If you’re familiar with the Japanese art of wood joinery, you’ll likely find kumiko equally intriguing. The traditional craft emerged in the Asuka era between about 600 and 700 C.E. and similarly eschews nails in favor of perfectly cut pieces that notch into place. Intricate fields of florals and geometric shapes emerge, creating a decorative panel that typically covers windows or divides a room. A video from The Process, a YouTube channel…
When Shyama Golden would find herself disappointed as a child, her parents would often respond with “too bad, so sad, maybe next birth.” Invoking reincarnation and the possibilities of an alternative life, this phrase continues to reinvent itself in Golden’s practice. On view next month at PM/AM, Too Bad, So Sad, Maybe Next Birth presents a collection of lush paintings filled with surreal details, earthly textures, and a recurring blue-faced character. As…
A glass mosaic covering 600 square feet of the 2nd Street entrance to the 7 train in Grand Central Station greets commuters with a bold, cosmic map. The work of Sharmistha Ray and Dannielle Tegeder, of the feminist collective Hilma’s Ghost, “Abstract Futures” is a vibrant, three-part portal to transformation. Named after the visionary artist and mystic Hilma af Klint(1862–1944), the collective formed in 2020 and typically pairs innovative contemporary art practices…
Every year, Lili Arnold’s mother would block-print holiday cards to send to family and friends. When she was old enough to wield a carving tool, Arnold began to make her own, too. But it wasn’t until college, when she took an Intro to Printmaking class, that she became enthralled with the practice’s myriad methods. Block printing specifically captured Arnold’s attention because of its relatively simple components and technique—no giant presses required. The…
Inspired by nature’s myriad forms and relationships, Minneapolis-based artist Sonja Peterson creates sprawling scenes from intricately cut paper. Working intuitively while focusing on the environment and our place within it, she merges organic motifs and animals with humans and historical references. The inherent simplicity of a blank piece of paper is a compelling attribute for Peterson, who is fascinated by the possibilities of texture, pattern, and the relationship between positive and negative…
From swimming guillemots and sun-dappled Scots pines to a coy seal and ravenous pigeons, the winners of this year’s British Wildlife Photography Awards celebrate the diversity of animal life across Great Britain. Jurors considered more than 13,000 images submitted by amateurs and professionals alike, with the top award going to Simon Withyman, who captured a striking portrait of a female fox in his hometown of Bristol. British Wildlife Photographer of the Year…
In December 1988, artist Ricky Boscarino was on the hunt for real estate. Not just any property would do, though. “It was really my boyhood ambition to built my dream house, where literally all my dreams could come true,” he says in the short documentary “Electric Garden.” Little did he know that over the course of the next four decades, a dilapidated hunting cabin would transform into a veritable way of life.…
Have you ever wondered why two large owls sit on either side of the central panel in “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymus Bosch? Or perhaps you’ve noticed the strangely fleshy, sculptural fountains rising from the bodies of water—or are they stone? Why is the right side so dark, and who are all these people anyway? Narrated by Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, Smarthistory’s latest video tours the uncanny…
“In 2012, I found a piece of material in a rock pool that changed my life,” artist Mandy Barker says. “Mistaking this moving piece of cloth for seaweed started the recovery of synthetic clothing from around the coastline of Britain for the next ten years.” Barker is known for her photographic practice that takes a deep dive into marine debris. Her work has been featured in publications like National Geographic, The Guardian,…
During the 16th and 17th centuries, major developments in colonial expansion, trade, and scientific technology spurred a fervor for studying the natural world. Previously unknown or overlooked species were documented with unprecedented precision, and artists captured countless varieties of flora and fauna in paintings, prints, and encyclopedic volumes. Marking a first-of-its-kind collaboration between the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Little Beasts: Art, Wonder, and the…
