Sum of the Arts

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

• Age at which Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s beloved pet wombat died (the 19th-century painter eulogized him in an illustrated poem, above) = 2
• Number of cities where you can find the colorful “mineral” Fordite, made from layers of built-up automobile paint = 1 (Detroit)
• Number of false ceilings discovered in the renovation of the Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC = 3
• Metric tons of blue whale bones that are being dusted and relocated from a gallery to the main entrance hall of the Natural History Museum in London = 4.5
• Number of wire gymnasts held aloft by one metal man in Alexander Calder’s “The Brass Family” (1929), on view at the Tate Modern = 6
• Number of newly identified Francis Bacon paintings to be unveiled in his complete catalogue raisonné = 100
• Number of childhood drawings by Lucian Freud going to London’s National Portrait Gallery as part of an archive being donated instead of an inheritance tax = 162
• Number of adjectives recognized by a computer designed by Brigham Young University scientists to understand art = 2,000
• Square meters of empty Second Life land bought on eBay by artists Franziska Lamprecht and Hajoe Moderegger for a digital dump where players could abandon items = 4,096
• Number of magnetic tape recordings in museums and other archives that won’t be possible to digitize in 20 years due to changing technology and disintegration = 46,000,000

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• Sum of the Arts