Set against the backdrop of Finsbury Park, Sallie Aprahamian’s feature debut tackles hardship, obligation and moral choices.

Based on Joe Gores’ novel of the same name, Wim Wenders’ film is the fictional imagining of how mystery writer Dashiell Hammett began his career.

The Aesthetica Short Film Festival (ASFF) was a dynamic, four-day international event that took place in the City of York from the 3 – 6 November.

Camilo Echeverri’s series SuperWomen employs a deliberate reworking of visual vocabulary, subverting notions of nostalgia, happiness and myth.

Each issue of Aesthetica features works by rising stars in photography from around the world. The following images are a highlight of this year’s works.

Christoph Benjamin Schulz, guest curator at Tate Liverpool, has a particular interest in and extensive knowledge of how Lewis Carroll has influenced the visual arts.

Musical comedy is a hard genre to crack, and even the brightest stars are often sidelined. Here’s how a so-called niche genre is getting its groove back.

Vitamin P2 is a compendium for new international painting, acting as a guide to the styles, themes and subjects in today’s most recognisable works.

Artists who sit outside the traditional cultural framework of the art world often go unnoted; the concept of outsider art still provokes uncertainty, questioning the legitimacy of art and artistic behaviour.

Wild Flag’s credentials are undeniable. The band has just released their first album to critical acclaim. We caught up with Janet Weiss to talk about the band.

This text demonstrates how Elmgreen & Dragset’s sculptures and installations reconfigure the familiar with characteristic wit and subversive humour.

Eckersley’s vision of nocturnal London dissembles the conventional imagery of built environments where abandoned estates and neon-lit corner shops reign.

This impressive collection coincides with an ambitious exhibition programme that tells the story of the birth of the L.A. art scene, with particular focus on Judy Chicago, Hammons, Hockney and Ruscha.

This book provides insight into Richter’s method and process; giving readers a glimpse into the artist’s working practice.

This beautifully illustrated volume charts the relationship between Edward Hopper and his beloved Maine; its lighthouses, harbours and coastlines.

Remember The Family, formed by Prince? A funk and soul unit put together to be the thunderclouds behind the Purple Rain, the Family has reformed as fDeluxe.

The old and evocative nature of Green’s voice conjures up images of dancers whirling round smoky dancefloors.

Following on from the Royal Academy of Arts’ show, Eyewitness: Hungarian Photography in the 20th Century, The Hungarian National Museum celebrates the career of André Kertész.

From Australia, to the Netherlands, South Africa and France, crowds descended on York for the inaugural ASFF. See who came out to play for this year’s event!

For his first London exhibition since his celebrated Moonmilk series, Ryan McGinley has assembled seven new photographs, all in the largest format the American artist has yet worked in.

Parasol Unit presents a major exhibition of works by two of Sweden’s leading contemporary artists, Cecilia Edefalk and Gunnel Wåhlstrand.

Everything Is Happening At Once is the first solo UK exhibition in a public institution by Rashid Rana. Rana’s work explores how physical realities and social practices affect our culture and identity.

There are a few things you will already know about Sofia Coppola; she wrote Lost in Translation, was the first American woman to win the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival with Somewhere.

Celebrating Swedish Art History in the 1990s, Moderna Museet unveils their new show Moment-Ynglingagatan 1: a non-commercial gallery that was a vital forum for Swedish art in the 1990s.

Laure Prouvost has been announced as the winner of Whitechapel’s Max Mara Art Prize for Women. Iwona Blazwick, OBE, Director of the Whitechapel Gallery revealed the winner this evening.

A futuristic world of unfeeling biological experimentation that’s just a step away from the one we inhabit now. This is what Shen Shaomin invites his visitors to enter in The Day After Tomorrow.

Designed by Heike Mutter and Ulrich Genth, The Tiger & Turle – Magic Mountain is the name of this imposing outdoor sculpture which opened last week in Duisburg Wanheim, Germany.

Swedish artist, Bo Christian Larsson combines sculpture, video, and works on paper. Larsson’s previous exhibitions have featured a central work – often a large-scale installation or a performance.

ING Discerning Eye is an exhibition of small works independently selected by six prominent figures from the art world. This year’s selector are: Artists, Eileen Cooper RA and Lisa Wright, amongst others.

The International Residency programme at Seacourt Print Workshop offers an artist the opportunity to work in a new environment and share their knowledge during a three-month stay.

Jaume Plensa has had a good year; Echo, his first public art project in New York City was extended for an extra month, while in the UK, Chichester Cathedral announced Plensa’s winning proposal.

Exceptional numbers of art collectors are building private museums to display works that they currently store in warehouses. The latest in a long line of these museums is The Salsali Private Museum.

It is by the ghostly light of Daniel Rozin’s Snow Mirror that visitors enters Dark Matters at the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester. This haunting new exhibition is an amalgamation of a variety of media.

Torben Åndahl’s Eike is featured in the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize show. The award has developed a prestigious international reputation since its inauguration in 2005.

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, opens a new solo exhibition of Hedi Slimane’s work, on show from this weekend until 22 January 2012.

BOZAR will host Roman Polanski: Actor & Director curated by the Łódź Museum of Cinematography. The show retraces the career of one of the great masters of cinema through photographs and posters.

The Aesthetica Short Film Festival – the latest addition to the British film festival circuit – threw open its doors last Thursday night.

Manchester is a city of draughtsmen and women, and it has always been a place where hierarchies are levelled. On the other hand, the city’s interest in drawing has as much to do with the weather.

It is no surprise that Tate has extended the run of artist Taryn Simon’s exhibition A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters until January 2012. This gives us time, and time is one’s ally.

ASFF opens Thursday 4 November in York. Four days of films, talks, parties, networking and some of the best innovative cinema around. Join us in York for a fantastic weekend of film.

The 4th edition of Crunch: the Art and Music Festival at Hay promises to be an extravaganza of contemporary art, talks and debates, new music, comedy and cabaret. Entitled Awake in the Universe.

Spanning across 4 days, 15 venues with 150 films screening, ASFF opens this Thursday and features a selection of films, a programme of talks and discussions from industry leaders and more.

Hereford Photography Festival is the UK’s longest running photography festival featuring over 75 artists and documentary photographers from across the world in more than 40 exhibitions.

Two shows run parallel to each other at Spike Island, with a variety of motifs exploring common themes: alienation by displacement and its significance in the creation/destruction of meaning.

onedotzero isn’t just one of the leading authorities in digital arts, they are one of our favourites, so when we heard that their adventures in motion festival was to return to BFI, we were more than excited.

The New Museum will present the first New York survey exhibition of the work of German artist Carsten Höller. Over 20 years, Höller has created a world that is equal parts laboratory and test site.

To Save and Project: The 9th MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation, the annual festival of preserved and restored films from archives, studios and distributions is on show at MoMA.

To celebrate the launch of the Aesthetica Short Film Festival, we are running interviews with filmmakers throughout October. Aesthetica spoke to Sean Pruen, Producer of the music video The Deep.

For the first time in history over half the world’s population lives in the city. Orion Contemporary’s forthcoming show takes the work of artists who present their vision of the urban and the rural.

In his current exhibition, Waterfall, now showing at Sherman Contemporary in Sydney, Yoshioka explores the myriad associations conjured by water although not in the guises one might expect.