Berlin Museum of Islamic Art receives €9m from Saudi Arabian foundation

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Berlin Museum of Islamic Art receives €9m from Saudi Arabian foundation | The Berlin Museum of Islamic Art has received a donation of news from Alwaleed Philanthropies, a charitable foundation owned by Prince Alwaleed Bin Tala, the Art Newspaper reports. Projects to be funded by the donation include the Multaqa programme, which trains Syrian and Iraqi refugees as museum guides, as well as the expansion of cultural and educational programmes at the museum and in schools.

Graffiti artist Ben Eine charged with assault | The graffiti artist Ben Eine has been charged with assault, following an incident at the Serpentine Sackler gallery in London earlier this month, Frieze reports. Ben Eine, whose real name is Benjamin Flynn, is best known for painting letters of the alphabet on shutter panels in east London.

Gagosian and Jeff Koons file motion to dismiss Tananbaum lawsuit | Gagosian Gallery, Inc., and Jeff Koons LLC have filed a motion in New York to dismiss a lawsuit, brought against them by the collector Steven Tananbaum, Frieze reports. Tananbaum has described the reasons for his suit as the ‘non-delivery’ of three Koons sculptures he agreed to buy from the gallery in September 2014.

Recommended Reading | In Hyperallergic, Matt Stromberg summarises Helen Molesworth’s commencement address at the University of California, in which the curator argued that the worlds of art and culture have become ‘striated with the pressure’ of financial interests as never before. In ARTnews, Laurie Hurwitz speaks to Catherine Grenier, director of the Giacometti Institute in Paris, which has opened its doors to the public and contains a reconstruction of the artist’s studio in Montparnasse – a place so essential to his practice, Grenier reminds us, that the artist once ‘likened it to the inside of his skull’.