Articles tagged as Art | Smithsonian Magazine

Martha McDonald performs in the 2014 work The Lost Garden at The Woodlands in Philadelphia.

What Artist Martha McDonald Might Teach Us About a Nation Divided

This fall, a one-woman show staged in one of Washington, D.C.’s most historic buildings will recall the sorrow of the Civil War

September 16, 2015

The Strange, Giant “Beach Animals” That Are About to Invade America’s Shores

Artist Theo Jansen’s sculptures first became hits on YouTube. Now they’ve reached the shores of New England

September 10, 2015

Photos: Wacky, Wild Art From This Year’s Burning Man Festival

Feast your eyes on some of this year’s wildest art installations

September 8, 2015

Cool Finds

People Have Always Been Obsessed with the End of the World

Since ancient times, art and fiction love to play in the fertile ground of the apocalypse, but it hasn’t always been healthy

September 8, 2015

Cool Finds

Comedy Group Wants To Build a Wall To Keep Burners out of the Bay Area

The ban would apply to people armed with glowsticks and art cars alike.

September 1, 2015

Is the tomb’s picnic table-like appearance to blame?

August 28, 2015

Molted glass during the 3D printing process, screenshot from "Glass" on Vimeo

Cool Finds

3D Printing Molten Glass Is Beautiful

The innovation comes out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

August 25, 2015

"Meshology" is a collaboration between French photographer Dimitri Daniloff and German computer graphics artist Sven Hauth.

Get Tripped Up by These Tricked-Out Photographs

A new photography collaboration aims for an unbearable lightness

September 2015

Images of the rock art after the team’s analysis show a collection of animal- and human-like figures and no dragon or pterodactyl

New Research

Utah’s Winged Monster Rock Painting Isn’t A Monster at All

The picture shows a collection of figures, none of which have wings

August 24, 2015

The RedBall Project during a visit to Paris in 2014.

Sounds like the inspiration for a Pixar movie.

August 21, 2015

Weston-super-mare, United Kingdom. 18th August 2015 -- A structure of a sinister fairy castle can be seen in Weston-super-Mare. High security has been put in place. Image courtesy of Martyn East on Instagram. -- Fans of street artist Bansky expect whispers of a secret sinister pop-up exhibition called 'Dismaland' in seaside town to be true. A fairy castle structure, like a sinister twist on Disneyland, can be seen by locals from Weston-super-mare beach.

The elusive street artist’s take on Disneyland is chock-full of dystopia

August 20, 2015

A Scottish Duke Transformed This Abandoned Coal Mine into a Cosmological Land-Art Park

A scarred landscape in rural Scotland has become a grassy multiverse now open for exploration

August 14, 2015

A painting of a bird from the 1633 Manual of Calligraphy and Painting.

Cool Finds

The World’s Oldest Multicolor Printed Book Was Too Fragile to Read…Until Now

The 1633 book has now been digitized

August 13, 2015

Cool Finds

This Animation Is Made of Embroidery

It took a year and a half to create a short film using “embroidermation”

August 12, 2015

A curious visitor walking toward the Bobur artwork at the tenth Archstoyanie festival.

At “Russia’s Burning Man,” Strange Structures Transform Villages

The beautiful, bizarre structures of the Archstoyanie festival are made of natural materials and help bring economic prosperity to small villages

August 10, 2015

New Research

Humans Evolved to Be Moved by Art

New research shows that while people respond to art for very different reasons, the ability to be moved in the first place is universal

August 10, 2015

Johannes Vermeer's "The Concert" was one of the most valuable paintings stolen from the Gardener Museum

Footage shows an unknown man entering the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum the night before the infamous robbery

August 7, 2015

Giovanni Stanchi (Rome c. 1645-1672). Oil on canvas, 38 5/8 x 52½ in.

Cool Finds

This Renaissance Painting of Fruit Holds a Modern-Day Science Lesson

Hint: it’s in the watermelon

August 6, 2015

Cool Finds

In Mexico, a Gritty Neighborhood Has Become a 65,000-Square-Foot Mural

A hillside in Pachuca gets a psychedelic makeover

July 28, 2015

Inside of the labyrinth, along one of the bamboo corridors.

Get Lost in the World’s Largest Maze

Ponder existence while wandering through the bamboo stalks of Italy’s Masone Labyrinth

July 16, 2015