Books
Too Fragile to Open, World’s Oldest Multicolor Printed Book Is Digitized
The 17th-century Manual of Calligraphy and Painting (Shi zhu zhai shu hua pu) is so fragile that until digitization no one was allowed to open it.
Books
Books
Surreal Photographs of Chinese Amusement Parks in Hibernation
Italian photographer Stefano Cerio has captured ski resorts at night, empty cruise ships, drained water parks, and, most recently, the uncanny bleakness of China's off-season amusement parks and other constructed entertainment.
Books
Transient Truths in Fragile Focus: Geoffrey O’Brien’s 'In a Mist'
Geoffrey O’Brien — critic, columnist, essayist, editor-in-chief of The Library of America, and poet — is both a preservationist and an elegist, savoring what can be saved, acknowledging what will always be lost.
Books
Dusting Off Victorian Science Specimens, from Two-Faced Kittens to Slug Models
After 25 years of collecting contemporary art, George Loudon's eye was caught by a display of 19th-century glass flowers at Harvard University.
Books
'The Divine' and 'The Realist’: The Diverging Worlds of Twin Comics Artists
The pristine linework of artist Tomer Hanuka is now featured in a slim new graphic novel from the NYC-based Israeli artist, along with his twin brother, Asaf, and writer/game designer Boaz Lavie.
Books
The Grainy Doom of the Apocalypse on Film
Whether a bang of nuclear annihilation or the slow creep of a pandemic, our potential end-of-world wastelands have their own bleak visual language.
Books
Borrowing Books from Sculptural Micro-Libraries
With the rise of e-books challenging public interest in printed matter, some community libraries have scaled down their collections while others are championing physical tomes through unexpected creative endeavors.
News
Oldest Fragment of Koran Found in UK Library
A 1,370-year-old section of the Koran possibly dating back to the life of Mohammed has been discovered in central England.
Books
UK Artist Parodies Trolling with Snail “Hate” Mail
Nearly half of all internet users have found themselves targeted by trolls.
Books
In a Success-Driven Culture, an Artist Publishes Her Rejection Letters
Dana Stirling isn't exactly what you'd call unsuccessful.
Books
Tracing Devendra Banhart's Visual and Musical Sensibility Through Drawing
While Devendra Banhart was making his folk-rock music, he was also producing a large body of visual art that for the first time is brought together in book form.
Books
Where Primordial Lava Flows into Ice
Iceland, more than most places on the planet, frequently reveals the cataclysmic activity below its crust through volcanoes, fissures, and geothermal pools.