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In less than three months, the Denver Art Museum will open its new wing (or wings, if you subscribe to the theory that an airplane crashed at 13th Avenue and Broadway). In preparation, the DAM has closed the upper levels of its main building, so only the first floor is open. But the museum’s website is still active, and there is plenty for art enthusiasts and students to study while waiting. Check out exhibitions past and present, and see what’s coming up. There’s even an interactive feature on the Frederic C. Hamilton Building itself, including audio and video about architect Daniel Libeskind’s landmark structure, from planning to design to construction and realization.
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The primary mission of the mainstream media in the U.S. is to inform the public and hold the government accountable for its actions. OK, so not everyone believes in the purity of the media’s motives. That’s where the Newseum comes in. The organization’s goal is “to help the public and the news media understand one another better.” But forget about all that for a minute and check out the Newseum’s website. The coolest feature is its “Today’s Front Pages” section. Users can view the front pages of 500 U.S. and international newspapers (including this one) every day. Reading the headlines from 10 newspapers can be illuminating, and it can give readers a broader perspective on the news – and the news media.
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“I know it when I see it” is: A) how a Supreme Court justice described obscenity in a 1964 opinion; or B) how most of us would explain what makes something bad art? Both, actually. But the staff of the Museum of Bad Art seems to have a gift for describing exactly what is so awful about the pieces in its collection, which is housed in an old movie theater near Boston. Check out the MOBA’s collection online, and make sure to take in the museum’s signature piece, “Lucy in the Field With Wildflowers,” a painting of an old lady in a rocking chair before a mustard-yellow sky. This could possibly be the worst painting in the world – obscenely bad, even.
