The US government shutdown has seen flights canceled, museums closed and food stamps stopped and to that list of disrupted business can now be added the unveiling of the artist representing the country at next year's Venice Biennale.

Sculptor Alma Allen is the reported pick but the news will not be confirmed with an official announcement until the shutdown ends.

It comes after Robert Lazzarini revealed he initially got the commission only for it to be withdrawn after a funding deal fell through.

Allen, who is Utah-born but based in Mexico, works in stone, wood and bronze and uses traditional hand-carving alongside more technological methods including a robot that turns his models into large-scale works.

He is reportedly working with curator Jeffrey Uslip, who organized Malta's pavilion at the 2022 Biennale, on next year's show.

Allen, Uslip and Lazzarini all feature in our new comprehensive biographies of art world figures making headlines. Click on their names to find out more.

The reported cost of President Trump's planned triumphal arch - dubbed the Arc de Trump - set to be built across from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC.

Antwerp's KMSKA is using AI to recreate a 1938 lecture by Rene Magritte for a new show dedicated to the surrealist.

Magritte. La ligne de vie, which opens on November 15 and runs to February 22, is based on the lecture he gave at the museum where he discussed the joy of discovering painting during his childhood.

The text for the talk and accompanying slides survive but there is no audio recording so gallery staff recreated his voice from existing interviews and used technology to recreate the speech with Magritte acting as a narrator throughout the show.

KMSKA's director Carmen Willems said visitors would "get to know Magritte’s work through his own words and voice".

Part of Beijing's Palace Museum has opened to the public for the first time in 20 years after a multi-million dollar regeneration project.

The four acre Qianlong Garden was built in the 18th century for a former emperor who stepped aside from power in favor of his son.

It survived wars and revolution with some of its finest treasures smuggled away on barges pulled by hand along the Yangtze River in the face of the Japanese invasion in 1937.

The re-opened gardens now allow visitors to see its courtyard complexes and buildings which house a large part of the imperial art collection that remained in mainland China.

1 - Art Basel CEO Noah Horowitz said its platform for digital art debuting at this year's Miami Beach fair is proof the work is "no longer at the margins" of the market. The Zero 10 platform will feature work by 12 exhibitors as well as Lu Yang Doku's Heaven which is on loan from the UBS art collection.

2 - Admission to the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, is free on its first day in its new building on Saturday November 15. The museum, run by Thelma Golden, has moved into a $300 million seven-floor building designed by architect David Adjaye's firm.

3 - Sara Friedlander has been named chairman of Post-War and Contemporary Art for the Americas at Christie's. Described by the firm as a "respected dealmaker", she is responsible for bringing work from Japan's Kawamura museum and the collection of Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson to auction in New York this month.

4 - Vasyl Cherepanyn has been named curator of the 14th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art in 2027. The Biennale's director Axel Wieder said the Kyiv-based Ukrainian curator would bring "a distinctive perspective" to the event.