Summer is high season for the kinds of arts events that will make tough competition for the roster of barbecues, festivals and functions that will already be filling your calendar. But you can eat hot dogs and dance to music anytime – art openings are more ephemeral, so we recommend prioritising a little culture over the next couple of months. From celebrated gallery openings to global art fairs and major exhibitions, the following highlights – spanning all creative mediums – are worth making time for.

The Norwegian capital has welcomed two new cultural heavyweights to its waterfront with the arrival of the angular Edvard Munch Museum last year and, launching this summer, the 54,600sq m Nasjonal Museet – the Nordics’ largest art museum. Offering a comprehensive survey of art – including Mr Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” – architecture and design under one roof, its inaugural exhibition shines a light on contemporary Norwegian artists.

A historic mansion set between the Vienna State Opera and Albertina museum is the setting for a blockbuster new gallery that houses the impressive private collection of Austrian billionaire Ms Heidi Goëss-Horten. Expect to find pioneers of international modernism, neo-expressionism and American pop-art, with standout works including those by the likes of Messrs Jean-Michel Basquiat, Damien Hirst and Dan Flavin.

This citywide celebration of design returns for its delayed 60th edition this June, with Milan’s galleries, green spaces, historic buildings and exhibition halls becoming a sprawling showcase of creativity. While the focus is predominantly on furniture, Salone’s cultural clout plays out across a vast range of immersive installations, artist collaborations and fringe events, making it a must-visit for aesthetes.

London’s Victoria & Albert Museum takes us on a vivid journey with an exhibition that explores the creative vitality of African fashion across a compelling range of textiles, photographs, music and visual arts. From midcentury icons such as Messrs Chris Seydou and Kofi Ansah to contemporary designers including Mr Thebe Magugu, the exhibition will showcase the continent’s lasting legacy and continued influence on global fashion trends.

In deserved recognition of Seoul’s thriving creative community – and recent surge in its art market – the influential Frieze art fair touches down in the city for the first time this September. Held at Coex in the city’s Gangnam district, this debut edition will bring together established local galleries as well as an impressive roster of cultural institutions from across Asia and the rest of the world, providing an exciting platform for local creatives to shine.

Looming above Taipei’s famous Shilin night market, this striking performing arts complex makes a statement-making new addition to the city’s skyline. Its angular geometric forms house a series of auditoriums, stages and outdoor theatre venues that – following a three-month trial earlier this year – opens to the public this summer with a diverse debut season of traditional opera, drama and dance.

Known for his vivid documentation of emerging subcultures, pioneering German artist and photographer Mr Wolfgang Tillmans is the focus of a major exhibition at MoMA this September. This comprehensive study of the artist’s career features about 350 of Tillmans’s photographs, videos and multimedia installations in a thrilling showcase of his no-rules approach.

Swap your living room for a London gallery to catch this summer’s biggest Netflix must-see, with this immersive exhibition at the Design Museum charting the streaming heavyweight’s journey from video rental service to box-set bingeing platform. Billed as an “evolution of the Netflix experience”, visitors can expect a visual dissection of its design credentials, deep dives into fan-favourite shows and the exploration of this very modern mainstay of our media landscape.

This groundbreaking new exhibition celebrates the often overlooked Black American performers and filmmakers who drove cinema forward from the birth of the medium through to the civil rights movement. Using restored films, newsreels, photographs, costumes and movie ephemera as well as augmented reality, the exhibition will draw long-overdue attention to some of cinema’s lesser-known heroes.