Arts & Culture / Art & Artists

This Farm Harvests Spider Webs for Art

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

September 21, 2016

Photographer Adrien Broom Sheds Light on Old Structures in Her Work

An eerie vision of the luminous magic we find in ourselves

October 2016

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

September 21, 2016

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

September 15, 2016

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

September 9, 2016

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

September 9, 2016

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

August 23, 2016

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

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

August 22, 2016

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

August 22, 2016

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

August 22, 2016

Is This a Portrait of One of the World’s Most Influential Philosophers?

One Dutch art dealer is convinced that he owns the only portrait that Baruch Spinoza sat for

August 17, 2016

The History of the American West Gets a Much-Needed Rewrite

Artists, historians and filmmakers alike have been guilty of creating a mythologized version of the U.S. expansion to the west

August 16, 2016

These Letters Written by Famous Artists Reveal the Lost Intimacy of Putting Pen to Paper

Many of the letters included in a new book provide snapshots of especially poignant moments in the lives of American artists

August 12, 2016

Art Meets Science

This Sculpture Is Controlled by Live Honeybees

Artist Wolfgang Buttress collaborated with a multidisciplinary team to create a giant, metallic hive

August 5, 2016

Meet the Man Who Dropped a Boulder on a Chrysler

Ex-pat rebel sculptor Jimmie Durham’s funny work is celebrated in the capital of the country he left

July 26, 2016

Commentary

How to Avoid the Pitfalls in the Politics of Graphic Messaging

The director of the National Portrait Gallery offers a few pointers on how to acquire visual intelligence

July 21, 2016

Please Touch the Art: This Artist Creates Tactile Portraits for the Blind

Andrew Myers uses screws to make 3-D masterpieces for curious fingers

July 19, 2016

Art Meets Science

Here’s What Happens When Neuroscientists and Designers Team Up to Explain Scientific Research

A new interdisciplinary project results in a moving sculpture, an animated piece, a song that evolves and more

July 13, 2016

The World Is Finally Ready to Understand Romaine Brooks

An early 20th-century artist, Brooks was long marginalized, her work overlooked, in part because of her fluid sexual and gender identity

July 8, 2016