Confusion surrounds a planned $2 million art museum in the desert town of Joshua Tree in Southern California.

Artist Shane Townley says his vision for the 2.5-acre site along the nearby Twentynine Palms Highway would see it become home to a museum, sculpture garden and studios.

His campaign includes a website, social media presence and a recently erected sign in the desert advertising the museum, but the LA Times has dubbed the project "fanciful".

It said Townley does not have permission to go ahead after the project had its operations suspended by the California attorney general’s office because it failed to file annual financial reports on its charitable activities.

Townley said his lawyer is working with the attorney general "right now" to clear up the confusion and said he wants to "create a space where artists, locals and visitors feel at home".

The town and surrounding national park are home to a thriving artistic community with Ed Ruscha and Noah Purifoy among those to have called it home with Andrea Zittel’s art ranch nearby in the Mojave Desert.

Ram raiders targeted a London auction house days before a sale of work by Damien Hirst.

Police are investigating after a car smashed into the front of Phillips auctioneers in Berkeley Square in the early hours of Monday morning.

Scotland Yard told HENI News no arrests have been made and nothing was taken with the Hirst works reportedly in storage at the time of the incident.

The sale on June 5 will see 36 lots auctioned off with his cherry blossom print, The Virtues (H9), expected to fetch the highest price with an estimate of $107,000.

A pre-show exhibition will go ahead as planned and open tomorrow. A Phillips spokeswoman said: "We are aware of the incident and are fully cooperating with the police as they conduct their investigation. As this is an ongoing matter, we are unable to comment further at this time."

Brazil's new Pompidou Center will be located near a Unesco World Heritage site on the border with Paraguay and Argentina.

Plans for the building have advanced after a deal was signed between the French institution and the State of Parana in Brazil.

The Pompidou’s latest satellite is due to open in the city of Foz do Iguacu in 2027 by the Iguaçu Falls, which are the country's second most visited tourist site. It already has outposts in Shanghai, Malaga and Brussels.

A Pompidou Center statement said the new site, designed by Paraguayan architect Solano Benitez, would be "true to the DNA" of its Parisian counterpart with plans for contemporary art shows, performances and artist residencies.

Previously unseen works by Gilbert and George will feature in a major new exhibition dedicated to the pair.

21st Century Pictures at London's Hayward Gallery will include more than 60 huge floor-to-ceiling installations tracing their careers over five decades.

Mark Ball, Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre, said the exhibition would show them as "cultural provocateurs" and "a great disruptive force in Britain’s art industry".

The show opens on October 7 and runs to January 4.

1 - Yayoi Kusama, Tracey Emin and Ruth Asawa are among the artists taking part in a show inspired by legendary US food writer M.F.K. Fisher. Consider the Oyster, named after one of her most famous books, opens tonight at the Anthony Meier galley in Mill Valley, California, near San Francisco.

2 - A show of landscapes by Salvo opens tonight at the Gladstone Gallery's outpost in Seoul. There has been renewed interest in the Italian painter since his death in 2015 with a 2023 sale of $1.1 million setting a new auction record for his work.

3 - A show by German painter and sculptor Paloma Varga Weisz opens tonight at Massimo de Carlo in Hong Kong. Weisz is the daughter of Hungarian artist Feri Varga and credits his stories of life with Jean Cocteau and Pablo Picasso as her earliest artistic inspiration.