museums

Posts tagged
with museums

Photography

A Traveling Exhibition of 100 Stunning Selections from the 2018 Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Last fall Dutch photographer Marsel van Oosten was the overall winner of the 54th annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition (previously) after being selected from over 45,000 submissions. His image, The Golden Couple, captures a pair of golden snub-nosed monkeys against a wooded backdrop. Their bright blue faces glow against the lush forest of China’s Qinling Mountains—the only habitat where the endangered primates are found in the wild.

In total there were 19 category winners from the tens of thousands who submitted images of wildlife and natural environments from all corners of the globe. Winning images included a wasp carrying a perfectly round segment of mud, two owls nestled snuggly in a pipe, and a leopard dreaming on a low branch. The winners, plus a selection of other entries from the competition, are currently in an exhibition which will travel to Canada, Spain, Australia, and Germany. The next stop for “Wildlife Photographer of the Year” is the Field Museum in Chicago, which opens March 22 and runs through January 2020. (via Block Club Chicago)

 

Art

Google Builds a Digital Reproduction of the National Museum of Brazil After its Tragic Destruction

Following a devastating fire this September, Google has released a virtual tour of the National Museum of Brazil, the country’s oldest natural history institution. The digital recreation is presented by Museum View (which uses the same functionality as Google Street View), and allows visitors to explore the institution’s key artifacts as they were displayed before this year’s tragic destruction. The online tour includes a view of Luzia (the oldest skeleton found in the Americas), 3000-year-old Brazilian ceramics, a collection of butterflies and moths currently under threat for extinction, and the museum’s mummified cat.

It’s estimated that the museum lost up to 92.5 percent of its 20 million artifacts in the fire—global relics, pottery, and animal specimens that had been collected by the institution since its founding in 1818. Its digital remains are the result of a collaborative project between the museum and Google, which began in 2016. Despite the horrific loss, the museum’s director Alexander Kellner expresses strength and hope for the institution’s future in a letter in Google’s Arts and Culture section. “It is important to stress that the National Museum, despite having lost a significant part of its collection, has not lost its ability to generate knowledge!”

You can view the full digital archive of the museum in Google’s virtual tour, and learn more about the museum’s history in Kellner’s full letter.  You can view a preview of the collections’s highlights in the video below. (via Artsy)

Art

The Art Institute of Chicago Now Offers Unrestricted Access to over 52,000 High-Resolution Images from Their Collection

The Art Institute of Chicago recently announced the release of tens of thousands of images from their collection to the public domain, providing high resolution access to the thick paint strokes of Van Gogh’s “The Bedroom,” the eerie light of Edvard Munch’s “The Girl by the Window,” or the pointillism used in George Seurat’s famous “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884.″ The works have been made available under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license, which presents the works without copyright. Visitors to the Art Institute’s website also can experience enhanced viewing for each image by zooming in on the paintings, drawings, and other artworks with more detail than before. The current image count is at 53,438, however the Art Institute explains that this number will continue to expand regularly. You can begin your dig into their vast store of artworks by visiting this online research tool. (via Hyperallergic)

Design Science

The Museum of the Moon: An Illuminated 23-Foot Lunar Replica Currently Touring the World

Multidisciplinary artist Luke Jerram has created several exacting 23-foot replicas of the moon, which are currently touring the world as Museum of the Moon. The lunar project has been installed in public spaces ranging from China and Finland to the United Arab Emirates and Australia, and is accompanied by music from composer Dan Jones. Locations vary and include indoor and outdoor spaces as well as festivals, to intentionally alter the interpretation and experience of the project for viewers around the world.

To create the large illuminated sculptures, the British artist used a massive image (nearly 70 feet wide) of the moon created by NASA’s Astrogeology Science Center. The image itself was taken by a NASA satellite carrying the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, which was launched in 2010. Each centimeter of Jerram’s replicas represent 5 kilometers of the moon’s surface.

Jerram also shares in a statement, “As it travels from place to place, it will gather new musical compositions and an ongoing collection of personal responses, stories and mythologies, as well as highlighting the latest moon science.” This information is compiled on Museum of the Moon online research page. You can find out where the moons will be next on the museum’s website and see photos with the #museumofthemoon hashtag. (via designboom)

Design

The Van Gogh Museum and Vans Collaborate on a Wearable Collection of Masterworks

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has partnered with footwear and apparel brand Vans for a collaborative collection based on Vincent van Gogh’s iconic paintings. Drawing from his famed Almond Tree, Sunflowers, and Skull paintings, the collection includes sneakers in Vans’ classic silhouettes as well as shirts, bomber jackets, hats, and a backpack. Some of the profits from the project will be donated to preserving van Gogh’s legacy and artwork. All items in the Vans x Van Gogh Museum collection are available for sale starting August 3, 2018 from Vans and the Van Gogh Museum. For those concerned about the styled photos containing the artworks, the museum assures Colossal that the framed works shown are extremely high quality reproductions. (via Juxtapoz)

 

Art

A Keith Haring Mural Painted in 1986 and Under Wraps for 30 Years Has Been Revealed in Amsterdam

Completed over just two days in 1986, a Keith Haring mural in Amsterdam has been revealed once again after nearly thirty years out of sight. The famed artist completed the 40-foot tall-white line painting on an outside wall during his (indoor) exhibit at the Stedelijk Museum. However, it disappeared from view a few years later when the brick facade was weatherboarded to improve climate control; the building was a storage site for the museum’s collections. Over the last ten years, graffiti artist Aileen Middel (a.k.a. Mick La Rock) pushed for the mural—his largest in Europe—to be revealed once again. The restoration of the mural was made possible because the museum changed its storage location and the building is now a Markt Kwartier West grocery store and distribution center. (via Artnet)

Sponsor

San Francisco’s Exploratorium Presents Inflatable, an Exhibition of Gigantic Air-filled Artworks (Sponsor)

Explore, play, and wonder at gigantic, fantastical, artworks at Inflatable — a new summer exhibition at the Exploratorium, San Francisco’s iconic museum of art, science, and human perception.

Curated by Christopher Jobson, founder and editor-in-chief of Colossal, Inflatable features artwork by Tasmanian environmental artist Amanda Parer, balloon sculptor Jason Hackenwerth, interactive artist and educator Jimmy Kuehnle, technology-inspired designer Shih Chieh Huang, and Rhode Island collective Pneuhaus. Massive air-filled, human-like figures will fill the museum from floor to ceiling, along with dynamic sculptures of otherworldly organisms, a forest of cushiony columns, an inflatable insect-eye room, and more. Even visitors familiar with the Exploratorium will see the space in a new way.

Rated the #1 Museum in San Francisco on TripAdvisor, the Exploratorium is more than a museum. Visitors of all ages can step inside a tornado, turn upside down in a giant curved mirror, walk on a fog bridge, and explore more than 650 hands-on exhibits. The museum offers all of this plus unique programs, discussions, and events; a café and restaurant; two stores; and more at its beautiful San Francisco waterfront location on the historic Embarcadero.

Located between the historic Ferry Building and Pier 39, the Exploratorium is a short distance from any of these popular attractions: Fisherman’s Wharf, the Alcatraz ferries, and downtown.

• Daily Summer Hours (May 26–September 3), 10am–5pm (All ages)
• After Dark Thursday Evenings, 6–10pm (Ages 18+)
• Friday Evening Extended Hours (July 6–August 31), 10am–9pm (All Ages)

Entry to Inflatable is included with museum admission.

Learn more at exploratorium.edu/inflatable and follow the Exploratorium on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram.