The week in art

St Paul's Cathedral announced plans to go digital this week by commissioning video artist Bill Viola (whose 2007 work, Ocean Without a Shore, you can see here) to create two permanent new installations for Sir Christopher Wren's masterpiece. The giant plasma screens, themed around Mary and the Martyrs will be configured as altarpieces, to be completed for 2011 Photograph: Kira Perov/Public Domain

Over at the De La Warr Pavilion in East Sussex, art dealer Anthony d'Offay's extraordinary gift of works by Joseph Beuys is now open to the public. Part of the travelling Artist Rooms collection, it includes sculptures, photographs, drawings and watercolours by the German artist. The exhibition runs until 27 September Photograph: Public Domain

In Tokyo, Kisho Kurokawa's Nakagin Capsule Tower faces demolition after residents voted for it be replaced with a bigger, more modern block. The historic 1927 building, a symbol of the short-lived Japanese Metabolism movement, is reportedly decrepit, cramped and unfit for habitation. The New York Times described the news to knock it down as 'not only an architectural tragedy, [but] also a distortion of history' Photograph: John Dakers/CORBIS

Meanwhile, a millionaire has built what is thought to be Britain's tallest folly in over a century. The 65ft tower cost William Gronow-Davis a reported tens of thousands of pounds, and was originally designed to conceal telephone masts from view at the Rushmore Estate, in Dorset Photograph: Ruth Mason/Public Domain

It was a fight to the finishing line this week at Bonhams in London. The auction house was expected to sell this painting by 18th-century Italian artist Giuseppe Zocchi, View of the Tiber Looking Towards the Castel Sant'Angelo with St Peter's in the Distance, for £250,000. After a bidding war between two buyers desperate to acquire the work, it finally went for £1.3m Photograph: Bonhams/PA

92 Polaroids by American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe have gone on show at Modern Art Oxford. Taken between 1970 and 1975, while he was holed up in the Chelsea Hotel with then girlfriend Patti Smith, the black-and-white portraits offer an intimate glimpse of the 70s New York scene. The exhibiton runs until 4 September Photograph: Robert Mapplethorpe/Public Domain

And finally – adding a bit of unlikely high-fashion sparkle to the art world this week is Sarah Jessica Parker. Inspired by her late mother-in-law, artist Patricia Broderick, SJP is producing an art-based reality show, due to be broadcast next year. The idea is to cast 13 undiscovered artists and pit them against each other to compete for a gallery show. Think an artier America's Got Talent, but with higher heels and bigger tantrums Photograph: Craig Blankenhorn/AP