AT THE MUSEUMS

The Tate Modern has two exhibits opening featuring street art. “Street & Studio” compares photographs taken on the street versus in the studio. Over 350 works by some of the world’s most famous photographers including Francis Alys, Diane Arbus, Cecil Beaton, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Maplethorpe, Irving Penn and others will be on display.

Also on through August, the external walls of Tate Modern will be transformed by acclaimed street artists, including ones from New York, Sao Paulo, Barcelona, Bologna, Paris and London, who have created enormous new works on the exterior walls of the London museum overlooking the Thames. Famous street artist Banksy is not part of this group show, but his dealer Steve Lazarides has just opened a new space at 125 Charing Cross Road, carrying a “permanently evolving” show of street art, priced between £1,000-£50.000.

The V&A has just opened its new William and Judith Bollinger Jewellery gallery, four years in the making, which showcases 3,500 pieces dating back to 2,000 B.C., including some worn by royals from Elizabeth I to Catherine the Great. To celebrate the opening of the new V&A gallery, which includes a central glass spiral staircase designed by architect Eva Jiricna, the museum shop is selling over 800 pieces of contemporary jewelry. This will include the “Cherry on the Cake Jewellery” collection with works by architect Eva Jiricna, Stephen Jones, Turner Prize–winner Grayson Perry, Betty Jackson and Dita Von Teese.

AT THE GALLERIES

Frank Gehry is designing the Summer Pavilion at the Serpentine Gallery. It will be the US architect’s first structure in England.

Fashionistas won’t want to miss designer duo Viktor & Rolf’s exhibition at the Barbican Art Gallery, from June 18 to September 21. This will be the first British retrospective of the Dutch pair and will include a specially-commissioned top secret installation. Expect the unexpected from this artistic duo who are about as unconventional as they come.

Turner Prize-nominated Jake and Dinos Chapman have a new show at the White Cube Gallery in Mason’s Yard. Entitled “If Hitler had been a hippy how happy would he have been,” it show contains shocking, even grotesque conceptual pieces, which are nonetheless fascinating. The most elaborate consists nine large glass vitrines, which are laid out in the shape of a swastika, and feature scenes with some 50,000 small figures (it took the Greek brothers more than three years to make). The installation is priced at £7.5 million and one of three available has already been sold to an unnamed buyer. The show runs through July 12.

IN THE COUNTRY

Roche Court, Lady Madeleine Bessborough’s sculpture park in Wiltshire, is a beautiful spot in a beautiful part of the world. The UK’s leading sculpture collector moved her London gallery to her bucolic country home in 1994 and turned the estate, near Salisbury into one of the most sublime places to see art in Europe. This summer Bessborough is showing “New Generation Revisited”, British sculptures from the 1960’s to now including works done by such leading lights as Anthony Caro, Isaac Witkin, Phillip King, Henry Moore, and Richard Long.

In collaboration with auctioneers Phillips de Pury, Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst, who works for Gagosian Gallery, has launched a fun summer show at her family’s Sudeley Castle estate (where Liz Hurley got married). Several contemporary artists were commissioned to create pieces for play, and highlights include a flying machine by Carston Holler, a tree house by Henry Krokatsis, oak-and-steel ping pong table by Rolf Sachs and a giant slide by Zaha Hadid. Through Oct 31.

SPECIAL EVENTS

London will dazzle from June 11-15 during Coutts London Jewellery Week (www.londonjewelleryweek.co.uk). Not only will there be several shows and special exhibitions, including at the Tower of London and V&A, but the London Eye will be transformed into a giant diamond ring, while a jewel-encrusted carpet will run along the Burlington Arcade.

Park lovers might want to relax in the artful new deck chairs scattered across London parks this summer. Part of the Deckchairs Dreams project (www.deckchairdreams.org), they were designed by leading names in art and architecture, including artists Tracey Emin and Mark Quinn, fashion designer Mathew Williamson and actress Joanna Lumley. Among the parks where you can find them are Hyde Park, Green Park, St James’s Park and Regent’s Park. And if you fall for a particular chair, the collection can be purchased on the Deckchair Dreams Web site.