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.

There still is a certain mystery to the character of the celebrated artist Todd James: an internationally recognised practitioner who began his career as a child in the New York City subway system.

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.

This exhibition at The Mac, Belfast, is the first significant Andy Warhol exhibition to be presented in Northern Ireland and brings together pieces drawn from the Artist Rooms collection.

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.

Simon Lee Gallery’s new show features a solo exhibition by the influential German artist Hans-Peter Feldmann from 5 April. The exhibition follows the success of Feldmann’s recent travelling show.

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.

In a series of moving image works and ceramic sculptures, Melanie Jackson continues her investigation into mutability, which takes its lead from Goethe’s concept of an imaginary plant.

All Visual Arts, Kings Cross is saturated with surrealist sketches, uncanny inks and impossibly detailed drawings. Not just limited to the eight AVA represents, over 21 artists feature in this show.

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.

Fossil Collective are a Leeds-based band duo made up of multi-instrumentalists Jonny Hooker and David Fendick. We interview band-member Jonny about the upcoming UK debut album tour.

The Design Museum in collaboration with MADE.com invites the public to commission a new piece of furniture for display in upcoming exhibition, The Future is Here: A New Industrial Revolution.

David Bowie is back at the centre of the public’s consciousness. To celebrate his birthday, Bowie released a surprise single, Where Are We Now?, with the announcement of an album, The Next Day.

The first exhibition of the New Year at Ikon Gallery sees John Flaxman, Timur Novokov and Nastio Mosquito enter a fascinatingly provocative symposium of culture, history and imagery.

Performance / Audience / Film at John Hansard Gallery looks at the different relationships that are established between the artist and the audience within the realm of performance art.

Salsali Private Museum in Dubai, UAE, unveils its new solo exhibition by critically acclaimed Iranian artist Reza Derakshani on 18 March, opening to coincide with the citywide Art Week.

Nur Skulptur! (Only Sculpture!) is a collection of 400 works from the Mannheimer Sculpture Collection, including items from art history, forgotten pieces and artworks from the depot.

For the first time in six years, Mike Brodie exhibits a show of new colour images at M+B, Los Angeles. Running from 16 March, A Period of Juvenile Prosperity is a presentation of 30 images.

A very extensive exhibition featuring over 30 works made between 2002 and 2013 is now showing at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Fabric-ation includes sculpture, film, photography and painting.

The Design Museum announces the contenders for the sixth annual Designs of the Year. They include the best designs from around the world in the last 12 months across seven categories.

In a celebration of film, unseen footage from the Stanley Kubrick Archive and a film installation by Turner Prize nominated artists, Jane and Louise Wilson, exhibit at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum.

The Almeida Theatre opens Before the Party. Directed by Matthew Dunster, Rodney Ackland’s adaptation of Somerset Maugham portrays how the upper middle classes adjusted to post-war life.

Taking my seat for Franko B’s latest performance, Because of Love, 2012, it was hard to pre-empt what this evening was about to offer. The artist renowned for using his body and blood in work.

Contemporary Key is a contemporary art tour company that puts significant emphasis on the joy of learning about art. At the start of each monthly tour, the group meets for a coffee and chat.

A photograph shows a tea green room with decorated marble flooring. The back wall is half-covered with jade wood panelling, and against it sit seven wood-backed, red-cushioned seats.

ASFF allows for both budding and established filmmakers to connect with new, worldwide audiences and interact with some of the biggest personalities in the film industry today.

Abigail Reynolds borrows the title of Kenneth Noland’s 1953 painting, New Light. Reflecting on the city of Plymouth the exhibition runs until 5 April at the Plymouth College of Art Gallery.

The Aesthetica Art Prize is a celebration of excellence in art from across the world. We speak to Ben Jack Nash about his sculptural work that often examines the soul of major catastrophes.

Charles Atlas, award winning artist and filmmaker, opens MC9 at Tate Modern on 19 March. Running for just a week, his multi-channel video installation explores the intersections of media and dance.

Osman will spend 2013 experimenting with the space at his new atelier by inviting a variety of London’s cutting-edge artists and designers. Aesthetica speaks to him about his design process.

Two gentle, reflective and profoundly moving new examples of the form by the theatre’s own Associate Artist, Alexander Wright, the pieces proved to be perfect and complementary partners.

This year’s Armory Show marked 100 years since its first edition in 1913 – one of the single most important events in contemporary art that had featured art by Duchamp, Picasso, and Brancusi and revealed the European avant-garde to U.S.

JVA will exhibit work by three exceptional emerging painters for the Jerwood Painting Fellowships 2013 from the 13 March. The Fellows are Anthony Faroux, Susan Sluglett and Sophia Starling.

Winners of the Aesthetica Art Prize were announced last night at the preview of the Art Prize Exhibition. Damien O’Mara was awarded the Main Prize and Poppy Whatmore collected the Student Prize.

British designer, Haroon Mirza opens his exhibition, Untitled Song, at mima. Living and working in London, Mirza’s influences range from electronics and science to avant-garde classical music.