An internet smut purveyor, we are informed by Web Curios and Hyperallergic, has gone quite highbrow to highlight the classical stashes of the world’s museums, because while not all pornography is to be considered art, some works of art can definitely be considered as porn.
Saturday 24 July 2021
Wednesday 21 July 2021
ns savannah
Though following the first civil application of nuclear-power for civil maritime purposes after the atomic-fueled ice-breaker Lenin (see also), the first cargo and passenger liner, a flagship for the US president’s “Atoms for Peace” initiative (see previously), was launched on this day in 1959 by First Lady Mamie Eisenhower. With several educational ports of call in US coastal cities, the vessel was a demonstration project on the safe and responsible harnessing of nuclear energy, including exhibits on the preservation of food through irradiation, x-rays and other medical diagnostics and other emerging technologies—like the microwave oven, and had the state rooms and galley and the other amenities of a regular cruise ship with swimming pool, promenade deck and lounge all decked out with Atomic Age styling.
In 1964, the ship crossed the Atlantic for the first time, stopping in Southampton, Dublin, Bremerhaven, Hamburg and Rotterdam on an international good will tour. Ultimately decommissioned in 1971, the Savannah is now a museum ship moored at Pier 13 in Baltimore, Maryland and can be visited by the public.
catagories: ⚛️, ๐ข, libraries and museums
Tuesday 6 July 2021
a bird, a young lark—lifting the sky as it took flight
Via It’s Nice That, we discover a retrospective exhibit at the Tate aims to correct a curatorial and conversational miscarriage in art history that left the contributions and influence of Swiss artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp (previously) to the Dada and Modernism movements by showing her due recognition. Much more on the artist’s media, works and career at the links above.
catagories: ๐จ๐ญ, ๐จ, ๐งถ, libraries and museums
Monday 28 June 2021
heavy-line geometric abugida
catagories: ๐ฃ, ๐, libraries and museums
Sunday 27 June 2021
8x8
into the bantaverse: a bot ghost-writes a Star Wars story—see also
green guerrillas: the role that radical gardeners play in fostering community out of urban blight
earth, wind and fire: combine basic elements and create new substancesas an alchemist—via Waxy fourth world: celebrating the life and career of trumpeter and electronic music pioneer Jon Hassell (*1937)in frame: see the untrimmed, original version of Rembrandt’s Night Watch (previously) thanks to the help of a curating algorithm
homo longi: recently discovered ‘dragon man’ skull may be a transitional species from Neanderthal to modern humans
ine bay: hidden, historic boathouses (ไผๆ นใฎ่ๅฑ, funaya) in Kyoto—via Nag on the Lake’s always excellent Sunday Links
the skeleton crew: our friendly artificial intelligencer (previously) trains a neural network to write a horror story
Tuesday 15 June 2021
journal de bord
Our fellow peripatetic internet caretaker Messy Nessy Chic turns us on to a mysterious notebook of outsider art (Art Brรปt, see previously here and here) that is the only artefact of the creator and contains all that is known (see also) about Jean Fick (*1876) with a decontexualised autobiography and unclear vocation whether he is the Ambassador of or to God. There’s no indication of what the brilliant colours and patterns might symbolise. Though with no more provenance attached to where or how it was found, the notebook rose to prominence after being featured in a special exhibition by the American Folk Art Museum in 2018.
« FICK JEAN NEE 23.11.1876 — HOPITAL — SOLDAT. 13.10.1898 — 13.9.1900 — RM 57 — WESE GUERRE 9.14 — 4.8.1.4.1917.7. SANTE BLESSE – INVALIDE FICK J MARIAGE DELESSE MARI. MODES 29.4.1902 HOPITAL NEE 8.9.1874. FICK ALISE 24.2.1903. MARIE. A. 1.2.1904. JEAN. K. 22.05. MAGU. 11.6.10 ». Sur la couverture : « Jean Fick ambassadeur mondieu N.23 ».“FICK JEAN BORN 23.11.1876 – HOSPITAL – SOLDIER. 13.10.1898 – 13.9.1900 – RM 57 – WESE WAR 9.14 – 4.8.1.4.1917.7. HEALTH INJURED – INVALID FICK J MARRIAGE ABANDONED HUSBAND . MODES 29.4.1902 HOSPITAL BORN 8.9.1874. FICK ALISE 24.2.1903. MARRIED. A. 1.2.1904. JEAN. K. 22.05. MAGU. 11.6.10”. On the cover: “Jean Fick my God/world [mondieu] ambassador N. 23.”
catagories: ๐ซ๐ท, ๐จ, libraries and museums
Friday 11 June 2021
london international surrealist exhibition
Held at the New Burlington Galleries off Savile Row in Mayfair from this day through 4 July 1936, the organising committee hosted works from several popular and influential artists of the movement, including Alexander Calder, S. H. Tauber-arp, Victor Brauner, Gala and Salvador Dalรญ, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Joan Mirรณ, Pablo Picasso, Len Lye, Renรฉ Magritte and Paul Klee and attracted a thousand visitors per day with Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, the US, the UK, New Zealand, Italy, Roumania and Czecho-Slovakia represented and distinguished presenters delivering a series of lectures to large assembled audiences. Salvador Dalรญ wore a diving helmet whilst giving his seminar on fantรดmes paranoรฏaques authentiques and nearly suffocated at the dais and had to be rescued by poet David Gascoyne with a spanner.
Wednesday 9 June 2021
plastikbesteck
Informed by the announcement of the EU parliament that from next month on, single-use plastic eating utensils, swizzle sticks, drinking straws, etc. will be banned, a design duo from Germany has exhibited as part of the London Design Biennale an installation called “Spoon Archaeology” of two decades of collected, curated strata—all part of a theme for a pavilion on ecological awareness and sustainability by putting problematic disposables on display as artefacts of the past that they should be consigned to. More from Dezeen at the link above.
catagories: ♻️, ๐ช๐บ, libraries and museums
Friday 28 May 2021
tbilisoba
We enjoyed exploring the gallery of the visual essay about the endangered Brutalist monuments and buildings of the Georgian capital of Tbilisi (previously here and here) including a quite arresting 1976 of the city’s vocational college bas-relief (nicknamed the Soviet Batman) that fronted one of the main thoroughfares that was slowly and unceremoniously scavenged for scrap metal and now is no more and the better looked after and protected Chronicle of Georgia (แกแแฅแแ แแแแแแก แฅแ แแแแแแแ, not to be confused with this other set of pillars), the post-and-lentil colossal structure depicting the culture, history and heroes of Georgia above and Gospel stories and various hagiographies below. Created by Zurab Tsereteli in 1985, a few panels have yet to be completed, the complex commemorates Georgia’s embarking on its fourth millennia and should inspire preservation of all architectural treasures.
catagories: ๐ฌ๐ช, ๐, ๐ข, libraries and museums
Monday 10 May 2021
up and atom
Via Present/&/Correct, we are referred to a curated cache Nuclear Engineering Wall Charts and vintage reactor diagrams from the collection of the University of New Mexico. The pictured diagram features the Biblis B Kernkraftwerke (AKW) near Worms, both A and B blocks were closed in March 2011 following the Fukushima and since permanently shut-down and slated for decommissioning. More to explore at the links above.
catagories: ⚛️, ๐, Hessen, libraries and museums
Wednesday 21 April 2021
uncaptioned
The archivists at the US Library of Congress regularly put out campaigns to identify mysterious photographs, with happily an ever-dwindling cache to solve, but there are a few that still defy an engaged public and persons yet at-large. Among the malingerers is this assumptively familiar, famous and iconic image that has accrued a sizeable largess of misidentification and wrong guesses from Joan Jett to The Slits and all manner of duos in between. More puzzles to untangle at the link above and all guesses are welcome.
catagories: ๐ท, libraries and museums
Tuesday 20 April 2021
the long and the short of it
We enjoyed this grand tour of the continent through superlative toponymy—with of course the crowning achievement for the longest placename being a village in Wales (pro pronunciation help here), but we also get to visit Italy’s contender on the shores of Lake Maggiore and the pictured postcard from the Dutch village of Gasselternijveenschemond plus a few one-letter wonders through a variety of art and artefacts from the collections of a Europe-wide consortium of museums.
catagories: ๐, libraries and museums
Friday 9 April 2021
7x7
tsugite: software that generates traditional Japanese joinery (previously) that can be 3D printed or precision cut
prince albert in a can: a collection of fish tin labels from a digital museum dedicated to the Portuguese canning industry
cosmic nature: artist Yayoi Kusama exhibits at New York’s Botanical Garden
tune-dex: the real-fake book of jazz standards, essential to musicians in the 1970s
dingbat: thirty select works of Mid-Century Modern print for inspiration
beer is proof god loves us and wants us to be happy: brew theorems post US National New Beers’ Eve ahead of the anniversary of rescinding parts of the Volstead Act that allowed for consumption of higher proof beer
ukiyo-e: the unintentional ASMR of a master printmaker at work
Monday 5 April 2021
7x7
snuggling cygnets: avian photography of the year, also known as b-poty for short—via Colossal
untitled pizza movie: documenting change in New York City slice-by-slice
aqen the ferryman: Cairo hosts a parade for a score of royal mummies moving to a new museum—via Super Punchsalvator metaversi: art historian turns supposed last Leonardo into an NFT to help out the family who sold it to unscrupulous art dealers
theatre of machines: intricate gear illustrations from Agostino Ramelli (see also here and here)
scenes from a mall: footage from the Southdale Centre’s grand opening in 1956
knock knock: a swan terrorising a neighbourhood in Northampton—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links
Tuesday 30 March 2021
cour carrรฉe
Via the always informed Open Culture, we learn that the venerable Louvre is putting its entire collection of nearly half-a-million artworks and artefacts on-line for academics and everyone else to use and peruse through the museum’s new portal. Not only what is hanging on the walls of the gallery, the site also grants access to what is in storage and on loan to other institutions. Of course all the masterpieces are there and with such an overwhelming amount to take in, there are some curated playlists, albums of themes and artists to discover, including depictions of historic moments, portraiture and recent acquisitions.
catagories: ๐ซ๐ท, ๐จ, libraries and museums
Sunday 21 March 2021
the gallery of regrettable food
catagories: libraries and museums, networking and blogging
Friday 19 March 2021
7x7
centre of attention: country-focused map world map projections (see previously)
foia follies: celebrating the worst in US government transparency
double-bongcloud: top chess players making bizarrely risky openings—via Kottkethe positively true adventures of the alleged texas cheerleader-murdering mom: fifty year old charged with harassment for producing deepfakes to defame her daughter’s competition and get them kicked off the squad
letterlocked: using x-ray technology and artificial intelligence (see also) to read historical epistolary works without destroying them
house of the muses: a search engine that finds visual correspondence among masterpieces in world-class art museums via Open Culture
terra incognita: a sonic sea chart of phantom islands (previously here and here)—via Things Magazine
catagories: ♞, ⚖️, ๐จ, ๐บ️, libraries and museums
Thursday 18 March 2021
hodie mihi cras tibi
catagories: ⚰️, ๐ฌ๐ง, libraries and museums
Tuesday 9 March 2021
vostok-3ka no. 1
Also known by the designation Sputnik 9 (see previously), the Soviet spacecraft launched on this day in 1961 carried a complement and crew of mice, guinea pig, a dog called Chemushka (“Blackie”) and a realistic human dummy, mannequin called Ivan Ivanovich (the equivalent of Joe Doe or Max Mustermann) that was so distressing uncanny thus prompting technicians to affix a label to his visor lest someone finding Ivan after a mission might not mistake him for an incapacitated cosmonaut or extra-terrestrial. Ivan was auctioned off after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and purchased by Ross Perot, who subsequently donated him to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. The mission only consisting of a single trip around the world, it was deorbited shortly
catagories: ๐ท๐บ, ๐ญ, libraries and museums, ⓦ