It was a bitterly cold winter in Beijing, particularly for more than 1,000 artists living in the art zones on the northeast fringes. Beginning in November 2009, residents of Zhengyang Creative Art Zone, 008 Art Zone and neighboring areas were served eviction notices so that the areas could be razed to make room for new government-sponsored developments.

With at least 2,000 dead and the lives of more than 20 million directly affected, the July floods in Pakistan evinced a profound, passionate response from the art community.

Even as prudent institutions keep their budgets in check, top curators and institutional directors continue to be in demand, some moving halfway around the world for new posts, others changing desks across town. 

Although collectors are still flying to far-flung locales in private jets to attend art fairs, prices for most contemporary artworks are nowhere near the heights of 2007. However, auction results in the past 15 months suggest that business as usual is underway again for premium works, as skittish collectors pick tried-and-true artists, many of whom appear in art-historical canons.

The same week that Bangkok was erupting in violent political protests, the Cannes Film Festival jury awarded the Palme d’Or to Apichatpong Weerasethakul for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010), his poignant feature film  about an elderly man who returns to his village  in the days before his death.

The Buddhist Kingdom of Bhutan’s first democratic government, elected in 2008, measures the success of all its activity in terms of the happiness it produces for its citizens.

Oil-rich Brunei is one of Asia’s wealthiest states. Citizens enjoy high living standards, including no taxes and universal subsidized health care and education.

With extensive scenes in New Delhi and Mumbai, and significant communities in Bengaluru, Kolkata and Kochi, India has become a global art force in the past decade. 

The multifaith, multiethnic population of Kazakhstan has a rich cultural tradition in applied arts and folk music. 

With a tradition of liberal education and less stringent censorship laws compared to neighboring countries, Beirut has long been a cultural capital and a regional crossroads. 

Macau’s primary economic activity is betting,but not on contemporary art; like other international casino centers, it is flush with tourist cash, but art remains little more than an afterthought.

Located near the equator northeast of Australia, the 21-square-kilometer, low-lying island of Nauru is the smallest and one of the most isolated republics in the world.

Known to the Indigenous Maori people as Aotearoa, “The Land of the Long White Cloud,” New Zealand is home to a thriving art scene, made up of residents with diverse Pacific, Asian and European heritages.

A general election year in the Philippines, 2010 saw thousands of government posts filled across the country, from the president to provincial and municipal representatives.

ince Taiwan’s Nationalist (Kuomintang) Party won the presidency in 2008, it has implemented  a raft of policies directed  at improving historically strained ties  with China.

Since president Kurbanguly Berdymuhamedov came to power in December 2006, natural gas-rich former Soviet state Turkmenistan has gradually opened up to international trade.

Despite crippling poverty, limited rights for women and a growing fight to suppress  an al-Qaeda insurgency  in several provinces, Yemen continues to invest in its arts infrastructure.

Over the past couple of years it has been hard to avoid the work of Ai Weiwei. Conscientiously ubiquitous, in 2008 it popped up in Beijing in the design for the famous “Bird’s Nest” Olympic stadium, only to be disowned by the artist as a symptom of the  “pretend smile of bad taste.” 

Devising a list of ten memorable gallery shows and ten museum exhibitions provokes joy, dismissive thoughts, scorn and pleasure. It raises new ideas, doubts, biases and reminders of earlier, lost thoughts. These were just a few of the flashes we had in 2010; you’ll have your own.