museums | The Smart Set

Van Ghosts

Matt Hanson — Thu, 30 Jun 2022 15:07:37 +0000

It’s not too much to say that Vincent Van Gogh was haunted from the day he was born. His dour Dutch Protestant parents, his father from a long line of ministers, named him Vincent after the previous child who had eerily died exactly a year before the painter’s birth on March 30, 1853. Born as […]

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Let’s Talk about Sex . . . Museums

Matt Hanson — Mon, 06 Jul 2020 07:44:00 +0000

When I was in fifth grade, we did an assignment where we wrote biographies of our future lives and I don’t remember too much about mine other than I eventually bought, or maybe just lived in, The Louvre. Trust me, it’s not as precious or precocious as it sounds; I think I just liked the sound of […]

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When Gekko Collects Art

Stoyan V. Sgourev — Thu, 27 Jun 2019 11:30:03 +0000

Art is remarkably popular these days. When I tell people that I am an academic working on the art market I often get an approving nod of the head that almost makes me feel like I am doing something meaningful with my life. But one also starts suspecting that the art market may be becoming […]

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On the Edge of Art and the Everyday

Will Cordeiro — Mon, 11 Mar 2019 15:39:39 +0000

My favorite moment when visiting any art museum is leaving it. While I’d claim to enjoy viewing art, two to three hours strolling through most collections can give me museum fatigue. Stepping out on the street, however, I gawk astonished on the colors, forms, and composition of everyday objects. Traffic light, mini-skirt, trash can, movie […]

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Pearls of Wisdom & Fear

Natasha Burge — Thu, 29 Mar 2018 11:36:11 +0000

I’m sitting next to a wall covered in photos of Umm Kulthoum. From behind her omnipresent sunglasses, she looks down sternly on the crowded teashop, sharing wall space with dozens of other notable personalities from the Middle East. Along the ceiling hang WWI-era rifles, dusty phonographs, and lank flags discolored by years of cigarette smoke. […]

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The Dark Side of Ivory Prohibition

John Frederick Walker — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 11:30:59 +0000

“By the next day his corpse had bloated into a thing like a crashed zeppelin, with legs stuck out straight, his thick hide splashed white with droppings that ran down the cork-tree wrinkles of his flanks.” -Journalist Aidan Hartley wrote about the stinking carcass left behind in yet another instance of ivory poaching in Kenya. […]

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The Whitney Biennial of 2017

Charles Molesworth — Mon, 27 Mar 2017 12:56:35 +0000

The Whitney Biennial, which was inaugurated in 1932, once again works by promising us what is new, challenging, and — with luck — of lasting interest. The promise involves finding the right frame and purpose, such as scientists find in the use of a cross-section. Slice into contemporary art and lay out what most rivets, […]

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Should Taxpayers Subsidize the Arts?

Michael Lind — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 13:41:13 +0000

Should the federal government subsidize the arts? I have pondered the question ever since 1989, when, with many other residents of Washington, D.C., I went to see an exhibit of Robert Mapplethorpe’s obscene photographs which had been cancelled by the Corcoran Exhibit for fear of having federal funds cut off by enraged congressional conservatives. At […]

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The Museum of Innocence

Bernd Brunner — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 14:24:08 +0000

Çukurcuma is an unusual neighborhood on the European side of Istanbul. Though quite central, just a short walk from the Bosporus or Taksim square, it has survived the recent wave of modernization: its many wooden houses in different colors give it a similar aura to the photos taken some 50 years ago, except that the […]

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How To Remain Human

Morgan Meis — Wed, 15 Jul 2015 19:21:50 +0000

A young poet killed himself in Cleveland on November 24, 1968. He did it with a .22 caliber rifle he’d owned since childhood. In the years leading up to his death, the poet often demonstrated to friends how he could operate the gun with his feet and put the muzzle against his forehead, right at […]

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