the Czech Press Photo competition that is held in the Czech Republic for the 15th time. Until January 31, 2010, at the Cross Corridor and the Knight’s Hall of the Old Town Hall, more than 40,000 people are expected to visit the exhibition, with many more thousands viewers to see it when it travels abroad.
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Ouka Leele’ utopian images

Ouka Leele, a prestigious Spanish female photographer with an art career dating back to the late 70’s, ranks among the landmark figures of Europe as a contemporary of the American female artist Cindy Sherman. She is also one of the participants of the new wave cultural movement La Movida, which began in Spain, especially in Madrid, during the 80s with the arrival of Democracy, and swept all over the European continent. The Maltese public will have the opportunity to see some of her landmark works in a show presented at the St. James Cavalier Center’s Main Hall from January 8 until February 7, 2010.
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Mario Borg Sillato’s solo in Valletta

Maltese artist Mario Borg Sillato has been experimenting with a technique which simulates graffiato with scratching on wood surfaces and inlays of paint. These ''engravings' normally celebrate human and animal life, often depicted in a chiaroscuro style. Visitors to Valletta, Malta, have the opportunity to see his work in an exhibition mounted at the St. James Cavalier Centre for Creativity from November 27 to January 3, 2010.
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Jacek Malczewski’s Life on canvas

With a selection of 100 most outstanding oil paintings by Jacek Malczewski, the Polish Painting Gallery of the National Museum in Warsaw commemorates the 80th anniversary of the death of one of Poland's most celebrated artists of all time. My Life, Jacek Malczewski’s Works from the Collections of the National Museum in Warsaw brings together the best of the best of the artist’s œuvre, pulling it out of a stunning ensemble of 130 paintings and oil sketches as well as a set of about 1,000 drawings (pencil, ink, crayon), watercolors and nine sketchbooks. You can visit this remarkable show from December 4 until February 7, 2010.
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Life is a cabaret in Warsaw

Many foreigners who have been to Warsaw’s Sabat Theatre have felt that they had gone back in time to a pre-war Parisian cabaret venue or walked onto the set of Moulin Rouge. Adorned with plush red and gold furnishings, Toulouse-Lautrec paintings and feather-laden showgirls, the revue theatre in Foksal Street was established by dancer, choreographer and director, Malgorzata Potocka, to entertain VIPs, diplomats and tourists alike. Treat yourselves with some good old cabaret entertainment next time you are in Warsaw and watch one or more of the shows onstage all year round.
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Waldemarsudde’s treats for 2010

Five exhibitions will be hosted in 2010 at Stockholm’s Waldemarsudde, one of the most-visited art museums in Sweden, originally the home of Prince Eugen, son of Oscar II (1865-1947), which is highly recommended as a whole-day visit. From paintings of Ivar Arosenius (Jan 30-Apr 11) and sculptures of Per Hasselberg (Feb 20-May 30), to the Art of Medicine show (May 8-Aug 29), Prince Eugen's art collection and the Ring and Crown exhibition (Jun 15–Oct 3) on the occasion of the royal wedding, this fascinating museum has something for everyone!
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Luc Tuymans opens Malmö's Moderna

Malmö's Moderna Museum opens to the public for the first time and presents its very special virgin show: the solo exhibition of Antwerp-born Luc Tuymans that features 22 new paintings, created by the artist especially for this traveling event that comes to Sweden directly from Moscow's Baibakov Art Projects. The show, titled Against the Day, is the third and last part of a triptych that began with the series Les Revenants, which was referring to the power of the Jesuit Order and Forever. The Management of Magic, which was about the Walt Disney phenomenon. The exhibition runs from December 26, 2009 to April 25, 2010.
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First Roman one-man show of A. Calder works

For the first time in Rome, a major one-man exhibition featuring works by Alexander Calder gives us the opportunity to see up close the American artist’s famous Mobiles and Stabiles, wire sculptures, gouaches, drawings and oil painting and explore the fundamental stages of his creative cycle. From October 23, 2009 to February 14, 2010 the show at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni documents Calder’s entire creative cycle.
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The Age of Courbet and Monet

An exhibition rich of masterpieces that tell about the relationship between the Barbizon school of France and the diffusion of realism and naturalism in Central and Eastern Europe brings together from museums all over the world 134 works by Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Van Gogh and many others who can be compared with the main painters of countries of Central and Eastern Europe. If you happen to be in Udine, visit The Age of Courbet and Monet at the majestic ensemble of Villa Manin in Passariano until March 7, 2010.
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Candida Höfer’s Florentine ‘Portraits of Spaces’

Twenty monumental photographs by the German photographer Candida Höfer can be seen at the Palazzo Medici Riccardi’s exhibition Candida Höfer In Italy, Part 1: Florence. Portraits of Spaces. The exhibition, which runs from December 11, 2009 to January 24, 2010, takes place under the auspices of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and gives the visitor a unique opportunity to see some of Florence’s most impressive interiors of libraries, museums and theatres gathered together in one show.
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Sibiu welcomes The Breton Muse

An encounter with graphic art pieces coming from the collections of the Musée des beaux-arts de Rennes and signed by famous Breton artists in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, the exhibition The Breton Muse on show until February 7, 2010, at Sibiu’s Brukenthal Palace, in the Polyvalent Hall of The Blue House (first floor), is part of the cultural events organized by the cities of Rennes, France and Sibiu, Romania, to celebrate the ten years of their twining association.
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Balkan artists join forces

Artists from Greece, Romania, Serbia, Albania and Bulgaria join forces and present a group show to exchange views and express their will for collaboration and the quest for common cultural grounds. This interesting reunion takes place at Bucharest’s Cotroceni National Museum until January 15, 2010, giving the visitor an opportunity to discover common Balkan tendencies in contemporary art. The exhibition Balkanic Art Inspirations is a joint project with the Melenia Art Gallery.
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Talking about the misplaced individual

If you happen to live in or near Romania and want to see a really thought-provoking exhibit, be sure to check this one out. The Wakefield Meadows exhibition at Bucharest’s Center for contemporary art & culture Pavillion Unicredit from December 3 until February 7, 2010, is an artificial living environment generated by the real-life experiences of curator Anca Mihulet and of the artists Adrian Alecu, Olivia Mihaltianu, >projektgruppe<, SOSka and Adrien Tirtiaux.
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Le goût à la grecque

The transition from heavily ornate rococo to a classicizing aesthetic inspired by the Greek antiquity during the reign of Louis XV is at the heart of the National Gallery’s latest exhibition, titled Le goût à la grecque – The birth of Neoclassicism in France. Masterpieces from the Musée du Louvre. Curated by Marie-Laure de Rochebrune, the state-of-the-art show features mainly exhibits gleaned from the Louvre in Paris, like paintings, sculptures, tapestries and etchings as well as furniture, tobacco cases, vases and watches. You can visit it until January 11, 2010.
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Chichon’s mark in LNSO’s new season

There’s no doubt that the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra is one of the calling cards of this Baltic country. Over the past few years the LNSO has, as Latvians put it, “picked up its strength” as the artistic level of the orchestra keeps growing, along with the numbers of its listeners. In the 2009/10 concert season, running until May 14, 2010, the orchestra is in the care of an outstanding Artistic Director, Gibraltar-born British conductor Karel Mark Chichon, hailed as one of today’s most exciting young artists, a conductor of genius as the New York Times put it.
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Denmark from Glaciers to Global Warming

On the occasion of the United Nations Climate Change Conference taking place in Copenhagen from 7 to 18 of December, the National Museum of Denmark is making a contribution to the debate with the Climate exhibition t at explains how and why the Danish climate and landscape have changed, from the freezing Ice Ages through warm dark primal forest until today, with a peek into the future. This excellent show is a must-see when in Copenhagen and you can visit it until March 7, 2010.
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Art Deco, 85 years later

Bringing together a remarkable set of more than 150 porcelains, ceramics, glass, paintings, drawings, sculptures, jewellery and furniture designed to evoke the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts held in Paris, in 1925, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon presents the excellent show Art Deco 1925, paying homage to an artistic style that confirmed itself from the 1920s onwards. The show runs until January 3, 2010.
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Factory: A visualization of labour

When graphic artist Mariusz Waras and avant-garde musician Krzysztof Topolski worked together, they produced Factory, a spectacular site-specific installation that was created specifically to be exhibited in the biggest room of CoCA or Center of Contemporary Art-Znaki Czasu in Toruń, the medieval town by the Vistula River in northern Poland that gave birth to Nicolaus Copernicus. The exhibition gives a good excuse to visit it until January 17, 2010.
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Rosângela Rennó’s Ring

Brazilian artist Rosângela Rennó's work is predominantly photography-based, although she rarely takes photographs of her subjects. Instead, she recasts and transforms appropriated photographic images. In the past, she presented anonymous portraits compiled from existing photographs - photographers' studios and even photographs of prisoners' tattoos. From November 23 to January 15, 2010, the Pharos Centre for Contemporary Art in Nicosia is presenting an exhibition of her works, titled Ring, as part of the Brazilian Culture Month 2009.
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Two weeks of Cinemania

With ninety films onscreen, the Cinemania festival in Sofia is today one of the country’s most significant cinema events running every year this season for two weeks. This year’s 23rd edition, opens November 13 with Carlos Saura’s most latest production I, Don Giovanni, an elegant retelling of the story behind the creation of one of Mozart’s operatic masterpieces.Screenings in five of Sofia’s cinema theatres (Hall 1 of the National Palace of Culture, Euro Cinema, Odeon, Kino Liumier and Dom na kinoto) run until December 3.Part of the programme will be on the silver screen of Plovdiv’s Lucky Cinema from 12 to 30 of November.

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Lisbon’s Alma Africana

Lisbon was the first European city to develop trade and cultural ties with Africa, bringing the art and culture of different civilizations to the Old Continent. To see how European and specifically Portuguese culture influenced African art and vice versa, you should visit Lisbon’s African Soul (Alma Africana) exhibition at Páteo da Galé, a space in Praça do Comércio, through the arches next to the city’s main tourism office. The exhibition is open every day except Mondays until February 7 and offers free entries on Sundays and Wednesdays.
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Avaton Contemporary Music Festival

Two full days of lectures, demonstrations, workshops and concerts by two young artists who use their knowledge and classical music backgrounds combined with advanced technological tools to create new sounds and merge art and science, is an event that cannot be missed in the weekend of December 12-13 in Limassol’s Technohoros Ethal in Cyprus. The Avaton Contemporary Music Festival is here to make you wonder where are the limits of calling an art piece an art?
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Renaissance Art along the Danube

Take advantage of your visit to Bratislava any time between December 18, 2009 and March 28, 2010 to visit the Slovak National Gallery’s Esterhazy Palace along the Danube River, which plays host to the Renaissance exhibition, the first in a series of shows examining ‘The History of Slovak Fine Art’ from the 15th to the 20th century. The Renaissance exhibition comprises artworks that originated from this territory or abroad but were related to Slovakia, between the Gothic and Baroque periods.
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Reliving history

If you played with toy soldiers when you were little, if you are a history buff, or if you are looking to see (and learn) something different while visiting the Czech Republic, head to the town of Slavkov near Brno. Slavkov? Never heard of it? Maybe the town's German name, Austerlitz, rings a bell. In 1805, the town's surroundings witnessed the Battle of the Three Emperors, also known simple as the Battle of Austerlitz.
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Madrid remembers Darwin's Evolution

Celebrating Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday and commemorating the 150th anniversary of the publication of his masterpiece The Origin of Species, the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid presents Darwin’s Evolution, an exhibition that features the great English naturalist’s theory on Evolution by Natural Selection, one of the most important achievements in science. The exhibition will remain open to the public until January 11, 2010.
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Anthony McCall: let there be light!

Beginning in the 1970s, Anthony McCall creates art based on the beam of the film projector in the darkened cinema, working on the boundary between the most influential styles and genres in postwar art –minimalism, film, performance and drawing. In this exhibition, Stockholm’s Moderna Museet presents two of his large light installations from the 2000s, along with numerous drawings, from October 8 to December 6, 2009.
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Three-in-one at Riga’s kim?

The latest addition to Riga’s cultural map, the Latvian Contemporary Arts Museum kim? is pushing hard with a dynamic agenda in its virgin year. With two exhibitions -Guido van der Werve’s Everything is Going to Be Alright and Gints Gabrāns’ White Point- and one installation –Candyland’ Global Trash- running from November 7 until December 13, kim? presents its Climate thematic cycle and drops the question: what is art?/what is museum? (kas ir māksla?/kas ir muzejs? in Latvian).
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Dressing up Bulgarian movies

More than 500 spectacular costumes, weapons, props and photographs from Bulgarian movies produced from the 50's to early 80's -the golden age of Bulgarian cinema- can be seen until the end of February in an exhibition at Sofia’s National Museum of History. The exhibition is dedicated to the Day of the Leaders of the Bulgarian National Revival and is curated by producer Evgeny Mihailov who had been directing the famed Nu Boyana Film Studios for nine years. Art director and designer of the show is Rumyana Troshanova, who has created sets for more than 150 theatre productions in Bulgaria.
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Through a broken mirror

The famed Greek-Cypriot architect Zenon Sierepeklis presents his most important architectural projects alongside works of art from different fields in an exhibition titled Through a Broken Mirror at the Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre. Sierepeklis’ architectural drawings are displayed next to the sculptures and his photographic work, while artworks are complemented by extracts from interviews that the architect gave to various publications. You can visit the exhibition until January 17, 2010.
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Love at first sight

Set in a beautiful park overooking across the Kolding Fjord in the southern Danish Syddanmark Region, the Trapholt Museum of art, design and handicraft presents a splendid art exhibition this autumn under the title Love at first sight. The exhibition, which runs through February 28, 2010, features works from the famed German Würth collection, making a stroll through 20th century international modern art. From impressionism to expressionism, surrealism, op art and pop art, meet the likes of great names in European and American art: Munch, Baselitz, Magritte, Pissarro, Kiefer, Lichtenstein, Kapoor, Warhol and many others.
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A Different Štefan Galič

The fruit of collaboration between the International Centre of Graphic Arts (MGLC) in Ljubljana and the Gallery-Museum Lendava next to the Hungarian-Croatian border, the retrospective exhibition A Different Štefan Galič features the full artistic and human scope of the famous Slovenian painter and printmaker Štefan Galič. In Lendava, where a full record of Galič’s painting oeuvre is kept, the exhibition fills a gap in the scholarly treatment and interpretation of the artist, while in Ljubljana we can see Galič’s graphic production, presented in a new way. Both exhibitions run until January 10, 2010.
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Exploring the Return of Repression

An exhibition at Bucharest’s Center for contemporary art & culture Pavilion Unicredit until November 22 asks the crucial questions that can help us understand the reasons why it is so often that regimes and governments turn against their own citizens. Through paintings, photographs and installations by Romanian and international artists, curator Răzvan Ion assisted by Silvia Vasilescu make the key equation: Repression manages poverty. Poverty depresses wages. Low wages increase the rate of exploitation and create profit. Which is the main purpose of the state.
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New season at the Royal Danish Theatre

Nine premieres of entirely newly created musical drama, reaching from the spectacular to the intimate and from the classical to the avant-garde are on offer in this Royal Danish Opera 2009/10 season. The ballet menu for this season includes nine wide-ranging and sharply focused productions, embracing everything from grand historical masterpieces to pure abstract neo-classicism, from the lyrically romantic to the demandingly modern, from showbiz to artistic stringency. And there’s more… Eleven grand concerts at the Old Stage, the Takkelloftet and the Koncerthuset demand your attention!
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Sunday Cultural Tours in Malta

Eight Cultural Tours from November 2009 until May 2010 are on offer by the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts and those interested in exploring some of the most beautiful hidden treasures of the tiny island nation in the middle of the Mediterranean should take them seriously under consideration. Enhancing the understanding of the local culture and serving to encourage appreciation of Maltese historical heritage and traditions these special Sunday tours are designed to satisfy the most demanding of the cultural travelers.
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Two days for the xperimental spirits

Celebrating its 8th year, the Pantheon International Xperimental Film & Animation Festival continues to pioneer within the experimental scene of Cyprus, while the Pantheon Cultural Association in Nicosia strives to enforce its annual festival into a globally well established entity which will continue to keep standards and a niche to those interested in the field. The 8th edition of the festival was embraced by 136 artists and runs for two days, November 27 and 28, at the Pantheon Gallery and Pantheon Tritos on the third floor.
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Remembering Rihard Jakopič

This year marks the 140th anniversary of the birth of Rihard Jakopič (1869-1943), one of Slovenia’s most important impressionist painters. The Ljubljana City Museum pays homage to this anniversary, which is also coinciding with a century since the opening of a pavilion he had commissioned at the Ljubljana Tivoli park. The exhibition runs from October 27 to January 21, 2010, and you should combine it with a visit to the charming Krakovo neighbourhood, where the artist was born.
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Slovenia under Napoleon’s Eagle

Few know that Slovenia would probably not be what it is today, were it not for Napoleon Bonaparte and his short-lived occupation of the northern Balkan country two hundred years ago. At the height of his power Napoleon founded the Illyrian Provinces and chose Ljubljana as the capital of a new, ethnically and geographically diverse country. To commemorate the 200th anniversary of Illyrian Provinces, the National Museum in Ljubljana presents the exhibition Under Napoleon's Eagle that brings to life all three periods under the French occupation. You can view it from October 15 to February 28, 2010.
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