Author: Darko Topalski

MILAN.- Councillorship for Culture and 24 ORE Motta
Cultura present the exhibition Yayoi Kusama. I Want to Live Forever at PAC
Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, under the curatorship of Akira Tatehata
(Director of Osaka National Museum of Art). A unique, exclusive event
for Italy, dedicated to the unquestioned protagonist of Japanese contemporary
art. In addition to recent figurative and abstract paintings, large-scale
sculptures and installations from the last decade, there will be a selection of
formative drawings from the 1950s and 60s. On exhibition through 14
February, 2010.

NEW YORK, NY.- The ‘Tata Nano’, designed to be the
world’s most affordable car, will be on view at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design
Museum from Feb. 18 through April 25, 2010. Unveiled last year in India
by Tata Motors, India’s largest automobile manufacturer, the Tata Nano is
targeted to families who had not previously been able to afford a car.
Billed as “the people’s car,” the base model starts at $2,200 in India
and can accommodate up to five adults. A bright, sunshine yellow Nano
will be on display in Cooper-Hewitt’s Great Hall, along with diagrams and a
short film describing its concept, development and production.

GRONINGEN.- From 13 December 2009 to 11 April
2010, the Groninger Museum will present the highlights from the collection of
the Brücke Museum in Berlin. The exhibition, which will be held
in the Ploeg Pavilion, will display 150 works, including paintings,
drawings, prints and figures by the Brücke members Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich
Heckel, Karl Schmidt- Rottluff, Fritz Bleyl, Max Pechstein, Emil Nolde, Cuno
Amiet and Otto Mueller.

BERLIN.- At C/O Berlin, International Forum For
Visual Dialogues, Schwarzkopf presents photographs by Karl Lagerfeld, Gabo, and
Russell James and illustrations by Olaf Hajek from December 12, 2009, to January
17, 2010. The exhibition accompanying the book We Love Hair will be
shown at the Postfuhramt at Oranienburger Straße 35/36. A symbol of beauty,
temptation, and seduction; an expression of power and strength, intimidation and
protest—hair is a universal medium of self-expression. Always making a
statement, hair can signal group membership while simultaneously demonstrating
otherness. With its wide variety of shapes, colors, and textures, hair serves as
a means of self-definition and self-dramatization.

BARCELONA.- Under the title Pre-Columbian Funerary
Art, the Egyptian Museum of Barcelona exhibits a series of pieces that are
representative of the main cultures present in the areas of Mesoamerica,
Centro-America and the Andes, before the arrival of any Europeans and
the subsequent as well as abrupt culture upheaval that this entailed. At the
same time, the exhibition approaches the biographical profile of Carmen Tórtola
Valencia: cultured, multifaceted and singular artist whose creative work as a
dancer was inspired by her exotic feeling and by the mystery of ancient
civilizations. On view through 30 May 2010.

ROME
(REUTERS).- The mystery surrounding the death of Baroque master
Caravaggio may soon be resolved thanks to new DNA tests — as long as the right
body can be found. What caused the death of the painter in 1610 and the
whereabouts of his corpse have always been unclear. But a team of
Italian anthropologists believe that what is left of Caravaggio’s body may be
hidden among dozens of bodies buried in a crypt in Tuscany, thanks to recent
historical clues. The team — armed with a CAT scan and kits for carbon dating
— plan to study the painter’s exhumed remains to discover how he died.