Mahmoud Hawari named director of Palestinian Museum

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Palestinian Museum names its new director | With just two weeks to go before Birzeit’s Palestinian Museum finally opens, the institution has announced that Mahmoud Hawari is to take up the directorial position vacated by Jack Persekian last December. Hawari, a research associate at Oxford University’s Khalili Research Centre and a visiting academic at the British Museum, has led several archaeological expeditions to Palestine. Though the $30 million building’s opening date has been definitively set for 18 May, the inaugural exhibition ‘Never Part’ will not open until October at the earliest.

Aby Rosen reaches settlement over unpaid tax on works of art | Property developer and collector Aby Rosen has come to an agreement with New York attorney general Eric T. Schneiderman, whereby the former will pay a $7 million settlement after failing to pay taxes on $80 million worth of art he has bought or commissioned since 2002. According to Forbes, works ‘at issue’ included Cy Twombly’s Bacchus, Yves Klein’s IKB 93 and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Warrior.

Public art commission censored in Istanbul | Turkish authorities have decided to censor a major public commission by artist Işıl Eğrikavuk on the grounds of ‘insulting religious views’ and causing ‘visual pollution.’ The work, a short film of a cartoon woman’s face morphing into an apple, was projected onto a screen on the top of Istanbul’s Marmara Pera hotel for three days before local authorities ordered its closure.

Fire damages Rosemarie Trockel’s Cologne home | A domestic fire has reportedly caused significant damage to artist Rosemarie Trockel’s Cologne residence, reports Kölnische Rundschau (German language article, via Artforum). The blaze has reportedly destroyed several of Trockel’s own works, as well as parts of her personal collection, including a work by Andy Warhol.

Victorian Society invites public to nominate UK’s top 10 endangered buildings | Nominations for the Victorian Society’s annual list of the UK’s Top 10 most endangered buildings are now open. The prize draws attention to important structures around Britain that might otherwise collapse or be demolished without objection. To submit your candidate, email media@victoriansociety.org.uk before 1 July. View last year’s list here.

Recommended reading | The FBI agents who raided the home of alleged gangster Robert Gentile on Monday may not have found the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s lost masterpieces, but they didn’t leave empty handed. Local title the Hartford Courant has this report on the raid. Elsewhere, the Guardian’s Charlotte Burns meets Howard Hodgkin in advance of his new show in New York. ‘I hate painting,’ he tells her. ‘Most of the time it’s irrelevant.’ Which is certainly one way of putting it.