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Arts & Culture / Art & Artists

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Ingenious Minds

How Drag Helped Sasha Velour Cope With the Loss of Her Mother

The drag queen talks with breast cancer specialist Laura Esserman about gender identity, expression and celebration

One of this issue's questions is about the starfish's namesake shape.

Why Are Starfish Shaped Like Stars and More Questions From Our Readers

You asked, we answered

"Let’s Get Lost" by linn meyers at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art

Museum Visitors Can Play This Wall Art Like an Instrument

An artist, musician, experience designer and app developer meet for coffee. This multi-sensory installation is the result

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What Do a Toilet Seat and the Mail Have to Do With Art?

A delta wave, typical of deep sleep, as envisioned by interdisciplinary artist Julia Buntaine Hoel.

Art Meets Science

This Sculptor Imagines Brain Waves in 3-D

Julia Buntaine Hoel depicts the electrical activity of the brain in Wave(s), on display at Smithsonian’s “The Long Conversation”

A view of the Spitzmaus exhibit.

Seven Must-See New Museum Exhibits to Marvel at This Winter

From fancy lights to Wes Anderson aesthetics, these new exhibits explore artists, history and fun

Alice Neel Self-Portrait by Alice Neel, 1980

History’s Selfies: Looking at Artists Looking at Themselves

National Portrait Gallery closes out 50-year anniversary celebration after widening the view to include more women, diverse backgrounds and emerging media

About 65 percent of Americans will send Christmas letters or cards this holiday season.

The History of Our Love-Hate Relationship With the Christmas Letter

How the “Dear Friends” missive started and how it has survived the Facebook age

Ida O’Keeffe created seven abstract paintings of Cape Cod’s Highland Light (pictured: Variation on a Lighthouse Theme V). The first in the acclaimed series has been lost.

Who Was Ida O’Keeffe, Georgia’s Lesser-Known, But Perhaps More-Talented, Sister?

The painter who toiled in the shadow of her celebrated sibling is the subject of a new, major exhibition

A section of the 18,000-square-foot Cyclorama depicts a pivotal moment: Lt Edward Jones, on horseback, racing to reinforce the Federal line.

American South

Atlanta’s Famed Cyclorama Mural Will Tell the Truth About the Civil War Once Again

One of the war’s greatest battles was fought again and again on a spectacular canvas nearly 400 feet long. At last, the real history is being restored

Of Gods and Heroes by Jeffrey Veregge, 2018 (detail featuring Colleen Wing and Misty Knight)

This Artist Reenvisioned Marvel Superheroes in a Traditional Native American Style

Jeffrey Veregge uses formline, more typical of paintings and totem poles, to create a heroic mural

More like something out of a dream than a part of daily life, that weekend indelibly imprinted scenes in American memory: the riderless horse, the rat-a-tat-tat of the muffled drums, the brave widow, the toddler saluting his father’s casket.

How Poetry Soothed a Nation in Mourning for John F. Kennedy

First the jolt of shock, then a shroud of sadness struck the nation in the weeks following that fateful day

Stan Lee Helped Shape the Story of What It Is to Be American

Smithsonian curator Eric Jentsch weighs into the legacy of the comic-book mastermind

Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee died yesterday at age 95.

A Letter to Stan Lee, Comic Book Legend, Written by One of His Biggest Fans

Movie producer and instructor Michael Uslan eulogizes his hero and mentor, whose superheroes taught him countless life lessons

A member of the U.S. Army 3/187th Scouts from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, takes a break at a bombed out building on April 12, 2002, at Kandahar Air Base, Afghanistan.

A Veteran Combat Photographer Recalls His Most Memorable Shots

Originally stuck in a darkroom, Jeremy Lock traveled the world capturing life on the front lines and the homefront

Pulse Tank by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, 2008

This Art Show Is Taking the Literal Pulse of America

Artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer uses biometrics to make breathtaking spectacle

With elaborate coiffures and scarves and ceremonial garb, all the way down to beautifully designed sandals and the tinkling of gold bracelets, Senegalese women usefashion for sociopolitical and economic ends as well as celebrating their own history.

In Senegal, Female Empowerment, Prestige and Wealth Is Measured in Glittering Gold

The African Art Museum’s new exhibition delves into a tradition that is both ravishingly beautiful and hauntingly fraught

The dozen or so cameras watching the musicians sent live video from the performance to a rack of computers, which used off-the-shelf artificial intelligence algorithms to create the eerie visuals.

The Musical Performance “Sight Machine” Reveals What Artificial Intelligence Is “Thinking” About Us

Like artist Trevor Paglen’s other work, the show asked viewers to reexamine the human relationship to technology

Mario Klingemann’s ‘Neural Glitch Portrait 153552770’ was created using a generative adversarial network.

With AI Art, Process Is More Important Than the Product

Christie’s just auctioned its first piece of AI art—a portrait created via machine learning

Unidentified 60, 2017. Meyer learned the art of making headdresses from Swazi women.

How Kyle Meyer’s Photo-Tapestries Give Voice to a Silenced Community

The New York artist combines digital photography and African fabrics to create deeply textured portraits of persecuted Swazi men

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