Possibly one of the most fashionable areas in London, Hoxton Square has become an arts and entertainment minefield.  Located in Hoxton, London Borough of Hackney this public garden is one of the City’s oldest squares which was leased to Samuel Blewitt and Robert Hackshaw in 1683. The area suffered badly from bombing during the Second World War which destroyed the surrounding buildings and the Square’s St Monica’s church and Priory. It wasn’t until the 1980’s a new generation of young artists started to move in and by the 1990’s it became “The” creative arts scene as well as hosting a variety of thriving clubs, pubs and restaurants.

Hoxtons White Cube

One of the supreme attractions at Hoxton Square is the White Cube, an art gallery that was set up in 2000 to represent young British artists. It is now one of the worlds’ leading galleries for contemporary art with internationally-recognised artists such as Damien Hirst, Marc Quinn and Tracey Emin all partaking in exhibitions of their work. Additional galleries include Kenny Schachter’s Rove Gallery and the Londoner’s favourite 20 Hoxton Square which has an impromptu approach when it comes to exhibition planning so it’s always best to check back regularly to see what’s going on.

Hoxton Square Bar and Kitchen

With galleries showcasing contemporary and eclectic art of course this means bars and clubs just as stylish to fit in with the square’s trend-setting bravado. One of which is The Hoxton Square Bar and Kitchen which is renowned for its attraction to the hip young media types. Other sleek bars and venues that entice the ‘edgy’ crowd is the typically-Hoxton Zigfrid von Underbelly which the dress code encourages skinny jeans, something vintage and un-prescribed geek glasses.

The restaurants in the fashionable square caters for all whatever your preference. A couple of the favourites are Hoxton Apprentice which offers modern European cuisine and Yelo, authentic Thai dishes.

Even though Hoxton Square is renowned for its appeal to trendy hipsters with the increase in bars and clubs its crowd is slowly becoming more diverse and offers plenty of inspiration for just about everyone, whether you have a chic haircut or not.

There are however plenty of arty masochists willing to give it a go. A guideline figures for the number of London galleries is impossible to nail down – not least because they open and close faster than Wayne Rooneys flies – but it seems to be somewhere between 300 and 500.  Picking a random selection and dropping in may seem like one way to look at some art, but it will produce very mixed results. A recent trawl around a series of ’first Thursday’ galleries in the East End nearly made me slit my wrists in frustration – I found nothing that was close to worthwhile looking at over a period of over three hours. Ultimately only a fine curry and a beer on Brick Lane saved the evening!

My advice? Try sticking to names that you may have heard of or those recommended to you. At the same time why not try popping in to their near neighbours - these galleries may be riding on their famous neighbours coat-tails but are often are looking at the same market and at least can afford similar rents. Many of the best galleries are in small clusters in key areas - Hoxton, Vyner Street and Cork Street for example although some are out on a limb and need extra effort. Some the best are big and international, some are small and inventive. Here is a brief and very flawed guide to my ten favourites:

10. Stephen Friedman. An interesting international roster of established contemporary artists that include Yinka Shonibare, Thomas Hirschhorn, Yoshimoto Nara, Catherine Opie and David Shrigley. An OK gallery space close to Cork Street.

9. Hauser & Wirth. An International giant. Represent the estates of Eva Hesse and Allan Kaprow as well as Henry Moore.  Founded in Zurich 1992, the London gallery is in a wonderful historic Sir Edwin Lutyens building on Piccadilly, another branch being on Old Bond Street and yet another opening in Savile Row on 15 October 2010. Important and impressive exhibitions by established artists but are they a little dull?

8. Maureen Paley. Ever black-clad Maureen was one of the first to present contemporary art in the East End. Promotes US and European artists as well as launching new talent from the UK. Gallery artists include Turner winners Tillmans and Wearing plus nominees Gillick and Warren.  Always interesting and worth watching her artists.

7. Gagosian. Another international monster founded by Larry Gagosian with seven galleries: four in the USA, two in London, one in Rome and one in Athens. Built on the legacy of the New York School, abstract expressionism and Pop Art it also showed then contemporary artists like Basquiat. Expect museum quality exhibitions that feature artists of the calibre of Twombly, Picasso, Bacon and Warhol.

6. White Cube was set up by Jay Jopling in 1993 and is arguably one of most influential galleries of the past twenty years. Many of the very biggest names in art have appeared here, Hirst and the YBA’s of course amongst others like Kiefer and Orozco. Has very impressive spaces in both Hoxton and St James’s.

5. Timothy Taylor. A lovely space, just next to the exclusive Connaught Hotel (drop in for tea!), they feature a fascinating mix of established names like Arad, Riley and Katz with an, always interesting, selection of contemporary artists like Martin Maloney and Philip Guston. A good place to watch recently emerged talent.

4. Lisson Gallery. An impressive history which it has continued to build upon. Founded in 1967 artists included the likes of  Sol LeWitt, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin and Art & Language with art that represented an ethos concerning art’s place in a wider cultural and social context. They have continued to feature those like Anish Kapoor and Julian Opie ‘identifying and supporting succeeding generations of artists, each with a radical and distinctive approach to the artistic possibilities  of their times.’ Always interesting.

3. 20 Hoxton Square. Facing White Cube across Hoxton Square this gallery ‘is a collaborative project space, operating as a platform for emerging contemporary artists, whilst also acting as a creative hub for independent projects.’ They also have resident artists, a bookshop, screenings, artists talks and performances. Great place to spot emerging artists.

2. Haunch of Venison. Formerly the Museum of Mankind this vast neo-classical space just off Piccadilly includes ten separate gallery spaces. Often featuring multiple exhibitions its artists are contemporary, cutting edge and top notch. The curation is excellent and the space spectacular. Sometimes the vast open areas can overwhelm the art but who can complain when it features wonderful shows like the recent Joana Vasconcelos. Sadly it is all owned by Christies and widely despised in the art world. It loses money hand over fist and may not be here long – enjoy it whilst it lasts!

1. Victoria Miro. A fabulous big white-cubey space,  a little out on a limb but near enough to Hoxton and East End galleries. Wonderful artist portfolio includes the likes of Eggleston, Neel, Doig, Ofili, Perry and Elmgreen & Dragset. The current Jacco Olivier is excellent too. Make the effort to get there and drop in to the excellent (charitable foundation) Parasol Unit gallery, next door.

Please suggest your own favourites or tell me who I should have included!

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• Victoria Miro | interview (guardian.co.uk)

Amelia Whitelaw: "sloppy heap"

Although the evening’s theme was stories, two of the best pieces were silent. Kirstie Macleod, smouldering with contemplation, stood alone in an incense-laden room among suspended, glistening wires, and unravelled carmine wool onto a cubic frame on a treestump. In the adjoining corridor was her other piece: a sleeping woman half-buried in nightblue velvet bedding that continued far beyond her body, so you had to tread all over it.

The final performance was a short play about reproduction (in mammals) performed by Eloise Fornieles and Kate Hawkins. In it, a couplet-spouting sperm and egg of differing social status are brought together in the kindly embrace of the uterus lining. The performances were excellent, but a thick ideological gloss pushed it towards the unsavoury realm of edutainment.

The title says it all. Jaap de Vries’s paintings and sculptures seek to capture the conflict between anatomical decay and our interior recognition of that process, thus creating the kind of visceral and uncomfortable experience to which I am most responsive.

The human body is pared back, entrails exposed. Mutation becomes not just biology in rebellion, but a creative flux, reinvention. His statues, harnessed or tied, hang dispassionately from the ceiling, the discomfort not critical enough to warrant attempted escape.

Landscapes are a Siberian explosion of metallic sky and fallen trees, silver birches rising lacerated but alive from the layers of mulch. Polluted water reflects sunsets and verdure.

Standing there with my own scars, both visible and invisible, I asked myself the age-old questions of whether such reflection can be considered real and, if not, what worth there is in developing the inner courtyard. Ultimately, does absolute truth consist of absolute submission to biological impulse? If dualism is discarded, what is left but the organism? Does the soul indeed nestle in the neurosystem?

Lovers, skulls and vertebrae stripped away from their outer coating, transmit spontaneous joy, yet we are reminded that, “love does not feed you.” Perhaps love is simply a bonus of an affluent society where daily bread is accorded precedence over trespass. Yet therein lies the tension between the intellectual and spiritual pursuit of love and the biological wail of passion, which, if we have a mind to, may be articulated as art.

Inconvenient beauty steers a cybernetic course between base knowledge and divine aspiration, crowned by the overriding recognition that Life is not just a tendency, but a fierce choice.