Briefing

Ahead of David Zwirner Gallery opening their new Hong Kong space at the beginning of 2018, Leo Xu and Jennifer Yum have been hired as co-directors of the gallery's first Asia outpost. Xu, founder of Shanghai’s Leo Xu Projects is closing his operation to join Zwirner, while Yum moves from Christie's. Xu founded his project space 6 years ago, and has supported leading Chinese artists including aaajiao, Cui Jie and Cheng Ran. Yum was formerly vice-president at Christies’s New York, and also played a major role in supporting its Asia operations. Zwirner's Hong Kong space will open in H Queen’s ‘gallery and lifestyle tower' in the city's Central district – which will also be home to major galleries including Hauser & Wirth, Pace and Pearl Lam – on 27 January 2018 with a show of work by Belgian painter Michaël Borremans.

Palestinian London-based artist Mona Hatoum has been named the Whitechapel Gallery’s 2018 Art Icon. It’s the fifth edition of the award, looking to celebrate those with a significant contribution to the field and influence for younger generations of artists. Whitechapel director Iwona Blazwick praised Hatoum for ‘her pioneering work in performance, installation and sculpture’ and for ‘raising our awareness of non-western perspectives.’

New York nonprofit Eyebeam, which pulls in artists ’to think creatively about how technology is transforming our society' is moving to Bushwick. Eyebeam have launched a Kickstarter to crowdfund USD$15,000 to support its new 'sustainable space'.

A former assistant of Sean Scully put up works by the artist to sell at auction, the New York Times reports. Arturo Rucci has been arrested by New York City police suspected of stealing from Scully’s Chelsea studio, and attempting to sell a 1985 triptych through Bonham’s, worth around USD$400,000-600,000.

Simone Leigh has won the Studio Museum in Harlem’s Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize – the award celebrates African-American artists ‘of great innovation and promise' and comes with a prize of USD$50,000. It was announced at the museum’s 2017 gala at the beginning of the week.

The UK’s Hastings pier has won the 2017 RIBA Stirling architecture prize. Nicknamed 'The Plank', the structure was designed by London architects de Rijke Marsh Morgan. The former pier was destroyed in a blaze in 2010 – its replacement opened in 2016, and was praised by judges as a ‘phoenix risen from the ashes’. It uses timber taken from the original pier and incorporates the original 19th-century iron structure below its deck