Art
Surveillance Photos of NYC Communists and Nazis Go Online
Back in the 1930s and 40s, the NYPD was keeping a close eye on potentially subversive political groups.
Allison Meier
Allison C. Meier is a former staff writer for Hyperallergic. Originally from Oklahoma, she has been covering visual culture and overlooked history for print and online media since 2006. She moonlights as a cemetery tour guide.
Books
Hundreds of Years of Data Growing on Trees
While data visualization can seem like a modern design focus, it really has its roots in the High Middle Ages when a sudden rise in information and population resulted in the need to convey ideas in an accessible way.
Art
A Floating Sound Orb Transmits the Past to the Future
Some people think that ghosts are fragments from people's lives imprinted on the world, playing over and over again after death. A sound project evokes this idea of a "delayed echo" of activity with a dreamlike black orb that floats through the air.
Art
Searching for the Iconic Amid Post-Industrial Waste
Compared to the wonders of the ancient world, urban sprawl is devastatingly mundane. But what if a mass-produced monument sprang from its overdeveloped terrain?
Art
A 19th-Century Map of the Geology Hidden Beneath NYC Streets
There was much rejoicing among cartography lovers when the New York Public Library's Lionel Pincus & Princess Firyal Map Division recently released over 20,000 maps for free use.
Books
Collaging Imagery from the Delirious Confusion of Finnegans Wake
James Joyce's 1939 Finnegans Wake notoriously starts out with this linguistic monstrosity thundering the fall of Adam and Eve …
News
Art Movements
Stolen paintings reappear in Italian kitchen, Qatar gives heritage support to Sudan, Helsinki Guggenheim looking for an architect, street artist found shot in Detroit, and more from the week in art news.
Art
John Cage: Mushroom Hunter
John Cage, legendary composer of experimental sounds and silence, was absolutely fascinated with mushrooms. This little-known legacy consists of his revival of the New York Mycological Society in the 1960s and his extensive fungi collection, now at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A new exh
Books
Photographing Ancient Organisms Before They Disappear
Brooklyn-based photographer Rachel Sussman spent nearly a decade tracking down the elders of our world, where life is measured in centuries instead of years.
Art
A New Digital Platform for Science in Museums
A new online journal is aspiring to create a dialogue among museum professionals and the public on science and museums in the 21st century.
Performance
Watching Your Digital Self Perform with Glass Ghost
After money, space is often the tallest hurdle for artists in New York. Performance Space 122's RAMP is a new residency program offering emerging New York City-based artists a performance venue to develop a piece with supporting tech assistance and premiere it to an audience.
Art
New York Public Library Puts Major Dance Video Archive Online
The New York Public Library recently digitized thousands of hours of its videos in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division Moving Image Archive, from grainy historic footage to contemporary productions along with preservations of culture.