• The 41st annual Art Basel, perhaps the most renowned of contemporary art fairs, opened on Thursday and will run through Sunday. Carol Vogel reports for the New York Times that “business is brisk,” citing numerous multimillion dollar acquisitions by dealers and collectors alike. Works by late artists Louise Bourgeois and Sigmar Polke were quickly snapped up, and this year’s fair included a proliferation of installation and video art, shown at the “Unlimited” space for oversized works. • Arts Council England has suffered a budget cut amounting to about $34 million at the hands of the country’s new coalition government, including $2.6 million in grants offered to regularly-funded arts organizations. From ArtForum. • The Seattle Art Museum will be home to the unparalleled exhibition “Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris" from October 8 through January 9, 2010. Over 150 works from all phases of the artist’s legendary career will be presented, on loan from the world’s most important repository of Picasso artworks, the Musée Picasso, while it undergoes renovations. Go to Art Knowledge News to learn more. • The Musée de l’Elysée (a museum of photography in Lausanne, Switzerland) is surveying the work of more than eighty contemporary photographers in the second edition of the successful "reGeneration" exhibition. The collection embraces both documentary and artistic approaches within digital, film, conceptual, and spontaneous photography. Check out ArtDaily for more information.