RALEIGH, NC  – When the 31st annual North Carolina Artists Exhibition opened this month in the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Raleigh, an oil painting by Chapel Hill artist Kimberly Alvis was among the works carefully selected for the show by Nasher Museum of Art director Kimberly Rorschach, Ph.D., who served as juror.

NEW YORK, NY - The Ukrainian Museum in New York City will hold its "Gala Celebration of Spring" this Saturday, March 21, a benefit event that will take place for the first time in the Museum’s galleries.

Toronto, Ont. - On March 19 and 22, Cinematheque Ontario presents a long-anticipated new 35 mm print of Chantal Akerman’s legendary masterpiece Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975). Made with an all-female crew, Akerman’s breakthrough film is a key feminist text about three days in the life of an attractive Belgian widow (played by Delphine Seyrig), dominated by an unwavering routine of domestic chores and pre-arranged midafternoon rendezvous.

MADRID, SPAIN - The Museo del Prado has opened a research library whose content relates to its collections. Due to its specific nature, this library is an important tool of research both for those working in the Museum and for art historians in general. Over the past few years and as a result of the acquisition of the Cervelló and Madrazo Libraries, the Museum now has an important holding of old books on the visual arts.

JERUSALEM - A fragment of a pottery vessel of Persian provenance that dates to the Middle Ages (12th-13th centuries CE) was discovered in an archaeological excavation directed by Dr. Rina Avner, on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, in the Old City of Jerusalem, prior to construction by a private contractor.

WASHINGTON, DC - Franklin D. Roosevelt, President during the Great Depression, used stamps to communicate with the American people. A stamp collector himself, he understood the power of visual imagery, and he changed the look of stamps to convey messages of hope, optimism and the solidity of the federal government.

Plainview, NY - An exhibition is taking place beginning this March at the Plainview Old Bethpage Library in Plainview, New York. The exhibition features the abstract mixed media paintings of Beth S. Goldberg. The materials used in Goldberg’s work sometimes include collage, acrylic, watercolor, newspaper, yarn, tissue paper, wax, gesso, rice paper, corrugated board, and sandpaper. The paintings will be on display until March 31, 2009. Reception:  Sunday March 8, 2009, 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

AMSTERDAM, NL - New Jersey-born visual artist, Erin Marie Dunn, will present her solo show ‘Distinguished by the Swans’ March 14th thought April 12th at the popular Dutch art spot W139. W139 is managed, run and staffed by artists and has become an important artist meeting place in Amsterdam. Its openings are immensely popular with admission lines spilling down the Warmoesstraat, a street in the oldest part of the city. W139 is a huge, not-for-profit art space and curates shows of mainly site-specific installations by young Dutch and international artists.

Los Angeles, CA - L2kontemporary is pleased to present “Super/Natural,” the first solo exhibition from Kim Tucker for the gallery, continuing through March 7, 2009. Super/Natural is an idiosyncratically playful portrait of Kim Tucker’s fantastical Eden. Skunks, opossums, humans and other exotic and not-so-exotic denizens exist together in this vision, which is at best that of an imperfect world.

MIAMI BEACH, FL - The Bass Museum of Art presents Sound, on view through March 29, 2009. This unique exhibition brings together sound works by pioneer composers, sound and media artists associated with the Interdisciplinary Sound Arts Workshop (iSAW), in conjunction with the Subtropics Experimental Music and Sound Art Biennial (February 26-March 29, 2009 in Miami Beach). Founded in 1985, iSAW is committed to supporting new and innovative work by South Florida-based composers and musicians and serves as an incubator that provides tailored services to artists and arts organizations in all media. iSAW’s artist residency program utilizes its resources for the creation, presentation, screening and showing of new work in experimental music, dance, theater, radio and installation art.