Sgarbi is not missing the opportunity to make people talk about him. After his political vicissitudes of the last months, he has decided to run for mayor and transform Salemi into his small empire of culture, where he has surrounded himself with renowned names and prominent collaborators.
As many will remember, the irreverent art critic a few months ago was removed from the office of Councillor for Culture of the Municipality of Milan. Mayor Letizia Moratti had judged his attitude intolerable. Sgarbi’s bright and innovative mind had caused many polemics and various exhibitions were censored before their inauguration. Disagreements and divergences that soon ended with the ex-councillor being removed from Palazzo Marino.

Recently Rembrandt (Leida 1606- Amsterdam 1669), the great Dutch painter and carver, has been talked about with regard to some clamorous news. Indeed, recently the authorship of a painting of which nothing was known, has been attributed to him, and the discovery seems to have happened in a curious way. The existence of the painting was already known of, thanks to a reproduction dating from around 1800, but nothing was known about its history and preservation until now.
The work came to light in October 2007, when an English family handed the painting over to Moore Allen & Innocent to auction it, and back then the first questions and perplexities about the possible authorship of the work started being raised.

A new polemic is building up in the museum world. The Italian delegation at the ICOM (International Council of Museums) has been complaining about the abuse of the practice of loans on payment for works at exhibitions. According to Italian institutions, the use of loans on payment would exclude all those institutions that are not able to compete with these high budgets from the possibility of organizing high quality exhibitions.
Italian museums are experiencing a very particular situation, being cornered by a very slow bureaucracy and countless technicalities,

Private companies can always understand more easily not only market trends but also changes in society and its tendencies. Perhaps this is why companies and foundations in these years have oriented their artistic interests towards the contemporary world. Not wrongfully. Indeed, artistic data confirm that the boom of contemporary art has also conquered Italy.
On the basis of a recent survey carried out by the Institute for Public Opinion, the market of contemporary art would have an enormous potential in the Bel Paese. The Ispo survey observed that 9 million Italians claim to be interested in contemporary art (18% of the population) and about 5 million would like to buy a work of art. Furthermore, Italians seem to be becoming more aware of young artists. According to 71% of the people interviewed for this research, art and the valorization of the big and young artists are important as cultural heritage of Italy.

Back in 2007 when it was announced that a new Guggenheim museum was being built in Abu Dhabi, ultra-modern city of the Arab Emirates, the meandering news of the possibility of creating also a new Louvre in the wealthy Arab country seemed quite plausible. In fact the notification was revealed to be well-founded and was confirmed in the following months: the agreement between the Louvre and the Arab Emirates has been sealed and signed by the French Minister for Culture, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, and the person in charge of tourism in Abu Dhabi, sultan bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan.

Good news for the funding of the cultural sector. A decision of the Revenue Agency has extended the application field of the normative on tax relief in favour of companies that provide funding for the art sector.
The identity of the institutions involved in this matter is not known but this does not invalidate the importance of the evaluations that can be drawn from this episode. A firm intends to supply money to a non-profit mixed public-private foundation. The foundation’s purpose is to create a cultural space and organize important exhibitions at national and international level.

The first moving building will be realized in Dubai, a tower that can change form, creating an endless becoming; it seems an oxymoron that becomes reality. David  Fisher has invented something that forces us, in a way, to change our point of view. Our certainty of an immobile and immutable building is being put at stake by this revolutionary project. Its completion is scheduled for 2010. The opening of the list to secure the first mobile apartments in the Dynamic Tower was communicated last 24th June.
It is an entirely innovative structure that, thanks to the action of the wind and sun, will be able to constantly change form. Every floor will revolve autonomously, adapting to the change of conditions outside the building. The Italian architect has thus realized what many define as the breakthrough towards future architecture.

	WASSILY KANDINSKY ÉPANOUISSEMENT Estimate: 1,600,000 - 1,800,000 EUR Price Realiced: 1,859,338 EUR Aguttes - Parigi 25 June 2008
	ÉTIENNE DINET RECTIFICATIF Estimate: 500,000 - 600,000 EUR Price Realiced: 1,400,000 EUR Gros & Delettrez - Parigi 23 June 2008