Thanks to everyone who entered the Tate calendar giveaway!

I now know all about some of your cultural highlights for the summer, including the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, the Magritte exhibition at Tate Liverpool, the Camberwell Arts Festival, and of course the mighty Manchester International Festival, which this time round features everything from an opera inspired by John Dee to The Day We Sang a 'love story with singing' created by Victoria Wood.

I've now randomly selected the two winners and they are:

Ben for the Miró calendar
Kate for the Watercolour calendar

I've emailed you both so get back to me as soon as you can to receive your calendars.

I really enjoyed taking a slow wander around Tate Modern's Joan Miró exhibition this week. Galleries often describe their exhibitions as a 'must-see' but for me, this show really was. I've always loved the deep, powerful colours of Miró's paintings  and I'm endlessly intrigued by his spidery, fantastical shapes and symbols, so it's no wonder that this exhibition has been in my calendar for a while.

This is a very comprehensive retrospective, bringing together more than 150 paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints from moments across the six decades of Miró's career. Interestingly, it also traces the more politically engaged aspects of his work, tracing the development of his artistic practice in relation to political and social upheaval during the Spanish Civil War, the Second World War and in Franco's Spain.  In a more straightforward way, however, this work is also a great pleasure simply to explore and experience: for me, the especial highlights were the incredible black and white Barcelona Series, but also the meditative, colour-saturated Bleu triptych.

Miró is at Tate Modern until 11 September 2011.

Giveaway!

To celebrate this exhibition at Tate Modern, I'm excited to have a lovely Tate Miró calendar to give away courtesy of Flame Tree Publishing, as well as a beautiful calendar from Tate's Watercolour exhibition over at Tate Britain, which I blogged about back here.

If you'd like to enter the giveaway to win one of the calendars, simply leave me a comment at the end of this post to tell me what exhibition, event or other cultural happening coming up in the next few months you'll be putting in your calendar.

As well as telling me what cultural highlight is your 'must-see', don't forget to include whether you would prefer the Watercolour or the Miró calendar. From all the comments, two whinners will be selected at random - each will receive one of the two calendars.

The closing date for the giveaway is Friday 24 June. I'm looking forward to hearing your suggestions!

[Image: Joan Miró The Escape Ladder 1940. Museum of Modern Art, New York © Joan Miró and Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, via Tate]