The faces of A Peace of My Mind.

A Photographer’s 40,000-Mile Journey to Find What Peace Means to Americans

John Noltner has driven across the country in an effort to document the many definitions of peace

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

For each Luckey Climber, the palette is the same: pipes, platforms, cables and wire netting.

Art Meets Science

King of the Playground, Spencer Luckey, Builds Climbers That Are Engineering Marvels

The 46-year-old architect and his crew build multi-story climbing structures for museums and malls around the world

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

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Breaking Ground

Live: Watch the National Museum of African American History and Culture Grand Opening Dedication Ceremony

Watch the live stream of today’s museum opening

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The $10 Million Race to Invent Star Trek’s Tricorder

Star Trek’s fictional tricorder is far from becoming a reality. But a $10 million prize from the XPRIZE Foundation is hoping to motivate inventors

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

How the Thinnest Burmese Gold Leaf Is Made

In Burma, goldworking skills have been passed down over generations

Much of the timber used for T3 came from trees killed by the mountain pine beetle.

Is Timber the Future of Urban Construction?

A celebrated architect goes out on a limb with a bold new take on building tall

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

H.G. Wells was one of the first science fiction writers.

The Many Futuristic Predictions of H.G. Wells That Came True

Born 150 years ago, H.G. Wells predicted, and inspired, inventions from the laser to email

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

A Hadza elder wears a roughly tanned wild-animal skin over a T-shirt. The skin strips on his bow reinforce his weapon while the furs attest to his recent kills. His headband is not traditionally Hadza; members of the tribe have begun to adopt styles from neighboring groups.

Get Face to Face With the Tribes of Tanzania

As safari parks encroach on their ancestral lands, indigenous groups struggle to maintain their ways of life

After U.S. Border Patrol spots their raft, migrants speed back toward the Mexico side of the Rio Grande.

Myth and Reason on the Mexican Border

The renowned travel writer journeys the length of the U.S.-Mexico border to get a firsthand look at life along the blurry 2,000-mile line

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

A view of Mount Rushmore under construction, c.1938-1939

The Sordid History of Mount Rushmore

The sculptor behind the American landmark had some unseemly ties to white supremacy groups

Founder James Smithson (1765-1829) published a paper in search of better way to brew coffee and then considered how his method might work with hops to make beer.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

The Founder of the Smithsonian Institution Figured Out How to Brew a Better Cup of Coffee

Almost two hundred years ago, James Smithson devised a method for better brewing. We recreated it.

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

Parliament Funkadelic Mothership, "Musical Crossroads" exhibition

Breaking Ground

Exclusive Photography From Inside the African American History Museum Offers a Hint of What Is to Come

Architecture photographer Jason Flakes brings his unique lens to the Smithsonian’s brand new museum

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