From Queen Elizabeth to the stiletto heel in London, shamanism to cult comic books in Paris or experimental sculpture in Madrid, Europe’s art scene offers rich pickings this month. There will also be an outburst of world music and dance at spring festivals in Germany and Switzerland. Following is a selection of what’s on in Europe in May.

Belgium

Art: A generation of Lebanese artists and designers who grew up during the war years, from 1975 to 1990, bring contemporary art from Lebanon to Belgium in a show entitled “Art is the answer!” held in the capital’s iconic Art Deco venue, the Villa Empain.

The venue hosts the Boghossian Foundation, set up in 1992 by the Lebanese jeweller Boghossian family of Armenian origin who are based in Antwerp and Geneva and aim to promote dialogue between east and west. Among artists at the show are Ayman Baalbaki and Ranya Sarakbi.

Until September 2.

www.villaempain.com

Music: One of the highlights of the vibrant Brussels music scene, the Nuits Botanique rock festival features some 50 concerts at one of the city’s favourite venues, the hothouses of the old botanical gardens.

The festival will highlight home group Absynthe Minded, Britain’s Blood Red Shoes as well as US group The Rapture, Mali’s Amadou & Mariam and musicians from across the border in France. Dominique A, Daniel Darc and Charlotte Gainsbourg.

From May 10 to 21

www.botanique.be

Denmark

Art: Using modern technology such as x-radiography, infrared imaging and UV fluorescence, specialists have analysed four Flemish 16th century paintings to study the materials and techniques of copying employed by artists who worked in the style of the popular masters Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

The exhibition Illuminated: Tracing Bosch and Bruegel depicts the detective work done by art historians, revealing for example how many images one painting can contain and how many times the painter has drawn over the same image.

At National Gallery of Den-mark, Copenhagen, from May 4 to October 21.

www.smk.dk.

Britain

Art: Sixty portraits of Queen Elizabeth II go on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London, offering both formal and irreverent depictions of the monarch throughout her six decades on the throne.

The exhibition, timed to coincide with the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, features works by Cecil Beaton, Andy Warhol and Lucian Freud.

The Queen: Art and Image runs from May 17 to October 21.

www.npg.org.uk

Fashion: With their distinctive red soles and towering heels, Christian Louboutin’s shoes are a byword for glamour, and now London’s Design Museum is paying tribute to the French designer with a dedicated exhibition.

It showcases 20 years of designs, from stilettoes to lace-up boots, which for many women across the world have come to epitomise style, power, and femininity, even when left struggling to walk.

Christian Louboutin is at the Design Museum from May 1 to July 9.

http://designmuseum.org

France

Cartoons: Robert Crumb’s cult comic universe, from hippy-era characters like Fritz the Cat to his cartoon take on the Bible, are on show at Paris’ Museum of Modern Art.

Some 600 works by the US counter-culture icon − LSD-inspired heroes, sex rampages and frontal assaults on political correctness − are brought together in the largest-ever retrospective of his work.

Until August 19.

www.mam.paris.fr/fr/expositions/crumb

Art/Anthropology: Chaos and man’s attempts to tame it are at the heart of a spectacular new show at Paris’ museum of tribal arts that pits voodoo and shamanic artefacts alongside the work of contemporary artists.

More than 300 ethnological objects, shown alongside art world giants like Paul McCarthy or the late Jean-Michel Basquiat, explore themes of metamorphosis, exorcism, healing or musical trance.

Until July 29 at the Quai Branly museum.

www.quaibranly.fr

Germany

Art: Shining the spotlight on the many ways artists deal with the newspaper, Berlin’s Martin Gropius Bau museum features works by Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, Ai Weiwei and Julian Schnabel, among others, in ARTandPRESS.

Until June 24.

www.berlinerfestspiele.de/en/aktuell/festivals/gropiusbau/programm_mgb/veranstaltungsdetail_mgb_28887.php

Music: Singer Peter Gabriel is to appear at the six-week-long Movimentos Festival, which features 65 performances by international dance ensembles, jazz and classical concerts as well as dramatised readings, in the north German city of Wolfsburg.

Until May 20.

http://www.autostadt.de/en/events/movimentos-2012/

Switzerland

Food and drink: Eternally overshadowed by its French neighbour, Switzerland is a major wine producer in its own right and the winery open day Caves Ouvertes in the Geneva canton lets visitors put the latest vintage to the test.

Almost 90 wineries will welcome thousands of enthusiasts with many also providing entertainment and nibbles.

On May 12.

www.opage.ch

Music: Geneva’s Concert for Hope (Fête de l’Espoir) is enjoyed each year as much for the 20 or so international acts as the chance to picnic in the sun. Around 50,000 people are expected at this free event.

At the Stade du Bout du Monde on May 26.

www.espoir.ch

Netherlands

Music: Quirky Australian quintet the Spaghetti Western Orchestra play a series of tribute songs composed by Ennio Morricone for classic cowboy movies that made Clint Eastwood a star.

Performed with “instruments” such as “child-sized boots”, Tasmanian Lottery Balls − and an asthma inhaler, the soundtracks include The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, For A Few Dollars More and Once Upon A Time in The West.

At the Royal Carre Theatre in Amsterdam on May 18, 19 and 20.

www.carre.nl

Spain

Theatre: Madrid’s municipal stage festival, Festival de Otono en Primavera, hosts productions by British director Peter Brook’s Paris-based company and Simon McBurney’s Complicite theatre troupe.

Mr Brook’s musical theatre piece The Suit, based on a 1950s novel set in South Africa during apartheid, and Complicite’s stage version of the classic novel The Master and Margarita are among 23 shows around the city from May 9 to June 3.

www.madrid.org/fo

Art: Madrid’s Reina Sofia art museum hosts a show of 80 works by experimental sculptor Nacho Criado, one of Spain’s top contemporary artists, who died in 2010.

The award-winning sculptor and his abstract and monu-mental works in wood and other media were influenced by the likes of French Surrealist Marcel Duchamp, US painter Mark Rothko and dramatist Samuel Beckett.

Until October 1.

www.museoreinasofia.es

Italy

Art: An exhibition entitled Picasso and Vollard: The Genius And The Merchant (above), looks at the relationship between the Spanish painter and Ambroise Vollard, the influential art dealer who revealed him to the public.

The Venice show, with over 150 works, focuses on the themes of tension, melancholy and eroticism, and runs until July 8.

www.istitutoveneto.it

Art: Perugia plays host to an exhibit of paintings and drawings by the Italian Renaissance painter Luca Signorelli, noted for his depictions of the Antichrist. The show runs until August 26.

www.mostrasignorelli.it

Portugal

Cinema: Portuguese language film festival FESTin features 76 films and this year takes Brazilian cinema as its theme with retrospectives of actor Jardel Filho and director Hector Babenco. From May 9 to 16 at Sao Jorge cinema, Lisbon.

www.festin-festival.com

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