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.
Art
A century has passed since Albert Einstein published his general theory of relativity, which at its core demonstrates that space and time are connected, and both involved in gravity.
Books
At the Metropolitan Museum of Art is an example of the first 88-key piano model built by Steinway & Sons in 1868, its rosewood case containing an inventive cast-iron frame held aloft by three ornate legs.
Art
CORNING, NY — The 19th-century glass models of marine invertebrates created by father-son duo Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka were intended to capture as accurately as possible the delicate bodies of underwater creatures.
Art
Sidney Herbert Sime's art seems to capture the point at which a dream becomes a nightmare.
Books
Chanel shoes, McDonald's french fries, iPhones, cognac, lacy lingerie, and machine guns are just a few of the consumer goods you can purchase for the dead in China.
Art
It's easy to forget that a historic artifact preserved in a museum is not a static object.
Art
Between the four speakers of Chris Watson's "Ring Angels," the fluttering of a thousand wings fills a corner of City Hall Park.
Art
Nothing remains of Alexander Pope's 18th-century villa except its grotto, which has experienced three centuries of quiet decay alongside the River Thames in Twickenham, England.
Art
FOYIL, Okla. — In 1937, art teacher Ed Galloway began his retirement project: a 90-foot-tall totem pole rising from the back of a big blue turtle.
Art
Exotic animal visitors to Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries were more frequently dead than alive.
Books
Woody Guthrie was responding to the hardships of the Great Depression, but he may as well have been singing about now.
Art
A manhole cover is generally deemed successful if its round shape keeps pedestrians from plummeting into the earth, and communicates the subterranean systems below through its design.