The Bank Holiday is a great time to explore new exhibitions. From Amsterdam to New York we uncover the best in contemporary art in international galleries across a variety of practices.

The finalists of the Syngenta Photography Award were announced today. The three names shortlisted for the Professional Commission are: Jan Brykczynski, Pablo Lopez Luz and Mimi Mollica.

Up to the Light focuses on the way in which filmmaker and photographer Johan Van der Keuken brought together contrasting images in his films and observed a world in constant transition.

The announcement of a new biennial prompts the question: why? The art world is saturated with 250 large-scale recurring exhibitions. Kochi-Muziris Biennale comes as a pleasant, and exciting, surprise.

Art Paris Art Fair arrives this weekend at Grand Palais. Hosting 20 countries and 143 galleries it presents modern and contemporary art. The event previews on 27 March and runs until 1 April.

Museo Reina Sofía hosts the largest retrospective to date of the work of Cristina Iglesias, one of Spain’s major artists. Her work began to be widely known in the 1980s. Until 13 May.

For Carlos Reygadas’ Post Tenebras Lux, ICO commissioned American designer, Sam Smith to produce the artwork. He approached the project as a film fanatic and an admirer of Reygadas’ Silent Light.

Land Sea Colour is a solo exhibition by artist Jan Dibbets examining his focus on Land-Sea horizons and Colour Studies. The show exposes Dibbets role as a pioneer of conceptualism in the 1960s.

Now in it’s fifth edition, SPILL was established in 2007 by performance maker Robert Pacitti and is now recognised as the UK’s premier Artist-led festival of innovative live work.

The Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT) at GOMA in Brisbane, Australia, is a pastiche of works from the many regions of Asia, the Pacific, and Australian Aboriginal communities.

In today’s world, do-it-yourself culture is practically omnipresent: be it fashion, furniture, cooking or communication—hardly a single area of everyday life has not been swept up in the DIY revolution.

Heidi Kilpeläinen, or HK119, has a new album out on 25 March. Her third album, Imaginature embodies nature in a surrealist and spectacular recording of electronic chirps and howling lyrics.

Scotland + Venice will present a showcase curated and organised by The Common Guild. The exhibition will feature new work by artists Hayley Tompkins, Duncan Campbell and Corin Sworn.

In advance of the Birds Eye View film festival, the BFI preview Wadjda, which tells the remarkable story of a young girl growing up in modern-day Saudi Arabia, and her quest to buy her own bicycle.

Crafting ornate, delicate and sometimes shocking body adornments from the tiny frames of lifeless animals, the work of artist, jeweller and taxidermist Reid Peppard is truly unique.

A new online art project has launched today alongside a photographic exhibition at Spacex from 18 May. British artist Layla Curtis’ Antipodes is an online and photographic project.

Collating a significant collection of international contemporary Art, Metropolis: Reflections on the Modern City opens this week at Gas Hall, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

Louis Vuitton unveiled today Stéphane Couturier’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong: Mutation at Espace Louis Vuitton Hong Kong opening to the public tomorrow, Thursday 21 March.

Peter Jensen has made the innovative decision to debut his Spring/Summer’13 collection for the first time in Britain at The Hepworth. Jensen uses the artist as a starting point for his newest designs.

Lady Gaga famously refers to her followers as “little monsters”, presumably hoping by this to encourage them to reclaim the darker elements of their psyches and feel more comfortable in themselves.