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"Each month we ask the editors of ARTINFO sites around the world to tell us the most significant work of art or art happening of the month, and gather them together for our column \u201CPlanet Art.\u201D (NB: Since we have contributions only from where we have editors, this feature does not literally represent the art of the whole planet.) To see works from the exhibitions, click on the slideshow.Cheng Ran, \u201CThe Last Generation,\u201D 2013Galerie Urs Meile, BeijingCheng Ran's&amp;nbsp;audacious \u201CThe Last Generation\u201D&amp;nbsp;exhibition is a response to a philosophical detective novel he wrote&amp;nbsp;under the nom de plume \u201CWojtowircz Fog.\u201D The exhibition presents sample pages from the novel, entitled \u201CCircadian Rhythm,\u201D along with videos, installations, and found objects that provide \u201Cevidence\u201D of the fictional narrative's physical existence. The exhibition\u2019s self-referentiality is set in opposition to grand themes, drawing its inspiration from Steffan Postaer\u2019s novel \u2014 also titled \u201CThe Last Generation\u201D \u2014 which posits that the world will end in mental exhaustion, not physical destruction. Yet the show, which continues through&amp;nbsp;July 7, proves that Cheng\u2019s imagination is anything but exhausted.&amp;nbsp;\u2013&amp;nbsp;Lily Li, BLOUIN ARTINFO ChinaKirsten Pieroth, \u201CBerliner Pf\u00FCtze,\u201D 2013A Space Called Public, MunichFor her contribution to Elmgreen &amp;amp; Dragset\u2019s public art project, \u201CA Space Called Public,\u201D Kirsten Pieroth collected water from numerous puddles around Berlin, later transporting it to Munich and pouring it into a puddle she had to dig herself (Bavarians aren\u2019t particularly tolerant of uneven pavement). The piece opposes the public art stereotype of pieces fit for climbing on and posing next to with a thumbs-up and cheesy smile. It is quiet to an extent that seasoned urbanites would likely walk right on by. But for a city like Munich, which prides itself on fit and finish and quality of life, it has enraged the more hardened citizenry, and dazzled others with pleasures as simple to the typical city-dweller as reflections of tree branches and the negative space between buildings. It reminds of what is often lost in pursuit of perfection: character. \u2014 Alexander Forbes, BLOUIN ARTINFO GermanyNina Beier, \u201CReal Estate,\u201D 2013Bold Tendencies 2013, LondonThe summertime sculpture project \u201CBold Tendencies\u201D is back on the top floors of its South London car park, and this year&amp;nbsp;Nina Beier\u2019s contribution is one of the stars of the show. \u201CReal Estate\u201D (2013) continues a recent series in which the artist pairs geometric blocks of granite with bits of soft furnishing. After car and office-chair headrests, the Berlin-based Dane here combines her blocks with outmoded, padded headboards. Their contrasting textures feel particularly germane to the unique context of \u201CBold Tendencies\u201D: at once brutally urban and as welcoming as a home. \u2014Coline Milliard, BLOUIN ARTINFO U.K.Clement Valla, \u201CPaintings from Wushipu\u201Dbitforms, New YorkFor his contribution to \u201CVanishing Point,\u201D a group show of works re-framing motifs and issues from art history using cutting-edge technology, ascendant new media art star Clement Valla hung a pair of canvases and accompanying documentation from his neo-Baldessarian \u201CPaintings from Wushipu\u201D series. The pieces consist of paintings he commissioned from artists in the Wushipu Oil Painting Village in China \u2014 each composition jarringly combines a copy of a classical landscape painting with a rendering of the modern skyscrapers seen from the Chinese painter's studio \u2014 plus accompanying correspondence. The resulting mashups are as conceptually clever as they are visually startling. \u2014 Benjamin Sutton, BLOUIN ARTINFO U.S.Kim Chong-hak, \u201CChongseokjeong,\u201D 2013Gallery Hyundai, SeoulA controversial figurative painter, Kim Chong-hak has built his career on vibrantly hued odes to Mount Seorak, which have also made detractors out of many of his peers and critics. Now 77 years old, Kim continues to paint in his candid style, but among his newest work is \u201CChongseokjeong,\u201D which depicts a famous view of the legendary Mount Geumgang range. What seems initially like an abstract work is actually a relatively straightforward depiction of the natural rock formations. Nevertheless, the artist\u2019s minimalist palette and forms mark a change in his steadfast character. \u2014Ines Min, BLOUIN ARTINFO KoreaYuichi Yokoyama, \u201CRoom and World Map\u201DArataniurano, TokyoA formally trained oil painter who turned to manga for the expressive freedom it allowed him in \u201Cdepicting time,\u201D Yokoyama pares down the formal elements of his chosen medium here to accentuate its frantic dynamism \u2014 frames collide frenetically with each other, as if in thrall to a relentless, trance-like, throbbing beat. His expressionless, truncated figures shuttle from one destination to the next, riding trains that hurtle across a spotless but desolate techno-landscape, or wandering through enchanted groves populated by machine-like objects. On display here are original illustrations from his two newest works, which he just published this month, \u201CSekai Chizu no Ma\u201D (East Press) and \u201CRoom\u201D (Harmonica Books), as well as a selection of new collage paintings depicting countless faces of characters taken from his drawings \u2014 a hyper-condensed experience of the densely hatched drawings found in his books. \u2014 Darryl Jingwen Wee, BLOUIN ARTINFO JapanJananne Al-Ani, \u201CShadow Sites II,\u201D 2011Singapore Art Museum, SingaporeThis hypnotic video shows a sequence of aerial shots of desert landscape taken at different altitudes. The formal beauty of the work, showing the landscape as an abstracted visual field, is broken by the sound of an airplane's engines \u2014 a chilling reminder of the use of airborne surveillance in contemporary warfare. This slow burn of a work is part of strong survey of Arab art titled \u201CTerms &amp;amp; Conditions,\u201D ongoing at the Singapore Art Museum. \u2014 Adeline Chia, BLOUIN ARTINFO Southeast AsiaShary Boyle, \u201CSilent Dedication,\u201D 201355th Venice Biennale, Canadian PavilionQuietly ensconced in what is, ultimately, a very disappointing year for Canada\u2019s Venice pavilion, is this sumptuous silent film shot in black-and-white on 16mm, which reels out the captivating gestures of CJ Julien, a Canadian activist for aboriginal women\u2019s rights. Narrating in sign language, Shary Boyle\u2019s subject lends visuals to a script dedicated to the \u201Csilenced, the unspoken,\u201D and grounds an otherwise failed exhibition of the ethereal and manipulated allegories from Boyle\u2019s catalogue. Here, an antiquated medium is put to beautiful use, and comes off feeling profound rather than precious. \u2014 Sky Goodden, BLOUIN ARTINFO CanadaPablo Bartholomew, \u201CThe Kiss,\u201D 1975PHOTOINK, New DelhiFrom Gustav Klimt to Pablo Picasso, lovers locking lips has been a recurring art historical theme. But when Indian photographer Pablo Bartholomew first&amp;nbsp;showed his rendition, a photograph titled \u201CPablo and Pooh\u201D from his archival series \u201COutside In\u2026 A Tale of 3 Cities, the 70s and 80s\u201D \u2014 debuting in 2008 at Rencontre D\u2019Arles and now on display at the Obscura Photo Festival in Malaysia \u2014 he managed to inscribe its intensity upon the country\u2019s collective visual imagination. Taken during the 1970s, when the now 57-year-old, two-time World Press Photo Award-winning photographer was still in his 20s, the photograph features Bartholomew\u2019s tongue sensuously touching his then lover\u2019s tongue; a possible prelude to a passionate kiss, something that was then forbidden to be seen on Indian cinema and television screens. For a concurrent exhibition of Bartholomew\u2019s series at Delhi-based Photoink, director Devika Daulet-Singh has decided to rechristen the image \u201CThe Kiss;\u201D in doing so, he has asserted its rightful place within the art historical family of similar erotically charged images. Viewed in the larger context of the show, the image harks back to a now-bygone era of bell-bottomed pants and LSD trips; the first real iteration of post-Independent India's syncretism with Western subculture. Now, it stands as a testimony to a uniquely urban and somewhat rebellious Indian subculture that was the milieu of Bartholomew\u2019s series. \u201CWe were fooling around on an acid trip,\u201D Bartholomew said.&amp;nbsp;\u201CThe camera was on a tripod and there was a self-timer involved. This wasn\u2019t pre-planned\u2026 it just happened as a stream of thought.\u201D&amp;nbsp;\u2014Rosalyn D\u2019Mello, BLOUIN ARTINFO India 52 Portraits  by Brook Andrew, 2013Tolarno Galleries, MelbourneIndigenous Australian/Scottish artist Brook Andrew explores notions of identity and the perception of humanity in his new exhibition, which references 19th-century European treatment of indigenous peoples as ethnographic curiosities and the contrasting sacredness that indigenous people of Australia place on the human body. A poignant investigation into the history of the human condition, the exhibition consists of 52 mixed-media portraits featuring images based on 19th-century postcards of unknown people from Africa, Argentina, Ivory Coast, Syria, Sudan, Japan, Australia, as well as a Wunderkammer-inspired centerpiece.&amp;nbsp; According to Brook Andrew, \u201Cnames were not recorded when Indigenous peoples were photographed for ethnographic and curio purposes.&amp;nbsp; The history and identity of these people remain absent. In rare instances, some families might know an ancestor from a postcard.\u201D \u2014Nicholas Forrest, BLOUINARTINFO Australia"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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