ICYMI: Highlights from the week that was April 14 – 20, 2019
No one can keep up with everything, so let us do it for you. We’ll gather the top Smithsonian stories from across the country and around the world each week so you’ll never be at a loss for conversation around the water cooler.
Among the news of art, history and culture we perused this week, we also learned that neither naked mole rats nor baby T. rex’s are suitable for home enjoyment.
National Indian museum celebrates Cherokee tribes
The Oklahoman, April 15
Members of the Cherokee Youth National Choir view the Treaty of New Echota on Friday at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington. [Paul Morigi/AP Images, for Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian]
The National Museum of the American Indian celebrated Cherokee history during the sixth annual Cherokee Days festival over the weekend, featuring the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes — Cherokee Nation, United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians and Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
The free three days of festivities included the installation of the original Treaty of New Echota (1835) with the Cherokee Nation, two banner exhibitions “The Cherokee Culture” and “A Story of Cherokee Removal” and a festival full of cultural demonstrations and performances. Read more from the Oklahoman.
Mole-rat chat | Second naked mole-rat live cam comes to National Zoo
Viewers can watch the naked mole-rats on not one, but two live webcams.
WUSA-9 (Washington), April 13
There are now teo cameras viewers can watch the animals on. (Associated Press photo)
A second live naked mole-rat webcam has been added at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute.
The cameras broadcast the blind, below-ground-dwelling rodents and their day-to-day activities, according to the National Zoo. This behind-the-scenes look at the naked mole-rat colony shows tunnels that link the chambers — one of the busiest spots in their living quarters. Read more from WUSA-9.
The Timely Dissent of a Vietnam War-Themed Show
Less than a mile from the White House, the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Artists Respond boldly surveys how artists wrestled with showing how their government had gone wrong.
Hyperallergic, April 16
Dan Flavin, “monument 4 for those who have been killed in ambush (to P. K. who reminded me about death)” (1966), red fluorescent light, The Estate of Dan Flavin (© 2018 Stephen Flavin/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, Photo courtesy David Zwirner)
The country was vehemently split. Families fractured over diverging aims of governance. People desperately objected to dominant political policy that military onslaughts were necessary to halt the spread of Communism; they took to the streets, where enforcers of the status quo awaited. The United States’ military draft, which continued until 1973, conscripted a broad swath of men not deferred by college enrollment or disqualified by medical conditions. This more personally and profoundly tore apart the home turf of the general population than any war since.
Artists Respond: American Art and Vietnam War, 1965–1975 takes us back to that civic trauma propelling artists’ dissent. Less than a mile from the White House, the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) boldly surveys how artists who were not used to mixing art and politics wrestled with showing how their government had gone wrong. Read more from Hyperallergic.
An interstellar meteor may have slammed into Earth
If confirmed, a fireball that careened through our atmosphere in 2014 will be only the second known visitor from beyond our solar system.
National Geographic, April 16
The oddly shaped asteroid ‘Oumuamua, seen in an illustration, was the first space rock determined to come from another star system. Now, astronomers suspect that a fireball that careened through our atmosphere in 2014 is the second such interstellar visitor on record.
PHOTOGRAPH BY ESA, HUBBLE/ NASA/ ESO/ M. KORNMESSER
Sometimes, a journey of a thousand light-years ends in flames. A few minutes after 3 a.m. on January 9, 2014, a fireball burned through the skies just off the northeast coast of Papua New Guinea; it was a meteor disintegrating in Earth’s atmosphere, as so many meteors do.
But according to new research, this early morning visitor wasn’t just any old space rock going out with a bang. It was an interstellar interloper, a visitor launched into the cosmos from deep within another star system.
If confirmed, the meteor will be only the second such object ever spotted by humans. The first, a bizarrely shaped space rock now called ’Oumuamua, whizzed through our solar system in 2017 and is now on its way back to the stars. By contrast, the 2014 meteor ended its travels here, making it possibly the first known rock from beyond the solar system to crash into Earth’s atmosphere. Read more from National Geographic.
You Can Now Smell a Flower That Went Extinct a Century Ago
The scent of a long-disappeared organism is once again in the air.
Popular Mechanics, April 16
GRAY HERBARIUM OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY
A scientist, a designer, and an olfactory artist have teamed up to resurrect the smell of extinct flowers.
This latest outgrowth of 21st-century biotech, courtesy of the Boston-based synthetic biology company Ginkgo Bioworks, represents an artful way to think about biological engineering: an act of harnessing the self-replicating and self-repairing mechanisms of biology itself to create the factories of new product development. The specimen samples used to home in on the ancient scents were isolated with help from a paleogenomics lab at UC Santa Cruz run by Beth Shapiro, author of How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of De-Extinction.
Here’s a rough breakdown of the science. The molecules that create scent are produced by enzymes within the cells of a plant, and those enzymes are coded into the plant’s DNA. Recent breakthroughs in DNA sequencing have made it possible to decipher the coding of extinct specimens—in this case, two plants that disappeared more than a century ago. Read more from Popular Mechanics.
Trump Satirizes Kehinde Wiley’s Obama Portrait to Fundraise 2020 Reelection Bid
The president’s action committee is selling the shirt, labeled “SPY” through its gift shop for $28.00. It also comes as a tank top
Hyperallergic, April 16
Screen shot by Zachary Small
President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign has announced that it’s raised $30 million in the first quarter of 2019, outpacing the leading Democrat Bernie Sanders by nearly $12 million.
A portion of that money comes from the president’s online gift shop, which sells MAGA merchandise including “no collusion” coffee mugs and “witch hunt” beer cozies.
But a new addition to the online web store has raised eyebrows in the art world: Trump has appropriated Kehinde Wiley’s official portrait of Barack Obama for a satirical T-shirt depicting the 44th president spying on the current commander-in-chief through the bushes. The shirt, which sells for $28.00 is described by the website as such:
SPY GAMES!
We can’t let Democrats and their cronies in the Fake News cover up corruption in the SWAMP!
We must FIGHT BACK and GET ANSWERS. Get your LIMITED EDITION “I Spy Trump” Tee NOW!
–Wiretapping not included.
–Limited Edition. While supplies last.
–Proudly Made in USA
PBS Launches POV Spark Interactive Initiative
The new unit also announced a trio of interactive projects.
The Hollywood Reporter, April 16
From “Changing Same: An American Pilgrimage” courtesy PBS
PBS documentary series POV is entering the interactive realm with POV Spark, a new initiative to produce and fund interactive projects.
It will launch with three productions. Changing Same: An American Pilgrimage is described as an immersive, room-scale virtual reality experience in which the participant will “witness the connected historical experiences of racial injustice in the United States.” A co-production of Rada Film Group and Scatter, it is created by Michèle Stephenson, Joe Brewster and Yasmin Elayat. Read more from The Hollywood Reporter.
Notre Dame: Could America’s historic landmarks be devastated by such a catastrophic fire?
USA Today, April 16
James Shepherd hopes Notre Dame’s architects and preservationists will call for advice when they’re ready to start reconstruction of France’s iconic medieval cathedral, which was devastated by fire on Monday.
Shepherd is director of preservation at the Washington National Cathedral, where he has spent the past six years overseeing that famous church’s painstaking renovation – and fire safety upgrades – after it was damaged in a 2011 earthquake.
“We are, just coincidentally, in the midst of … putting in some protections that will prevent us from hopefully ever having to undergo what they are undergoing,” Shepherd told reporters Monday as he and other American church officials absorbed the heartbreaking images of Notre Dame engulfed in flames.
Shepherd and other experts say there are major differences between Europe’s cherished historic sites and America’s landmarks that make protecting those in the U.S. much easier. Read more from USA Today.
This Smithsonian exhibition follows the long road to women’s suffrage
The Washington Post, April 18
A program from the first suffragist parade in the capital, on March 3. 1913. (Collection of Ann Lewis & Mike Sponder)
A new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, “Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence,” tells a story that ends 99 years ago, with the 1920 ratification of the constitutional amendment lifting voting restrictions on the basis of sex. But where to begin that tale?
Historically minded museumgoers may be surprised to discover that the show’s earliest artifact dates from 1832. Rather than start with the famed 1848 convention of women’s rights advocates at Seneca Falls, N.Y. — the first such convention in the United States — the show opens with a page from an abolitionist newspaper, the Liberator, that features an engraving of an enslaved woman.Read more from the Washington Post
The Met, Freer/Sackler and Portland Museum of Art to receive 550 Japanese Artworks
ArtForum, April 18
Detail of Waka Poem by Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, Shōkadō Shōjō, and Tawaraya Sōtatsu, early seventeenth century.
Mary and Cheney Cowles, Seattle-based collectors who have amassed one of the largest private collections of Japanese paintings and calligraphy in the West, announced they are donating more than 550 works to three institutions: the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; Freer|Sackler, the Smithsonian Institution’s museums of Asian art, in Washington, DC; and the Portland Art Museum in Oregon.
“The Met is deeply grateful to Mary and Cheney Cowlesfor this remarkable gift,” said museum director Max Hollein. “These works add great strength to our collection by filling gaps or complementing our renowned holdings. The vision and generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Cowles significantly enhances our ability to tell a more comprehensive history of Japanese art for the millions who visit the museum each year.” Read more from ArtForum.
The Lives of Female Art Historical Figures Will Now Be Transcribed and Available Online
A crowdsourced transcription project hopes to make the lives of women artists, art historians, art dealers, and gallery owners easier to keyword search and read.
Hyperallergic,April 18
Cecilia Beaux, “Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt and daughter Ethel” (1902), oil on canvas, 113 x 80 cm (image via Wikimedia)
Teddy Roosevelt didn’t pause to pose for any kind of presidential portrait until six months after his inauguration as the 26th American president, and it was only by chance that he allowed artist Cecilia Beaux to sketch his likeness — his first in his new presidential role. Beaux was at the White House painting a double portrait of First Lady Edith Roosevelt and her daughter, and somehow the President was convinced to sit for the Impressionistic painter for a few moments. “It has been a very real pleasure to catch glimpses of you while you have been here at the White House,” President Roosevelt wrote to Beaux in 1902, shortly after her visit. “I thoroughly enjoyed my two sittings — something which never happened before.” Read more from Hyperallergic.
Neil Armstrong’s spacesuit will be back on view at the Air and Space Museum in mid-July
The Washington Post, April 18
In a photo from 2015, conservator Lisa Young works on Neil Armstrong’s Apollo 11 spacesuit. (Dane Penland/National Air and Space Museum)
For the first time in 13 years, Neil Armstrong’s Apollo 11 spacesuit will be back on view at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in mid-July as part a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing.
The spacesuit has been undergoing study and conservation, efforts that were funded by the Smithsonian’s first Kickstarter campaign, which raised almost $720,000 in 2015. “Reboot the Suit” — the first and most successful of the Smithsonian’s three crowdfunding efforts — also raised money for the design and construction of a state-of-the-art display case to protect the fragile suit. Read more from the Washington Post
You can buy a baby T. rex skeleton on eBay for $3 million. Scientists would rather you didn’t.
Allowing the rare find to end up in private hands robs researchers and the public, scientists say.
The Washington Post, April 19
Alan Detrich listed this fossil of a young Tyrannosaurus rex on eBay for $2.95 million. (Photo by Alan Detrich)
The 68 million-year-old remains of a young Tyrannosaurus rex are now up for grabs on eBay, appearing alongside 50-piece dinosaur play sets and fiery-eyed T. rex action figures. The 15-foot skeleton, possibly the only one in existence, can be had for the “buy it now” price of $2.95 million.
Alan Detrich, the professional fossil hunter who is selling it, says that’s a bargain — “chump change,” he says — for such a rare find. But that’s a problem, say scientists, who believe the find is an invaluable piece of our collective history and a critical clue to understanding the prehistoric predator.
“The fossil record is analogous to the memory of the Earth,” said Thomas Carr, a paleontologist at Carthage College in Wisconsin. “Fossils are the only information we have about how life on this planet evolved.” Read more from the Washington Post.
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Posted: 21 April 2019
