THIS DAY: Recent Film and Video from the Middle East 4.-13.05 Tate Modern

This Day is a series of short films and video works by international artists whose work responds to the cultural, social, historical and political contexts of the Middle East. Nine screenings will present work by more than forty artists from Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria, in addition to artists from Europe and the United States whose work relates to the Middle East. Featured highlights include an opening performance by Rabih Mroué and a survey of work by Akram Zaatari. The ongoing events in the Middle East produce a flow of images that often represent war, destruction and conflict. Channelled through television and the internet, this imagery constructs and distorts the global understanding of the region, facilitating stereotypes and contaminating efforts to reconstruct a collective memory left in ruins. This Day hopes to challenge these representations by showing moving image work that offers new critical viewpoints onto the region’s rich visual culture. More than ever before, film and video-making from the Middle East interrogates cineamtic and photographic images to consider fundamental ethical and political problems and to question the limits of freedom. Curated by Predrag Pajdic & Samar Martha.

méxico arte contemporáneo until 29.04

Mexico´s art fair

The Sharjah Biennial 8 04.-04.06

The Sharjah Biennial 8 (SB8) will present various attempts in visual arts and film that address the growing social, political and environmental challenges the world is facing due to excessive urban development, pollution, political ambitions, and the thoughtless misuse, abuse and exhaustion of natural resources.

SB8 will focus on the renewed role of art in addressing a wide range of issues that directly and radically affect, and in an alarming magnitude the human existence on this earth (man's relation to earth and earth's relation to man). The biennial will not only stand for these issues as a venue and a platform for presentations, exhibits and discussions, but will take an active role in commissioning artists to produce new work corresponding to the topic at hand and will also partner with institutions to and will also partner with institutions to stimulate wider involvement with the issues brought up particularly amongst educational institutions.

FINE ART FAIR FRANKFURT 13.-15.04

The second fine art fair frankfurt, "QUALITY STREET®", is dedicated exclusively to sculpture. It will showcase some fifty international galleries, featuring artworks from the 20th and 21st centuries. By focussing on a single (and in this case highly relevant) topic, an incomparable event awaits both visitors and exhibiting galleries. The future editions of the fair will also be limited to a specific form of artistic representation. As a curated art fair, limited to one specific form of artistic representation – sculpture - fine art fair frankfurt holds a unique position in the art fair landscape. While other art events often choose or are forced to focus on quantity, fine art fair frankfurt deliberately concentrates on the QUALITY of the works, and explores the ways in which sculpture can best be displayed in an art fair context. This unique selling proposition strongly distinguishes the Frankfurt event from the competition. Wilfried Kühn, head of the prestigious Kühn/Malvezzi architectural office in Berlin, has developed an architectural layout and a theatrical lighting scheme to show sculpture at its best. Visitors will be treated to a dramatic display of spot-lit works in QUALITY STREET’s® darkened exhibition hall. As with “High & Low” fine art fair frankfurt in 2006, this year's title QUALITY STREET® once again questions the quality of art on show at international Fairs. Nestlé has given their kind permission to use QUALITY STREET®, the name of their bestselling 1970s confectionery, as the title of the 2007 art fair.