Never has the art world seemed so, well, global. I'm impressed but somewhat startled by a new and less-than-carbon-neutral listings feature on the Art Newspaper's website, which allows you to browse nearly 2,000 exhibitions worldwide. It starts with a snazzy map that allows you to zoom in on galleries by continent, then country, drilling down to whatever you're looking for.
Very nice in theory, but I admit to being a little disappointed by Kazakhstan. Despite being nearly four times the size of Texas and boasting extensive bauxite reserves, it apparently offers not a single gallery worth visiting. Perhaps they're keeping things quiet in order to avoid being besieged by art-world types. Cunning.
There's also a charming but slightly eccentric feature whereby if you click on a particular show - let's say, with flagrant self-promotion, the Jake and Dinos Chapman retrospective that opens today - the search engine throws up other exhibitions of "interest". The Chapmans go on show in Liverpool, but apparently I might be "interested" to hear about Hawaiian paintings in Tokyo; photographs and installations in Salzburg; and Himalayan sculptures in Phoenix, Arizona.
Hmm. Would I have to change at Crewe?
