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Smart News / Smart News Arts & Culture

Father Karel Stautemas raising a glass of Grimbergen beer

A Belgian Abbey Is Using Centuries-Old Recipes to Revive Its Brewery

Grimbergen Abbey in Belgium will produce its first beers in more than 200 years

The shift will be funded by a $10 million donation from MOCA's Board of Trustees president, Carolyn Powers

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles Will Soon Offer Free Admission

The move will be funded by a $10 million donation

Walt Whitman in 1869, as photographed by William Kurtz

Rare Walt Whitman Artifacts Go on View at Library of Congress for Poet’s 200th Birthday

The library holds the world’s largest collection of Whitman-related items

Lee Krasner has long been viewed as a fringe character in the American Abstract Expressionist canon, but a new retrospective challenges this notion

Revisiting the Artistic Legacy of Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock’s Wife

A London retrospective unites almost 100 of the genre-bending artist’s works

Photograph from the 2015 LGBTQ Pride celebration. Upward of 60 000 people took to the streets of Taipei for the annual Pride march, the largest such event in Asia.

Taiwan Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage—a First for Asia

Activists hope the law will inspire similar pushes for equality in other parts of the continent

"Rabbit" sold at Christie's for a record-breaking $91.1 million

Jeff Koons’ ‘Rabbit’ Breaks the Auction Record for Most Expensive Work by Living Artist

The stainless steel sculpture sold for $91.1 million, surpassing the $90.2 million record set by David Hockney last November

Ruby Taboh's stilton cheese.

Cool Finds

Cheese Made From Celebrity Belly Button and Armpit Bacteria Goes on Display

Five types of “human cheese” from cheddar to Cheshire are on view at the Victoria & Albert Museum

Constance Wu's character, Rachel Chu, wears the gown to a wedding

Constance Wu’s ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Dress Is Coming to the Smithsonian

Curator Theo Gonzalves says he hopes the gown will enable Asian American visitors “to see themselves in the museum, … see themselves in American history”

Structures unearthed at Achtriochtan may be linked with the bloody massacre

Archaeologists Are Excavating Site of Scottish Massacre That Inspired the ‘Game of Thrones’ Red Wedding

In 1692, members of the Campbell clan turned on their MacDonald hosts, killing at least 38 men and sending women and children fleeing into the hills

Can a bike ride a day keep the doctor away?

Welsh Doctors Can Now Prescribe Free Bicycle Rides

The pilot program joins a recent spate of ‘social prescribing’ activities to hit the U.K.

The Louvre Pyramid is arguably the architect's best-known work.

Trending Today

I.M. Pei Dies at 102 Years Old. Here Are Some of His Essential Buildings

The architect changed the way the world sees itself

Closeup of the divisive fruit

A Stinky Durian Fruit Led to the Evacuation of an Australian Library

It was initially feared that the overwhelming stench stemmed from a gas leak

Susan Sontag photographed in 1972.

Did Susan Sontag Write the Seminal Book Attributed to Her Husband?

An upcoming biography claims that before she became a towering literary figure, Sontag was the true author of Freud: The Mind of the Moralist

Sculptor Hannah Stewart has created a life-size bronze statue of Lily Parr

Lily Parr, a Pioneering English Footballer, Scores Bronze Monument

Parr rose to fame in the years after WWI, a time when women’s soccer blossomed in the U.K.

American actor Doris Day with mutt co-star Hobo on the set of director Charles Walters's film, 'Please Don't Eat the Daisies'.

Hitting the High Notes: A Smithsonian Year of Music

Doris Day’s Biggest Hit Is a Song She Could Have Done Without

“Que Sera, Sera” is synonomous with the actress and singer who died on Monday at age 97, though she was never a fan of the tune she called ‘a kiddie song’

Illustration from woodblock-printed text on the life of Gautama Buddha

Library of Congress Digitizes Taiwanese Watercolors, Rare Chinese Texts

The library’s rare Chinese book collection includes 5,300 titles, 2,000 of which will ultimately be included in the online portal

Left: Half-restored version of Vermeer's "Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window" / Right: Unrestored version

Cool Finds

Restoration Reveals Long-Lost Cupid Painted Over After Vermeer’s Death

In an unusual move, the Dresden gallery has opted to display the half-restored painting prior to concluding conservation efforts

Iris Scott, "Tiger Fire," 2019

Iris Scott, the World’s First Professional Finger-Painter, Launches NYC Show

While the artist isn’t the first to use finger painting in her work, she is the first to dedicate her career to the technique

Norma Miller photographed in 2015

Norma Miller, the ‘Queen of Swing,’ Has Died at 99

An electric performer of the Lindy Hop, Miller dazzled audiences on stage and screen

152 Nassau

Hitting the High Notes: A Smithsonian Year of Music

The Site of Country Music’s First Recorded Hit Is Set to Be Demolished

152 Nassau Street in Atlanta was home to the first country music recording hit made before the genre even had a name

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