City Hall, London

Bold and beautiful: famous buildings emerge from the shadows – in pictures

Photographer Gabriele Croppi travels the world shooting the most iconic buildings. But his pictures also reveal way more startling things in the urban shadows: a man carrying a nude mannequin, and bands of meditating monks. Metaphysics of the Urban Landscape is on show at the Angkor photo festival in Cambodia from 29 November to 6 December.

Art vs politics at London auctions of Russian paintings

Paintings vied with politics in London this week as two of the biggest auction houses, Christie’s and Sotheby’s, competed with each other to cater to the hard-to-predict market for Russian art masterpieces. Art had the upper hand at Christie’s sale on Monday, where Valentin Serov’s “Portrait of Maria Zetlin” sold for a stunning 9.2 million pounds ($14.42 million), besting several times over its high pre-sale estimate of 2.5 million pounds.

Cornelius Gurlitt collection: Swiss museum signs deal to hand back vast collection of art stolen by the Nazis

When Bavarian customs police pushed open the door of a run-down 1970s apartment in the fashionable Munich student district of Schwabing in February 2012, they expected to find bundles of euro notes hidden away in a wall safe or even in a kitchen cupboard. They were flabbergasted by what they discovered:  instead of banknotes they found what is now rated as one of the largest caches of suspected Nazi looted art discovered since Germany’s defeat at the end of the Second World War.

Former taxi driver pays £28.4m for Tibetan tapestry

A Chinese billionaire who once drove taxis in Shanghai has splashed out £28.4 million on a 600-year-old Tibetan tapestry. Liu Yiqian, a Shanghai-based entrepreneur and art collector, made his fortune investing in real estate and pharmaceuticals and has spent two decades using his wealth to amass a vast collection of Chinese art. On Wednesday, the self-styled “mega collector” snapped up his latest work at a Christie’s auction in Hong Kong – a Ming dynasty embroidery of Raktayamari, a Buddhist deity also referred to as the Red Conqueror of Death.

Njideka Akunyili Crosby wins Smithsonian American Art Museum 2014 James Dicke Prize

The 32-year-old mixed-media artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby has won the 2014 James Dicke Prize Contemporary Artist Prize, the Smithsonian American Art Museum announced today. The award comes with $25,000 and, according to the release, “recognizes an artist younger than 50 who has produced a significant body of work and consistently demonstrates exceptional creativity.”

Lawrence Weiner named winner of the $156,000 Roswitha Haftmann prize

It was announced today that American artist Lawrence Weiner has been awarded the Roswitha Haftmann prize, Europe’s best-endowed art prize, worth CHF150,000 ($156,076). Born in 1942, Weiner is known for his text-based works and was one of the central figures in the creation of conceptual art in the 1960s and ’70s.

The quiet rise of the photo fair photographer

Ian Jeffrey, the author of our newly updated edition of The Photography Book, believes the photographic medium usually suits single-minded artists. As he explained in this earlier piece, “you want someone capable of long periods of concentration, who doesn’t emerge for days on end. Those are the big talents of the moment.” Yet the author also singles out another, very different type of artist, well suited to the age of the biennial and photo fair.