Buckle up. It is looking like a showdown between U.S. Vice-President J.D. Vance and Chief Justice John G. Roberts to decide who replaces Lonnie Bunch at the head of the Smithsonian Institution.

The veteran curator, who faced constant criticism from the Trump White House over his leadership, announced his retirement yesterday, wistfully telling The New York Times: "I’d like to wake up in the morning and not look at my cellphone."

He has been caught between a hostile administration accusing the institution of peddling "narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive” and others who say it has bowed down before the White House such as Amy Sherald who withdrew her show at the National Portrait Gallery over a disagreement about how her portrait of a transgender Statue of Liberty would be displayed.

Bunch's successor, who will be responsible for dozens of major museums and libraries across the nation, is chosen by a 17-member board made up of six members of Congress, nine "citizen regents" and Vance and Smith.

Just to complicate matters several of the public members have left the board and not been replaced. The Washington Post predicts the White House will attempt to fill the empty seats with allies to get its candidate the job and warns Roberts is "one of the few people close to the institution with the gravitas to stand up and say no to Vance and Trump" in what looks set to be a major political battle of wills.

The starting price for Philippe Maindron's Eiffela Broken Dream which was among the sculptures at this year's Burning Man festival in the desert in Nevada. The almost-50-foot-high scaled-down and broken-up replica of the Eiffel Tower in Paris is being sold by French auction house Rouillac on Monday.

There is always one.

A total of 48,000 people visited Rotterdam's Depot of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen to see its installation of Wim T. Schippers' Peanut Butter Floor and 47,999 behaved themselves. The same cannot be said for the person who got down on the floor and licked it.

A spokesman for the museum said 48 people slipped in the installation, which closed on Monday after more than eight weeks on show, 80 people complained about it and five dropped their phones in it.

They added: "One licking incident took place."

Staff spread around 390kg of peanut butter across a hexagon on the floor of the building in tribute to its creator who first exhibited it in 1969 and who died in June.

Tributes have been paid to painter Lucien Smith who has died aged 37.

Smith enjoyed a meteoric rise with early works selling for six figures before turning his back on the art market to work with emerging artists. His last major venture was the re-opening of FOOD - reviving the artist-run restaurant/art project set up in New York in 1971 by artists including Gordon Matta-Clark and Tina Girouard.

A statement from Skarstedt Gallery, which represented him during his time as the darling of the art market, said it was "deeply saddened" to hear of his death.

London gallery Kearsey & Gold, which recently hosted one of his solo shows, said: "We are grateful to have existed in Lucien’s orbit for the time we did."

1 - The new Faro Santander museum is celebrating its opening by offering free admission until September 17. The Spanish institution, founded by the Santander banking group, is in a building reworked by the architect David Chipperfield with inaugural exhibitions including a show of Leonora Carrington work and the Gelman collection of Mexican art.

2 - The photography of legendary crime novelist Agatha Christie goes on show in the British Library in London next month. Images of her travels in Egypt, Hawaii and Southern Africa  are included in the exhibition which opens on October 30.

3 - The sale of the collection of music business executive Clive Davis, which includes works by David Hockney, Andy Warhol and Frank Stella, is expected to fetch an estimated $35 million in New York. Davis, who died earlier this year, helped forge the careers of stars including Pink Floyd, Sly and the Family Stone and Bruce Springsteen.

4 - Swedish retail giant IKEA has launched a range of artworks for sale in its stores. It has worked with seven artists to make 22 different pieces including glass, ceramics and textiles.

5 - Berlin Art Week starts today and runs for five days. Click here or here on Instagram to see our pick of six solo shows to see in the city.