Our report yesterday said Zaha Hadid died in 2026. It should have said 2016. Apologies.

Forget the Doomsday Clock, if you want to know how close society is to breakdown keep your eyes peeled for the works of Francisco Goya.

That is according to Miguel Falomir, the director of Madrid's Prado Museum, who sat down yesterday with his counterpart at the Reina Sofia, Manuel Segade, for a rare public discussion about the state of the two Spanish institutions.

Falomir told the audience in the Spanish capital he judges the state of the world by the loan requests he receives, adding: "When things are going well, they ask for more Velazquez pieces; when they're not, Goyas. Since 2008, we've been living in a Goyaesque period."

The two men, who admit they regularly compare notes, said their predecessors had not always been so friendly but said they found common ground on many issues including a lack of funding for the arts.

Comparing the situation to European soccer's top competition, Falomir said: "We compete in the Champions League of museums with budgets from the second division. It’s incredible how far a euro goes in this country."

The chief executive of Sydney's Powerhouse Parramatta has defended commissioning British-Indian artist Bharti Kher's 22-feet-high sculpture to greet visitors to the soon-to-open museum, saying it is proof of its "international ambition".

Lisa Havilah defended the decision not to feature a work by a local artist, telling the Sydney Morning Herald she intended to "program in a very local way" as well as "nationally and internationally".

The sculpture is currently being cast in 30 separate bronze parts in Melbourne before being transported to Sydney where it will be installed on the museum’s entry plaza for three years.

The $711 million museum, due to open later this year, will also be home to installations by British designer Es Devlin, Thailand's Torlarp Larpjaroensook and America's James Turrell.

Ron Howard's documentary about legendary photographer Richard Avedon premiered at the Cannes film festival yesterday.

The film, which includes interviews with figures including art dealer Larry Gagosian and dancer Twyla Tharp, has not yet got a wider release date.

Howard, the man behind hit films including A Beautiful Mind and Frost/Nixon, said choosing which of Avedon's images to use in the film had been "agonizing".

He said: "Based on the impressive, impactful images alone, this could have been an epic miniseries so I leaned heavily on pictures that suggested something specific and personal about Avedon as an artist."

Avedon, who died in 2004, made his name as a fashion photographer for magazines including Vogue and Harper's Bazaar before branching out into a series of stark images of blue collar life in the American West.

1 - Tracey Emin and Peter Doig are among more than 22,000 people to sign an open letter defending Misan Harriman, the chair of London's Southbank arts center, from what they say is a "smear campaign". It comes as an opposition politician urged Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy to investigate Harriman's use of social media where he has spoken out on the Middle East and UK politics.

2 - Three paintings by Joaquin Sorolla have gone on show at Sotheby's Breuer building in New York in collaboration with the city's Hispanic Society. The exhibition, which runs to June 1, is the first in the auction house's In Residence program which allows museums to share works with a wider audience.

3 - Antwerp's Middelheim Museum has opened the first outdoor solo show by former Turner Prize nominee Monster Chetwynd. The show, which runs to October 11, is in its 81-acre open-air sculpture park and includes installations, performance art, film and sculptures.

4 - The Chicago History Museum has been accused of breaking the law after staff were disciplined and fired for attempting to form a union, according to a complaint by the National Labor Relations Board. The sector has seen a wave of unionization in recent years with staff at New York's Whitney, the Brooklyn Museum and Boston's Museum of Fine Arts all involved.