The week in art

Works by Michelangelo don't come up for sale very often - so it's hardly surprising that the Italian state jumped at the chance to buy a small wooden crucifix attributed to the artist late last year. But it turns out that the piece, bought for €3.3m, might not have been by him at all: art experts are questioning the attribution. Culture Ministry officials insist (rightly so) that the tiny, but beautiful, sculpture is still 'an ambassador of Italian culture to the world' Photograph: Pier Paolo Cito/AP

More news from Italy, where another clash of art and politics is taking place, this time in the northern city of Savona. Artist Filippo Panseca has “paid tribute” to Silvio Berlusconi with an oil painting of the Italian prime minister and his minister of equal opportunities, Mara Carfagna. The couple are depicted flirting as winged angels in the nude, inspired by Berlusconi's public declaration that he would marry 33-year-old Carfagna (a TV presenter prior to being appointed to the Italian cabinet) in a shot were he not already taken Photograph: Olycom SPA/Rex/Olycom SPA/Rex

The first part of a project to transform Belfast's peace lines into a half-kilometre stretch of art was unveiled this week. The initiative aims to give the walls a facelift with images from Northern Ireland's history painted by local artists. Organiser Roz Small said: 'it is about taking what has been quite a negative energy, and transforming that into a positive expression of the Shankill people and community and history' Photograph: Paul Faith/PA

To Cannes, where David Zimmerman has won the coveted L'Iris d'Or award at the Sony photographer of the year ceremony. Zimmerman was handed the $25,000 cash prize for his landscape series Desert, which shows the environmental damage to southwestern US deserts. Zimmerman hopes the works will show 'an ecosystem that is extremely fragile, easily scarred, and slowly healed', in order to influence preservation through public awareness and action Photograph: David Zimmerman/Reuters

The 12th annual SOFA New York (that's the international Sculpture Objects & Functional Art fair to you and me) saw a healthy four days of crowds – and sales – this week, as buyers flocked to Park Avenue Armory to pick up decorative art and crafts from over 50 exhibitors Photograph: David R. Barnes/David R. Barnes

Political tensions between the two countries may still be simmering but cultural concerns have boiled over into a spitting row between the US and Iran. This week, Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art flatly refused a request for the loan of a Paul Gauguin still life to the National Gallery in Washington, citing the controversy of the Archaemenid tablets, as proof that the US could not be trusted 'due to the lack of confidence that the United States will safeguard Iranian artworks' Photograph: Burstein Collection/CORBIS

A coup for Brighton Photo Biennial this week as they announce the appointment of Martin Parr as guest curator to the event next year. Parr, who along with being a celebrated photojournalist also owns a collection of the world's most boring postcards (one of which is seen here), said he was looking forward to 'making the event a centre of dialogue and discovery' Photograph: PR