Artist Cheng Ran is on a two-year residency at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, where he has prepared a visual diary of his present work and life for LEAP. Amsterdam is smaller than I imagined. Travers…

Collectors from all over the world descended upon Berlin in the dwindling days of April for the ninth edition of Gallery Weekend Berlin. While the German capital, a city with less than four million inhabitants, is home to countless galleries—the number varies, depending on whom you ask, though accounts of the current number tend to…

ART FAIRS PRESENT perfect opportunities to observe the local economy and art ecology. Already in its third year, Art Stage Singapore has again chosen the country’s most luxurious locale, the Marina Bay Sands conference center, as the exhibition venue. A total of 131 galleries from 25 countries participated in this year’s fair. Seventy-five percent of…

THIS JANUARY, AN exhibition of Damien Hirst’s “spin paintings” opened in Istanbul. Naturally, the news did not come lacking in controversy. The first solo show of one of contemporary art’s greatest heavyweights in Turkey was held not in a museum, but in the exhibition space of a local auction house— these were secondary works up…

AS FAR AS art hubs go, why Düsseldorf has not made its way into the global spotlight as spectacularly as New York, London, Berlin, or more recently, Hong Kong, is anyone’s guess. Then again, even this city’s name is misleading. Düsseldorf literally translates as “Village of Düssel”— Düssel being the tributary of the Rhine on…

Tokyo has long been known for its cultural exports, and the present is no exception. However, in terms of contemporary art, the city’s galleries are faced with the decision to either move ahead into a truly cosmopolitan future, or remain behind in an antiquated past. Japanese art is at an international high just now. Yayoi…