13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CDXCXX)

1. Guy finds a box of 100-year-old Nudes in his wall “…searched the house more thoroughly and found a trove of century-old erotic photographs, about 120 in all. We’ve identified two studios involved in the making of these photos: The Aurora Studios in Boston, MA and Alta Studios in San Francisco, CA. One of the…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CDXCXIX)

1. An Entire Old West Town for Sale in New Zealand A detailed replica of an 1860s Wyoming frontier town, set in the heart of a 900-acre ranch has gone up for sale with an asking price of $7.5 million. Found on Bloomberg. 2. French Revolutionary Frescoes Discovered behind the Walls of a Paris Apartment…

He Dreamt of an African Utopia with Fantastic Futuristic Cities

During his lifetime, Congolese sculptor Bodys Isek Kingelez, did not have a commercial art dealer to represent his work. The self-taught visionary reimagined glittering global capitals for a post-colonial Africa, and made hundreds of “extreme” miniature architectural models throughout his career, which was cut short in 2015 following his battle with cancer. A few years…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CDXCXVIII)

1. Academy Theater, Inglewood California, 1940 Still standing, screened movies from 1933 until it became a church in 1975. It got it’s name “The Academy Theater” because it was originally built to be the home and venue for the Academy Awards (the Oscars). But the plans changed. Photographed by Julius Shulman, found here. 2. ‘Sciopticon’…

A Brief Compendium of Amazing African Architecture

You can probably clearly picture the architecture of Europe, Asia, the Middle East and India – but can you say the same for Africa? For thousands of years, Africa helped shape our modern world and yet, so much of it is underrepresented. We spent the day getting to know its architecture better, discovering just how…

Harlem’s Forgotten Fight to Save Africa’s Last Uncolonised Nation from Mussolini

Harlem, New York, the summer of 1935. Years before the United States or even Allied Europe has entered World War II. Large crowds of African Americans are gathering around a registration desk, volunteering to take on a fascist Italian dictator who is soon to become Hitler’s fiercest collaborator. No doubt, Black Americans have enough battles…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CDXCXVII)

1. A 5 Dollar Jackson Pollock? Teri Horton bought a secondhand painting for $5 and learned that it could be an original Jackson Pollock. She spent years trying to prove it’s authenticity, and was offered $9 million, but refused to sell for any less than $50 million. She had a forensic scientist look at it…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CDXCXVI)

1. The Supremes in Paris, 1965 Found here. 2. The Fisk University Jubilee Singers The university’s A capella group, was established in 1871 – to generate further income for the institution. The original group toured along the Underground Railroad path in the United States, became world renowned, especially favoured by Queen Victoria who commissioned a painting in…

The “Other” Lost Generation of Black American Artists in Paris

Originally, this was supposed to be a pretty straight-forward piece on an American ex-pat artist whose enchanting paintings of 1930s Paris I’d recently had the fortune of stumbling across via the internet. She was a young woman who had moved to France before the war, where her painting career began to flourish. I was going…

An Educational Haven at Harlem’s Little Black Book Shop turned B&B

Kurt Thometz’s bookshop was not the norm. Harlem’s white-owned all-Black bookstore almost seemed like a glimpse into an alternate universe where blackness dictates the principle narrative of society. It was “provocative”, “dangerous” even, to be confronted by such an unfamiliar dynamic. Rare book collector, Kurt Thometz, opened Jumel Terrace Books on the lower ground floor…