The director of Brussels' $262 million Kanal museum insists its grand opening on November 28 will go ahead despite a fire breaking out in the building this week.

Firefighters were called to the site, a former Citroen garage, on Monday night and spent three hours getting the fire under control.

The fire started on the roof of one of the building's new towers which will house its architecture department.

No injuries were reported, but "significant water damage" has been reported in the building in the Belgian capital.

The museum's director Yves Goldstein said the fire was "a huge blow at this final stage before opening", but added: "The main thing is that Kanal’s opening, planned for 28 November, is not in question."

Its planned launch includes 10 exhibitions running simultaneously with work by Carrie Mae Weems, Joelle Tuerlinckx and Manon de Boer on show.

The total sales for Phillips' spring season this year - up 60% on 2025 - thanks in part to a boom in the luxury watch market. The auction house, founded in London in 1796 and currently led by CEO Martin Wilson, said 40% of buyers were new customers and almost 70% of works were sold online.

A Keith Haring mural that has survived almost four decades on the side of a Philadelphia house could be permanently protected after being nominated for a place on the city's register of historic places.

Haring painted We The Youth with a group of high school students in 1987 on the home in the Point Breeze neighborhood in South Philadelphia.

It recently made headlines again after the house was put up for rent.

The submission to the city's Historical Commission describes the work as "quintessential Keith Haring" and says it is the "only example of one of his collaborative public murals that remains in its original location in the United States".

The commission will consider the mural's future on July 22. It has previously declined to give protected status to other murals including some by well-known Philadelphia artist Isaiah Zagar who died earlier this year.

As the New Museum's new director, Massimiliano Gioni is responsible for its recently extended building on The Bowery and hundreds of staff. If that was not enough he is also worried about zombies.

Gioni, who was announced in the role yesterday, told the New York Times "one of the biggest pressures" he faces is "how you don’t succumb to a certain idea of entertainment that is complicit with a kind of spectacle machine — that transforms the viewer into a zombie".

The Italian-born curator, who is only the New York museum's third director after Marcia Tucker and Lisa Phillips, said treating its audience as "intelligent" and "committed" was more of a pressure than finding funding for its work.

Striking a balance between visitor experience and pulling in the crowds is a problem for all museum leaders with one of the most extreme examples being The Louvre in Paris with visitors criticizing what can be 90 minute waits to spend 30 seconds in front of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

Gioni, who officially starts on August 1, has worked at the New Museum since 2006 when he joined as a curator and was artistic director for the 2012 Venice Biennale and has been a regular collaborator with Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan.

1 - The New York-based Fundacion Kahlo has announced a $50,000 award for emerging contemporary Mexican artists. The prize, which includes the chance to show work in Manhattan as well as Mexico City, is sponsored by Phillips Auction House and run by the organization set up by the family of Frida Kahlo.

2 - San Francisco's Tenderloin Museum will be closed this month after shutting in June for what it said were "unforeseen facility issues". The museum, where previous shows include an exhibition by photographer Bill Jacobson, was established in 2009 to promote the edgy neighborhood's history.

3 - Tributes have been paid to sculptor Valerie Brathwaite who has died aged 87. The Trinidadian-born artist, who studied in London and Paris but was latterly based in Caracas, was described as "a luminous and constant presence in our country’s cultural life" by Venezuelan gallery Space Monitor.

4 - British painter Clare Woods is now represented by Victoria Miro gallery having previously been on the books at Stephen Friedman. A show of her work opens later this month at London's Pitzhanger Gallery with her first solo exhibition with Victoria Miro planned for early next year.