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Fresh perspectives on art, life, and current events. From deep dives to quick takes to insightful interviews, it’s the museum in conversation. Beyond the walls. Outside the frame. Around the world.
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At home with Bill Clark: audacious collector, bull-semen magnate, drone pilot
It sounds like a swarm of bees. It looks like a kid’s toy. It flies like a tipsy seagull. And it draws Bill Clark out of his office and into his almond grove. What’s all that buzzing? Clark, the 80-something collector and benefactor whose prodigious, eclectic taste in Japanese art will debut this weekend at ...
The national parks are closed, but these images will take you there
The animals get a break, while anyone with the misfortune to plan their own breaks in the national parks during the government shutdown will have to avail themselves of Jellystone Parks. Let the great national stress-out begin. To help, we’ve compiled some of the many images of national parks in the MIA collection, several of ...
The warrior face-off that has visitors writing
They face each other as fellow warriors from different, imaginary wars—or all wars. But one stands with arms akimbo, unarmed, a glittering but empty shell (made of dog tags, as closer inspection reveals). The other stands, if you can call it that, as a beaten, broken, but undaunted warrior, his shield raised to receive yet ...
Revenge porn's long and twisted artistic tradition
This week, with news of California attempting to curb the scourge of “revenge porn” on the Internet, my colleague Diane Richard posted a NewsFlash label beside an MIA painting with scandalous origins: Portrait of Mlle. Lange as Danae, created in 1799 by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy-Trioson. Seems revenge porn isn’t so new, and you didn’t ...
Revenge porn’s long and twisted artistic tradition
This week, with news of California attempting to curb the scourge of “revenge porn” on the Internet, my colleague Diane Richard posted a NewsFlash label beside an MIA painting with scandalous origins: Portrait of Mlle. Lange as Danae, created in 1799 by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy-Trioson. Seems revenge porn isn’t so new, and you didn’t ...
Adventures in Couriering, Part I
“If you turn over a rock, there’s a whole world underneath.” That pretty much sums up the work of a museum courier. Last week, I accompanied our painting by Balthus, The Living Room, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I was the last courier to arrive. This is good, because it means that all the ...
Are books the new vanity backdrop?
You’ve heard of selfies, those cell-phone self-portraits full of awkward arm angles and blurry, presumably beautiful backdrops. Now the trend is bookshelfies: posing in front of your book collection to demonstrate your analog intellectualism. Printed books, after all, are now increasingly viewed as rare art objects. And in the age of sharing and curating, people ...
What's the story?
Recently, to celebrate the launch of MIA Stories, our crack social-media team put together a bit of a New Yorker-style caption contest on Twitter and Facebook for a few artworks around here that are just begging for thought bubbles. We got plenty, including at least one haiku. Here, a few of our favorites. Douglas Volk’s ...
What’s the story?
Recently, to celebrate the launch of MIA Stories, our crack social-media team put together a bit of a New Yorker-style caption contest on Twitter and Facebook for a few artworks around here that are just begging for thought bubbles. We got plenty, including at least one haiku. Here, a few of our favorites. Douglas Volk’s ...
NewsFlash: Tokyo's fishmongers on the move
It’s the epicenter of sushi, the slimy storehouse of prized tuna and pie-eyed tourists in Tokyo: the Tsukiji fish market. And it will shortly be moving from its cosmopolitan locale to a climate-controlled distribution center on a manufactured island, according to a story in the New York Times. The world’s largest fish market, Tsukiji occupies ...