Books
How the First Illustrated English Book Described the Universe
The first illustrated English book was ambitious, describing large ideas like the roundness of the Earth and why we experience day and night.
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.
Art
Revisiting a 1992 Sign Project that Acknowledged NYC's Lost Histories
In 1992, artist collective REPOhistory installed 39 aluminum signs in Lower Manhattan that highlighted the overlooked history of New York City.
Art
Carnegie Museum of Art Makes its Provenance Accessible and Interactive
Label text rarely describes the life of a painting before it arrived at a museum, yet there's a whole narrative of ownership in a painting's journey from an artist's studio to a static place on the wall.
Art
Sum of the Arts: Lost Civilizations
Number of large-scale bronzes that survive from ancient Greece = ~200
Art
350 Years After the Great Plague, Its Skeletal Reaper Remains
Death as a skeletal grim reaper was cemented as a symbol during the plagues in Europe, which stretched from the 14th to 18th centuries.
Art
Wayfinding through Ruins and Castles in a Governors Island Art Intervention
It's unlikely you'd notice any of the art in Governors Island's Visitors without a map, as it's hiding in an abandoned swimming pool, a nondescript rock in a fortress, and those hulking billboards urban eyes are trained to ignore.
News
Oblivious Games Company Turns Slave Trade into Tetris
After a social media uproar, the Denmark-based Serious Games Interactive removed a "Slave Tetris" mini-game from their Playing History: Slave Trade.
Art
Digital Distractions: Sleepwalking, Glitches, and Junk Mail
In a new monthly series, we’re highlighting a few games, apps, and interactive digital experiences recommended for the art crowd. For September, here's a simulation of an Italian Renaissance painting guild, a Surrealist puzzler, a glitchy Pac-Man, and the most thought-provoking game on junk mail yet
News
City Council Bill Could Limit NYC's Landmarking Power
At a public hearing next Wednesday, New York City Council's Committee on Land Use will consider a bill that would majorly impact landmarking in the city.
Performance
Hip-Hop, ‘Hamilton,' and the Deficit of Diversity on Broadway
Broadway in 2015 still has a major deficit of diversity.
Art
From Beach Sandals to Ghost Nets, Artists Confront the Plastic Pollution of the Oceans
The rotating current of the North Pacific Gyre contains in its ocean vortex a cloud of plastic debris constantly moving below the surface, a marine hazard nicknamed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
In Brief
Discovery of Ancient Greek 'Palace' Reveals Fragments of a Lost Language
The Greek Ministry of Culture announced on August 25 that since 2009, archaeologists at a Mycenaean palace on Aghios Vassilios Hill on Greece's Sparta plain have unearthed numerous artifacts.