Arts Guide: Exhibitions around the world

KUNSTHALLE WIEN -- To Feb. 3: "True Romance: Allegorien der Liebe von der Renaissance bis Heute." Attempting to document the interpretation of the phenomenon of love in the arts, the exhibition brings together paintings from the Renaissance (when interpretations of love often referred to ancient myths) to today's art when love is expressed -- to the viewer's puzzlement -- by a bulb installation (Tim Noble), graffiti (Cy Twombly) or an spill formation of silver-wrapped candy (Felix Gonzales-Torres). The exhibition will travel to Munich and Kiel, Germany.www.kunsthallewien.at

-- To Feb. 17: "¡Viva la Muerte! Kunst und Tod in Lateinamerika." "Our cult of the dead is a cult of life," the Mexican author and Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz said, advocating that Latin Americans enjoy a specific familiarity with death. The show is, maybe somewhat dissuasively, presented as "a theater of cruelty unfolding the various facets of violencia in an aesthetically condensed manner." It brings together contemporary paintings, sculptures, photographs and videos that reflect the association between Eros and Thanatos and range from the sensational to the documentary. -- www.kunsthallewien.at

MUSEUM MODERNER KUNST, MUMOK -- To Feb. 10: "China: Facing Reality." In cooperation with the National Museum of China, Beijing, the museum displays more than 200 Chinese artworks that document the relationship between art and social reality. Contrasting the individual and the collective seems to be the recurrent theme in the works of the "cynical realists," Fang Lijun, Yue Minjung, Zhang Ziaogang and Liu Xiadong (whose works reach record prices in Chinese art sales) who started working at the end of the 1970s. The generation that followed uses digital photography, video, film and computer animation to express concern about identity in a society oscillating between tradition and determined innovation. -- www.mumok.at

BELGIUM / BRUSSELS

KOEKELBERG BASILICA -- To March 15: "Leonardo da Vinci: The European Genius." The ambitious exhibition focuses on Leonardo (1452-1515) as the epitome of the European Renaissance man: artist, inventive engineer and humanist, as exemplified by a few paintings, codices and replicas of his machines. Of note, a portrait of Mary Magdalene painted on wood that was only recently attributed to the artist. -- www.expo-davinci.eu

MUSÉE DU CINQUANTENAIRE -- To April 27: "De Gilgamesh à Zénobie: Arts Anciens du Proche-Orient et de l'Iran." A selection of artworks from the museum's vast collection of art from the Middle East and Iran, a region that has been in turmoil for decades. The Louvre has loaned a dozen additional works. They document the oft-forgotten contributions of the Middle Eastern cultures to human civilization in various fields: writing, counting, economics, and aesthetic rules. Bronzes from Luristan, cylinder-seals, Sumerian sculptures, cuneiform tablets, weapons and other silver artifacts are in the show. -- www.mrah.be

MUSEES ROYAUX DES BEAUX-ARTS -- To Jan. 27: "Rubens: L'Atelier du Génie." The 60 works on loan from the Louvre, the Prado and the Met, among others, complement the museum's holdings of Rubens's works, painted either alone or in collaboration with Brueghel the Elder and Cornelis de Vos. They cover the Flemish painter's (1577-1640) most creative period after 1614 at his large workshop in Antwerp. -- www.fine-arts-museum.be -- To March 30: "Alechinsky from A to Y." b With the collaboration of the Cobra artist (b. 1927), the museum has been assembling a selection of his paintings, drawings, engravings and book illustrations that document his method of developing images through transformation and mutation, and the diversity of his technique: painting, drawings and "infeuilletables" (books made of stone or porcelain). In the mid-1960s, Alechinsky adopted what has become his trademark: a central subject surrounded by predellas. -- www.fine-arts-museum.be i

PALAIS DES BEAUX-ARTS, BOZAR -- To Feb. 3: "Autour du Globe: Le Portugal dans le Monde aux XVIe et XVIIe Siècles." Prince Henry the Navigator may not have sailed farther than Ceuta but he launched sailors on voyage routes to Africa in the mid-1400s, the first tack into the building of the Portuguese trading empire. Focusing on the two centuries that followed the discovery of America, the exhibition first brings together maps, navigational instruments and manuscripts that attest to the Portuguese knowledge of geography and navigation, as well as paintings, sculptures, manuscripts and other objects created in those ports where the Portuguese anchored in Africa, Brazil and Asia.-- www.bozar.be

BRITAIN / LONDON

BARBICAN CENTRE -- To Jan. 27: "Seduced: Art and Sex From Antiquity to Now." Attempting to define the fine line between art and pornography, the exhibition explores the representation of sex in art, from Roman marbles, Japanese shunga or erotic prints, Baroque paintings, 19th- and 20th-century photography and contemporary art. Works by 70 artists, such as Carracci, Fragonard, Utamaro, Klimt, Schiele, Bellmer, Bacon and Marlene Dumas, to mention a few, are on display. Viewers will be entertained by the bronze fig leaf placed on Michelangelo's David before Queen Victoria's visit. The show is not open to under-18s. -- www. barbican.org.uk

BRITISH MUSEUM -- To April 6: "The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army." Focusing on one of the main archaeological discoveries of the 20th century, the exhibition brings together 12 of the famous terra-cotta warriors from Xi'an, China, as well as figures of acrobats, musicians and bureaucrats that have been excavated since 1998. They were buried alongside China's First Emperor, Qin Shihuangdi, who unified the country in 221 B.C. (The emperor's tomb mound itself is still sealed and to be explored). The show examines the emperor's life and achievements, as well as his quest for eternal life. The exhibits will travel to Atlanta in November.-- www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

COURTAULD INSTITUTE OF ART -- To March 9: "Medieval Ivories From the Thomson Collection." The Art Gallery of Ontario, in Toronto, is being rebuilt under the aegis of the American architect Frank Gehry. It will house the full collection of medieval ivories from which 45 items have been selected for the exhibition. They include statuettes, folding diptychs, boxes and various instruments, both religious and secular, that attest to the skill of carvers of ivory, a hard and resistant material. (The sale of ivory is protected by strict legislation but not banned, contrary to conventional wisdom). -- www.courtauld.ac.uk

ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS -- To Jan. 27: "An American's Passion for British Art: Paul Mellon's Legacy." Paul Mellon, the scion of a powerful American banking family was an enlightened collector of British art. He donated his collection to Yale University, and funded the building that would house it. On loan from the Yale Center of British Art, the 150 paintings, drawings, prints and books range from early Americana to paintings by the most famous British artists (Reynolds, Gainsborough, Stubbs, Constable, Turner and Blake). The show also includes a selection of watercolors, a medium much favored by British artists from the 19th century (Bonington, Paul Sandby, Turner). -- www.royalacademy.org.uk

TATE BRITAIN -- To Feb. 3: "Hockney on Turner Watercolours." The Turner (1775-1851) oil paintings usually draw crowds here; this time, the watercolors have been put under the limelight, with the help of David Hockney (b. 1937), who has selected some color studies and provides commentary. About 150 works document the artist's use of the medium to depict landscapes, seascapes and architecture. -- www.tate.org.uk/britain

-- To Feb. 10: "Allen Jones." Like other Pop artists of his generation, Jones drew upon popular culture for his imagery. He is best known for controversial depictions of female figures based on the style of 1940s and 1950s fetish magazines. There is also an important technical side to his work, much of which has been in opposition to the formalist doctrine of abstract painting. His work has become increasingly complex in terms of the space he creates and, since the 1980s, paintings of parties, performers and the theatre even suggest a narrative. This is especially clear in his latest, multi-part works. -- www.tate.org.uk/britain

-- To April 18: "From Russia: French and Russian Master Paintings, 1870-1925, From Moscow and St. Petersburg." The display offers about 120 French and Russian paintings on loan from the Pushkin Museum and Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, and the Hermitage and Russian Museums in St. Petersburg. The quality of the paintings attests to the tastes of bold collectors and patrons such as Pavel Tretyakov, Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morosov. The exhibition is organized in four sections: works by Russian realists (Repin, Levitan) juxtaposed with contemporary French painters of the Barbizon school (Millet, Daubigny); Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings; a focus on Diaghilev, who promoted exchange of art between France and Russia (Benois, Bakst); and, works devoted to the rapid evolution of styles in France and Russia in the early decades of the 20th century. -- www.tate.org.uk/britain

TATE MODERN -- To March 1: "Popular Painting From Kinshasa." Contemporary African art is a curatorial trend. "Africa Remix," a wide-ranging exhibition of African works, traveled throughout Europe and to Japan a couple of years ago. The Guggenheim Bilbao displayed the works of 25 African artists this winter. By contrast, this is a very small exhibition of eight paintings, from the Tate collection, by five Congolese painters, collectively known as the "School of Popular Painting," who live and work in Kinshasa. The works by Chéri Samba, Chéri Chérin, Bodo, Moke and Cheik Ledy (all born in the 1950s and '60s) reflect the artists' interest in the political and social situations of their local communities. -- www.tate.org/Modern

CHINA / BEIJING

BEIJING WORLD ART MUSEUM -- To end 2008: "The Great Civilizations." International collaboration between European and American institutions, such as the Metropolitan Museum, the Philadelphia Museum, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and the Turin Museum, among others, has resulted in 300 artworks being sent to Beijing. The exhibition, which is supposed to acquaint the Chinese public with world art, documents the principal ancient civilizations from Mesopotamia, India, Egypt, Greece and Rome and the Maya civilization of Mexico.

PALACE MUSEUM -- To April 10: "Monk Paintings: Paintings by Four Monks in the Qing Dynasty." The four prominent monk painters active in the early decades of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), Hongren, Kuncan, Bada Shanren and Shitao, converted to Buddhism under different circumstances. Developing their own personal style, they gained spiritual comfort through painting and calligraphy. The "Four Monk Painters" (as they are traditionally known) received praise in their day and exerted great influence over their contemporaries. The exhibition showcases 77 works by the four artists. -- www.dpm.org.cn

DENMARK / HUMLEBAEK

LOUISIANA MUSEUM FOR MODERNE KUNST -- To Jan. 27: "Lucian Freud." "I paint what I see, not what you hope that I see," said Freud (b. 1922). The display of his figurative work includes about 60 paintings and 20 works on paper created over the past 60 years. In the 1940s, the artist experimented with strange juxtapositions of people and plants; starting in the '50s, Freud took to painting portraits and nudes after his friends, family and lovers. The very personal angle of vision adds an expression of inner beauty to the raw depictions of the models. The exhibition will travel to The Hague. -- www.louisiana.dk

FRANCE / PARIS

CENTRE POMPIDOU -- To Feb. 11: "L'Atelier d'Alberto Giacometti." A large monographic show that gathers 600 works, including 200 sculptures, 60 paintings, 170 drawings as well as photographs and miscellaneous documents. The exhibition is arranged chronologically and thematically to document Giacometti's creative process as a multi-faceted artist. -- www.centrepompidou.fr

GALERIES NATIONALES DU GRAND PALAIS -- To Jan. 28: "Courbet." A large monographic exhibition that brings together 120 paintings and 30 works on paper by the French artist (1819-77). Departing from classical subjects explored by other artists, Courbet drew inspiration from his native Franche-Comté region in eastern France. After staging himself in emotional self-portraits, he created realistic group scenes featuring ordinary people ("A Burial at Ornans, 1849-50"), and landscapes and seascapes, that are juxtaposed with contemporary photography. He also explored the female nude: the famous "Origin of the World, 1866," a close-up of a woman's sex, on loan from the Musée d'Orsay, is paired here with the painting by André Masson that hid it from view when it hung in the home of the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Three dullish depictions of a trout conclude the show: They were painted after the artist's imprisonment and exile following the French Commune. -- www.rmn.fr/gustavecourbet/

MUSÉE DU LOUVRE -- To Jan. 28: "Polidoro da Caravaggio: Dessins du Louvre." Nothing much is known - even by Giorgio Vasari - about Polidoro da Caravaggio (c. 1499-c. 1543) who painted in Rome, Naples and Messina and was trained in Raphael's studio. The exhibition offers the one easel work to be found in a French collection, as well as a series of drawings that reflect a feverish, monochromatic vision of the world. -- www.louvre.fr

MUSÉE MARMOTTAN MONET -- To Feb. 3: "A l'Apogée de l'Impressionisme: La Collection du Dr. G. de Bellio." A selection of artworks that once belonged to the Romanian-born Georges de Bellio and are now held in public and private collections. The 19th-century collector befriended and supported Monet and Pissarro as they were struggling to sell their controversial paintings; he also treated them with homeopathy. The display features works by Monet, Manet, Morisot, Renoir and Sisley, as well as drawings by 18th-century French painters first acquired by Bellio when he started his collection. -- www.marmottan.com

PINACOTHÈQUE -- To March 2: "Chaïm Soutine: Le Fou de Smilovitchi." Soutine (1893-1943) is not easy to apprehend, as one will realize after seeing the show which, unfortunately, is held in a claustrophobic venue whose colored walls clash with the paintings. Soutine left his native Lithuania in 1912 to study in Paris, and was soon acquainted with the members of the Ecole de Paris, the amorphous group of foreign (often Jewish) artists living in Montparnasse. Most of the paintings -- portraits, landscapes, still lifes and a couple of the butcher's carcasses -- are small and tortured in the Expressionist fashion, and the colors, even when bright, seem toned down. Modigliani and Van Gogh were obvious sources of inspiration. -- www.pinacotheque.com

VERSAILLES

CHÂTEAU DE VERSAILLES -- To March 9: "Quand Versailles Était Meublé d'Argent." Before a megalomaniac Louis XIV of France had the silver melted to finance his wars at the end of the 17th century, visitors to the Palace were dazzled by the luxurious silver furniture that filled the Hall of Mirrors and the state rooms. On display are similar furniture items -- tables, seats, mirrors, chandeliers and candlesticks, and vases -- commissioned by other European courts in the early 18th century. Installed in a succession of rooms, they recreate the glittering ambiance of the royal reception rooms. -- www.chateauversailles.fr

GERMANY / BONN

KUNST- UND AUSSTELLUNGSHALLE DER BUNDESREPUBLIK DEUTSCHLAND -- To Jan. 27: "Ägyptens Versunkene Schätze." The hundreds of artifacts -- monumental statues, jewelry and cult items -- that were extracted from the seabed off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt, by the French underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio, have already delighted many in Berlin and Paris. They chart 1,500 years of Egyptian history from the Pharaohs, to Alexander the Great and to the Roman era. The exhibition also offers insights into the world of underwater archaeology. -- www.kah-bonn.de

FRANKFURT

SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE -- To Jan. 27: "Kunstmaschinen Maschinenkunst." Art is man-made, they say. Can it also be machine-made? The exhibition displays "art machines" conceived by such artists as Damien Hirst, Olafur Eliasson, Rebecca Horn and Jon Kessler, among others, that transform art space into production space. The public may take home some of the works produced, for instance sheets by Hirst and Eliasson, but will be left pondering about the quality of art when the responsibility of creativity is passed on to a machine. -- www.schirn.de

STÄDEL MUSEUM -- To Feb. 17: "Cranach der Ältere." More popular and financially more successful than his contemporary Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), Cranach (1472-1553) exerted a great influence on German imagery, particularly through his early landscapes and his interpretations of classical religious themes. His erotic scenes probably inspired Picasso and Giacometti. As a painter of the Reformation, Cranach made his contribution to the Lutherian doctrine with his portraits of the church reformer, while remaining loyal to his Catholic clients with images of the Virgin. More than 100 works are in the show and will travel to London. -- www.staedelmuseum.de

MUNICH

ALTE PINAKOTHEK -- To Feb. 24: "Parmigianino: The Madonna." The Mannerist painter (1503-40), who worked in Parma, Rome and Bologna, created many depictions of the Virgin Mary and Child. Approximately one-third of his surviving paintings portray the Madonna, in formats ranging from small private devotional pictures to major altar pieces. The exhibition assembles selected paintings and drawings by Parmigianino and Bedoli (a contemporary to whom Parmigianino's Munich Madonna was once attributed). The Graphisches Sammlung simultaneously displays Parmigianino's etchings on loan from the Georg Baselitz's collection. -- www.pinakothek.de/alte-pinakothek/

PINAKOTHEK DER MODERNE -- To Jan. 27: "Max Beckman: Exil in Amsterdam." After his paintings were branded as "degenerate art" by the Nazis in 1937, Beckmann (1884-1950) moved to Amsterdam where he lived for 10 years before settling in the United States. There, the German artist created five of his nine triptychs, as well as the "Day and Dream" graphic series in which he observed everyday life in the Dutch city. The works include the "Carnival," "Acrobats," "Actors" and "Perseus" triptychs. -- www.pinakothek.de

GREECE / ATHENS

BENAKI MUSEUM -- To March 9: "Stephen Antonakos: A Retrospective." The Greek-American artist (b. 1926) has played an influential role in the evolution of light art and has remained faithful to neons as a medium for the past four decades. (Dan Flavin is the best-known representative of an art form that uses neons and other forms of light to create permanent or ephemeral artworks). The 250 works include Antonakos's major neon works as well as drawings and models for his Chapels and Meditation Rooms. -- www.benaki.gr

HERAKLEIDON -- To May 4: "Toulouse-Lautrec and the Belle Époque in Paris and Athens." A display of about 70 original posters, prints and drawings by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901). Like Degas who depicted race tracks and ballet, the French artist drew his inspiration from leisurely activities held in dance halls, cabarets, theaters and brothels, all of which he frequented assiduously. Toulouse-Lautrec's works are complemented by works on paper by Greek artists of the last two decades of the 19th century that possibly reflect the influence of French Belle Epoque artistic trends. -- www.herakleidon-art.gr

HONG KONG

FLAGSTAFF HOUSE MUSEUM OF TEA WARE -- To Feb. 18: "2007 Tea Ware by Hong Kong Potters." If your "tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky...," go and enjoy 90 imaginative creations by contemporary potters who answered a call to "promote ceramic art and tea-drinking culture." -- www.lcsd.gov.hk

HERITAGE MUSEUM -- To April 7: "The Animated Spirit: The Art of Lam Wu Fui." The museum is pursuing its exploration of artists who worked in the tradition of the early 20th-century Lingnan School, whose members advocated the fusion of Western and Japanese art concepts with Chinese techniques. Subject matters remained traditional -- landscapes, animals, birds and fish. Lam Wu Fui (b. 1945), whose signature theme is cranes set against snow-draped forests, is presenting about 30 recent traditional paintings of animals and birds set in a highly atmospheric mood.-- www.heritagemuseum.gov.hk

HONG KONG MUSEUM OF ART -- To April 6: "Made in Hong Kong: Contemporary Art Exhibition." Hoping to refute the argument that Hong Kong is a cultural desert, the museum has brought together a diversity of artistic talent that bears the marks of the territory's character. Seven artists, some of them sometimes exhibited outside of Hong Kong, are in the show: Chow Chun-fai (mixed media), Chu Hing-wah (works on paper, sculpture), Kevin Fung (sculpture), Frog King (performance), Kum Chi-keung (mixed media), Wan Qingli (ink on paper) and Vincent Yu (photo). -- http://hk.art.museum

HONG KONG MUSEUM OF HISTORY -- To March 24: "The Development of Banks in Shanghai and Hong Kong." An historical and curatorial approach to banks. Bank memorabilia - signboards, banknotes, receipts, saving boxes and bank equipment - on loan from the Shanghai Bank Museum document the development and prosperity of these establishments in both cities. -- http://hk.history.museum

HUNGARY / BUDAPEST

SZEPMUVESZETI MUZEUM -- To Jan. 27: "Picasso, Klee, Kandinsky: Masterpieces of the Swiss Rupf Collection." The collection of Hermann Rupf and his wife included 250 paintings of the first half of the 20th century when they donated it to the Kunstmuseum in Bern in 1954. The Rupfs had befriended Klee and bought his works; they had been helped in their acquisitions by the Paris art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, and they had used their personal taste to select abstract art. Since then, the Foundation has expanded to include about 900 works. Documenting the trends and characteristics in European modern art are Fauve paintings by Derain and Friesz; Cubist works by Braque, Picasso, Gris and abstract works by Klee and Kandinsky, to name just a few. -- www.szepmuveszeti.hu

ISRAEL / JERUSALEM

THE ISRAEL MUSEUM OF ART -- To March 1: "Made in China: Contemporary Art from the Estella Collection." Six years after "China: One Hundred Treasures," a display of artworks covering 5,000 years, from neolithic bronzes to Ming porcelains, the Museum presents another facet of the Chinese art scene. This show features works by 60 artists, some of them highly popular -- and expensive -- in galleries and auction rooms, on loan from the Estella Collection, New York, that owns 250 artworks in all media by contemporary artists from China. While Chinese tradition and Socialist Realism, which prevailed into the 1970s, are still obvious influences, new media and techniques are gaining ground. Ink drawings, graphic art, painting, sculpture, photography, video, performance art and installations by Cai Guo-Qiang, Yue Minjun and Zhang Xiaogang, and Qiu Zhijie, to name only the better-known artists, are on display. -- www.imj.org.il

ITALY / NAPLES

MUSEO ARCHEOLOGICO NAZIONALE -- To March 31: "Alma-Tadema e la Nostalgia dell'Antico." Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912) visited Pompei in 1863. From then on, he painted realistic and precise light-filled scenes inspired by the ancient Roman world (complete with costumes and artifacts), becoming one of the main representatives of the "neo-Pompeian" movement. Fourteen paintings by Alma-Tadema are juxtaposed with objects excavated at the site and complemented by paintings and sculptures by contemporary local artists also inspired by Pompei.

ROME

GALLERIE BORGHESE -- To Feb. 3: "Canova e la Venere Vincitrice." This is the second of a series of ten monographic exhibitions (the first paid homage to Raphael) to be mounted in ten years at the Galleria. The 50 sculptures on display document the relationship between the sculptor Antonio Canova (1757-1822), Prince Camillo Borghese and the Bonaparte family, best illustrated by the "Venere Vincitrice," an idealized and glorified reclining figure of Pauline Borghese, Napoleon's sister, that was commissioned by her princely husband and completed by 1808. The show also documents Canova's working techniques with clay sketches, drawings, paintings and temperas. The series will continue with displays, until 2014, of the works of Correggio, Bacon, Caravaggio, Dosso Dossi, Tiziano, Cranach, Bernini, and Domenichino. -- www.canovaelavenerevincitrice.it (in Italian)

PALAZZO RUSPOLI, FONDAZIONE MEMMO -- To Jan. 27: "Da Cranach a Monet: Capolavori dalla Collezione Pérez Simón." A museum is to be built in Mexico City for the private collection of about 1,000 paintings, sculptures and works on paper, spanning the 14th to 20th centuries. In the meantime, a representative selection of these works is touring museums worldwide: Italian and German paintings of the 14th to 16th centuries; Dutch and Flemish paintings of the 17th century; and European, Impressionist and post-Impressionist easel works. -- www.fondazionememmo.it

PALAZZO DEL QUIRINALE - To March 2: "Nostoi: Capolavori Ritrovati." More than 65 archaeological masterpieces -- vases, statues, Etruscan items -- that have come back (thus the Greek word of the title, nostoi, meaning return) to Italy after lengthy negotiations with the American museums and art collections worldwide to which unscrupulous dealers had sold the works. -- www.scuderiequirinale.it

SCUDERIE DEL QUIRINALE -- To Jan. 27: "Pop Art! 1956-1968." Fifty years after its birth (possibly with the exhibition of Richard Hamilton's famous collage, "Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?"), Pop Art -- as a form of art interpreting, criticizing or admiring the consumer and mass media society and its icons -- is revisited with about 90 paintings, sculptures, collages by 50 artists, including celebrated American and British works as well as lesser-known French, Italian, Spanish and German interpretations of the themes and figures. The display is arranged in four thematic sections: objects and brands; iconic figures from show business and the political world; reinterpretation of comic strips and ads, and, finally, the body as a recurrent theme in the artists' inspiration. -- www.scuderiequirinale.it

TURIN

PINACOTECA GIOVANNI AND MARELLA AGNELLI -- To Feb. 3: "Why Africa? The Piggozzi Collection." One of the largest of its kind, the Pigozzi collection of African art, created in 1989, continually expands through the acquisition of works by sub-Saharian African artists. About 100 paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs and installations are on display, including works by Chéri Samba (several of his paintings figure at the current Venice Biennale), Frederic Bruly Bouabré, the late photographer Seydou Keïta, and Esther Mahlangu who draws her inspiration from ceremonial patterns of the South African peoples, among others. The works are mostly figurative, inspired by current topics, but always reveal a deep bond between the artists and their native continent. -- www.pinacoteca-agnelli.it

JAPAN / NAGOYA

NAGOYA/BOSTON MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS -- To April 6: "Printed Treasures: Highlights From the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston." Part of the Japanese holdings of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston are temporarily returning to their country of origin. From its collection of about 50,000 woodblock prints, about 120 ukiyo-e prints have been selected spanning the early days of block print to the late Edo period (19th century). Works by Suzuki Harunobu, Utamaro, Sharaku, Hokusai, Hiroshige and Kuniyoshi are the highlights of the display. -- www.nagoya-boston.or.jp

OSAKA

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF ART -- To Feb. 11: "The 30th Anniversary: Collection of the National Museum of Art, Osaka." Over the past 30 years, the museum has built an eclectic collection of about 5,700 paintings, prints, sculptures and photographs. From this vast corpus, about 400 have been selected: works by 20th-century western artists -- Picasso, Cézanne, Fontana, Tony Cragg, among others -- and by Japanese artists -- Foujita, Yoshihara, Miwa Yanagi and Katsura Funakoshi, to name a few. -- www.nmao.go.jp

TOKYO

HARA MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART -- To Feb. 11: "Pipilotti Rist: Karakara." Rist (b. 1962) is "an artist who climbs walls in order to see new horizons," the curators say. The audio-video installations by the Swiss artist date to 1994, including one that needs the "collaboration of the toilet visitor" (read a visit to...). Rist's video projection, "Under the Sky," commissioned by the Centre Pompidou, Paris earlier this year, is part of the show. -- www.haramuseum.or.jp

TOKYO NATIONAL MUSEUM -- To Feb. 24: "Courtly Millennium: Art Treasures From the Konoe Family Collection." Yomei Bunko, the historic collection of the Konoe household, one of the most eminent of the Japan court families, was established in 1938. It features about 200,000 objects, including 8 National Treasures and 59 Important Cultural Properties. The exhibition brings together a few of the masterpieces -- works of calligraphy, scrolls, pictures, miscellaneous objects -- spanning the Heian period (11th c.) to the late Edo period (19th c.). -- www.tnm.jp

MACAO

MUSEU DE ARTE DE MACAU -- To March 16: "Testemunhos do Império Qing." The gathering of artworks, on loan from the Palace Museum in Beijing, seeks to document the history of the Qing dynasty through its cultural relics. They are presented in five chronological sections that highlight the main stages in the more than two centuries when the Qing imposed Manchu rule on China. -- www.artmuseum.gov.mo

MEXICO / MEXICO CITY

ANTIGUO COLEGIO DE SAN ILDEFONSO -- To January: "René Burri: Un Mundo." The exhibition -- already seen in La Havana -- brings together about 380 photographs by the Swiss photographer (b. 1933). As a member of Magnum, Burri captured the major events and key figures (Che Guevara, Callas, Picasso, Nixon) of the second half of the past century. More than just simple reportage, Burri's work offers a meditation on the state and evolution of our world. -- www.sanildefonso.org.mx

MUSEO COLEGIO DE SAN ILDEFONSO -- To March : "Anni y Josef Albers: Viajes por Latinoamérica." Between 1935 and 1967, Albers and his wife, both members of the Bauhaus, travelled to South America 14 times, visiting Cuba, Mexico, Chili and Peru. Their exposure to Latin-American history, culture and people led to radical changes in their conception of abstract art. More than 200 paintings, photographs, jewels and textiles created by the couple over 50 years attest to the influence of pre-Columbian art forms on the two abstract artists. They are complemented by about 30 anthropomorphous figures from the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico. -- www.sanildefonso. org.mx

THE NETHERLANDS / AMSTERDAM

DE HERMITAGE AMSTERDAM -- To May 5: "Art Nouveau During the Reign of the Last Tsars." Art Nouveau, like the Wiener Sezession and Jugendstil, was a hit in St. Petersburg in the very early 20th century. The Czar and the well-to-do had their houses remodeled in the new style and bought French works to go with it. Russian artists created their own Art Nouveau. Focusing on gifts from France to Russia, the exhibition brings together Art Nouveau glasswork (Gallé, Lalique and Daum), jewelry and various artifacts on loan from the Hermitage, St. Petersburg. -- www.hermitage.nl

DE NIEUWE KERK -- To April 20: "Hidden Afghanistan." Because it is located at the crossroads of East and West, different cultures -- Scythian, Persian, Hellenistic, Chinese and Indian -- have left their mark on Afghanistan. The 250 artworks in the show were "rediscovered" in 2004, hidden in the vaults of the Central Bank in Kabul, where they escaped Taliban destruction. They were brought to Europe for restoration. The objects come from four archaeological sites, including Bagram, formerly the summer capital of the Kushan empire (1st to 3rd century), and today an American air base. The highlight of the show is a trove of gold funerary jewelry excavated in the 1970s from the necropolis at Tillia-Tepe in the north of the country. The exhibition will travel to Washington, San Francisco, Houston and New York. -- www.nieuwekerk.nl

PORTUGAL / LISBON

MUSEU COLECÇÃO BERARDO DE ARTE MODERNA E CONTEMPORÂNEA -- The Portuguese magnate, Jose Berardo, has received from the Portuguese administration the right to use space within Lisbon's Belem Cultural Center to house his collection of about 850 works of modern and contemporary art. About 250 paintings, sculptures, photographs and installations by the likes of Bacon, Warhol and Picasso will be on show at all times. -- www.museoberardo.com

RUSSIA / ST. PETERSBURG

STATE RUSSIAN MUSEUM, BENOIS WING -- To March 10: "Venus Sovietica." The two words in the title have been carefully selected to convey the concept of female beauty as seen by artists of the Soviet era. It brings together paintings, sculptures and drawings of women reflecting the influence of Soviet ideologies and aesthetics. Alexander Samokhvalov, Alexander Deineka, Vladimir Lebedev and Alexander Shevchenko figure in the show. -- www.rusmuseum.ru

-- To March 10: "Arkhip Kuindzhi." A monographic exhibition of easel works and drawings by the Ukrainian landscapist (?1842-1910). Most of the works on display were created during the artist's late period. Kuindzhi's expressionist renditions of unpopulated landscapes are characterized by intense light effects served by bold contrasting colors. -- www.rusmuseum.ru

SINGAPORE

ASIAN CIVILISATIONS MUSEUM -- To March 23: "On the Nalanda Trail: Buddhism in India, China and Southeast Asia." Buddhism not only affected lives and cultures in Asia but left its legacy in the continent's arts and literature. The exhibition highlights some of the significant landmarks in Buddhist history, through the travel records of the Chinese monks on their way to pilgrimage sites and to centers of higher learning, such as Nalanda in eastern India. From there, Buddhist teachings and art spread all over the Asian world. The Buddhist art and artifacts on display are borrowed from museums in India and Southeast Asia; objects from the ACM's collection are also included. -- www.acm.org.sg

ACM/ EMPRESS PLACE -- To March 23: "On the Nalanda Trail: Buddhism in India, China and Southeast Asia." At the same time Chinese pilgrims went to Indian centers of learning like Nalanda to study Buddhism, Indian monks would spread the philosophy in China. These exchanges left a legacy in Asian arts and culture, as exemplified by the artworks in the show. They are complemented by works from various museums in India and Southeast Asia. -- www.acm.org.sg

NATIONAL MUSEUM -- To March 16: "Greek Masterpieces From the Louvre." While the Louvre is refurbishing its Greek and Hellenistic rooms, it has agreed to lend about 130 statues, vases, terra-cotta figurines, as well as gold and silver items to Asian museums. Documenting the story of Athens in the 5th and 4th centuries B.C., the show expands to portray the way of life in ancient Greece, particularly regarding worship, sports, theater and public meetings. Seen in Beijing earlier this year, the exhibition will travel to Macao. -- www.nationalmuseum.sg

SOUTH KOREA / SEOUL

HO-AM ART MUSEUM -- To March 2: "Description in Korean Art." Inscriptions, such as texts on tomb murals at the time of the Three Kingdoms or poems and comments by admirers on traditional paintings, are an enduring characteristic in Korean visual arts. The convention reached a high level of refinement after the 18th century, adding to the aesthetics of the works and providing insights into the thoughts of the artists and the viewers. It is documented here by a selection of 19th-century artworks. -- http://hoam.samsungfoundation.org

LEEUM, SAMSUNG MUSEUM OF ART -- To Jan. 27: "Void in Korean Art." Contrasting the Asian concept of "void" to western materialist philosophies, the exhibition brings together a variety of artworks that are regrouped under three sub-themes closely linked to the initial concept: nature, freedom and imagination. Among them are Gaya archaeological artifacts, Goryeo celadons and Joseon porcelains, as well as modern and contemporary paintings, photographs and films. -- http://leeum.samsungfoundation.org

SEOUL MUSEUM OF ART -- To March 16: "Van Gogh: Voyage Into the Myth." The Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam and the Kröller-Müller Museum, Oterloo, have loaned 45 easel works and 22 drawings and lithographs for a chronological display of Van Gogh's works created in the Netherlands, Paris, Provence and Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris, where the artist (1853-90) put an end to his life. Although his work was not particularly popular in his own days, his brother Theo knew his talent would one day be recognized: "I am very confident that people will appreciate your works in the future. The only question is when..." -- http://seoulmoa.seoul.go.kr

SEOUL MUSEUM OF ART, NAM SEOUL ANNEX -- To Feb. 17: "Abstract Art: Amusement on the Borders." A selection of abstract works in a variety of forms and techniques from the late 1950s to the present day. The exhibition is divided into three sections: "The Primitive Nostalgia: crossing between conception and abstraction"; "The Intellectual Sensitivity: travel into visual amusement," and "The Physical Inspiration: its transformation into psychological amusement." -- http://seoulmoa.seoul.go.kr

SPAIN / BARCELONA

FUNDACIÓ JOAN MIRÓ -- To Jan. 27: "Un Cuerpo sin Límites." Conventional in Greek and Roman sculpture, idealized in Renaissance painting, allegorical or religious in post-Renaissance art, the nude, in the 20th century, has become a way for artists "to express what they feel rather than what they see." The display assembles 80 paintings and sculptures by Maillol, Schiele, Picasso, Moore, Basquiat and Saura, among others, in a variety of representations: tormented (the Expressionists, Bacon), deconstructed (the Cubists), erotic (the Surrealists) or palpably realistic (Lucian Freud). -- www.bcn.fjmiro.cat

BILBAO

GUGGENHEIM BILBAO -- To April 27: "Art in the USA: 300 Años de Innovación." The 200 works, divided in six historical sections, document how American art reflected, successively, the colonial and independence era (Copley, Peale), the 19th-century territorial expansion (Homer, Bingham, Moran), the cultural wealth generated by cosmopolitanism (Cassatt, Eakins, Sargent), the start of modernity (Hopper, Pollock), the prosperous society (Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism) and, over the past three decades, the globalization of artistic forms and ideas (Basquiat, David Salle). The exhibition, already seen in Beijing, Shanghai and Moscow, has been considerably expanded with the addition of about 75 works or installations. -- www.guggenheim-bilbao.es

MADRID

MUSEO NACIONAL DEL PRADO -- To Feb. 10: "El Greco en el Prado." The first works by El Greco -- mainly portraits -- to enter the Prado after it officially opened as a museum in 1819 came from the royal collections; when the Museo de la Trinidad closed at the end of the 19th century, 15 religious paintings moved to the Prado. They have been complemented by various donations and by works purchased by the state and by the museum (the latest acquisition dates to 2002), bringing the total to the 45 works on display.

-- To Feb. 24: "Fábulas de Velázquez: Mitología e Historia Sagrada en el Siglo de Oro." About 30 paintings document Velázquez's (1599-1660) religious and mythological painting. His early works depict everyday life, sometimes combined with biblical scenes. After settling at the Philip IV's court in 1623, Velázquez devoted himself to portraiture, with incursions into landscape and mythology. A selection of works by other artists show how stylistically close Velázquez was to past (Caravaggio) and contemporary (Ribera and Zurbarán) artists. -- www.museoprado.es

-- To April 20: "El Siglo XIX en el Prado." The museum is inaugurating its new extension with a display of 19th-century artworks that have not been seen for years. More than 100 works, mainly paintings and a few sculptures, document Spanish creativity from Goya to Sorolla (whose works were admired earlier this year in Madrid and Paris). The exhibition opens with a selection of Goya's portraits, continues with the works of lesser-known Spanish Romantics (Leonard Alenza, Eugenio Lucas) with historical paintings and concludes with "pintura de la luz," represented by Ignazio Pinazo, Mariano Fortuny, Joaquín Sorolla and Aureliano Beruete. -- www.museoprado.es

MUSEO THYSSEN-BORNEMISZA -- To Feb. 17: "Maestros Modernos del Dibujo." Used as preparatory work for centuries, drawing has now become an independent medium. The selection of 70 works on paper, ranging from a small portrait of his wife by Goya to a head by Lucian Freud, documents the variety of styles and techniques used by the Impressionists, the Cubists, the Expressionists and by such sculptors as Brancusi, Moore and Giacometti. -- www.museothyssen.org

SWEDEN / STOCKHOLM

MODERNA MUSEET -- To April 6: "Time & Place: Rio de Janeiro, 1956-1964." This is the first of three exhibitions that will document the cultural scene in three cities in the 1960s: Rio, Milan/Turin and Los Angeles. In Rio, the 1950s and early '60s were characterized by a spirit of invention and dynamism to which the 1964 military coup put an authoritarian end. It was the time of Neo-concretism (visual arts emphasized simplicity of form and spatial construction), Bossa Nova and Cinema Novo. Works by Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticica and Franz Weissmann, among others, are in the show. -- www.modernamuseet.se

SWITZERLAND/ BASEL

MUSÉE TINGUELY -- To Jan. 27: "Marx Ernst: In the Garden of Nymph Ancolie." An homage to the painter, sculptor and collage artist (1891-1976). With the mural painting "Garden of Nymph Ancolie" (created in 1938, and now held in the Kunsthaus, Zurich) the focus of the show, about 150 works offer an overview of Ernst's multifaceted oeuvre that uses not only traditional artistic techniques, but also collage, grattage and decalcomania. -- www.tinguely.ch

ZURICH

KUNSTHAUS ZÜRICH -- To Feb. 24: "Daumier: Zeichnungen." A caricature of Louis-Philippe sent Honoré Daumier (1808-79) to prison for six months in 1831. However, until political cartooning was bannned in 1835, the caricaturist's renditions of the French mighty were highly popular. The Kunsthaus is not focusing on the caricaturing work: It pays homage to the artist's prolific creativity with a selection of drawings of lively Parisian scenes and characters and of watercolors illustrating Cervantes's Don Quixote. -- www.kunsthaus.ch

TAIWAN / TAIPEI

NATIONAL PALACE MUSEUM -- To Feb. 24: "Splendor of the Baroque and Beyond: Great Habsburg Collectors Masterpieces From the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna." From the 16th to the end of the 18th century, the Habsburg emperors patronized artists and continually expanded their collections. These artworks form the core of the Vienna museum built in the 19th century. The loan consists in 67 paintings, arranged chronologically. The works by Italian, German, Dutch and Flemish artists deal with such subjects as religion, mythology, history and portraiture. Among the artists represented are Rembrandt, Titian, Bordone, Dürer and Cranach.-- www.npm.gov.tw

TAIPEI FINE ARTS MUSEUM -- To March 2: "Surrealists in Taiwan." Since 1945, some artists in Taiwan have adopted the Surrealist mode of expression to depict their mixed visions of dreams and reality. About 80 works by 10 artists illustrate these manifestations of their subconscious. -- www.tfam.museum

TURKEY / ISTANBUL

ISTANBUL MODERN SANAT MUZESI -- To March 23: "Cihat Burak." A retrospective of the works of the versatile artist (1915-94) as a painter, an architect and the published writer of short stories. Burak lived in Paris for more than 10 years but finished his life in Istanbul. The exhibition includes more than 200 paintings, prints and ceramics, chronologically displayed. -- www.istanbulmodern.org

UNITED STATES / BALTIMORE

BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART, BMA -- To Feb. 3: "Matisse: Painter as Sculptor." With about 160 sculptures, paintings and drawings, the exhibition documents Matisse's (1869-1954) sculptural achievements, a somewhat lesser-known aspect of his talent. Organized chronologically around 60 sculptures created between 1899 and 1950, the show is complemented by drawings exploring the same themes and a selection of works by Brancusi, Degas, Picasso, Cézanne and Giacometti. -- http://artbma.org

NEW YORK

THE JEWISH MUSEUM -- To Feb. 3: "Camille Pissarro: Impressions of City and Country." Pissarro (1830-1903) was the only Impressionist to show his work in all eight Impressionist exhibitions held in Paris between 1874 and 1886. The exhibition of 50 paintings and works on paper, mainly drawn from private collections around New York (Americans bought the works during the artist's lifetime), showcases Pissarro's paintings of his native Carribean island, scenes of the French countryside and later neo-Impressionist depictions of the streets and bridges of Paris and other cities. -- www.thejewishmuseum.org

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART -- To March 2: "Eternal Ancestors: The Art of Central African Reliquary." A selection of sculptures from the African equatorial forest area that were created to celebrate family ancestors and their role as advocates with the divine. The same sculptures that were sought after in the early 20th century by the likes of Picasso, Derain and Matisse. Wood heads, half- and full figures carved by masters of Gabon and soft sculptures from the Republic of Congo are among the highlights of the exhibition. -- www.metmuseum.org

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, MOMA -- To March 10: "Lucian Freud: The Painter's Etchings." Exhibitions paying homage to Freud (b. 1922) usually display his hyper-realist paintings. MoMA is taking a different curatorial approach that focuses on his etchings and their relationship with the painter's easel works. About 68 etchings are juxtaposed with 21 paintings: They deal with the themes that are essentially Freud's: the "Naked Portraits" and the "Portrait Heads." The etchings show the models pared down to linear essentials, and the figures are cropped or isolated against empty backgrounds, achieving a psychological tension similar to that emanating from the paintings. -- www.moma.org

NEUE GALERIE -- To June 30: "Gustav Klimt: The Ronald S. Lauder and Serge Sabarsky Collections." Eight paintings and 120 drawings by Klimt (1862-1918) have been assembled together with documentary material and personal effects. Klimt was the leading member of the Viennese Sezession, the short-lived art movement whose members rejected artistic conservatism and favored new forms of expression.-- www.neuegalerie.org

SAN FRANCISCO

SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART -- To Jan. 27: "Jeff Wall." The photographs of the Canadian artist (b. 1946) have affinities with painting (their scale) and cinema (their methods of production). The photomontages, such as "A Sudden Gust of Wind," after a well-known eponymous woodcut by Hokusai, are the result of a manipulation of segments of images shot over a period of time and mounted on light boxes. The retrospective brings together more than 40 works dating to the 1970s. -- www.sfmoma.org