Podcast Sexuality, gender, and race in the Middle Ages December 18, 2020 While the term 鈥渋ntersectionality鈥� was coined in 1989, the existence of marginalized identities extends back over millennia.聽Byzantine Intersectionality聽reveals the fascinating, little-examined conversations in medieval thought and visual culture around matters of sexual and reproductive consent, bullying and slut-shaming, homosocial and homoerotic relationships, trans and nonbinary gender identities, and the depiction of racialized minorities. Read More
Interview Katherine Zubovich on Moscow Monumental December 17, 2020 In 1947, Stalin decreed that eight monumental buildings be built in the Soviet capital. Seven of these neoclassical structures were completed in the 1950s and these buildings continue to stand today as originally intended: as elite apartment complexes, luxury hotels, and the headquarters of key institutions including Moscow State University and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Read More
Video Human Flow book trailer December 03, 2020 Complete with photographs taken by Ai Weiwei while filming the epic feature documentary聽Human Flow, this book provides a powerful, personal, and moving account of the most urgent humanitarian crisis of our聽time. Read More
Essay In the mood for art in India鈥檚 eighteenth century October 29, 2020 In the long eighteenth century, artists from Udaipur, a city of lakes in northwestern India, specialized in depicting the vivid sensory ambience of its historic palaces, reservoirs, temples, bazaars, and durbars. Read More
Essay Piranesi, maker of books October 27, 2020 One of the central ideas that we explore in Piranesi Unbound is how a book comes together as the product of collaboration. As an artist, Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720鈥�1778) worked in many forms and materials. Read More
Interview Leslie Geddes on Watermarks September 02, 2020 Formless, mutable, transparent: the element of water posed major challenges for the visual artists of the Renaissance. To the engineers of the era, water represented a force that could be harnessed for human industry but was equally possessed of formidable destructive power. Read More
Interview By Design | Karen Siatras on designing for Humboldt July 20, 2020 Karen Siatras is a graphic designer in SAAM鈥檚 Publications office. For her most recent project, the massive exhibition catalogue that accompanies聽Alexander von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature, and Culture, she created special decorative letters at the start of each chapter in the book. Read More
Essay The Black man at Lincoln鈥檚 feet: Archer Alexander and the problem of emancipation July 13, 2020 The Emancipation Memorial sits imprisoned in a cage in Washington鈥檚 Lincoln Park, waiting to hear whether it will be exiled or set free. The fate of its replica in Boston is also hanging in the balance, as a petition for its removal has been signed by thousands. Read More
Interview Hips don鈥檛 lie: The American incognitum July 07, 2020 While the Smithsonian American Art Museum rarely houses fossil remains, an amazing specimen, the original 鈥淧eale Mastodon鈥� skeleton, is part of the upcoming exhibition聽Alexander von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature, and Culture. Read More
Video A brush with nature: Alexander von Humboldt and Frederic Church June 30, 2020 What made Alexander von Humboldt a superstar in the 1800s was聽Cosmos, his global best-selling, multi-volume series on his scientific observations and international travels. Read More
Essay The Marquis de Sade and solitude June 01, 2020 As many of us look out at the world from behind the walls and windows of our homes or reach out to others through screens and online chats, we increasingly find the boundaries between time and space blurring before our eyes. Read More
Essay Mysteries of the first mastodon May 29, 2020 Bones from the last ice age might be standard for a natural history conservator, but it鈥檚 not the norm at an art museum. Read More
Essay The Humboldt connection between nature and American art May 21, 2020 An exhibition titled聽Alexander von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature, and Culture聽will be shown at the Smithsonian American Art Museum located at 8th聽& F Streets NW in Washington, DC, opening in 2020. Read More
Interview By Design | The making of The Obama Portraits February 12, 2020 Every book鈥檚 backstory includes the intricacies of its production. That fact was brought home to me in my recent discussion with Steve Sears, Production Manager for art books at 快色直播, about the design and manufacture of one of the Press鈥檚 most important books of 2020, The Obama Portraits. Read More
Essay Michelangelo gave me a new perspective on aging November 15, 2019 I needed to pass age sixty before I could write a book about the artist Michelangelo Buonarroti in his seventies and eighties. Read More
