The future of the main exhibition of next year's Venice Biennale is unclear after the sudden death of its curator Koyo Kouoh only days before she was due to unveil her plans for the event.

The 57-year-old died on Saturday in Switzerland with her husband Philippe Mall saying she had recently been diagnosed with cancer. The Cameroon-born curator had led Cape Town’s Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa since 2019.

In a statement at the weekend, the Biennale said it was "deeply saddened and dismayed" to learn of her "sudden and untimely passing".

It said Kouoh had "worked with passion, intellectual rigor and vision on the conception and development of the Biennale Arte 2026". She was due to announce next year's theme in Venice on May 20.

Asked by HENI News about next year's plans, the Biennale declined to comment but Kouoh's death leaves organisers with decisions about whether to find an understudy to carry on her work or bring in a new curator or even postpone the event completely.

Los Angeles–based sculptor Alison Saar has been awarded this year's $50,000 David C. Driskell Prize for her contribution to African American art.

The prize, awarded annually by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia, is named after the artist and academic who helped pioneer the study of African American art.

Set up 20 years ago, the prize is alternately given to an artist and an art historian with previous recipients including Rashid Johnson and Ebony G. Patterson.

The amount in dollars the 39 lots going under the hammer today at Christie's in New York from the collection of the late Barnes and Noble bookstore owner Leonard Riggio and his wife Louise is expected to make. It includes paintings by Picasso and Andy Warhol and sculpture by Barbara Hepworth.

British Museum Director Nicholas Cullinan is fond of quoting from the Italian novel The Leopard - "If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change" - but there is one thing he does not want to change and that is who is in charge at the London institution.

Cullinan, who took over last year, told The Times of London he hoped to stay in the top job to see the museum's 300th anniversary is in 2053.

The 47-year-old said: “This is the greatest job in the greatest museum in the world. I can see myself still being here, unless I go under a bus.”

One other thing he says should not change is the museum collection which includes contested treasures from Benin bronzes, Ethiopian artifacts and most famously the Parthenon Marbles - all of which are subject to demands for their return.

But Cullinan, who described the Marbles as "talismanic objects of this museum", told the newspaper: "It is the world’s greatest collection. I don’t see my job as undoing that."

1 - Viktoria Berezina and Roman Minin are among the artists whose work is being shown in a festival of Ukrainian contemporary art that opened in the Estonian capital Tallinn on Friday. The inaugural UKUfest also includes several auctions of work with some of the proceeds funding the purchase of ambulances for Ukraine.

2- A mural inspired by a work by 17th century Dutch painter Benjamin Gerritsz. Cuyp takes centre stage at Nicolas Party's new show. The Swiss artist's exhibition opens today at Bath's Holburne Museum in the west of England and runs to August 31.

3 - Plans to give award-winning artists a pension bonus have been rejected in a referendum in Slovenia. More than 92% of those who voted cast their ballots against the plan which has become the focus of a culture war in the Central European nation.