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…

An Introductory Guide to Black Paris

The Black Lives Matter movement has opened our eyes in so many ways. It plays a crucial role in upholding the living history of a different side of Paris. This week, Keyholders joined me on Zoom for an introductory Black History Tour through Paris, – one that belonged to Black America’s own “Lost Generation” of…

Has Coronavirus Killed the Menu? An Ode to the Restaurant Staple

Ah, Paris! Global capital of couture, style, and…menus? As café terraces welcome back patrons post-lockdown, it’s comes to the attention of our Paris team that tangible menus have gone digital across the city. Restaurants are displaying QR barcodes for customers to scan and access menus via their smartphones in order to avoid spreading les microbes.…

The Original 1960s Architects of Dystopian Internet Art

We were supposed to be living on the moon by now – at least, that was our trajectory according to the 1960s. Rockets had landed man on the moon and Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey glamorised high-definition visions of life in space. New worlds were within reach more than ever before, waves of peace and love and…

The Art of Destroying Money

For the past few decades, the American artist Mark Wagner has been snipping up US dollars to make intricate collages that comment on Capitalism, greed, and materialism; elaborate allegorical pieces that prompt us to reconsider our relationship with such a powerful, albeit banal object. You’d be hard pressed to find an artist who so boldly,…

Wish You Were Here! The Golden Age of Holidays at Home on the English Riviera

Picture the scene: tricolour flags line the yacht-filled harbour, art-deco hotels dazzle the streets at night, celebrities flurry to villas hidden along the hillside that overlook lanes filled with chic cafés, where colourful tourists sip wine and smoke cigarettes at small bistro tables, while vintage cars are judged during the annual concours d’élégance and beautiful…

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…

How Black Cowboys Built the American West: A Living History

You may hear it, before you see it. The gentle trotting of hooves backdropped by the sounds of New York City’s JFK Expressway. Even locals do a double take when they cross paths with a member of the Federation of Black Cowboys. When they ride, they tell the true story of the Wild, Wild West:…

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…

She Was a Black Librarian Who Could Equal America’s Most Powerful Man

Today, we meet a heroine by the name of Belle da Costa Greene. Under the honey-hued lights of Manhattan’s Morgan Library, she became the guardian of the world’s greatest cultural treasures: not one but three Gutenberg bibles, illuminated manuscripts, originals by Da Vinci, Mozart, Michelangelo, and others – the list goes on (in its very own…