Christoph Buchel's plan to turn his unsold art into lab-grown diamonds is at the center of a court case in Germany.

The city of Jena has taken its former cultural manager, Jonas Zipf, to court claiming he spent around $110,000 on the project without his bosses' authorization.

Court reports in Germany said some of the money was spent on public relations for the project which would have involved Buchel using DNA from his own feces to create the precious stones.

Broadcaster MDR said the plan was for the city to finance the project and in return get one of the diamonds for its museum and a share of the proceeds from the sales of the others but the scheme never went ahead.

The city filed a complaint against Zipf for breach of trust but his lawyer told the court arranging contracts without the oversight of its political leaders was not unusual and added he was commissioning an expert report on the project.

This is not the first time Buchel's work has made headlines. In 2015 he converted a historic church into a mosque for the Venice Biennale and four years later brought a boat to the city after it sank leading to the deaths of hundreds of migrants.

The number of galleries taking part in the Artissima fair which opens in Turin today. The fair, led by director Luigi Fassi, runs to Sunday.

Sending sculptor Alma Allen's work to the US pavilion at the Venice Biennale proved controversial and getting them back may not be without its problems either.

The commissioner for the U.S. Pavilion, Jenni Parido, has written to supporters asking for help raising $1 million to cover the "final deinstallation and safe return of the artworks to the United States".

In the letter, seen by The New York Times, Parido told would-be donors "the final phase of this undertaking has presented financial challenges that I am working tirelessly to resolve."

Several artists refused to be involved in the pavilion before New Mexico-based Allen signed up for the exhibition managed by Parido's American Arts Conservancy.

Parido, who had no previous art world experience, was the owner of a Florida pet boutique before her appointment after being recommended by White House insider Erin Scavino who runs the government's Art in Embassies program.

Three of the world's biggest museums have launched a triple alliance to share their works in one global collection.

Christophe Cherix, the director of New York's Museum of Modern Art, said the agreement he signed with Laurent Le Bon, president of the Centre Pompidou in Paris and Suhanya Raffel, director of Hong Kong's M+, effectively "makes our museums embassies for each other".

Between the three of them they have more than 10 million visitors a year and around 125 million visitors online and Cherix said the alliance would expand their "reach to an unprecedented level".

Among the first projects is an exhibition of "the contemporary" including works from all three collections that will be shown in all three museums and a permanent Centre Pompidou gallery opening at MoMA.

1 - Noah Schneiderman is one of the first group of artists to benefit from a residency in Rome funded by the foundation set up by artist Scott Kahn and poet Frederick Kirwin. The foundation has also announced plans for a relief fund offering grants of up to $1,000 to artists facing "recent and unexpected financial hardship".

2 - A Ferris wheel made from prison tables and stools is one of the major pieces in a new show by Sable Elyse Smith opening at Regan Projects in Los Angeles next month. The show, which runs from November 6 to December 9, also features a recent video work using police chase and bodycam footage.

3 - Around 100 new security guards will be recruited by the Louvre as part of a deal signed between the Paris museum and unions representing its staff. The agreement also removes the threat of strike action hanging over the museum, led by Christophe Leribault, which has caused eight days of disruption since December.

4 - Lynley Crosswell is stepping down as director of Museums Victoria in Australia after almost a decade in the role. The first woman to lead the organization in its 172-year history, she oversaw institutions including Melbourne Museum and the Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Center.