After more than 30 years of competions and planning and eight years of construction, the New Acropolis Museum officially opens today. The museum, designed by Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi, provides a dramatic new home for the many historic treasures of the Acropolis, including the marbles of the Parthenon frieze. [more inside]
posted by shoesfullofdust on Jun 20, 2009 - 21 comments

"This is the first show I've ever done where taxpayers' money is being used to hang my pictures up rather than scrape them off."
posted by shoesfullofdust on Jun 12, 2009 - 49 comments

Skin & Bones is a new exhibit about sailor tattoos and their symbolism and history, developed at the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia. NYTimes story with neat art slideshow.
posted by Miko on Jun 9, 2009 - 6 comments

"What we are seeing in this project is that all of Europe was a camp." The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum just released the first volume of a projected seven-volume Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945. "They assumed the finished work would be massive, featuring a staggering 5,000 to 7,000 camps and ghettos. They underestimated by 15,000." [more inside]
posted by kirkaracha on Jun 3, 2009 - 23 comments

"May God close your horable museum." Because I can't believe this has never been the subject of a full post here before, although it keeps popping up in comments: The Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health. The inimitable Harry Finley has assembled a dizzying and oddly comprehensive site. It may be a bit much to take in one go (dilute, dilute, OK?), but you might dip in at: menstrual slapping; patent medicines; facts of life booklets; the Little Doozee; pre-twentieth century menstrual products and practices; Lysol douching, yay and nay; or the tour of the museum inside Harry's house (now closed). Also: cats, because Harry likes cats.
posted by maudlin on May 27, 2009 - 27 comments

Museum archivist, exploring Henry Ford's office records, stumbles into the interesting world of commercial telegraphic code.
posted by Miko on May 27, 2009 - 15 comments

Tag! You're It! The Brooklyn Museum is inviting its user community to tag its online collection.
posted by Miko on May 1, 2009 - 26 comments

The International Coalition of Sites of Conscience is a directory of historic sites that interpret themes related to ethical, political, and social issues worldwide.
posted by Miko on Apr 17, 2009 - 5 comments

The Museum of Modern Art began working in late 2007 to renovate its Web site substantially for the first time since 2002. It knew that it wouldn’t be just updating a few pieces — it would be entering a whole new era. Earlier this month, the new site launched, and is an almost complete reconstruction of how the museum presents itself online. It features livelier images from its collection and exhibitions, increased use of video and the new interactive calendars and maps.
posted by netbros on Mar 26, 2009 - 12 comments

A woman with dementia runs (and lives at) the Chicago Museum of Holography, but due to a million-dollar loan she took out in 2002, the museum might be in danger.
posted by LSK on Feb 12, 2009 - 23 comments

Backstage at the American Museum of Natural History: an essay and a slideshow.
posted by serazin on Feb 12, 2009 - 6 comments

The mission of The Burt Reynolds & Friends Museum is to preserve the history of the cultural contributions of Burt Reynolds. (previously) [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Feb 1, 2009 - 26 comments

An inanimate object comes to life: The interactive staging of the thousand year old runic stone Mejlbystenen. [more inside]
posted by sveskemus on Jan 28, 2009 - 10 comments

Art Museum for sale. Rocked by a budget crisis, Brandeis University will close its Rose Art Museum and sell off a 6,000-object collection that includes work by such contemporary masters as Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, and Nam June Paik. The LA Times makes the Madoff connection.
posted by R. Mutt on Jan 26, 2009 - 29 comments

Global Museum is sort of a daily paper for the museum world. The site, which marked its tenth year in 2008, aggregates museum news, job listings, and links from around the world, helping readers stay up-to-date on issues and events like artifact repatriation, art theft and trade, archaeological discoveries, innovative programs, unusual museums, threats to collections from war and natural disasters, and plenty of stuff just for fun. [more inside]
posted by Miko on Jan 12, 2009 - 4 comments

Famous for his Western works, such as the Louvre Pyramid, Chinese architect I.M. Pei has capped off his long career with The Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar. The architecture of the museum is a blend of Islamic and modern elements, resulting in a sort of cubist sculpture. The collection, meant to be an overview of Islamic art throughout history, is extensive but not without a few flaws. [more inside]
posted by grapefruitmoon on Dec 14, 2008 - 8 comments

The Evoluon was a museum dedicated to science and technology, and the place of technology in society. It was closed for the public in 1989 and has not been re-opened as a public museum since. Watch the wonderfully 60s promotion (worth it just for the soundtrack). [via]
posted by tellurian on Dec 5, 2008 - 12 comments

Omeka is a newly available, open-source web platform, bringing good-looking, functional online exhibitry within reach of smaller museums, libraries, and arts groups. From the Center for History and New Media.
posted by Miko on Sep 10, 2008 - 10 comments

The Early Television Foundation and Museum Website covers the nascent days of the nation's pastime, with interesting items like mechanical TVs and programming schedules from 1939.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim on Sep 9, 2008 - 11 comments

The Future Generator at the London Transport Museum is a forecasting look at the effect of transport on climate change in London. But you can get a sense of history as well. The museum's collection originated in the 1920s, when the London General Omnibus Company decided to preserve two Victorian horse buses and an early motorbus for future generations. They moved to the present location in 1980. Londoners can take a trip back in time on the Metropolitan line and enjoy a special day out in Metro-land as two historic electric trains run special excursions on Sunday 14 September 2008. [more inside]
posted by netbros on Sep 2, 2008 - 4 comments

With the potential 'crisis' with Russia, Georgia, Europe et al, the BBC tries to imagine what a new Cold War would be like starting with a tour of the budding Moscow tourist attraction called the Confrontation Cold War Museum. Sold off in an auction last year, the underground bunker now belongs to a private company that plans to turn it into an entertainment complex with a museum about the Cold War, a restaurant and even a spa. But it is already possible to hold fashion shows around the 600-meter-long network of bare, cavernous tunnels.
posted by infini on Aug 31, 2008 - 6 comments

Hawaii 70s-80s Punk Museum Back in the late '70s and early '80s, Honolulu had a small but close-knit punk scene. Poi Dog Pondering started out in Hawaii before relocating to Austin, then to Chicago. Two members of Boston's Dambuilders started out as the eXactones. Many other bands -- such as The Wrong and Cringer -- would relocate to the Mainland, hoping to seek an audience they couldn't quite find back home (embedded autoplay audio). Dave Carr was involved with a lot of these bands, and the Hawaii 70s-80s Punk Museum was curated from much of his own collection. [more inside]
posted by NemesisVex on Aug 19, 2008 - 9 comments

The UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History has an extensive, searchable online collection. It focuse on material art and household items and has objects from all over the world. The website can be browsed either by geographic orgin: Africa, Asia, North and Central America, Pacific, South America, or through its two exhibits, Intersections: World Arts, Local Lives and Fowler in Focus. Some of my favorite objects (but really, everything is entrancing) are The Blind Scholar (a Taiwanese handpuppet), Chikunga (a Zambian mask) and a stirrup spout bottle which looks like a puma eating a piglet (Peruvian). All items have accompanying descriptions and some have short texts or audioguides with further information.
posted by Kattullus on Jul 23, 2008 - 3 comments

Men in tights at the German Hosiery Museum [more inside]
posted by carsonb on Jul 21, 2008 - 20 comments

The Pram Museum
posted by anastasiav on Jul 18, 2008 - 13 comments

In November 1943, the village of Tyneham in Dorset, England, received an unexpected letter from the War Department, informing residents that the area would soon be "cleared of all civilians" to make way for Army weapons training. A month later, the displaced villagers left a note on their church door: Please treat the church and houses with care; we have given up our homes where many of us lived for generations to help win the war to keep men free. We shall return one day and thank you for treating the village kindly. Residents were told they would be allowed to reclaim their homes after the war, but that didn't happen, and Tyneham became a ghost village. Though most of the cottages have been damaged or fallen into disrepair, the church and school have been preserved and restored. Photo galleries 1, 2, 3, 4. Panoramic tour [Java required]. Video: Death of a Village [YouTube, 9 mins.]
posted by amyms on Jul 10, 2008 - 20 comments

Picturing the Museum: The American Museum of Natural History Photo Collection.
posted by peacay on Jun 26, 2008 - 13 comments

While in Torrington, Alberta you can visit the world famous Gopher Hole Museum. The museum features dioramas of taxidermied Richardson’s Ground Squirrels in humorous situations.
posted by Tube on Jun 25, 2008 - 12 comments

The Spertus Museum/Spertus Institute for Jewish Studies has just canceled Imaginary Coordinates due to complaints that some of the artwork (NSFW: nudity, disturbing imagery) in the exhibit had an anti-Israeli slant. [more inside]
posted by hydrophonic on Jun 22, 2008 - 45 comments

With over 35,000,000 visitors a year, it could be argued that it is the busiest museum in the world. Yet most people are there to catch a plane. [more inside]
posted by oneirodynia on Jun 12, 2008 - 8 comments

Bletchley Park: A WWII juggernaut. It decrypted German Enigma (try one!) and Japanese messages on an industrial scale in huts and blocks, had an outpost in Mombasa, and built one of the first modern computers (it helped that Alan Turing was on staff). Now a diverse museum with or without a funding problem, it generated yet more intrigue in 2000 when an Enigma was stolen, and hosts a rebuilt, working Colossus that launched a cipher challenge. Beating it wasn't easy! [more inside]
posted by jwells on Jun 5, 2008 - 36 comments

Maps: Finding our place in the world is an exhibit at the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, and it runs until this Sunday June 8. That page contains images of a few of the maps. One of the many great things included is an animated map of the US Civil War in 4 minutes (one week per second, timeline noted at bottom, casualty counter rolling in bottom right corner - info about this animation) The exhibition book was previously linked here; that site includes higher-resolution versions of some more of the maps. I was floored by all the stuff they have; in terms of the rarity of the stuff in it, and the geek-delight factor, I think it's probably the best gallery show I've ever seen. [more inside]
posted by LobsterMitten on Jun 4, 2008 - 24 comments

Don't Eat the Pictures! Sesame Street gets locked inside of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. [more inside]
posted by miss lynnster on May 24, 2008 - 12 comments

But is it art? Apparently so - A page of original Tintin artwork by Belgian artist Hergé becomes part of the Pompidou Centre's permanent collection of Modern Art, the first comics artwork to do so despite Frances vibrant comics culture.
posted by Artw on May 22, 2008 - 18 comments

The Museum of Broken Relationships. We've all been there. What else are you supposed to do with the garden gnome you lobbed at his car, or the axe you used to chop her furniture into tiny bits. Or the box, made of matches, that somehow helped to make it all alright?
posted by From Bklyn on Apr 8, 2008 - 15 comments

Sounds of America is a new monthly streaming audio program, a collaboration between the National Museum of American History and Smithsonian Global Sound. Up now are 3 episodes: African-American music in New Orleans, Women in American Music, and Freedom Songs of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.
posted by Miko on Apr 2, 2008 - 12 comments

Having trouble letting go? The Museum of Broken Relationships can help!
posted by misha on Jan 18, 2008 - 4 comments

Richard Forty's Dry Store Room No. 1 describes the archives of the British Natural History Museum. Not on display, among other things, is Proustite, it is a compound of silver, arsenic and sulphur that forms as blood-red crystals that fade, poetically, when exposed to light.' Via Things Magazine.
posted by parmanparman on Jan 15, 2008 - 7 comments

The Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has a nice collection of online exhibits, including ones on Roman glassmaking, the ancient history of wine, and a history of body modification. (Other exhibits have appeared on Mefi previously.)
posted by Upton O'Good on Jan 13, 2008 - 3 comments

"There is not a bomb by the entrance of the museum" was the telephone message delivered to a museum employee at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum Wednesday evening. This, along with the posting of a video on YouTube entitled The fake bombing at the ROM, Toronto, 28.11.07 led to the cancellation of a gala AIDS fundraiser at the Museum and a massive police investigation. Today, Ontario College of Art and Design student Thorarinn Ingi Jonsson claimed responsibility for the "art project".
posted by rocket88 on Nov 30, 2007 - 98 comments

The American Sign Museum is dedicated to collecting, preserving, and documenting historic and vintage signs from the American landscape.
posted by fandango_matt on Nov 29, 2007 - 13 comments

This is James Savage's spare room, which contains one hundred Apple computers. He has more than 150 in his house and all of them are working perfectly, from an Apple II+ and a Lisa to the latest MacBook Pro. (One entrant among many in Gizmodo's Best Computer Rig contest.)
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Oct 4, 2007 - 53 comments

The Theatre de la Mode exhibition featured scaled down haute couture designs from Paris's top designers on miniature mannequins, and was intended to help revive French fashion after WWII. If you're in the area, you can go see the exhibition where it ended up-- the Maryhill Museum, established by a rather unique guy named Sam Hill (who also built a full-scale poured-concrete replica of Stonehenge nearby) in a small town in south-central Washington state.Or you can just look at some flickr pictures (hey, look, it's "Metafilter's own" Harvey Girls!) Or get the viewmaster disk.
posted by dersins on Sep 11, 2007 - 11 comments

MUVA El PAIS has been conceived as a dynamic, interactive museum bringing together the most renowned works of contemporary Uruguayan art, an important contributor to Latin American art. MUVA is devoted to quality, content, education, information and recreation through the knowledge of visual arts. In Spanish and English, Flash and/or HTML.
posted by netbros on Aug 25, 2007 - 2 comments

In 1840, the Cuerdale Hoard - the greatest Viking silver treasure trove ever found outside Russia - is found in Lancashire. 2007: a father and son find an amazing Viking hoard while metal detecting in in Harrogate. The most important find of its type in Britain for over 150 years, it reveals a remarkable diversity of cultural contacts in the medieval world, with objects coming from as far apart as Afghanistan in the East and Ireland in the West, as well as Russia, Scandinavia and continental Europe.
posted by chuckdarwin on Jul 20, 2007 - 20 comments

Now Then is an exhibit of 25 comic artists showing a comparison of their drawing style now and when they were just kids. Also, check out 50 artists riffing on the theme of Duck! Fun stuff from the Museum of Comic & Cartoon Art.
posted by madamjujujive on Jul 6, 2007 - 7 comments

greenmuseum.org in a non-profit, online museum profiling environmental artists like Chris Booth, Seung-hyun Ko, Yolanda Gutierrez, Aviva Rahmani, and others.
posted by serazin on Jun 14, 2007 - 3 comments

Painter and comic artist Jun-Pierre Shiozawa visited the Tokyo National Museum recently to view da Vinci's Annunciata which created protests in Italy when the Uffizi Gallery lent this artwork to Japan. Shiozawa then created a fantastic "manga review" of the experience for Tokyo Art Beat's TABlog. You can see the steps Shiozawa made to create his manga review on Shiozawa's Flickr account or blog.
posted by gen on Jun 10, 2007 - 9 comments

Recycled folk art, Mayólica pottery and other exhibitions at the Museum of International Folk Art.
posted by dhruva on May 27, 2007 - 11 comments

The Cutty Sark burns. Nineteenth century tea clipper, preserved as a museum-ship in Greenwich since the fifties, is currently ablaze.
posted by hydatius on May 20, 2007 - 48 comments