What do San Francisco, Geneva and New York's Museum of Modern Art have in common? They've all said no to art dealer extraordinaire Larry Gagosian.

The 80-year-old was described by critic Roberta Smith as the "world’s most powerful art dealer" but told her he was actually just "a shopkeeper".

In a wide-ranging interview in Numero magazine, he recounted his failed attempts at opening galleries in San Francisco and Geneva saying "nobody showed up" wanting to buy work.

He also described the first time he saw the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, saying: "It made me physically vibrate. I’m not exaggerating. It was that powerful."

Gagosian also revealed he failed to give away one of his Basquiats, adding: "I even offered to donate one to MoMA, and they turned it down."

He has opened galleries from New York to London, Paris, Athens and Rome and said the business had grown so big he could not micro-manage every site.

Peter Fischli and David Weiss's 18-ft high sculpture made from one granite boulder balanced on another is the latest work to become part of Qatar Museums public art program.

The piece, which was first shown at London's Serpentine Gallery, has been installed in Doha as part of a wider 18-month campaign, called Evolution Nation, marking 50 years since the founding of the National Museum of Qatar.

Also included in the nationwide showcase is a retrospective of the career of architect I. M. Pei who designed Qatar's Museum of Islamic Art and the glass and steel pyramid entrance for the Louvre and there will also be an exhibition dedicated to the work of Indian painter MF Husain.

Cai Guo-Qiang may be persona non grata in Tibet, but it has not dented his popularity on either side of the Atlantic.

The New York-based Chinese artist hit the headlines this week when he had to apologize after staging a giant fireworks display in the Himalayan mountains which are sacred to the people of Tibet.

But there was better news today as his first project in London in more than 20 years opens with a preview tonight at White Cube in Bermondsey.

Not to be outdone, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art announced it has acquired one of his works.

His eight-panel piece, Bigfoot’s Footprints: Project for Extraterrestrials No. 6 (1991), features his trademark gunpowder markings along with instructions for a controlled explosion work he devised for the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

It is part of a wider acquisition by the museum of work by Asian artists with pieces by Qiu Xiaofei and Matthew Wong also included and going on show together in its Gallery 918.

1 - A series of new paintings by Ziva Jelin go on show today on the fifth floor of Lévy Gorvy Dayan's New York gallery until November 1. She painted the landscapes, dominated by shades of blue and purple, in a darkened studio using photographs of her hometown in Israel as inspiration.

2 - Hyperrealistic portraits inspired by horror movie cliches are exhibited in a new show of work by Sasha Gordon at David Zwirner's West 19 Street gallery in New York. The show launches tonight and runs to November 1.

3 - An Alice Neel exhibition opens at Xavier Hufkens gallery in Rue Van Eyck, Brussels, tonight. Still Lifes and Street Scenes focuses on views of parts of New York where she lived and worked and is open to November 22.

4 - The industrial heritage of Los Angeles and its importance to the history of cinema are all reflected in a new exhibition of work by sculptor Carol Bove at the Gagosian gallery in Beverly Hills. Among the works on show are pieces made from reclaimed scaffolding, while another work includes a film still from a 1914 film Cabiria widely credited to have been made with the first extensive use of a moving camera.

5 - Adam Baker's imagined intimate images of gay life are on show in his first exhibition at Beers London gallery opening tonight. The paintings in Velvet Hours are inspired by his life in London with the gallery likening them to the "lyrical prose scenes" of Edmund White whose books chronicled the history of 20th-century gay life.

1 - A fixture of New York's art scene - Kremer Pigments - is closing its doors after three decades selling supplies to painters from Jack Whitten to Helen Frankenthaler. The shop, which started on the Lower East Side before moving to Chelsea, shuts in November.

2 - Three Lucian Freud paintings from the same private collection will be sold at auction by Christies in London on October 15. Woman With A Tulip is valued at around $6.7 million, Sleeping Head is estimated to fetch $4 million and a self-portrait is expected to make around $16 million.

3 - Actress Jessica Alba is hosting a preview event for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art at the Los Angeles Comic Con on Saturday. The event, dubbed a "sneak peek" of the Star Wars filmmaker's soon-to-open museum, includes contributions from comic book artist Frank Miller and a pre-recorded interview with George Lucas and his wife Mellody Hobson Lucas.

4 - New York's Tilton Gallery has announced its next show will be its last and it is closing down. The exhibition of work by Ruth Vollmer, which runs from September 30 to November 15, will mark the end of the gallery eight years after the death of its founder Jack Tilton.