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Arts & Culture / Art & Artists

DFB 45, Arès, Brandon Ballengée, 2008. Scanner photograph of cleared and stained multi-limbed Pacific Tree frog from Aptos, California in scientific collaboration with Dr. Stanley K. Sessions. Title in collaboration with the poet KuyDelair.

Art Meets Science

With Deformed Frogs and Fish, a Scientist-Artist Explores Ecological Disaster and Hope

A 20-year retrospective of Brandon Ballengée’s artwork explores humans’ connection to cold-blooded creatures

Monopoly, 2007 by Kristen Morgin

This Game of Monopoly Is Made Entirely of Clay

Kristen Morgin’s playful illusions explore ideas of abandonment and the American dream

Marion’s Morifolium Neckpiece by Jennifer Trask, 2011, includes sewing needles, antler, various teeth and bones and cast resin with bone powder, among other materials.

Bones and Blood Lurk Within These Stunning Works of Art

Sculptor Jennifer Trask sees a rich backstory in her materials

Peonies and Butterflies, Steven Young Lee, 2013, porcelain, cobalt inlay, gold luster decals. Collection of Lee and Mel Eagle

Steven Young Lee Crafts Perfectly Imperfect Pottery

Rigorously trained, this artist makes works that look woefully broken

Installation view of "Masterworks from the Hirshhorn Collection at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden," 2016. Nude with Leg Up (Leigh Bowery) by Lucian Freud, 1992; Untitled (Big Man) by Ron Mueck, 2000.

The Hyperreal Magnetism of Ron Mueck’s Truly Huge “Big Man”

The sculptor’s showstopper is naked, overweight and grumpy

The gallery's uncluttered walls make way for splashy art that has space to breathe and have an impact.

Breaking Ground

History Grabs the Headlines, But the Quiet Authority of the Art Gallery in the New Smithsonian Museum Speaks Volumes

In the visual arts exhibition the tone and the ambience suddenly shift

Leutwyler spent three weeks in the archives of the Elvis Presley Estate photographing objects, such as this gold-plated microphone (c. 1960).

A New Photo Book Reveals the Objects That Tell the Stories of the Rich and Famous

Photographer Henry Leutwyler usually shoots his camera at celebrities. For this book, he looked at their stuff

George Clinton donated to the museum his Parliament Funkadelic Mothership.

Breaking Ground

The New Exhibition on Black Music Could Give Other Museums a Run for Their Money

The collections in the show “Musical Crossroads” at the African American History Museum are near encyclopedic in their scope

Langston Hughes powerfully speaks for those excluded.

Breaking Ground

What Langston Hughes’ Powerful Poem “I, Too” Tells Us About America’s Past and Present

Smithsonian historian David Ward reflects on the work of Langston Hughes

Will Knight of Knight's Spider Web Farm in Vermont

This Farm Harvests Spider Webs for Art

Knight’s Spider Web Farm is Vermont’s original “web site”

Adrien Broom photographed a luminous dress in Wentworth Woodhouse, the largest private home in Britain. This image is titled The Forest of Columns.

Photographer Adrien Broom Sheds Light on Old Structures in Her Work

An eerie vision of the luminous magic we find in ourselves

Resurrection City Mural (detail), 1968

Breaking Ground

A Mural on View in the African American History Museum Recalls the Rise of Resurrection City

The 1968 Hunger Wall is a stark reminder of the days when the country’s impoverished built a shantytown on the National Mall

The Mechelse Wyandotte, the latest iteration of Koen Vanmechelen's Cosmopolitan Chicken Project

Art Meets Science

Breeding a Better Chicken in the Name of Art (and Science)

For 20 years, Belgian artist Koen Vanmechelen has been selectively breeding chickens for his Cosmopolitan Chicken Project

Pablo Picasso by Albert Eugene Gallatin, 1934

Commentary

Why It Takes a Great Rivalry to Produce Great Art

Smithsonian historian David Ward takes a look at a new book by Sebastian Smee on the contentious games artists play

Zora Neale Hurston by Carl Van Vechten, Noble Black Women: The Harlem Renaissance and After,1935, printed 1983

These Rarely Seen Photographs Are a Who’s Who of the Harlem Renaissance

Carl Van Vechten captured and archived images of most of the era’s great artists, musicians and thought leaders

The Next Rembrandt 2

Has the Incredible Accuracy of Art Reproduction Ruined the Way We Experience Masterpieces?

Precise digital replicas allow more people to own and view great works of art, minus their soul

Reynolda House Museum of American Art

These Five Museums Put the “Culture” in “Agriculture”

It’s a lot more than just “tractor art”

Sarah Vaughan by Herman Leonard, 1949

Jazz Has Never Looked Cooler Than It Does in This New Exhibition

These evocative images by photographer Herman Leonard call to mind a bygone era

“Enneagon” features repeating crystalline-like shapes. “You think you understand a pattern, but if you zoom out or change your perspective, it changes,” Shlian says. Created in 2015, measures 48 x 48 inches.

Art Meets Science

These Mesmerizing Paper Sculptures Explore Nature’s Mirrored Structures

Artist Matt Shlian folds, cuts and glues paper to create faceted and curved works of art

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