The Inexplicably Fascinating Japanese Art of Being Useless

“Not always useful, but not altogether useless” is the mantra behind Chindōgu, a Japanese art form that calls for stilettos with built-in umbrellas, noodle bibs for the face, and glue sticks filled with butter (that one we get). They’re nonsensical inventions on a mission, missing the mark of utility by a hair, and on purpose. “I…

The Question Is, Which Actress Should Play Lady Caroline Blackwood In A Hollywood Biopic?

She was legendary, and she was a legendary drunk, though she claimed her family’s stout was undrinkable. Perhaps you know her as the heiress to the Guinness fortune, or for her high-profile marriages, first to the artist Lucian Freud, who painted her famous 1952 portrait, “Girl in Bed.” Her third husband, poet Robert Lowell, described her as…

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The Scrapbooks of a Real-Life Tarzan torn between Africa and Studio 54

Andy Warhol called him a modern Tarzan. “He jumps in and out of the snake pit he keeps at his home. He cuts himself and paints with the blood. He wears sandals and no socks in the middle of Winter. He lived in a parked car on 13th Street for six months. He moved when…

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Who Will Rescue this New York Manor Worthy of a Tim Burton Movie?

This incredible historic home has been sitting on the market for a little longer than we’re comfortable with. Fairview Manor is the sort of place that’s pretty much straight out of Tim Burton’s imagination, so it’ll take a special sort of owner to take it on. But of course, pairing quirky houses with even quirkier…

The Tribe That Inspired Frida Kalho

That unapologetic unibrow, the halo-crown of jet-black centre-parted flower-adorned plaits, rouged cheekbones and russet lips frame a fearless stare. Her Mexican torzal necklaces, silver filigree earrings and onyx beads you and I could only hope to collect over a lifetime of scouring obscure artisanal markets. No prizes for guessing who she is. But let’s drag…

A Forgotten Humanist Photographer of Paris

When you think of the photographers that captured the humans of Paris, masters of the lens like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Brassaï and Robert Doisneau come to mind. Their iconic black and white photographs are often as familiar as the monuments of Paris themselves. Today, we’re turning our attention to another French photographer whose images haven’t been licensed on tourist…

She’s the 19th Century Mystic Painter that Art History Needs to be Rewritten For

Buried by the elitist art establishment, hers must be the art world’s best kept secret this century. This is the story of a possessed, prodigious painter who prolifically created art that looks so modern it looks more at home in the 21st century; the story of a spiritually-minded artist trying to grasp the wonders of…

Parisian Woman with Baguette: A Short Story Challenge

It’s amazing to see how our minds can wander in different ways; how imaginations can wander from a single picture. We recently proposed a new challenge for our readers to become the storyteller, prompted by a historical found photograph with very little information about its author, or the subject in the frame. An unknown woman is…

All the Sneaky Tricks of Prohibition Bootleggers

I found this photograph floating around on the internet today of a truck ingeniously camouflaged by bootleggers during the Prohibition, being inspected by authorities in Los Angeles, California. You can tell even those inspectors are impressed by the level of artful deviousness. It got me curious to see what other tricks these bootleggers tried. The crazier the caper,…

Discovering Black Outsider Art in a Whitewashed World

Their abilities don’t come from any artistic establishment. They didn’t have any formal training and they were not influenced by other mainstream artists. Hailing from places like Mississippi, Tallapoosa, and other rural pockets of the deep south, they’re the African American Outsider and Folk artists whose voices and colour palettes explored a world that wasn’t…