This year the Eurozone is going to be the big political subject; fragmentation the looming concern. Culturally too, one would think that Europe, with 23 official languages, and another 60 minority languages spoken, is too much of a warren to be able to find any possible unanimity. But two ambitious projects are afoot in Brussels: to enable the translating of major literature across languages, and to join up all the museums, galleries and centres of knowledge in one great cultural cornucopia. And before you mutter that this is as exciting as sprouts, think for a moment of the implications - an online equivalent of a vast library of all the major known cultures, a gigantic linking of the great libraries, museums, galleries and universities in a single place for all humanity to access.
With the lightning speed of online delivery, there is still masses of time to select the best and most enjoyable presents for Christmas, thanks to the taste and wisdom of theartsdesk's pack of writers.
In England you may joke about having Siberian weather with minus 7 degrees. This is really what Siberian winter looks like - at minus 26 degrees. The river is gushing steam, a hellishly peculiar sight. After travelling for 16 hours and through seven time zones to get to Krasnoyarsk at six in the morning, I am not sure I’m seeing what I’m seeing.
The Celtic Tiger ran rampant through Ireland during the boom years of 1995-2007 when national institutions expanded their collections, galleries popped up and collectors, buyers and artists had a rare time. With literature, the new young Chick Lit writers made their mark, sometimes even outselling the serious contemporaries, and Seamus Heaney rightly got a Nobel Prize. With the crash, prices in Dublin’s major art auction houses fell by 50 per cent as the blinged-up property developers froze; if they did buy, they shifted from contemporary to reassuringly Irish "genre paintings" of peasants in rural landscapes and thatched cottages by the sea.
With the Frieze Art Fair now upon us, the only sane response for anyone interested in art is to leave London until the wretched event is over. Art fairs are for art what pimps are for virgins, to misquote Barnett Newman. The work, in other words, doesn’t stand a chance. And just as supermarkets don’t give shelf space to products for you to admire the packaging, art fairs don’t display work for you to look at and enjoy. In each case, the point is to purchase.
The 2010 Brighton Photo Biennial has seen unprecedented numbers of visitors flock to the coast, and tonight will host a talk by one of the most original fine-art photographers working in Britain today. Wolfgang Tillmans will explore his unique and hugely influential approach to photography and the relationship between contemporary art and documentary and will undoubtedly cite his latest projects, the refreshing summer exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery and the recently launched, more audacious event at Liverpool’s Walker Art Gallery.
Famous for its fast cars, casino, and stashing away Sir Philip Green’s gazillions, the principality of Monaco certainly isn’t a destination short on bling, nor a sense of faded, somewhat seedy glamour. So it probably isn’t high on anyone’s list for culture, least of all for contemporary art. But things are definitely on the turn: a new museum offering a genuinely challenging programme of international contemporary art has recently opened.
Sergei Diaghilev was not short of self-belief. He appointed himself the man to introduce European modern art to Russia and then Russian modern art to Europe as the 20th century began, and in doing so he defined himself as the ultimate artistic director, as the remarkable, tentacular exhibition at the V&A Museum that opened yesterday shows. Reviewed elsewhere on theartsdesk, the exhibition's mounting has thrown up extraordinary inside dramas - the telltale paper found in the boning of a 1916 tutu, the unlikely discovery of a stellar bust in a junk shop, and the legendary artists' sweat that no cleaning can obliterate.
Sergei Diaghilev was not short of self-belief. He appointed himself the man to introduce European modern art to Russia and then Russian modern art to Europe as the 20th century began, and in doing so he defined himself as the ultimate artistic director, as the remarkable, tentacular exhibition at the V&A Museum that opened yesterday shows. Reviewed elsewhere on theartsdesk, the exhibition's mounting has thrown up extraordinary inside dramas - the telltale paper found in the boning of a 1916 tutu, the unlikely discovery of a stellar bust in a junk shop, and the legendary artists' sweat that no cleaning can obliterate.
When it’s 33 degrees and rising, boarding a ferry in New York has to be a good plan. One of the newest and weirdest of the city’s watery destinations is Governors Island (no apostrophe - it was removed in 1783 when the British, who used it to house His Majesty’s Governors, surrendered it to New York state). It’s just 800 yards and 10 minutes away from Battery Park, with a terminal next to Staten Island’s, though the free ferry only runs on Fridays and weekends, when the island is open to the public. When the last ferry boat to New York leaves at seven - that is when there’s no evening concert: Roseanne Cash, She and Him and MIA played recently at the poetically named Watertaxi Beach - the island is completely empty.