The heatwave that saw Europe swelter in record temperatures has left the Louvre with a severe case of sunburn.

The Paris museum was forced to close early 11 times in the face of rising temperatures and lost $1.1 million in revenue in the process.

There were 60,000 canceled tickets and 200,000 fewer visitors than last year - a 9% drop - according to a report in French newspaper Le Monde.

The beleaguered museum, led by Christophe Leribault and home to Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, set up a dedicated heatwave unit to deal with the weather and handed out more than 2,000 fans and 200 bottles of water as well as caps, shorts and t-shirts to staff.

Filmmaker George Lucas said his 17-year campaign to launch his museum of narrative art "almost broke" him.

The Star Wars director and his wife, Mellody Hobson Lucas, initially planned to build the museum in Chicago before moving on to San Francisco and finally settling on Los Angeles where he opened its doors for a press preview yesterday.

He told journalists it had been "a long haul", adding: "I’m used to doing the impossible. This one almost broke my will."

The $1 billion building, designed by Chinese architect Ma Yansong, has 100,000 square feet of exhibition space with 35 themed galleries.

Among the artists whose work is on show are Artemisia Gentileschi, Frida Kahlo, Vincent van Gogh, Banksy and Takashi Murakami.

Pandemonium is clearly the word of the day at the Venice Biennale.

Not only is it the title of the newly announced issue of its magazine, but it is also what Foundation President Pietrangelo Buttafuoco caused when he defended his decision to invite Russia to this year's event.

The launch of the latest magazine, complete with contributions by Maurizio Cattelan and curator Francesco Bonami, was overshadowed by the controversy caused by Buttafuoco's interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera where he said he would do “everything” the same again if he had to.

Buttafuoco's decision was criticized by artists, his own government and the European Commission which cancelled its $2.3 million grant to the biennale in protest while the jury chosen to select the winner of the Golden Lion resigned en masse.

1 - The founder of Singapore's Padimai Art & Tech Studio, Vignesh Sundaresan, has been given the 2026 Distinguished Patron of the Arts Award by the city-state's arts council. Sundaresan, also known as Metakovan, made headlines in 2021 when he paid $69.3 million for Beeple's digital artwork Everydays: The First 5000 Days.

2 - A book about the effect of war on Ukrainian artists has been long-listed for the $67,000 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. Ukrainian Lessons: Art in a Time of War by Charlotte Higgins is one of 13 titles in the running for the prize with the winner announced in London on November 4.

3 - The Saturday Evening Post, which helped launch the career of Norman Rockwell, has announced it will close its print edition in January ending more than 200 years of history. The painter illustrated more than 300 covers for the American magazine which also published essays by Joan Didion.

4 - The organizers of the Chinese Pavilion have withdrawn from the Gwangju Biennale just two days before its opening in protest at the naming of the Taiwanese exhibition. It comes after protests forced the South Korean biennale to allow the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts to present its show under the name "Taiwan Pavilion".

5 - German artist Kerstin Bratsch has won the $160,000 2027 Zurich Art Prize. The vast majority of the prize money covers the production costs of an exhibition at Haus Konstruktiv in the Swiss city next June.