May 18th, 2013 at 9:00AM: Nuit des Musées, Facebook
Budget traveling night owl alert: if you're in Europe right now you don't want to miss out on the ninth annual European Night of Museums this Saturday, May 18.
The idea is simple: open up museums way past their general closing hours, cut the entrance fee and make museum going a little more like nightlife instead of a rainy Sunday afternoon activity.
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Museum posts
The Late Night, Free Cultural Event Extravaganza: European Night Of Museums 2013
May 18th, 2013 at 9:00AM: Nuit des Musées, Facebook
Budget traveling night owl alert: if you're in Europe right now you don't want to miss out on the ninth annual European Night of Museums this Saturday, May 18.
The idea is simple: open up museums way past their general closing hours, cut the entrance fee and make museum going a little more like nightlife instead of a rainy Sunday afternoon activity.
...In Fine Style: The Art Of Tudor And Stuart Fashion Opens At The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace
May 15th, 2013 at 1:00PM:
The Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace, London, is putting on a fashion show, although the fashions are more than 400 years out of date.
"In Fine Style: The Art of Tudor and Stuart Fashion" examines the luxurious clothing and jewelry worn by British monarchs and members of their court. It focuses on the two dynasties of the 16th and 17th centuries with everything from ornamental armor for a ...Frederick The Great's Picture Gallery Celebrates 250 Years With Special Exhibition
May 12th, 2013 at 12:00PM:
A magnificent art gallery constructed by Frederick the Great of Prussia in Potsdam is celebrating its 250th anniversary this year, Art Daily reports.
The gallery at Sanssouci Park, part of Frederick the Great's palace complex, was home to his vast collection of Classical and (then) contemporary art. While it lost much of its collection over the years, especially during the Napoleonic Wars and ...Gettysburg's American Civil War Wax Museum Is For Sale
May 10th, 2013 at 10:30AM: A favorite destination in America's most famous Civil War battlefield faces an uncertain future as its owners are retiring and putting the building up for sale.
The American Civil War Wax Museum at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was opened in 1962 and is selling for $1.7 million, the Evening Sun reports. Being a popular tourist attraction, the current owners say they are confident someone will buy ...Vintage Nude Photos On Display In Berlin's Photography Museum
May 3rd, 2013 at 3:00PM:
The Museum of Photography in Berlin has just opened an exhibition of nude photos from the turn of the last century.
"The Naked Truth and More Besides Nude Photography around 1900" brings together hundreds of nude photos from an era we normally associate with old-fashioned prudery. In fact, nude photos were incredibly popular at that time. They had existed since the earliest days of the ...Cutbacks Have Smithsonian Down, But Not Out
May 3rd, 2013 at 9:00AM: Government cutbacks have affected travel in a number of ways. Passport applications and renewals are taking longer, as is the process for requesting a visa. Traveling abroad, less security at U.S. facilities means less protection for Americans. National parks have closed some facilities and delayed opening of others. Now, even the Smithsonian Institution in Washington is feeling the impact of ...London's Courtauld Gallery Shows Off German Miniature Bibles
May 2nd, 2013 at 9:00AM:
The Courtauld Gallery in London has opened a new exhibition of two of the smallest Bibles you'll ever see.
"Dess Alten Testaments Mittler" and "Dess Neuen Testaments Mittler" are tiny illustrated Bibles produced by two sisters from Augsburg, Germany, in the late 17th century. It was a time of increased private devotion, when people looked for more from religion than the rituals in the church. ...Andy Warhol Exhibit Opens In China, But His Chairman Mao Portraits Are Forbidden
Apr 29th, 2013 at 3:00PM:
The Power Station of Art in Shanghai has opened a new exhibition by Andy Warhol, but the famous pop artist's portraits of Chairman Mao have been left out of the picture.
Agence France-Presse reports that the Andy Warhol Museum, which created the traveling exhibition, was told by the Chinese government that images of Mao would not be needed. Warhol painted many pictures of the Chinese ...The Cabinet Of Curiosities: Collecting The Wonders Of The World
Apr 26th, 2013 at 2:00PM: Before there was the museum, there was the cabinet of curiosities. Starting in the 16th century as Europe expanded its horizons during the Age of Exploration, the rich and powerful began to collect curios and display them. Their collections were eclectic – everything from strange weapons from distant islands to beautiful coral formations.
The objects were all put together in no particular ...ABBA Museum To Open In Stockholm
Apr 24th, 2013 at 2:00PM: Dancing Queens, get dancing, an ABBA museum is opening in Stockholm.
ABBA The Museum will open its doors in the Swedish capital on May 7. It covers the complete history of the disco group and will display their gold records, crazy '70s costumes, and even reproductions of their recording studio and dressing rooms.
As visitors pass through the museum they'll be treated to different music in ...Gambia And UK Open Fort Bullen Museum, A Bastion Against The Slave Trade
Apr 22nd, 2013 at 4:00PM: A fort in The Gambia that was instrumental in stopping the slave trade has been given a new museum, the Daily Observer reports.
Fort Bullen was one of two forts at the mouth of the River Gambia, placed there in 1826 to stop slave ships from sailing out into the Atlantic. It stands on the north bank of the river, and along with Fort James on the south bank constitutes a UNESCO World Heritage ...Thieves Steal Rhino Horns From National Museum Of Ireland
Apr 19th, 2013 at 1:00PM: A gang of masked men broke into the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin on Wednesday night and made off with four rhino heads.
Museum officials said in a press release that the thieves overpowered a security guard and tied him up. They then entered a storeroom and removed the heads. The heads had previously been on display but had been put into storage a year ago for fear of their being ...Courtney Love Opens Her First Art Exhibition
Apr 18th, 2013 at 4:00PM:
Courtney Love has opened the first museum exhibition of her artwork at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum in New London, Connecticut.
"Mentoring Courtney Love: David LaChapelle and Courtney Love" showcases Love's artwork and examines the role artist David LaChapelle has played in mentoring the musician's experiments in a new medium. Love's artwork on display are all portraits sketched on paper using ...Samurai! The Art Of The Japanese Warrior Comes To Boston
Apr 12th, 2013 at 5:00PM:
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is showcasing a large collection of samurai armor and art from one of the world's leading private collections.
"Samurai! Armor from the Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Collection" opens this Sunday, April 14, and features more than 140 objects, such as this horse and rider. Visitors will learn about the complex typology of these elegant suits and how they ...Photo Of The Day: Seeing Mona Lisa
Apr 11th, 2013 at 6:00PM:
Nearly every visitor to Paris' Louvre Museum will tell you that, once they fight through the crowds to see her, it is surprising how small the famous "Mona Lisa" painting is in person. Today's Photo of the Day shows both the crowds of tourists eager to photograph her, and the relative scale of da Vinci's lady (30 x 21 inches, if you are wanted to know) to other paintings in the museum. It ...Roman London Uncovered In Massive Excavation
Apr 11th, 2013 at 1:00PM:
Archaeologists from the Museum of London have uncovered three acres of Roman London, they announced in a press release.
The team was excavating ahead of construction of Bloomberg Place, in the heart of what used to be Londinium, the capital of the Roman province of Britannia. Over the course of six months, archaeologists picked their way through seven meters of soil to find some 10,000 ...Louvre Shut Due To Violent Gang Of Pickpockets
Apr 11th, 2013 at 12:30PM:
The Louvre temporarily closed on Wednesday due to a strike protesting trouble with violent pickpockets.
The Guardian reports more than a hundred staff walked out on Wednesday in protest over "increasingly aggressive" gangs of pickpockets that harass both visitors and staff. Staff members who have tried to stop the criminals have been kicked and spat at. The strikers are demanding extra ...A Look Inside The David Bowie Exhibition At London's Victoria & Albert Museum
Apr 10th, 2013 at 3:30PM:
David Bowie is a pop star. David Bowie is a designer. David Bowie is an actor. David Bowie is a painter.
David Bowie is a lot of things, which is why it's appropriate that his retrospective at London's Victoria & Albert Museum is titled "David Bowie Is."
The museum gained unprecedented access to the David Bowie archive to select five decades of mementos like this striped bodysuit ...Love In The Civil War At The New York State Museum
Mar 30th, 2013 at 1:00PM: The Civil War is the subject of numerous exhibitions and special events these days as the country commemorates the war's sesquicentennial. Most study the battles and politics, but one at the New York State Museum in Albany is focusing on how the war affected the relationship between two lovers.
"I Shall Think of You Often: The Civil War Story of Doctor and Mary Tarbell" opens today as part of ...A Personal Lament To The Death Of Guidebooks
Mar 29th, 2013 at 11:00AM: It was with a heavy heart that I read the news last week that Frommer's guidebooks will cease to be printed. The guidebooks were purchased by Google last summer, and as of this year, the entire future list of titles will not be released. With the takeover of digital apps, social media, and user-generated content, we knew this was coming, but it still feels like the end of an era. It's become ...
