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Arts & Culture / Art & Artists

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When Modern Art Met the Classic Chess Set

How far can you push the design of a knight before it stops looking like a knight?

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When The Gap Was Everywhere

Through staged fashion shoots, an artists’ collective critiqued the ascendant sportswear retailer

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Would You Like to Browse an Edo-Period Japanese Bookstore?

The brush to block revolution saw a flowering of Japanese popular culture that still intrigues and enchants

April 4, 2013: Taylor Swift, by Klari Reis

Every Day a Different Dish: Klari Reis’ Petri Paintings

This year, a San Francisco-based artist will unveil 365 new paintings, reminiscent of growing bacteria, on her blog, The Daily Dish

“Where there’s smoke there’s fire” by Russell Patterson, 1920s

The History of the Flapper, Part 5: Who Was Behind the Fashions?

Sears styles sprung from the ideas of European artists and couturiers

Jupiter’s innermost large moon, Io, is extremely volcanic. “If you look closely on the upper left and upper right horizon, you can see eruptions in the process of happening,” says Benson. “We know that at least 400 volcanos are continuously blasting magma into space from Io.” Mosaic composite photograph. Galileo, July 3, 1999.

Michael Benson’s Awe-Inspiring Views of the Solar System

A photographer painstakingly pieces together raw data collected by spacecraft to produce color-perfect images of the Sun, planets and their many moons

Cai Guo-Qiang reviews one of his gunpowder drawings at the Grucci fireworks plant.

Meet the Artist Who Blows Things Up for a Living

With ethereal artworks traced in flames and gunpowder, Cai Guo Qiang is making a big bang

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What Major World Cities Look Like at Night, Minus the Light Pollution

Photographer Thierry Cohen tries to reconnect city dwellers with nature through his mind-blowing composite images—now at New York City’s Danziger Gallery

These flowers are always in bloom at the American Art Museum.

Butterflies, Baseball and Blossoms: Tours for Your Spring Vacation

Two custom tours come fully loaded with insider information, digital postcards and step-by-step directions

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The Otherworldly Calm of Wolfgang Laib’s Glowing Beeswax Room

A German contemporary artist creates a meditative space—lined with beeswax—at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.

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PHOTOS: Portrait Gallery Announces Winners of its Outwin Boochever Competition

Winners of the triennial National Portrait Gallery competition used everything from rice to glitter to thread to capture themselves and the people around them

Perito Moreno, Plate I, 2010. Patagonia

Caleb Cain Marcus’ Photos of Glaciers on a Disappearing Horizon

With a surprisingly light touch, the New York City-based photographer instills feelings of solitude in his images of massive glaciers

“Bunny” Bunny, by Henry Segerman and Craig Kaplan. The pattern on the bunny consists of copies of the word “bunny.” Listen as the artist describes the sculpture in this YouTube video.

Fresh Off the 3D Printer: Henry Segerman’s Mathematical Sculptures

A research fellow at the University of Melbourne has found a sneaky way to convert math haters to math lovers. He turns complex geometries into art

Jesper Kongshaug's Northern Lights display at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

The Northern Lights—From Scientific Phenomenon to Artists’ Muse

The spectacular aurora borealis is inspiring artists to create light installations, musical compositions, food and fashion

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The Cyrus Cylinder Goes on View at the Sackler Gallery

The Cyrus Cylinder makes its U.S. debut on March 9. It is considered one of the most important archaeological artifacts in history.

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The (Natural) World, According to Our Photo Contest Finalists

From a caterpillar to the Milky Way, the ten finalists in the contest’s Natural World category capture the peculiar, the remarkable and the sublime

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Winged Migration: The 77-Carat Butterfly Brooch That “Glows” in the Dark

The piece by Taiwanese artist Cindy Chao has a surprise revealed only under ultraviolet light

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Women’s History Month at the Smithsonian

From a Confederate spy to a deepwater researcher, women are everywhere and the Smithsonian is telling their stories

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The Greatest R&B Singer Who Never Existed

How the make-believe alter ego of an imaginative teen in the 1970s won him the fame he always dreamed of 40 years later

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Transforming Raw Scientific Data Into Sculpture and Song

Artist Nathalie Miebach uses meteorological data to create 3D woven works of art and playable musical scores

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