On May 24th, 1813, Jane Austen visited a blockbuster art exhibition--the first major retrospective of
Sir Joshua Reynolds, the premier English portraitist of the 18th century. Debuting 200 years to the day later,
What Jane Saw is a room-by-room virtual recreation of the exhibition, based on the original catalog of the paintings and contemporary depictions of the building where it was held.
posted by Horace Rumpole
on May 27, 2013 -
8 comments
Confessions of a Genius Art Forger — In one of Germany's greatest art scandals, former hippie and talented artist Wolfgang Beltracchi forged dozens of paintings over a period of 35 years, earning millions and fooling top collectors and museums. In a SPIEGEL interview, he reveals how he did it and why he eventually got caught.
Photo Gallery. Background...
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posted by netbros
on May 26, 2012 -
20 comments
Throughout 2011, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has been producing
Connections, a series of short audiovisual pieces in which various staff members talk about their favorite parts of the Met's vast holdings. The last of the 100 videos was posted today.
posted by Horace Rumpole
on Dec 28, 2011 -
6 comments
Mohamed Elshahed
writes in Jadaliyya about the many problems with the museums of Egypt, including their conflation of "Egyptian history" with "ancient Egypt", their tendency to address themselves to tourists rather than Egyptians, their recent domination by the influence Zahi Hawass (who has
resigned as Minister of Antiquities for the second time in five months, after having first left his post in March over
the looting of archaeological sites during the recent uprising), their poor organisation and shadowy finances and, not least, the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities' use as a torture site during the protests in Tahrir Square.
posted by Dim Siawns
on Jul 20, 2011 -
12 comments
Objects Through Time tells the story of immigration and the changing ethnic diversity of New South Wales, Australia through "
movable heritage" - that is, artifacts and objects with historical resonance. While almost ignoring 50,000 years of aboriginal occupation, the site does a nice job of both familiar topics through a fresh lens (e.g., Captain Cook's "
secret instructions"), but also takes pains to look at those lesser known topics which may be more accessible through material culture than through texts.
[more inside]
posted by Rumple
on Sep 14, 2010 -
7 comments
Saturday, September 26th, the Smithsonian museum family and their affiliates will be hosting a free admission event, if you go to
their MUSEUM DAY site and print out the admission coupon. One coupon = 1+ admission.
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posted by FunkyHelix
on Aug 20, 2009 -
20 comments
Circuits are flipping on in the
nation's attic. A couple of weeks ago,
31 "digerati" -- like
Clay Shirky,
Chris Anderson, and
George Oates --
dropped in to the Smithsonian Institution for the invitation-only conference
"Smithsonian 2.0: A Gathering to Re-imagine the Smithsonian in the Digital Age".
Dan Cohen of the
Center for History and New Media provides
a great summary (and continues to pose provocative questions) on his own blog. Those whose invitations were somehow lost in the mail can play fly-on-the-wall by
watching the keynotes, paging through the
Flickr pool of envymaking glimpses of their behind-the-scenes lab and collections tours, reading the
blog (where Bruce Wyman of the Denver Art Museum lays out
a succinct road map for museums using social media), and poking around in the SI's
website gallery. Want to cheer on the USA's favorite 163-year-old
"Establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge" without taking the trip to DC? Thanks to their recent efforts, you can now follow the SI on
Twitter, listen to its
podcasts, watch its
YouTube channel, visit the
Latino Virtual Museum in Second Life, or use the
FaceBook gifts page to send your best friends their very own pair of Dorothy's
ruby slippers,
Hope diamond,
Negro Leagues baseball, or
coelocanth.
posted by Miko
on Feb 27, 2009 -
13 comments
In these difficult economic times, what's a museum to do? Is an art collection a financial asset or a trust to be held in perpetuity? These questions are being raised by
The National Academy in New York's recent sale (or "deaccessioning" in museum lingo) of two important paintings for $15 million to shore up its finances, first reported by Lee Rosenbaum's
ArtsJournal blog. The museum's director told
The New York Times that it was the only way for the 183-year-old academy, which runs a chronic operating deficit, to survive. The Association of Art Museum Directors
censured the Academy and called on its members to suspend any loans of art to the institution. New York lawyer Donn Zaretzky's
ArtLaw Blog has become ground zero for a fascinating debate involving art critics, museum directors, financial bloggers and others.
posted by up in the old hotel
on Jan 7, 2009 -
40 comments
In 2006 in the Fitzwilliam Museum three enormous porcelain vases from seventeenth or eighteenth century China were smashed by a museum visitor who fell down the stairs. This
presentation "follows the vases' progress from scattered fragments to their redisplay in the Fitzwilliam Museum. The site includes slideshows, film clips of the conservation process and a timelapse of one of the vases under reconstruction".
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posted by paduasoy
on May 5, 2008 -
20 comments
For those of you curious about the newly opened $27 million dollar Creation Museum, but unable or unwilling to travel to Kentucky for a visit, Zachary Lynn has posted a
photo essay of his visit (sadly missing is the opening diorama or human babies playing with dinosaurs).
posted by jonson
on May 29, 2007 -
92 comments
Waymarking.com provides tools for you to catalog, mark and visit interesting and useful locations around the world. It's a fun site, packed with photographs, information and maps; a useful
resource and
tool for GeoCaching and
other interests. Among the
various categories included is
Oddball Museums: The
Glore Psychiatric Museum, Musee
Mechanique, The National
Plastics Museum with lots of great pics and links to
other sites, Museum of
Burlesque [nsfw], The Leavenworth
Nutcracker Museum, Orange
Show, wbur Museums of
Dirt,
Plumbing, Antiquated
Technology,
Lizzie Borden and more
oddities.
posted by nickyskye
on May 26, 2007 -
5 comments
The Smithsonian's Sackler gallery opened a unique and wide-ranging
new exhibit yesterday featuring fragments of Bibles from before the year 1000.
"
Most of the manuscripts have never been seen outside the countries where they are stored. [Some Smithsonian-owned documents in the exhibition] have never been exhibited and two have not been shown since 1978." Fragments of the
Codex Sinaiticus are included in the exhibit.
Along with the
archaeological interest, these fragments can pose theological and historical challenges for Christians. Some, like UNC's Bart Ehrman, have
lost their faith as a result of studying early Bibles; some, like Luke Timothy Johnson of Emory, believing that Christianity is about a
common cultural and spiritual experience, are unmoved by the "
corruptions" and
differences in the New Testament over time; other Christians try to
refute (MeFi link) claims that the text has changed.
posted by ibmcginty
on Oct 22, 2006 -
36 comments
