Art
How an Ancient Egyptian Obelisk Ended Up in NYC
When Cleopatra's Needle was commissioned by Pharaoh Thutmose III around 1450 BCE for the Heliopolis sun temple, the island that would be Manhattan was mostly woodlands.
Latest
Art
Seeing Calder Through His Shadows
When I was little I went to the Whitney Museum over and over to see “Cirque Calder,” Alexander Calder’s three-dimensional cartoon of performers preening, frozen in mise-en-scène. Walking into Calder Shadows, on view at Venus Over Manhattan, I felt the same childish camaraderie with the artist, only
News
Smithsonian Joins MoMA in Expanding Video Game Effort
As the Smithsonian American Art Museum continues to expand its video game collection (two acquisitions were announced today), so too does the Washington, DC-based institution find itself increasingly dedicated to documenting the broader culture of video game production.
News
Oregon Brings Home the Bacon (Triptych)
Everyone's favorite triptych will be taking a trip to Portland, Oregon, the New York Times has reported.
Opinion
Bids for George Zimmerman Painting Near $100,000 on eBay
George Zimmerman is on a roll. First he gets acquitted of murder; then he gets away with domestic violence; then he gets his guns back (all five of them); and now bids for a painting he made are up to $99,966 on eBay. Is there anything this man can't do?!
Art
Duke Riley's Pigeon Army of Cuban Cigar Smugglers
The United States spends billions of dollars on a balloon surveillance system on the Florida Straits waters as part of its Trading with the Enemy Act against Cuba, the only country currently under the restriction. Yet as Brooklyn-based artist Duke Riley states in his video for a recent project: "As
News
First Ever Woman Wins American Institute of Architects Prize … Posthumously
The American Institute of Architects has announced the winner of its 2014 AIA Gold Medal, and for the first time in over a century, the recipient will be a woman: Julia Morgan. It just so happens that Morgan died in 1957, but you know what they say: better late than never!
Comics
Not All Commenters Are the Same
What kind of commenter are you?
Art
Photographer as Advocate: Lewis Hine's America
Odds are that when you close your eyes and imagine the huddled masses at Ellis Island, or brawny men at derricks hoisting iron bars to the top of the Empire State Building, you are seeing images that Lewis Hine introduced into the popular imagination.
Art
Art Rx
You may think there's nothing going on this week, but you'd be wrong. It's not Christmas yet!
Opinion
Chat Bots and Big Data
OAKLAND, Calif. — With our data-driven lives, so much of what we do can be seen through the lens of algorithms.
Art
Blowing Smoke: Robert Wilson Agog Over Gaga in Louvre Show
PARIS — I was lucky enough, and I am old enough, to have been in the audience of Philip Glass and Robert Wilson’s Einstein on the Beach in 1976 at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, and then again at The Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1984.