Reclusive singer Kate Bush pipped Adele to a prestigious prize after her latest album was recognised at the South Bank Sky Arts Awards.

The season is almost upon us and all those interested in hats – and there's no better time of year to celebrate their flamboyancy, of course – might like to pay a visit to the genteel city of Bath for inspiration.

1. Manchester Piccadilly

Reader, I'm in love. Smitten. Usual signs – cold sweats, inexplicable exhilaration, inability to sleep. It's art I'm talking about. Art smote me.

The Pain of Desire, an exhibition of new work by British fashion photographer and artist Wendy Bevan opens at the Cob gallery tomorrow.

One of the best-kept secrets on the art world calendar is the biannual fundraiser at the Drawing Room, a gallery in a Victorian warehouse on a side street in London's Bethnal Green.

An army of workers are responsible for creating some of the world's best known artworks, says Michael Petry

Ruth Mackenzie, the director of the Cultural Olympiad, a series of arts events accompanying next summer's Games, has defiantly hit out at its critics, refusing to make the programme any more transparent.

Grayson Perry received a Royal Academician's medal in the category of Printmaking at the Royal Academy of Arts in London yesterday. Perry, 50, who often appears as "Claire", his female alter-ego, is known for his urns decorated with images of sex and child abuse. The potter joins Tracey Emin and Anish Kapoor at the institution which is regarded by many as "the artists' union".

The Royal Academy thinks so, but its latest show leaves Adrian Hamilton unconvinced. For a more stylish take, head to the Barbican, he says

Where to go, what to do in 2011

Curators may suggest that artists and designers are of the same stock, but, while there are some lovely things here, art is art – and a frock is a frock

Even the most rarefied of fashion designers is unlikely ever to describe him or herself as an artist. That would be rushing in where angels fear to tread. Art is art – a highbrow and only ever a coincidentally commercial pursuit – fashion is fashion, catering to the pretty, privileged and vain. Or so any purists out there might argue. It's a far from modern view, though. Witness the Louis Vuitton flagship store that opened on London's New Bond Street earlier this year with its Michael Landy kinetic sculpture, Damien Hirst monogrammed medicine chest and hugely successful bags designed in collaboration with Takashi Murakami to see how these two apparently very different disciplines benefit one another. Or how about the Prada Foundation in Milan, home to some of the most innovative artworks of the age. The brains behind it – Miuccia Prada and her husband, Patrizio Bertelli – are presumably more than a little aware that if designer fashion is aspirational, fine art is even more so and any association only serves to heighten the outside world's perception of a brand's status and power.