Claude Cahun’s Survival Guide for the Ages
A new translation of the French artist’s 1930 memoir is a kaleidoscopic collection of dialogues, sketches, and Blakean proverbs.
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James Castle Was a World Unto Himself
These works feel almost metaphysically transportive — like a universe bound by a different set of rules that’s a pleasure to explore.
Saving Rhea Seegobin
"For the growing number of Canadians who will get cancer in their lifetimes, the financial stress can be profound."
How Losing My Limbs Turned Me Into a Different Kind of Cook
"Two years ago, our cooking columnist Yewande Komolafe woke from a coma and soon learned her body would be profoundly altered. She recounts her journey back to the kitchen, and to herself."
Onassis AiR Opens Applications for 2026–27 Residencies in Athens
Participants receive an artist’s fee, a research budget, housing, round-trip travel, mentoring, and other resources to support their work.
The Majesty and Mystery of Ice: 200 Years of Artists Reverencing the Wonder of Water’s Wintry Face
Just before he formulated his revolutionary laws of planetary motion and just after completing the world’s first work of science fiction, which landed his mother in a witchcraft trial, Johannes Kepler grew fascinated with the geometry of ice crystals in snow. A quarter
The Four Desires Driving All Human Behavior: Bertrand Russell’s Magnificent Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech
"Nothing in the world is more exciting than a moment of sudden discovery or invention, and many more people are capable of experiencing such moments than is sometimes thought."
How Emotions Are Made
"Emotions are not reactions to the world; they are your constructions of the world."
The Single Best Piece of Advice on the Creative Life
Tonic for living with that sacred, terrifying uncertainty with which all creative work enters the world.
Becoming Caravaggio
Mass layoffs at the MFA Boston, the Newark Museum of Art gets a new director, and why we can never get enough of Caravaggio.
AI ads are neither
Neither AI nor ads. The problem started with search, and was weaponized by Amazon. Display ads go back at least 100 years. A century ago, the idea was simple: Show up in a place where people are offering up attention and tell a story. The advertiser pays the media for the
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
In this edition: inside a cyberscam compound, behind bars but ahead of the times, up into the beyond, away from home, and under the night sky.
How the Incas Performed Skull Surgery More Successfully Than U.S. Civil War Doctors
Granted access to a time machine, few of us would presumably opt first for the experience of skull surgery by the Incas. Yet our chances of survival would be better than if we underwent the same procedure 400 years later, at least if it took place on a Civil War battlefield. In
The Third Self: Mary Oliver on Time, Concentration, the Artist’s Task, and the Central Commitment of the Creative Life
"The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time."
The Baloney Detection Kit: Carl Sagan’s Rules for Bullshit-Busting and Critical Thinking
Necessary cognitive fortification against propaganda, pseudoscience, and general falsehood.
Drawn to Synbols, Michael McGrath Conjures Uncanny Narratives
Michael McGrath's mixed-media works are rife with uncanny pairings. Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Drawn to Synbols, Michael McGrath Conjures
Art Movements: The Brooklyn Museum's New Top Contemporary Art Curator
Plus, the Newark Museum, Grey Art Museum, and the Clark Art Institute get new directors.
Michelle Segre’s Impermanent Worlds
By remaining open to time and its effects, Segre’s art defies the idea of permanence often associated with both sculpture and empire.
Museum of Fine Arts Boston Lays Off 33 Workers
A union representative said the unit is “deeply concerned” about the impact of the staff cuts on affected and remaining workers.
Required Reading
This week: an 18-year-old painter in Gaza, Zohran’s documentarian, anti-ICE art sleds in Minnesota, the brilliance of “Heated Rivalry,” hidden reggaetón history, and more.
Lisa Funderburke Tapped to Lead Newark Museum of Art
She’ll join New Jersey's largest fine art museum after nine years at the helm of the Artist Communities Alliance.
This guy built an autonomous flying umbrella (powered...
This guy built an autonomous flying umbrella (powered by drones) that automagically follows you around in the rain. (A possible counter to a personal raincloud ?) 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →