Adelaide, Australia
Treasure Ships: Art in the Age of Spices
Art Gallery of South Australia.
Through Aug. 30.
This exhibition examines the influence the spice trade had on art along its winding, treacherous route from Asia to Europe. With around 300 pieces in all, the show includes works whose groundbreaking, cross-cultural aesthetics and subject matter stemmed from the trade itself — like Christian artworks painted in Asian port cities. A number of curios also are on view, like a trove of objets d’art that sank in a shipwreck off the Australian coast.
London
Soundscapes
National Gallery.
July 8-Sept. 6.
For this exhibition, seven musicians created new music based on their response to a work of their choosing from the museum’s collection. The paintings and sound displays are shown here, each in its own soundproof room. Musicians in the show include the Academy Award-winning composer Gabriel Yared, who responded to Cézanne’s “The Bathers,” and Jamie xx, who reacted to “Coastal Scene,” a pointilist work by Théo van Rysselberghe.
Avignon, France
Festival d’Avignon
Various venues.
July 4-25.
This year’s edition of the prestigious avant-garde theater festival is themed “I am the other” and includes works about outsiders — the festival director Olivier Py said he was inspired by the Charlie Hebdo attacks to organize a festival focused on outcasts. Productions include a “Richard III” staged by the celebrated German director Thomas Ostermeier, featuring puppets and a Richard clad in visible padding, and a new version of “King Lear” directed by Mr. Py.
International Arts Guide
A selection of arts events taking place across the world in the coming week.
Byblos, Lebanon
Byblos International Festival
Byblos Harbor.
July 13-Aug. 18.
The popular American soul singer John Legend, the indie British band Alt-J and the Lebanese crooner Hiba Tawaji, a break-out star from France’s “The Voice,” will perform at this festival, a series of standalone concerts, most of which take place in an open-air venue custom built for the event, overlooking the harbor. On Aug. 12 and 13, the soprano Samar Salamé will perform a composite work, “Sacré Profane.” She will sing the hymn Stabat Mater in a medieval cathedral in the old city center, then move outside to perform the light opera “La Serva Padrona” in nearby gardens.
Hamburg, Germany
Triennial of Photography Summer Shows
Various venues.
Through the fall.
Many of Hamburg’s museums and galleries have thrown their doors open for this citywide celebration of photography, with each venue adding its signature spin on the central theme, the photograph. The city’s Museum of Work, for example, has a show about workers in Hamburg. Other exhibitions include a show exploring the idea of hope in the work of several prominent contemporary artists, like Annette Messager, at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, and a show about the importance of water in paintings and photographs from the 19th century to the present, at the Bucerius Kunst Forum.
Edinburgh
Photography: A Victorian Sensation
National Museum of Scotland.
Through Nov. 22.
Early photographs and their creators come under the lens in this exhibition, about the birth of the medium. The exhibition draws from the trove of one of Britain’s most avid photo collectors, and includes a number of unusual and never-before-seen images.
Buenos Aires
Polesello Joven: 1958-1974
Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires.
Through Oct. 12.
The Argentine artist Rogelio Polesello had a vibrant career that lasted from the midcentury until the eve of his death in 2014. This exhibition focuses primarily on the pop artist’s early years, when he pioneered Op Art — a movement that incorporated optical illusion into the visual arts canon — in South America. Polesello experimented with various media, including paintings, murals, drawings and design. More than 100 of his artworks from museum collections across the region are on view here.
Novi Sad, Serbia; Budva, Montenegro
EXIT Festival; Sea Dance Festival
Petrovaradin Fortress; Jaz Beach.
July 9-12; July 15-18.
Clean Bandit, Just Blaze and John Newman are among the contemporary music acts that will perform at this well-loved pop music festival, which takes place annually in an 18th-century fortress, on a site whose use as a barricade dates back thousands of years. When EXIT’s main programming ends on July 12, many of the festival organizers and attendees will pick up and decamp to Jaz Beach, on the coast of Montenegro. There, the party continues with Sea Dance, a slightly edgier festival, which includes performances by emerging talents like Roisin Murphy, Sigma and Wilkinson.