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Art

Sum of the Arts

Number of nickel cadmium batteries required to power the first digital camera, which was created in 1973 = 16

Allison Meier

Allison Meier

— 1 min read
Lantern slide photograph on glass in wood mount of Smithsonian Institution Building (Smithsonian Castle) under construction, by William Langenheim and Frederick Langenheim of Philadelphia (1850) (courtesy Smithsonian Castle Collection)
Lantern slide photograph on glass in wood mount of Smithsonian Institution Building (Smithsonian Castle) under construction, by William Langenheim and Frederick Langenheim of Philadelphia (1850) (courtesy Smithsonian Castle Collection)

Sum of the Arts is a periodic tabulation of numbers floating around the art world and beyond.

  • Number of towers on the Smithsonian Castle, first photographed in 1850 = 9
  • Number of full-time dance critics in the United States = 2
  • Number of people out of 150 who survived the maritime catastrophe depicted in Théodore Géricault’s “The Raft of the Medusa” (1818–19) = 10
  • Number of states where Joseph McGill has slept in former slave lodgings as part of his ongoing Slave Dwelling Project = 14
  • Number of nickel cadmium batteries required to power the first digital camera, which was created in 1973 = 16
  • Average hourly rate in American dollars performers were paid for major museum exhibitions in 2010 = 20
  • Hours in which the “Houses While You Wait” machine of the 1940s could build a two-bedroom concrete home = 24
  • Number of fiberglass fish in which visitors can ride the nautilus shell-shaped carousel opening in Battery Park on August 20 = 30
  • Seconds that Cai Guo-Qiang’s “Sky Ladder” exploded over a Chinese fishing village = 150
  • Pantone number of a black coffee in Monaco’s new Pantone Cafe = 19-111