Europeana - Explore Europe's Cultural Collections

Check out Europeana, "Think Culture", and explore Europe's cultural collections.

Large Legos Hadron Collider and Other Geeky Lego Creations

At the Los Angeles Times,
Deborah Netburn reports on a Large Hadron Collider made with Legos, and other geeky Lego creations.

Art and Copyrights: A Rapidly Ticking Clock of Coming Massive Copyright Problems

Randy Kennedy has the story at The New York Times Art & Design Section
in Art & Leisure, Apropos Appropriation,
stating that the Richard Prince Lawsuit Focuses on Limits of Appropriation,
and writing inter alia:

"[I]f the case has had any effect so far, it has been to drag into the public arena a fundamental truth hovering somewhere just outside the legal debate: that today’s flow of creative expression, riding a tide of billions of instantly accessible digital images and clips, is rapidly becoming so free and recycling so reflexive that it is hard to imagine it being slowed, much less stanched, whatever happens in court."

Read the whole thing with a discussion of the case, etc.

Crossposted from LawPundit.

Kansas Anti-Art and Anti-Science: What is Left? Superstition and Ignorance?

The governor in Kansas recently eliminated state funding for its arts programs, putting all of those employees in the state arts programs on the unemployment rolls and losing federal funding in greater amount than what was saved -- the governor of course ran on a platform of local job creation, but now also plans to seek an end to public broadcasting in Kansas.

Name one thing in the arts that the State of Kansas is known for -- I was stumped except for Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz -- so that dropping State funding for the arts is -- shall we say stupid, as an understatement.

The great leaders of history were often great art patrons and INCREASED their support for the arts.

If you elect the exact opposite types of people, however, do not wonder that you grow up in area without culture and if you find that is the way much of the US Midwest is viewed elsewhere.

Read the Los Angeles Times story at Culture Monster on the end of State arts funding in Kansas: Kansas governor eliminates state's arts funding.

We hope that neighboring Nebraska does not follow Kansas in that backward State's muddled footsteps.

The politicians in Kansas explain that no one should be compelled by taxes to pay for arts -- we are talking here about minimal amounts, but -- we add the comment -- that it seems as if these same politicians greatly approve giving massive tax subsidies to religion and religious sects, which is seen as OK because it conforms to THEIR belief system.

But why should people who do not believe in those religions have to pay more taxes to pick up the slack because those religions pay no taxes?

This discrepancy in being anti-art and anti-science but pro-religion shows that exemptions for religion are nothing but scams favoring one group of people over another and one group of ideas over another group of ideas.

That is the kind of blinded and misguided sophistry that makes for a brainwashed public and for a religion-mesmerized and uncultured citizenry who are then hardly to be distinguished from the third-world countries that are allegedly America's enemies.

The main comment that we hear from Europeans who visit for the first time in America, and especially the Midwest, is that much of the country consists of ignorant, culturally backward citizens. Well, no wonder.

Perhaps it is no surprise that Kansas has also been at the fore of the movement for dark age anti-science teaching in the schools: see here.

To counterbalance this ominous development in Kansas, it is of interest to look at the National Endowment For The Arts Forming Interagency Research Taskforce On The Arts And Human Development — a task force of 13 federal agencies being developed to foster more research on how the arts affect human development at all stages of life.

However, we share Paul Krugman's legitimate worry in a recent article at the New York Times about "Republicans Against Science":

"Now, we don’t know who will win next year’s presidential election. But the odds are that one of these years the world’s greatest nation will find itself ruled by a party that is aggressively anti-science, indeed anti-knowledge. And, in a time of severe challenges — environmental, economic, and more — that’s a terrifying prospect."

It is also a terrifying prospect to nations other than the United States.

National Endowment For The Arts: How the Arts Affect Human Development

The Huffington Post reports in National Endowment For The Arts Forming Interagency Research Taskforce On The Arts And Human Development that:

"The National Endowment for the Arts is forming a task force of 13 federal agencies to foster more research on how the arts affect human development at all stages of life."

In Time Review at SFGate by Mick LaSalle

Is this the next blockbuster at cinema theatres?

'In Time' review: Time is money. Don't run out

Texas in Photographs: Wyman Meinzer Texas State Photographer

For the State of Texas in photographs, see Wyman Meinzer | Texas State Photographer

Art and Wellness: Blue Space at Caracalla Spa Baden-Baden

The wellness world of the future?
See one good example, "developed by sha" at the unusual Baden-Baden Caracalla Spa "wellness temple",
the "Blue Space"
via sha-art UNIQUE

Adolf Busch, the Man Who Said No to Hitler | Sightings by Terry Teachout - WSJ.com

Adolf Busch, the Man Who Said No to Hitler | Sightings by Terry Teachout - WSJ.com: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

The Technological Arts: Ancient Seafaring Featured by Smithsonian and Singapore

Smithsonian and Singapore Organize World Tour of Shipwreck Treasure | Art Knowledge News

Written by Sylvester Hanson Sunday, 26 September 2010 05:07

WASHINGTON, DC.- The Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., the Singapore Tourism Board and the National Heritage Board of Singapore today announced a partnership to organize the first exhibition and international tour of one of the oldest and most important marine archaeological finds of the late 20th century. The exhibition will focus on the 1998 discovery of a ninth-century shipwreck and its astonishing cargo of about 60,000 objects from Tang dynasty China, ranging from mass-produced ceramics to rare and extraordinary items of finely worked gold. The cargo had laid undisturbed on the ocean floor for more than 1,100 years until sea-cucumber divers discovered it off the coast of Indonesia's Belitung Island. The ship, an Arab dhow, and its contents confirm the existence of a direct maritime trade route (alluded to in ancient Chinese and Arabic texts) from China to the Persian Gulf and beyond-well before the Portuguese set sail in the 15th century.

Chroma Passage from the Petosky Arch by Janice Arnold

See the "Chroma Passage from the Petosky Arch" at

Janice Arnold - ArtPrize Artist Profile - A radically open art contest, Grand Rapids Michigan

Hat tip to the Big Swede.

AT the English National Opera, The Makropulos Case, English National Opera - The Arts Desk - Arts Reviews, Features and News

The Makropulos Case at the English National Opera is brilliantly reviewed by Igor Toronyi-Lalic at The Arts Desk.

A Resurgence of Pixel Art

Andrew Webster examines the resurgence of pixel art at 8-bit heroes: Ars explores the resurgence of pixel art.

Burning Bright « Library of Congress Blog

Burning Bright « Library of Congress Blog

"Art and science, and sometimes art and politics, mirror each other in times of rapid change."

20x200 Discover New Artists at this Website

20x200 Discover New Artists at this Website