NYC Deserves a Culture Commissioner Who Cares
The city is in a deep affordability crisis that is reshaping who can live and work here, and which institutions can survive.
Headlines
- All
- Africa
- Asia
- Business
- Culture
- Environment
- Europe
- Gaming
- Markets
- Middle East
- Movies & TV
- Music
- Politics
- Science
- South America
- Tech
- World News
If you haven’t seen this or heard about it (or even...
If you haven’t seen this or heard about it (or even if you have), the full story of this McDonald’s mural is well worth your time . “Giving that talk…was one of the greatest moments of my life. Bar none.” (Don’t skip the video!)
Your Guide to a Sexy, Artsy, Non-Boring Valentine’s Day in NYC
A Brooklyn zine fair, an exhibition on sex and cults, and other activities to spend the day with your lover, your polycule, or just yourself.
Building a Lego-Powered Submarine
As you know, I love me some Lego engineering builds . This one is pretty fun: using a large syringe, a Raspberry Pi, neodymium magnets, a controller scavenged from a toy submarine, and a bunch of Lego pieces, Brick Experiment Channel built a remote-controlled submarine . And it
Spider-Noir is an upcoming live-action series starring...
Spider-Noir is an upcoming live-action series starring Nicolas Cage as his noir Spider-Man character from Spider-Verse. The trailer is available in color and black & white .
Szilveszter Makó’s Surreal Photographs Reconstruct the Boundaries of Portraiture
Makó's images delve into uncanny realms and evoke a dreamlike sense of unfettered imagination. 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 Szilveszter Makó’s
The Track
The Track is a documentary film about a group of athletes training in post-war Bosnia to make the Olympics in luge. The Track is a coming-of-age journey of three friends chasing their improbable Olympic dreams in post-war Bosnia. Training on a crumbling track left behind from
What Is Claude? Anthropic Doesn’t Know, Either
"Researchers at the company are trying to understand their A.I. system’s mind—examining its neurons, running it through psychology experiments, and putting it on the therapy couch."
Art Movements: Another Artforum Editor-in-Chief Is Out
Tina Rivers Ryan steps down from the disgraced publication, the Studio Museum names three artists-in-residence, and a deeply unnecessary new Jeff Koons collab.
Fun word search game from Slate: Pears . (I love any...
Fun word search game from Slate: Pears . (I love any Boggle-esque sort of game. Got 433 today .)
Required Reading
This week: Gladys Nilsson subverts ageist myths, letters from children in ICE detention, Heathcliff and whiteness, Toñita at the Super Bowl, Japanese incense clocks, and more.
“ ‘CEO said a thing!’ journalism...
“ ‘CEO said a thing!’ journalism generally involves a press outlet parroting the claims of a CEO or billionaire utterly mindlessly without any sort of useful historical context as to whether anything being said is factually correct .”
The Importance of Making “Degenerate” Art
Here, the term is reclaimed not as an insult but as an ethical position: art that refuses neutrality, civility, or institutional comfort.
“Our Milky Way galaxy may not have a supermassive...
“Our Milky Way galaxy may not have a supermassive black hole at its centre but rather an enormous clump of mysterious dark matter exerting the same gravitational influence.”
The Art of Choosing Love Over Not-Love: Rumi’s Antidote to Our Human Tragedy
"You’ll long for me when I’m gone... You'll kiss the headstone of my grave... Kiss my face instead!"
Bruce Springsteen on Surviving Depression and His Strategy for Living Through the Visitations of the Darkness
"If you can acknowledge it and you can relax with it a little bit, very often it shortens its duration."
The Origins of One of the Most Beloved Video Games of...
The Origins of One of the Most Beloved Video Games of All Time . “Something I’ve heard from every Mario developer I’ve ever spoken to over the years is this: Whenever you press a button, something fun should happen.”
A View From the Easel
“Touching the soil fuels my imagination, and it shows in the canvases.”
Michelle Zauner (Crying in H Mart) on the 30th...
Michelle Zauner (Crying in H Mart) on the 30th anniversary of Infinite Jest . “If you allow yourself to trust-fall into the barbed intricacies of the writing, you will discover soft, exquisite humanity as its perennial landing.”
“It’s Fine If I Suck Sometimes”
Sara Hussain for Vogue India: In 2026, I’m No Longer Interested in ‘Working on Myself’ , aka the exhausting “hyper-policing [of] our thoughts and language until having a personality feels like a risk assessment exercise”. Everything began to feel like a diagnostic exercise. If
Ethereal Kites by Hai-Wen Lin Transform into Elegant Garments and Sculptures
"What does it mean to care for, drape, dress, and accommodate change and instability?" 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 Ethereal Kites by Hai-Wen
“Any serious push to account for the actions of...
“Any serious push to account for the actions of this government — to abolish the president’s private army, restructure immigration enforcement and punish anyone responsible for wrongdoing — must include recompense and repair for its victims .”
When Gmail was released as a public beta in 2004, it...
When Gmail was released as a public beta in 2004, it “ ran on three hundred old Pentium III computers nobody else at Google wanted ”.
Actor-style headshots from the 80s of artists like...
Actor-style headshots from the 80s of artists like Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, Jenny Holzer, and Robert Longo.
Notes on Complexity: A Buddhist Scientist on the Murmuration of Being
"You are this body, and you are these molecules, and you are these atoms, and you are these quantum entities, and you are the quantum foam, and you are the energetic field of space-time, and, ultimately, you are the fundamental awareness out of which all these emerge."
Stephen and David’s toy cupboard
David’s handcrafted figurines pay tribute to cultural icons. His latest project takes on his greatest hero, his late brother - by Aeon Video Watch on Aeon
Lessons From a Children’s Art Teacher
Amy Sherald’s solo show breaks attendance records, remembering artists we lost this week, and an exhibition proves critical theory doesn’t have to be a snore.
The Olympics Are Ditching PFAS Waxes—and the ‘Ridiculous’ Speed They Gave Skiers
"After years of concern over so-called “fluoro” waxes, the Milan Cortina Games will be the first Olympics without them."
Subverting hell
In their visions of the underworld Dante and Milton were truly subversive, incorporating predecessors into their own repudiation - by Charlie Ericson Read on Aeon
Tip for tap
There is plenty of unintentional harm in our world. We’ve all been bruised or derailed by someone who had no ill intent. We often respond with intentional harm, to make a point and to teach a lesson. The alternative is clarity. Shared understanding instead of intentional pain.
How This Skyscraper Ruined Paris, and Why They’re Now Trying to Make It Invisible
The playwright Tristan Bernard is said to have eaten lunch at the Eiffel Tower every day, but not because he liked the menu in its café: rather, because it was the only place in Paris with no view of the Eiffel Tower. His view wasn’t wholly eccentric in the decades after its
Long Live the Rom-Com
Love, Actually, Never Died: A reading list on the evolution of the romantic comedy.
Watch All of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Performed on Original Baroque Instruments
Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons reigns as one of the world’s most recognizable early 18th-century pieces, thanks to its frequent appearances in films and television commercials. Upon its debut in 1725, The Four Seasons stunned listeners by telling a story without the help of