The Vilification of Banksy’s Success
During my art history studies, a running joke was to answer “Banksy” when asked the subject of your dissertation.
View ArticleA Visual History of Federal Art Spending in the United States
Hugh Mesibov, “Homeless” (1938), Carborundum print on ivory wove paper, 5 3/8 x 10 3/8 in., John S. Phillips Fund, 1987.11.1, , Courtesy Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. PHILADELPHIA — Art for...
View ArticleGetting to Know Milton Glaser, the Godfather of Modern Design
Glaser’s motto, “art is work,” is what he lives by, a way of existing in the world that he’s damn near close to perfecting.
View ArticleIs iPhone Photography Getting Better?
When most people think of iPhone photography, they think of Instagram. But not everybody is so enamored: namely, some professional photographers.
View ArticlePortraits of America’s New Nomads
There is a loose tribe living at nature’s margins in the United States, slaughtering goats raised by hand at Idaho’s Lost River and picking cherries growing wild in California’s Marble Mountain...
View ArticleMarketing the Great War
When the United States joined the Allied forces in 1917, the mind of the American citizen was almost as much a battlefield as Europe was. Despite the government’s justification of the war many citizens...
View ArticleOlafur Eliasson Creates a Riverbed in a Museum
Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson has brought elements of the natural world into the walls of museums several times. Today, Riverbed, his first solo exhibition at Denmark’s Louisiana Museum of...
View ArticleHow Food Stole the Avant-Garde: Letter From Copenhagen
I went to MAD4 in Copenhagen to spy for you, my art friends. I was trying to figure out if the food world had in fact become the new black; if the food world had stolen the role of cultural avant-garde...
View ArticleA Town Is Not a Museum, Appeals Court Rules
Jim Thorpe pole vaulting in the decathlon at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm (via IOC) In settling the dispute of where one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century is buried, a ruling last...
View ArticleThe Downside of Art Going Viral
It wasn’t the first time Kristine Potter had been the subject of Internet attention, but Buzzfeed coverage can invite a tidal wave of digs, snark, and ridicule on any given subject.
View ArticleGetting to Know the Artisans Who Make Other People’s Art
There are many invisible people who make the art world run: art handlers, registrars, conservators, exhibition designers. We don’t often see these people listed on press releases or wall placards, but...
View ArticleHow to Fix a Monet After Somebody Punches It
Conservators are probably the closest thing the art world has to surgeons. With care and precision, they repair wounds caused by old age, negligence, and, every once in a while, crazed attackers — as...
View ArticleA Digital Museum for New York’s Unclaimed Dead
The Hart Island Project’s Traveling Cloud Museum (all screenshots by the author for Hyperallergic) The over one million people buried on New York City’s Hart Island are unified by their invisibility....
View ArticleLooking for Actors and Authenticity on Craigslist
Still from Chelsea Knight’s video “Searching for a Character” (2013) (courtesy of Chelsea Knight and Aspect Ratio Projects, Chicago, IL) LOS ANGELES — Sometimes the best scenes and characters come to...
View ArticlePhallic Cloud Art Sets Off Storm
A new piece of public art in Auckland, part of which, when seen from a certain angle, resembles a penis, is rubbing locals the wrong way.
View ArticleThe Picassos of …
As an increasingly globalized monoculture takes hold, people often resort to using celebrities and innovators as their barometers of success.
View ArticleThe Lost Ritual of Photographing the Dead
Despite the current ubiquity of cameras, we rarely pause in our flurry of social media sharing to document one of the most significant events in all our lives: death. Back in the 19th century when the...
View ArticleArtist Threads Angry Internet Comments into New Vaginal Knitting Project
An Australian artist who previously drew a torrent of angry comments for knitting with wool inserted into her vagina will soon weave that negative feedback into a new work of art.
View ArticleSan Francisco Is Losing Its Artists
While it’s hard to know exactly how many artists have left San Francisco in the last several years, there’s a consensus that the city is facing an emergency. In September, the arts commission released...
View ArticlePlanting an Endless Fruit Orchard that Could Branch Around the World
David Burns and Austin Young’s “Fallen Fruit Collage,” for The Endless Orchard (2015) (all images courtesy David Burns and Austin Young) In the past 50 years, the Community Gardening Movement has grown...
View ArticleThe Spite House, an Architectural Phenomenon Built on Rage and Revenge
Spite houses are homes built on anger. They are typically designed to block a neighbor’s view or sunlight, often with walls aggressively grazing property lines. Whatever their shape, these are...
View ArticleUnlocking the Mysteries of Manhattan’s New Pyramid
Taking up nearly a full New York City block on 57th Street between Eleventh and Twelfth Avenues, Via 57 West announces the evolution of a new architectural type, a hybrid of the curtain-walled...
View ArticleWolf Teeth, Cradle Knives, And Other Early Modern Sleep Superstitions
Sleep for early modern Europeans was a time to be wary of demons and other dangers of the night. Iron bracelets were worn for protection, or a wolf’s tooth or bit of coral was strung around the neck;...
View ArticleHow an Imaginary Island Stayed on Maps for Five Centuries
O Brazil, or Hy-Brasil as it was frequently was labeled, had haunted maps since the 14th century. Its size and shape often morphed, its location wandered from Ireland to North America, and its name...
View ArticleA Visit to the CIA’s “Secret” Abstract Art Collection
The CIA’s abstract art collection isn’t quite as “secret” as a series of articles have made it seem — but it’s more politically significant than it appears, and there are still unanswered questions....
View ArticleWorld’s Oldest Continuously Operating Library Begins a New Chapter
Established in 859 CE, Morocco’s al-Qarawiyyin Library will soon reopen to the public with architectural details for the 21st century.
View ArticleJohn Berger, Who Helped the World to See, Dies at 90
The author of “Ways of Seeing” had a profound impact on generations of artists, critics, historians, curators, and art lovers.
View ArticleUS Decides Guantánamo Prisoners Do Not Own the Art They Create
Critics say the change in policy further dehumanizes prisoners who have been at the center of international controversy since the Guantánamo facility was opened.
View ArticleMan Finds Authentic Egon Schiele Drawing In New York City Thrift Store
The shopper, a part-time art handler, found a 1918 Schiele pencil drawing in a Habitat for Humanity thrift store in Queens. The finding is valued at more than $100,000.
View Article1,200 Stolen Paintings Were Discovered In A Los Angeles Storage Locker
Of a total 2,300 missing paintings by Scottish painter Benjamin Creme, 1,200 have been recovered. They are valued at around at around $777,000.
View ArticleExplore Ancient Athens Online Through 3D Models, Created By One Animator Over...
"3D is an amazing tool to simulate what people who lived 2,500 years ago might have experienced while walking around Athens," says photographer and animator Dimitris Tsalkanis.
View ArticleA Photo Series Shows A Deserted Shanghai Caused By Fears Of Coronavirus
Shanghai-based American photographer nicoco captures the fear and isolation that the outbreak has caused, and how it has rendered China's largest metropolis a ghost city.
View ArticleResearchers Used A Century-Old Postcard To Determine Where Van Gogh Made His...
Wouter van der Veen, scientific director of the Institut van Gogh, noticed a striking resemblance between van Gogh's "Tree Roots" (1890) and a postcard from Auvers-sur-Oise, where the painter took his...
View ArticleThe Art World's Casual Racism
Does a work that's intended to be a "statement" on something have an obligation to do more than just replicate the awful tropes and stereotypes it claims to comment on?
View ArticleThe Nomadic Arctic Landmass that Became a New Nation
Approaching Nowhereisland (all images courtesy the artist) Back in 2012, a curious landmass journeyed around the coast of England, broken free from the Arctic, where it had long been invisible under a...
View ArticleThe Graphics of the Great War in France
"Le kaiser et la mort," illustration from "La baïonnette," November 4, 1915 (all images courtesy University of Chicago Library/University of Chicago Press) More than any conflict before it, World War I...
View ArticleKicking Back With a Mexican Gang Member
Pepe in his convenience store (all images courtesy of Bronia Stewart) Cracking into challenging subcultures is one of Bronia Stewart's main objectives as a documentary photographer. Which is why, when...
View ArticleFree at Last! Munch, Mondrian, and Kandinsky Enter the Public Domain
Edvard Munch's "The Scream" (1893) celebrating the new year (National Gallery, Oslo, via Wikimedia, edited by the author for Hyperallergic) A new year means new entrants into the public domain for the...
View ArticleWoodcut Kitty Porn of the Edo Period
Cats are the darlings of the Internet, but a new exhibition coming to Manhattan's Japan Society this spring brings a different perspective to bear on our feline friends: "Life of Cats: Selections from...
View ArticleLooking for Origins of Arab Modernism in Kuwait
Kuwait City was the first city in the region to undertake a massive modernization project of the sort currently underway in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Doha — with extraordinary wealth, tempered...
View ArticleRecording the Insect Ecology of a Prison Reclaimed by Nature
Cell 25 in Block 9 of Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary is now a cabinet of curiosities representing the animal life of this stabilized ruin. Specifically, it's focused on some of the smaller...
View ArticleAfter Three Decades of Obscurity, Helvetica's Successor Reemerges
When Haas Unica was introduced in 1980, it was intended as an illustrious successor to the highly popular sans-serif Helvetica. Before it could achieve any measure of Helvetica's ubiquity, Haas Unica...
View ArticleArtists Covertly Scan Bust of Nefertiti and Release the Data for Free Online
Last October, two artists entered the Neues Museum in Berlin and secretly scanned the bust of Queen Nefertiti, the state museum's prized gem. Three months later, they released the dataset as a torrent,...
View ArticleThe Bird-Based Color System that Eventually Became Pantone
The first Pantone color chart came from a surprising source: a self-published ornithology book.
View ArticleFeeling Down? Here Are The Best Bob Ross Pep Talks
All 403 episodes of "The Joy of Painting" are on YouTube. Here are five of the most inspiring installments.
View ArticleAttempts To Reconstruct A Mummy's Voice Are Cursed
After a group of British researchers claimed to synthesize the voice of Egyptian priest Nesyamun's 3,000-year-old remains, it leads to questions about the ethics of Egyptology.
View ArticleA Prison Abolitionist Ceramics Studio Is Helping Change People's Lives
The People's Pottery Project is becoming a structure of support for formerly incarcerated women, trans, and nonbinary individuals.
View ArticleEscape Into Soundwaves From The Comfort Of Your Home
The World According to Sound's listening series has breathed new life into stagnant stay-at-home days and given me a meditative tool for coping with ever creeping anxiety.
View ArticleListen To The Sounds Of An 18,000-Year-Old Conch
The noises of a massive conch shell from the Upper Paleolithic Marsoulas cave society were reproduced and published online.
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