News
New Clue Revealed for a Sculpture of Secret Code at CIA Headquarters
A secret message encoded in a sculpture at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, got one step closer to being solved last week.
Sculpture
Art
Critical Americana in Chicago
CHICAGO — In a group show at Packer Schopf Gallery, three artists explore ideas or activities that are central to American identity: nature, political protest, and sports.
Art
Wandering Through the Refuse
CHICAGO — Judith Mullen’s new work consists of sculptures and paintings that look like detritus, like the sort of thing that accumulates in rivers or forest floors after heavy storms: swirls of leaves, bark, wood chips, pine needles, things discarded by humans, whipped together by wind and rain to f
News
Lost and Found: Lynda Benglis's "The Wave"
NEW ORLEANS — When we last left “The Wave,” Lynda Benglis’s monumental bronze sculpture she created for the 1984 World’s Fair in New Orleans, it had just been rediscovered behind a disused sewer treatment plant in suburban Kenner, Louisiana.
Art
Receivers and Transmitters: Michelle Segre’s Recent Sculpture
In Michelle Segre’s sculpture “Self-Reflexive Narcissistic Supernova” (2013), a mushroom cap — made of wax and five feet in diameter — lies on its side in a provocative position evoking a horn, ear, and vagina — a form that receives and/or transmits.
Art
Courtauld Institute Attempts to Catalogue Every Work of Gothic Ivory Art
The last time anyone attempted to catalogue all known Gothic ivory sculpture was a three-volume publication from a French scholar in 1924, but now the Gothic Ivories Project at London's Courtauld Institute of Art is taking a 21st century stab at it with an online database.
Art
The Beauty of a Sculpted Experience at Storm King
The Hudson Valley has a special kind of light and soaring nature, with its elevations and valleys illuminated with sun, starlight, and storm. At the Storm King Art Center with its installations of giant metal sculptures that seem alien on the meadows, or land art that warps the earth, the most inter
Opinion
Sesame Street Explains Sculpture
It takes a lot of work to carve a sculpture, but apparently muppets have all the strength it takes. On the April 18 episode of Sesame Street, “sculpture” was the word of the day and the little red fuzzball Elmo teamed up with chiseled Mad Men star Jon Hamm to give viewers a quick history of the medi
Opinion
Michelangelo's David Is Too Hot for Japan
Okuizumo, Japan, stands paralyzed by an icon of Western art. A 16-foot-high replica of Michelangelo's triumphant David sculpture was installed in the middle of a public park in the southern Japanese town, but locals think it might be a little bit too public.
Opinion
The Goofy Physical Ways We Interact With Digital Technology
There's a post (that I can no longer find, unfortunately) on the hilarious Tumblr Sexpigeon (SFW, I promise) that features a man on the street, slouching over his smartphone, face angled far down, features invisible. The caption, something to the effect of: "What a brave new world for posture we liv
Art
What Makes a Blockbuster?
After a plate of lukewarm gemelli in the Metropolitan Museum cafeteria, an out-of-town friend and I wandered haphazardly into the lower level of the Lehman wing, where the exhibition Bernini: Sculpting in Clay has been in residence since early October. The show, which consists primarily of terra-cot
Art
Waste Not, Want Not: Phyllida Barlow's New Work
As my colleague Thomas Micchelli pointed out in his review of siege, Phyllida Barlow’s exhibition of sculpture at the New Museum earlier this year, she has something in common with Hans Hoffman. Both were teachers who have an impressive roster of distinguished students. In Hoffmann’s case, it includ