Christophe Leribault is making a habit of replacing Laurence des Cars.

In 2021, he succeeded her as president of the Musee d'Orsay and now is replacing her in the hottest of hot seats running the tarnished jewel in the French cultural crown - the Louvre.

It follows her resignation yesterday - four months after $102 million worth of antique jewelry was stolen in a daylight heist.

The government used the opportunity to also announce Annick Lemoine will become president of the Orsay and the Orangerie museums following the death of her predecessor, Sylvain Amic, last August.

Leribault was a curator at the Louvre in 2006 and most recently ran the Palace of Versailles before his new appointment was confirmed in Paris today.

His inbox is full. As well as the embarrassment of the theft, the museum has been hit by staff walkouts and leaks in the building. He also has to navigate his way through a planned $1.29 billion renovation.

In remarks reported in Le Parisien newspaper, one government source said he would charged with "restoring serenity" to the Louvre. Bonne chance!

The number of works acquired last year by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles including Kara Walker’s sculpture Unmanned Drone. The work, currently on view as part of its Monuments exhibition, was made from a decommissioned statue of Confederate general Stonewall Jackson by Charles Keck that stood in Charlottesville, Virginia, for 100 years.

No Golden Lion awards for lifetime achievement will be handed out at this year's Venice Biennale following the death of curator Koyo Kouoh.

A spokeswoman for the event confirmed the decision today saying they would not be awarded as Kouoh had not had time to "consider" them before her death last May.

Anna Maria Maiolino and Nil Yalter were both honored with lifetime achievement awards at the last biennale in 2024.

There was a string of announcements today ahead of the event which runs from May 9 to November 22 including the 111 invited participants which goes from Pio Abad to Billie Zangewa and confirmation of a collaboration between Gala Porras-Kim and London's Victoria and Albert Museum.

Among those paying tribute to Kouoh today were her five-strong curatorial team Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo, Marie Helene Pereira, Rasha Salti, Siddhartha Mitter and Rory Tsapayi.

An emotional Salti described the late curator as "our conductor" and said she gave them "the license to dream".

More than 200 works by South Korean artist Lee Bul are going on show at Hong Kong's M+ next month to coincide with the city's art week.

It is also hosting its second international cultural summit on March 23 bringing together speakers from major institutions including New York's Museum of Modern Art and London's Southbank Center to discuss how community and art intersect.

The Lee Bul show, which runs from March 14 to August 9, includes early work from the 1990s as well as pieces created in 2024. The museum will also unveil a hand-painted animation by Shahzia Sikander, co-commissioned with Art Basel whose fair is in the city at the same time.

Other shows include an exhibition of Chinese horse painting at the Hong Kong Palace Museum in the wider West Kowloon Cultural District.

Elizabeth Brooke has been appointed as curator of the Prague-based Mucha Foundation after seven years at Tate in the UK.

Brooke, who has also worked at London's National Portrait Gallery and the Henry Moore Foundation, said she wanted to "bring fresh attention to the richness, complexity and continuing relevance" of the work of Alphonse Mucha.

The foundation, which is still run by the family of the Czech Art Nouveau painter and designer, has put on more than 90 exhibitions around the world bringing his work to more than 7 million people.

Last February, it opened a new museum dedicated to his work in Prague's restored Baroque Savarin Palace.

1 - The decision by the University of North Texas art school to cancel a show by Victor Quinonez including work critical of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency was an "institutional directive", according to a leaked transcript of a meeting with its Dean Karen Hutzel. The leak, reported in the Denton Record-Chronicle, did not say where the directive came from but quoted Hutzel as saying she expected it to create a "media storm".

2 - Eugene Delacroix’s painting Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi is going on show in the city which inspired it for the first time. It was painted in 1826 shortly after the city finally fell following a lengthy siege during the Greek War of Independence and will go on show in its archaeological museum on loan from the Bordeaux Museum of Fine Arts.

3 - A permanent exhibition about the Ukraine war opened in a former Nazi-era bunker in Berlin yesterday on the fourth anniversary of Russia's invasion of the country. It includes 20 wrecked Russian drones that hang suspended from the ceiling above a car destroyed in a bomb attack.