Last night I went to the Private View for this year’s Threadneedle Prize at the Mall Galleries, which is worth £10,000 to a winning artist. Thousands of artists submitted artwork and from the work which was selected, and hung for the show, the public can vote for their favourites. The theme this year seemed to be very urban, with lots of gritty landscapes, but there were also some striking portraits and a specially constructed ‘Den’ to go into, which made you feel as though you could be in a hide or disused pillbox near a remote lake.

I was in Edinburgh last week to enjoy the glorious mayhem of the Festival and watch masses of Fringe shows. But while I was there I popped into the Scottish Parliament Building. You have to go through airport style security to get into the controversial building, but it was well worth it. I saw the World Press Photo collection of remarkably moving reportage – 170 photographs of people, places, conflict, terror and tenderness taken by photographers from around the world. The show has now moved to the UN in New York.

I was in Gateshead and Newcastle last week and nipped into the wonderful Baltic Centre. From the gallery at the top of the building you can gaze over the regeneration of the River Tyne docks and watch the amazing new swing bridge rise and fall to let tall ships pass. The gallery was showing an intriguing collection of work by Cornelia Parker (including a great installation of suspended squashed brass instruments) as well as esoteric paintings by American composer and artist John Cage.

This week we stopped by the brand new Monocle Shop in New York’s West Village. Like Monocle’s locations in London, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and Tokyo, the NYC store is a charming little jewel-box of a shop (a mere 188 square feet!) packed full of covetable items like bags from Porter and colognes created in collaboration with Comme des Garcons. Impeccably curated and tightly edited, the shop’s inventory will make it a must-see for design-obsessed New Yorkers.

Last week I visited The New Décor exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. The first floor has been furnished with sculptures and installations which takes interior design as a point of departure. A combination of drama and illusion, highlights include – Roman Signer‘s ’Floating Table’ and Spencer Finch’s light installation, Night Sky. On the second floor, Ernesto Neto: The Edges of the World, there is a labyrinthine installation, a series of sculptures-within-sculptures invites you to explore, relax and have fun. Each distinct area morphs into another. In one room the installation leads you through to an outdoor swimming pool!

Written by James Hart