Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Smart News / Smart News Arts & Culture

French philosopher Michael Foucault in a studio during a radio broadcast in Paris, France, on December 16, 1981.

Unfinished Volume of Foucault’s ‘History of Sexuality’ Released in France

Foucault did not want the work to be published posthumously, but his family and heirs decided that the time had come for the book to be released

Trending Today

What to Know About 5Pointz Graffiti Collective’s Big Win at Court

A federal judged ruled Monday on the whitewashing of the internationally known graffiti site by a New York developer

Leonardo da Vinci, "A deluge," c.1517-18

Exhibition to Reveal da Vinci’s Invisible Drawings

The UK show will mark the largest display of da Vinci’s work in more than 65 years

The Louvre museum has opened two showrooms with 31 paintings on display which can be claimed by their legitimate owners.

The Louvre Puts Nazi-Looted Art in Public Eye in Effort to Find Rightful Heirs

The museum hopes the initiative will help connect the works to their legitimate owners. But critics say the move is too little, too late

New Met Exhibition Transports You to the Korean Peninsula’s Diamond Mountains

The North Korea resort destination has been inaccessible to tourists for nearly a decade

Cropped stamp featuring a portrait of William Shakespeare.

Software Points to Possible Inspiration for 11 Shakespeare Plays

Researchers used plagiarism software to highlight similarities between Shakespeare’s work and an obscure, unpublished manuscript

Jedek speakers

Cool Finds

Unknown Language Discovered in Malaysia

About 280 people north of the Malay Peninsula speak the language, which is called Jedek

Collège des Prêcheurs, future home of The Musée Jacqueline et Pablo Picasso

Cool Finds

New Museum in Southern France Will House More Than a Thousand Works by Pablo Picasso

The Musée Jacqueline et Pablo Picas, which is expected to open in 2021, will include a trove of works inherited by the artist’s stepdaughter

Hyundai Pavilion designed by Asif Khan at PyeongChang Winter Olympics 2018

Winter Olympics

Artist Coats Olympic Pavilion With the Blackest Black Pigment

The pavilion is also studded with thousands of light rods to resemble the twinkling night sky

Cool Finds

This Textbook Helps Teach English in Downtown Los Angeles’ Skid Row

The readings are geared to engage and inspire adults hoping to improve their literacy skills

Soohorang, mascot of the Winter Olympics 2018, stands in the Olympic Village in Gangneung, South Korea.

Meet the 2018 Olympic Artists in Residence

Four artists who are also athletes will make art by Olympians for Olympians at the PyeongChang Olympics

Women stand in gutter for a poster parade organized by the Women's Freedom League to promote the suffrage message.

Stories of Forgotten Suffragettes Come Alive in New Exhibition

The Museum of London’s “Votes for Women” show marks 100 years since women were first granted the right to vote in Britain

The Museum at FIT tweeted about its "Black Fashion Designers" exhibition drawn from its permanent collection.

In Honor of Black History Month, Cultural Institutions Are Sharing Archival Treasures

The best of the U.S. National Archive’s #ArchivesBlackHistory

Truck tracks on the Nasca lines

Trending Today

Truck Driver Leaves Tire Tracks Over Peru’s Ancient Nasca Lines

Three of the Unesco World Heritage site’s enigmatic glyphs were harmed, but authorities believe they can repair the damage

Emery Walker photograph of damage to the painting of Thomas Carlyle by Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Bt, 1877.

See the Portrait Slashed by a Butcher’s Cleaver During Height of Women’s Suffrage Movement

In an act of protest, the London National Portrait Gallery work was damaged in 1914. It returns to mark 100 years of the Representation of the People Act

In Nilsson’s reconstruction, the teenager looks skeptical—and steely.

Experts Reconstruct the Face of a Mesolithic-Era Teenager

She was buried in a cave in central Greece around 9,000 years ago

Peacocks can fly, but not on planes.

Emotional Support Peacock Barred From Flying on United Airlines

The incident comes as airlines have implementing stricter rules for emotional support animals

The ochre "crayon"

Cool Finds

One of the World’s Oldest “Crayons” Colors in Details of the Mesolithic World

An interdisciplinary team of archaeologists and physicists came together to discover the purpose of the ancient bit of sharpened red ochre

AP file photo of musician Coco Schumann taken on August 16, 1997.

Coco Schumann, the Holocaust Survivor who Played Jazz at Auschwitz, Dies at 93

The Berlin native returned to the city after the war and became renowned for playing the electric guitar

Philip Yenyo, executive director of the American Indian Movement for Ohio, leads a protest of the Cleveland Indians Chief Wahoo mascot before a baseball game against the Detroit Tigers Friday, April 10, 2015, in Cleveland.

Smithsonian Curator Weighs in on Cleveland Indians’ Decision to Retire ‘Racist’ Logo

Chief Wahoo, says Paul Chaat Smith, is a prime example of how the appropriation of Native American culture can be terribly problematic

Page 167 of 286