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Art

Cool Finds

The Mind-Blowing ‘Rain Room’ Comes to Los Angeles

This wildly popular installation art creates an indoor storm—but visitors don’t get wet

Ai Weiwei's "Trace," which used Lego blocks to show political dissidents last year.

Trending Today

Ai Weiwei Wants Your Legos

The dissident artist needs millions of toy bricks for his next project

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, part 2

Cool Finds

These Brilliant Literary Maps Will Help You Understand Your Favorite Book

A lavishly illustrated atlas for Huckleberry Finn and other classics

Cool Finds

This Norwegian Modern Art Museum Is Also a Bridge

An ingeniously twisted design blends art with infrastructure

A spaghetti squash explodes with color. Maciek Jasik does not reveal his technique for making produce expel colorful smoke.

These Fruits Explode With Color. Literally.

Artist Maciek Jasik won’t share the secrets behind his work, but the mystery is part of the fun

Cool Finds

This Giant Van Gogh Painting Is Made of Pumpkins, Watermelons and Squash

How crop artist Stan Herd made an acre-wide ode to “Olive Trees”

Edith Wharton had presumably outgrown her rattle by the time this photo was taken in 1877.

Cool Finds

For Sale: Edith Wharton’s $16,500 Baby Rattle

Fanciest. Teething device. Ever.

Invisible, 1971, by Giovanni Anselmo

Playful Artworks at the Hirshhorn Get the Better of One Mystified Observer

A group of international mid-century artists built a number of kinetic experiments into their abstract art

Cool Finds

The Only Eyewitness Painting of Lincoln’s Assassination Is Finally Being Restored

How a forgotten portrait of the president’s dying hours was saved

A scene from 1963's Jason and the Argonauts

Cool Finds

Ray Harryhausen’s Movie Memorabilia Goes Up For Auction

Sketches, models, and a treasure trove of collectibles from Hollywood’s first king of special effects

Demonstrators express support for The Perfect Moment, an exhibition by Robert Mapplethrope that included nude and sexually graphic photos.

When Art Fought the Law and the Art Won

The Mapplethorpe obscenity trial changed perceptions of public funding of art and shaped the city of Cincinnati

“People who want to have fun,” Starr Hagenbring says. “These are fun, beautiful clothes. Seeing beautiful things makes you happy, and that’s what I do."

Wearing Your Art On Your Sleeve

These three artists come from a long tradition of creating wearable art. See many more at the Smithsonian’s upcoming Craft2Wear show this weekend

Bioluminescent Algae Light Up London’s Merge Festival

This interactive art installation is part science, part fairytale

Cool Finds

People Can Now Have Their Tattoos Framed After They Die

A new service turns skin art into a gift that keeps on giving

Nine American Airports for Art Lovers

Your layover just got better

None

The Innovative Spirit

This Interactive Installation Rains a Poem Down on Viewers

Artists Camille Utterback and Romy Achituv wrote the software that drives an artwork, in which onlookers catch letters falling on a large screen

Pardoned Turkeys and Voodoo Dolls: Visit These Offbeat Treasures for Free on Museum Day This Saturday

They’re all part of the 100-plus museums that will be free on September 26

Samuel L. Clemens in 1909

Cool Finds

Mark Twain Was not a fan of the Mona Lisa

“The complexion was bad; in fact it was not even human,” he wrote of Da Vinci’s mysterious smiling lady

Mouth (for L’Oréal), New York, 1986; printed 1992.

How Irving Penn Turned Fashion Photography Into a Fine Art

A new show at the Smithsonian American Art Museum looks back at a photo giant who blurred the lines

The Broad houses the contemporary art collection of philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad. The collection is valued at nearly two billion dollars.

The Big Names of Art (and a Bit of the Unexpected) Debut at the Broad Museum in L.A.

Housing one of the greatest collections of contemporary art in the world, this new landmark is ready for its close-up

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