Nothing says summer vacation season like a long wait at customs, but even the most interminable passport check is not likely to last 20 years.

That is how long a Marc Chagall etching and an Ossip Zadkine sketch spent in limbo in a customs warehouse in France after they were among a haul of artworks seized on the border with Switzerland in 2005.

But now they have finally been released with the Chagall going to the Museum of Fine Arts and Archaeology of Besancon and Zadkine's drawing being handed to the Paris museum that celebrates his life and work.

The Times of London reported a customs "source" that blamed the "weight of bureaucracy" for the decades-long delay in making them available to the public.

We have a winner. Again.

A design for the National Museum of Ecuador in Quito drawn up by a team led by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of renowned Japanese architects SANAA has been chosen after a convoluted and controversial process.

It replaces the previous winner, chosen by an international jury earlier this month, which was greeted with criticism and an online petition signed by 20,000 demanding it be dropped on the grounds it was "alien to the reality and identity" of the country.

Three more proposals were then shortlisted by a new jury before the winner was chosen by a combination of a public vote and the jury's decision with work expected to start on the project soon.

The number of young people who applied for Spain's Youth Cultural Voucher in the first four weeks it was available. The scheme offers $456 to anyone who turns 18 this year and can be used to buy art materials, musical instruments or tickets to cultural events.

There has been international condemnation after it was reported Iranian photographer Tahmineh Monzavi has been sentenced to be whipped.

The sentence of 74 lashes, which also includes a two-year travel and work ban, was handed down by a religious court after she photographed singer Parasto Ahmadi with her head uncovered.

Her gallery in Paris said she was "simply doing her job", adding it was "proud to showcase her work and deeply concerned for her future".

She is one of eight people given the same sentence after being convicted of "offending public decency".

Hong Kong's M+ museum has announced a show devoted to architects Herzog & de Meuron after it received its second major donation from the firm's archive.

It will trace their work over the last 20 years in China when they designed buildings including Beijing's National Stadium and the M+ building itself.

The show, which will run from September 12 to next January, will include models, drawings and prototypes and also mark the fifth anniversary of the West Kowloon museum's opening.

1 - A 40-foot mural painted in 1970 on a wall outside what was the Seattle branch of the Black Panther Party has been given official city landmark status. Conservation work can now be carried out on the mural, dubbed "The People's Wall", which includes scenes from the 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles.

2 - Cloe Piccoli has been appointed artistic director of miart for 2027-29. The chief executive of the long-running Milan fair, Francesco Conci, said the appointment of the critic and curator was "a strategic choice" to help reposition it as a year-round cultural event.

3 - New Jersey's Zimmerli Art Museum has been given more than 70 works by philanthropists Anne and Arthur Goldstein. The museum, based at Rutgers University, will now show the works which include pieces by Tauba Auerbach, Darren Bader and Mark Bradford.

4 - This year's Korea Artist Prize show opens tomorrow at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul. The show, which runs to December 6, features work by Lee Hai Min Sun, Lee Jungwoo and Jeon Hyunsun among others.

5 - White Cube gallery has announced it now represents Suleman Aqeel Khilji. It will show a new painting by the UK-based artist at Art Basel Miami Beach in December.

6 - Sao Paulo's Museum of Modern Art is hosting a benefit party next month ahead of its reopening to the public after two years of renovation work on September 12. The party at the Oscar Niemeyer-designed institition will celebrate its 5,000-strong collection as well as showcasing a new work by Carmela Gross.