The Art Crossword: Whitney Museum Edition
We’re less than a week away from the institution’s major biennial. How much do you know about its collections and controversies?
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This is the most 2026 thing I’ve ever heard:...
This is the most 2026 thing I’ve ever heard: Sigmund Freud’s great-granddaughter Bella Freud has a video podcast on YouTube where she interviews people (Cate Blanchette, Lorde, Graydon Carter) while they lie on a psychiatrist’s couch.
Dive into Wool Creature Lab’s World of Vibrant Felted Nudibranchs
How a job at a remote biology research station transformed into a unique craft practice. 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 Dive into Wool Creature
A Boston man discovered a document passed down through...
A Boston man discovered a document passed down through his family: his ancestor’s freedom papers . “When he touched that paper he was touching the same place his relative touched in 1834.”
Lumière, Le Cinema!
Lumière, Le Cinema! is a new documentary film by Thierry Frémaux about Auguste & Louis Lumière and the early days of motion pictures — and includes 100+ newly restored films. It’s playing at MoMA at the end of this month; here’s their description: Witness the birth of cinema
Astrophysicist Cosimo Bambi proposes sending a tiny...
Astrophysicist Cosimo Bambi proposes sending a tiny spacecraft to study nearby black holes . “Earth-based lasers would blast the [light] sail with photons, accelerating the craft to a third of the speed of light.”
In Conversation: Will Wilson
In partnership with Art Bridges, the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey presents works by Will Wilson alongside historic photographs by Edward Sheriff Curtis. On view through August 23.
“ Novartis has settled a lawsuit by the estate of...
“ Novartis has settled a lawsuit by the estate of Henrietta Lacks that alleged the [company] unjustly profited off her cells, which were taken…without her knowledge in 1951 and reproduced in labs to enable major medical advancements…”
Ruby Silvious’ Tiny Paintings and Assemblages Reimagine Used Teabags
Diminutive fragments of fine mesh transform into charming tableaux in the artist's meticulous teabag pieces. 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 Ruby
Why Attack Iran?
There are many possible and plausible answers to this simple question. Timothy Snyder offers a useful perspective in helping answer it: How do [we] understand the war with Iran? We must get away from the propaganda and ask why this might be happening, in light of the facts
Great art explained: Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on 16 November 1581
Why Ilya Repin’s masterpiece of Ivan the Terrible, first banned in 1885, remains one of Russia’s most controversial paintings - by Aeon Video Watch on Aeon
NYC’s New Culture Commissioner
Diya Vij appointed DCLA commissioner, dispatches from Frieze LA, finding god at the Brooklyn Museum, and the jazz photos the FBI censored.
Who is Walter Mignolo?
A prominent architect of decolonial theory, his diagnosis of European colonial ills is both penetrating and flawed - by Federico Perelmuter Read on Aeon
Radioposter Launches Paper-fi: Analog Books with Synchronized Soundtracks
Paper-fi syncs physical books with audio soundtracks that follow readers in real time as they turn each page. 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
Popular (and good)
Popular is easy to measure. Good, not so much. Setting out to make something popular requires only a focus on the crowd and on the moment. Most pop music is popular simply because that’s what it was built to do. Good work can be good without being popular. And so the two goals
Behold the First Realistic Depiction of the Human Face (Circa 25,000 BCE)
?si=HOvgnTtB4xSNqpNE In 1894, archaeologist Édouard Piette discovered the “Venus of Brassempouy,” otherwise known as the “Lady with the Hood.” Unearthed in southwestern France and dating to around 25,000 BCE, this carving represents the earliest realistic depiction of a human
When Do We Become Adults, Really?
"Scientists define the stages of life in biological, societal, and chronological terms—but none of them quite capture what it’s like to grow up."
The Greatest Double Agent Ever: How a Spanish Chicken Farmer Became the Most Important Double Agent in WWII
Juan Pujol García was one of the rare individuals whose participation in World War II made him a Member of the Order of the British Empire and earned him the Iron Cross. He gained that unlikely distinction in perhaps the riskiest of all roles in espionage, that of a double
How Should You Live Your Life: Marie Howe’s Spare, Stunning Poem “The Maples”
“Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy,” Albert Camus wrote in one of the most sobering opening pages in literature. So here you are, having answered affirmatively, consciously or not, now facing the second
A nearly perfect score
After playing 498 days in a row, my score today in Bongo was the second-highest in the world: There’s a difference between casual online games that have a right answer, and those that are open-ended. In crossword puzzles and most of the games from the Times (like Wordle and