Houdini knew that owning a patent for an illusion did little to stop imitators from stealing his thunder — so he employed a bit of legal sleight of hand.
Category: History
Posted inArt
Fascinating Illustrations of 18th-century Inoculations by the Inventor of the Smallpox Vaccine
Both Edward Jenner’s inoculation methods and the illustrations he made of those he treated were groundbreaking.
Posted inArt
How a Map Fueled Perceptions of Asians as an Exoticized “Other”
“Peoples of the Pacific” is one of six murals that was displayed at the influential “Pageant of the Pacific” Golden Gate International Exposition.
Posted inArt
Why Do AI-generated Portraits Fail at Realism?
Why do these portraits almost always fall short of being lively or authentic?
Posted inHistory
The Iconography of the Paris Commune, 150 Years Later
On the sesquicentennial of the fall of the Commune, a look back at how artists captured those few revolutionary months.
Posted inArt
What the “Nefertiti Hack” Tells Us About Digital Colonialism
A hacked 3D scan of the famous sculpture shows how traditional models of heritage ownership might change in museums.
Posted inHistory
Mid-Century Modernism’s Racial History
What do we know about the history of these designs? Who was buying this furniture when modernism was new, and why?
Posted inHistory
On the Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Recalling the Hope It Offers
Amidst the destabilization and trauma we currently face, an exhibit on the brave revolt tells a conflicted story of self-empowerment.
Posted inHistory
Discovery of an Industrial Brewery in Ancient Egypt Rewrites the History of Beer
To archaeologists, understanding the building of the Pyramids at Giza is a matter of scaling up the labor system seen earlier at sites like Abydos.
Posted inHistory
How a Dutch Painting Dominates the Way We See a 17th-Century Lynching
Jan de Baen’s “The Corpses of the De Witt Brothers” has become the dominant visual representation of the brothers’ lynching, but whether it deserves this honor is debatable.
Posted inArt
A World-Famous Ancient Collection, on Display for the First Time, Awaits Visitors in Rome
The impressive exhibition undertaken by the Capitoline Museums and the Torlonia Foundation was 40 years in the making, and placed close to 100 marble sculptures from the storied Torlonia collection on view.
Posted inHistory
The Artists Who Lurk on the Dark Web
A sense of risk permeates mainstream stories about the dark web. This unsafeness attracted the attention of those artists and creatives who critically focus on the study of digital tools.