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Museum posts
Museum Month: Cockroach Hall Of Fame & Museum, Plano, Texas
May 24th, 2012 at 1:00PM:
We've covered some pretty weird museums this month here on Gadling. One that may take the prize for the weirdest is the Cockroach Hall Of Fame & Museum in Plano, Texas.
Museum curator and professional exterminator Michael Bohdan opened the museum so he could educate people about a bug that's got a serious knack for survival. As Bohdan points out, cockroaches have been around more than 350 ...
Art Institute Of Chicago Opens Roy Lichtenstein Exhibition
May 23rd, 2012 at 10:00AM: The Art Institute of Chicago has one great exhibition after another and is definitely on Gadling's top ten list of things to see in the Windy City. Now they've opened the largest exhibition of Roy Lichtenstein's artwork ever to be shown.
"Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective" includes more than 160 works from all phases of the famous Pop artist's career, from his early comic book imitations ...Encountering Monet At The Musee d'Orsay
May 21st, 2012 at 10:00AM:
Reading Gadling's marvelous Museum Month posts has reminded me of a trip I made two decades ago to Paris. I had fallen in love with that exhilarating city in the mid-1970s, when I lived there for two successive summers, first after my junior year in college and then after graduation. I returned in 1988 to celebrate the city, and as part of that celebration, I wanted to write an essay about the ...Four UK Museums On Shortlist For Art Fund Prize
May 17th, 2012 at 1:30PM: Four UK museums have made the shortlist for the Annual Art Fund Prize. The winner will get a hefty £100,000 ($161,000) donation, most welcome in these times of economic austerity.
One of the museums, the Hepworth Wakefield, only opened a year ago and has already smashed attendance expectations by attracting half a million visitors. Located in Yorkshire, it focuses on contemporary art and ...Museum Month: Kalaupapa National Historic Park And Leper Settlement, Molokai
May 15th, 2012 at 1:00PM: Some people – me, for instance – tend to skip museums when traveling in favor of fresh air or outdoor recreation. It's always a treat when I can combine the two, especially because I'm fascinated by indigenous cultures. Though not considered museums in the strictest sense, National Historic Parks, Monuments and the like often do have buildings, exhibits, or relics with educational ...Video: The Prehistoric Cave Art Of Cantabria, Spain
May 14th, 2012 at 5:00PM:
One of the advantages of living in Europe is that you can visit lots of historic sites with your kids. This fosters an interest in the past, reduces museum fatigue and is a great way to learn together.
I live in Cantabria, on the north coast of Spain, a region filled with historic sites from Napoleonic forts to preserved Roman towns. Cantabria is most famous for the prehistoric cave art in ...
Museum Month: Spark Museum Of Electrical Invention
May 11th, 2012 at 2:00PM:
I was enchanted from the moment I hit the start button on the "Ben Franklin discovers electricity" display. A nerd at heart, I love history and gadgets and complicated objects that look like they could be steam punk sculptures but actually, changed the course of history, of modern life. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, Enrico Marconi and that cultish nerd of all nerds, Nikola Tesla, all have a ...The International UFO Museum And Research Center At Roswell, New Mexico
May 11th, 2012 at 1:00PM:
Something strange happened in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947.
Rancher William Brazel found a bunch of debris in the desert that he couldn't identify. He described it in the July 9, 1947, issue of the Roswell Daily Record as a "large area of bright wreckage made up of rubber strips, tinfoil, a rather tough paper and sticks."
The paper reported that Brazel estimated that all together the ...Visiting Ford's Theatre, Where Lincoln Got Assassinated
May 11th, 2012 at 11:00AM:
On April 14, 1865, a few days after Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia, John Wilkes Booth finally decided to do something for the Confederacy.
The famous actor had supported the South from the start, but he had spent the entire Civil War in the North, playing to packed theaters and making lots of money. Now that the war was winding down, he felt he needed to take a stand. ...Photo Of The Day: Pink For Peace
May 10th, 2012 at 6:00PM:
It's not often that you see a cheerful military tank, but this pink-painted tank in Ljubljana, Slovenia, is almost cuddly. According to Flickr photographer Bob Ramsak and his blog Piran Cafe, the tank was made over in March by some anonymous artists, who also placed some flowers inside the barrel. Parked outside the National Museum of Contemporary History as part of its collection of military ...Barbed Wire Museums Take On A Prickly Subject
May 10th, 2012 at 2:00PM:
I've always loved museums on obscure subjects because they teach you how overlooked objects can have a big influence. Barbed wire is one of those objects.
While various inventors started experimenting with barbed wire in the 1850s, the founder of barbed wire is generally considered to be Joseph Glidden, whose 1873 design soon stretched across the American West. Before then, it was nearly ...Museum Month: The Neon Museum In Las Vegas, Nevada
May 9th, 2012 at 1:00PM:
When the plug is pulled at casinos, chapels, restaurants and other businesses, Sin City's iconic art form – the neon sign – used to get sent to the scrapyard. That was until The Neon Museum, a 501c3 non-profit, began collecting and preserving these timeworn signs, ensuring the treasures won't be forgotten.
Since 1996, volunteers have devoted their time to preserving the legacy ...Overlooked London: The HMS Belfast
Apr 30th, 2012 at 4:00PM:
The United Kingdom used to have the largest navy in the world and it still packs a major punch today. One ship from the glory days is the HMS Belfast, docked on London's South Bank near London Bridge. This World War Two light cruiser also saw service in Korea and is now open to the public under the auspices of the Imperial War Museum, one of the best war museums anywhere.
Clambering up and ...Want To Learn How To Drive a Model T Ford? This Museum Will Teach You
Apr 28th, 2012 at 10:00AM:
The Model T Ford was the most successful car design in history. From 1908 to 1927, more than 15 million were sold at a price so affordable that cars went from being playthings of the wealthy to a common item for any middle class household. For better or worse, today's car culture is a direct product of the Model T.
Now the Collin County Farm Museum is offering courses in driving the Model T ...
Cutty Sark Reopens After Disastrous Fire
Apr 24th, 2012 at 7:00PM:
The famous tea clipper Cutty Sark will be once again open to the public this Thursday after years of restoration work to repair damage from a fire in 2007. The Queen will perform an official reopening ceremony on Wednesday.
Located in Greenwich, London, this beautiful ship has been a longtime favorite of Londoners. It went on its maiden voyage in 1870 and is the last surviving tea clipper in ...New Ancient Egypt And Nubia Galleries At Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Apr 14th, 2012 at 2:30PM:
The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has always been famous for its collection of art from Ancient Egypt and Nubia (Sudan). It recently revamped these galleries as part of a major remodel.
While the new galleries reopened in November, I didn't want to write it up until I got to see it for myself. The old galleries were dark, cramped and had endless cases crammed with artifacts. In other words, they ...Met Showcases Predynastic Art Of Egypt
Apr 13th, 2012 at 10:00AM: The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has one of the best collections of ancient Egyptian art in the world. Now it has opened a special exhibition focusing on the lesser-known art from the early days of Egypt before the pharaohs.
"The Dawn of Egyptian Art" brings together art from the Predynastic and Early Dynastic Periods (ca. 4000–2650 B.C.), a time when Egypt was developing ...10,000 Toy Soldiers March On English Town
Apr 8th, 2012 at 4:00PM:
A new museum dedicated to toy soldiers has opened in Silloth in northern England. Soldiers in Silloth opens today and houses the massive collection of local enthusiast Tim Barker.
Barker's personal army, which numbers some 10,000 diminutive warriors, includes early lead examples and the more modern green plastic guys. The centerpiece is a large diorama (battle scene) of Waterloo. There are ...What Is Art? I Don't Know And Neither Does Damien Hirst
Apr 4th, 2012 at 2:00PM:
One of the perks of being a travel writer is you get to go to press viewings for upcoming exhibitions. While you don't beat the crowds (hordes of journalists and hangers-on attend these things) you do get to see some great art for free. And if a show is disappointing, at least you didn't have to pay for it.
I just went to the press viewing at the Tate Modern in London for "Damien Hirst," a ...National Portrait Gallery Opens Two Civil War Exhibits
Mar 31st, 2012 at 10:00AM:
The National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., is commemorating the Civil War with two new exhibits.
"The Confederate Sketches of Adalbert Volck" looks at the work of a rebel dentist who became one of the Confederacy's leading political cartoonists. Unlike most German immigrants, who sided with the Union, Volck was an active rebel who not only fought the Union with his pen, but also ...
