Enlarge Photo

This month, if you’re traveling to these destinations, don’t miss the following events.

BASEL

The renowned Fondation Beyeler (www.beyeler.com) presents Venice, a comprehensive exhibit on how artists have interpreted la Serenissima throughout the centuries. 130 paintings are on display by fourteen painters, including Canaletto, Turner, Whistler, Manet, Renoir and several by Monet from the series he completed in 1908.

LIVERPOOL

This year’s annual contemporary art Biennial (www.biennial.com) is called Made Up and features work by a slew of international artists who were asked let their imagination run wild. The Biennial coincides with the Liverpool’s year as European Cultural Capital, so many of the works are large-scale installations that playfully, aggressively and creatively infuse the city’s urban landscapes with cutting-edge ideas and concepts. There’s also a lengthy schedule of events, from artist talks to jogging tours. From September 22-November 30, 2008.

LONDON

Kenneth Branagh plays the title role in Chechov’s Ivanov, in a production directed by artistic director Michael Grandage, that marks the first of a series of plays the Donmar Warehouse is performing at London’s refurbished Wyndham Theatre. The premiere is September 12 with additional dates throughout the fall.

LOS ANGELES

Five centuries of Indonesian textiles are on display at the LACMA with more than ninety works dating from the 15th through 20th centuries. Mary Hunt Kahlenberg, an expert on Asian textiles and author of several books on the topic co-curates the show which features many pieces form her personal collection. From September 18 through March 15.

Bringing in guest directors from the movies seems to be an ever-popular fad in the opera world: Woody Allen directed the well-received Gianni Schicci (the third act of Puccini’s Il Trittio trilogy) for the Los Angeles Opera (www.losangelesopera.com). Performance dates are scheduled through September.

NEW YORK

Bring the kids to the Morgan Library, which hosts a special exhibit on the early drawings and watercolors of Jean de Brunhoff, the French writer and illustrator of beloved, suited elephant Barbar (Brunhoff died at the ago of 37 and his son, whose works are also shown in this wonderful show. If you’re up for leaving the borough of Manhattan, head to Brooklyn where the Children’s Museum (www.brooklynkids.org) will celebrate its grand reopening weekend (it had been closed for major renovations) on September 20.

On through January 11 at the Asia Society (www.asiasociety.org) is the groundbreaking Art and China’s Revolution, which showcases works from the three decades following the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949_. The exhibit was more than five years in the making and the Chinese government denied permission for the Asia Society of borrow works for it, so everything on view comes form private collections and the artists themselves.

Read about the city’s reopened Museum of Arts & Design.

PARIS

The Louvre hosts a major exhibit dedicated to the works of Italian Renaissance artist Mantegna (1431-1506). Many of the works are in France for the first time, including some from Britain’s Hampton Court (the Queen gave permission for the nine-panel Triumphs of Caesar cycle from 1486, to leave the country for the first time in over 350 years). The exhibit runs from September 26-January 5. Fans of modern art should head to the Pompidou, which hosts a retrospective of mixed-media artist Jacques Villeglé, who is 82 years old this year. Known for his ripped and lacerated poster collages, Villeglé is still revered by throngs of contemporary graphic designers. The show opens on September 17 and runs through January 5.

SAN FRANCISCO

Amy Tan turned her 1991 bestseller The Bonesetter’s Daughter into a libretto for this opera staged at the San Francisco Opera (www.sfopera.com) with music by Stewart Wallace. Mezzo-soprano Zheng Cao leads a cast that also includes Qian Yi who garnered rave reviews in last year’s production of The Peony Pavilion. The world premiere is scheduled for Sept 13 with additional dates on September 16,20, 25, 28 and 30.

STOCKHOLM

The Deluded Eye: Five Centuries of Deception, the major exhibit that opens at the National Museum on September 25 takes on the playful art of deceiving the eye (trompe l’oeil). The exhibit includes works by old masters like Eyck and Gijsbrecht, displaying them alongside those by surrealist René Magritte, Swedish artist Otto G. Carlsund and contemporary pieces by Anish Kapoor, Christian Andersson and Olafur Eliasson. Through January 11.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

The National Gallery of Art (www.nga.gov) hosts a major retrospective on 19-century artist George de Forest Brush, whose firsthand experience living among the Arapahoe, Shoshone, and Crow in Wyoming and Montana resulted in a series of paintings depicting American Indians. The show, organized in association with the Seattle Art Museum opens on September 14 and runs through January 4, 2009.