Chen Man manages to combine mainstream ideas and artistic creation. “Chinese learning as the fundamental structure, Western learning for practical use” runs throughout her creation process. The new and independent artistic language she developed has influenced contemporary fashion- and art photography. In this exhibition, she continues to discuss the theme ELAN through the “six dusts” (from Buddhism), i.e. sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and idea, with relevant works from recent years, including Vision, Long Live The Motherland, Red Beauty, Four Seasons and Five Elements, as well as works produced on the subject of stars and celebrities. This is her largest
solo exhibition in China.

Eschewing chronological and linear readings, the Collection proposes new, interrelated narratives that connect the past with the future through the present. Whilst organised around thematic cores (critique of representation, play and pleasure, institutional critique and the media, the poetic experience, language and its capacity for expression,
television, theatre, film, dance and its hybrids as languages that transform art, etc.), it also embodies a new interest in art production that uses sound and the human voice as key materials. Volume proposes an interpretation of the transition from the 20th to the 21st century based on a paradigm shift regarding materials, sensory aspects and programme.

Roca and the Fundación Photographic Social Vision have brought to Spain an exhibition of work by the prestigious Spanish photographer, Daniel Beltrá. In Spill. Spill on the Gulf of Mexico Beltrá employs the means of a tragically appealing photographic exhibition to present the terrible ecological drama caused by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, one of the most severe environmental tragedies in recent history. Curated by Silvia Omedas and produced
by Roca, the exhibition brings together 50 photographs, most of them aerial views of extraordinary beauty, contrasting sharply with the tragic ecological disaster that they present.

In quoting a line from the poem 'Easter, 1916' by Irish poet William Butler Yeats, young Argentinean curator Victoria Noorthoorn uses 'terrible beauty' as a methodical tool and manual, therewith unfolding contradictions, paradoxes, and genuine artistic expressions. Their close juxtaposition is intended to confirm the value of art and, in particular, to "address our own time and future, our perplexity of doubt". Via a broad range of events and festivals, and an exhibition of works by some 70 international artists, the 11th Biennale de Lyon will most certainly be the cultural highlight in the heart of the Rhône-Alpes region this autumn.

Billed as the region’s most established and largest contemporary art fair, this fifth edition of Art Dubai is under the directorship of Antonia Carver and showcases more than 75 renowned and upcoming galleries from over 30 countries in the Middle East, Asia, Europe and the Americas. Aside from the main fair is an extensive programme of collateral events including the Global Art Forum, a series of debates featuring world-renowned artists, curators, critics & art professionals, and the Abraaj Capital Art Prize, awarding $1 million in disbursements to five artists from the Middle East, North Africa & South Asia region plus one international curator.

The 12th edition of this fair aims to be a place to discover emerging talent. Alongside the representation of Dutch galleries, the event features Belgian galleries f.e. Galerie Catherine Bastide, Galerie Micheline Szwajcer and Stella Lohaus Gallery, while also present are eight young galleries from the UK and Gallery Plan B from Romania. ‘Focused Artist’ is the Dutch conceptual artist Navid Nuur (1976°), who will be showing his work ‘Distant relations between lovers could fail by the lack of your true focus’, which is about the relation between artists and public commercial art places, like magazines, catalogues and art fairs etc.

The open nature of this prize is reflected in its accompanying exhibition, which showcases the work of talented young photographers and gifted amateurs alongside that of established professionals and photography students. Through editorial, advertising and fine art images, the entrants have explored a range of themes, styles and approaches to the contemporary photographic portrait, from formal commissioned portraits to more spontaneous and intimate moments capturing friends and family. This year the competition attracted nearly 6,000 submissions from over 2,400 photographers from around the world, with first prize awarded to David Chancellor for ‘Huntress with Buck’ from the series ‘Hunters’.

Paying tribute to analogue photography, this exhibition is dedicated to the character and work of master printer Peter Svenson of Aap-Lab. For more than 30 years Svenson has been a mainstay to famous photographers and those beginning their careers. While many amateur and professional photographer have dispensed with the roll of film and switched to megapixels, others have chosen to do more personal work on film due to the crafts and unexpected aspects that it involves. Within this process Svenson can be a crucial link, and photographers featured in this exhibition include Rineke Dijkstra, Sigudur Gudmundsson, Maurice Scheltens and Vincent Zedelius.

One of those exhibitions that blur the boundaries of creative disciplines, Z33’s contribution to the Alter Nature programme (see fashion agenda/MMH) looks at the sub-aspect of fauna and flora in nature. Through the works of some twenty international artists, the exhibition explores how humankind manipulates nature and how the concept of ‘nature’ constantly changes as a result of this. Attempting to go beyond the simplified contradictions of nature gone bad or good, Alter Nature places emphasis on the historic context of intervention, the multiplicity of manipulations and our fluctuating understanding of the concept of nature. Watch out for the acoustic plants and orange pheasants.

What role is science given in our society, and what role myth? These are among the questions raised by artist Carsten Höller in an exhibition in which he explores the myth of 'soma' - a drink with healing properties known among Verdic nomads in North India in the 2nd millennium BCE that promised enlightenment and access to the divine sphere. An oversized, three-dimensional tableau vivant unfolds before the viewers' eyes, in the midst of which is a hotel room perched on a mushroom-shaped platform, giving guests the opportunity to spend the night in the museum and to dive into the world of soma.