Watch Ursula von Rydingsvard explain the process behind her sculpture, 'Czara z Babelkami.'

The "symphonic dance of threeness" brought together Bauhaus' varied artistic interests and offered a fable in which collectivism wins. This history and timeline of the work details its origins as well as its near-destruction at the hands of the Nazis, who considered it profane.

Friedrich produced several works, including "Wanderer," portraying figures with their back to the viewer. The effect—called Rückenfigur, or ”figure from the back”—can create complex emotions of longing, immersion, or awe.

Artistic renderings and reconstructions of ancient people are one way to bring the past to life, providing viewers with insights into and empathy for those who came before. This article details how modern artists and archaeologists work together to...

In this 2025 interview, the artist speaks candidly about her traumatic childhood, her enduring interest in exploring pain and pleasure, and how performance taught her to control her pain.

In the ‘80s, partners Abramović and Ulay sat across from each other in public without moving or speaking. Ulay was unable to continue after a certain point, but Abramović kept going. “The Artist Is Present” marked Abramović continuing the performance without him.

In a 2024 interview with GQ, Abramović shares her opinion on the “Barbie” movie and Kim Kardashian, while also sharing abstract insights into the power of dreaming, solitude, and stillness.

The exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art invited visitors to sit in silence in the company of a master performer. Many shed tears or gestured affectionately, claiming to have felt a profound connection with Abramović. (This resource contains some artistic nudity.)

The photographer was one of the few affiliated with the school who photographed its locations, documenting the modern style long after the Nazis had driven its artists from Germany. This podcast episode explores why she went uncredited for so many years.

Dain Yoon is a South Korean artist whose whimsical paintings utilizing her body as a canvas have gone viral. See examples of her works where she uses her face and torso to present elaborate, often surreal, visual works.

The HBO documentary follows the preparation and execution of Abramović’s 2010 MoMA show, taking a deeper look into the emotional experience. Performing was both physically and emotionally taxing for the artist, and visitors were often moved to tears while connecting with her. (This resource contains some artistic nudity.)

In this in-depth interview with Bomb magazine, she discusses her motivations and inspirations for pieces like Recorte Por La Línea, in which she invited a plastic surgeon to mark everything he would change on her body to make it “ideal.”

The Persistence of Memory was painted on a canvas roughly the size of a sheet of paper, depicting a desolate landscape with melting clocks, ants, and a distorted figure. The piece incorporates Freud and Einstein's ideas, resulting in a haunting composition symbolizing time's fluidity and Dalí's personal anxieties.

The influential choreographer and dancer once said that creative people will never be satisfied with their work. Instead, "there is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."

Marble is considered the chief material for sculpture due to its intrinsic beauty, stemming from its white translucence which makes the light appear to come from the stone. In this video, sculptor Simon Smith recreates Donatello's 15th-century Prato Pulpit panel which still hangs on the outside of a church. Watch as he explains the painstaking process and reveals the beautiful final output.

By inviting the audience to do as they please without repercussions, Abramović showed the public both the beauty and hideousness of human nature. Playful interactions eventually turned into assault, and the performance left her with scars she still wears decades later.

The Abramović Method compiles Abramović’s own learnings and gives instructions to other artists for remaining present and grounded. Pop star Lady Gaga learned the method and cited it as a huge influence on her work.

For seven days, Abramović reenacted seven works by her peers for seven hours each. The performance attracted widespread attention that helped lay the groundwork for her life as a celebrity artist.

Their infamous body of work, known as “The Relation Works,” aimed to explore the dynamics between male and female partnerships, exposing power imbalances and frustration. (This resource contains some artistic nudity.)

Abramović’s willingness to mainstream transgressive and symbolic work has inspired many, but some have also interpreted that same work as ridiculous, pretentious, or even Satanic.

- US architect Frank Lloyd Wright

O’Keeffe used bones as motifs in her work throughout her time in New Mexico. She famously stated, “The bones do not symbolize death to me. They are shapes that I enjoy … They're very lively.”

The painter came from an affluent background but was determined to become an artist, a decision that was at odds with her father's wishes. Still, she began art school at 15, where she was one of the few female students and not permitted to paint portraits of live models. This brief documentary from The Art Tourist explains how those formative experiences taught Cassatt to challenge conventional approaches in her work.

In "Program of the Staatliche Bauhaus in Weimar," Walter Gropius' 1919 manifesto, the architect imagined his Bauhaus school as a "guild of craftsmen" where architects, painters, and sculptors could be freed from the class-oriented pretensions of the art world and learn to make works that would benefit humanity.

The women in her portraits are often performing domestic work, something that contemporary scholars consider a subtle protest of how women's labor was often overlooked during Cassatt's time. Fittingly, Cassatt often hired working-class women as models, ensuring the portraits were not only accurate but that the subjects were appropriately compensated.

The internet is chock full of hacks and apps that supposedly help you optimize yourself into a more productive person. But Aparna Chivukula argues that spending so much mental energy on "wellness" misses a larger philosophical issue, one that can only be explored through art.

The innovative choreographer encouraged her dancers to tune into their bodies' natural movements. According to Kimerer L. LaMothe, author of "What a Body Knows," that kind of mindfulness made them better able to communicate a piece's symbolic meaning.

The five performances, which included an invitation for the audience to use 72 objects as they pleased, helped put her on the map as a fearless artist, but they also caused her physical harm.

The German art school was around for less than 15 years, but its aesthetic and philosophy can still be seen today in sleek, minimalist design, bold typefaces, and even the corporate aesthetics of IKEA, Apple, and other brands. This DW feature visits the schools that have taken up the Bauhaus legacy, using its ideas to tackle contemporary problems.

"Poetry and imagination begin life."

This clip from the 1957 documentary "A Dancer's World" features the dancer explaining why she has committed all of her energy to her art. "Spontaneity … is something arrived at over years and years of training," she says. "It's not a mere chance."

The dance piece was inspired by the story of Oedipus, as well as by more contemporary psychoanalytic theories from Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. This JSTOR article explores how Graham's piece merged those texts with her singular approach to movement to explore gender and identity.

For most artists, creative block—the unfortunate experience when new ideas suddenly disappear—is inevitable. This Artsy article looks at six artists (including Picasso, Monet, and O’Keeffe) who dealt with creative block and overcame it by experimenting with new media, moving to a new place, or by sheer willpower. It also highlights one artist, Chuck Close, who claims that he never dealt with creative block because he simply viewed his artistic practice as any other job.

Drs. Beth Harris and Steven Zucker note that this portrait of an intimate moment between mother and daughter might have been out of place in 1893, but that its subject matter alludes to spiritual images from the Renaissance or Baroque periods.

Throughout centuries, art has played a vital role in sharing—and furthering—scientific understanding. This largely began in 1543 when physician Andreas Vesalius worked with an artist and engraver to transform learnings from his dissections into...

- Artist Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)

Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich’s art uses vast, massive scale and masterful compositions to convey complex ideas of power, decay, permanence, and more. But his landscapes also present beautiful, overwhelming portraits of nature that perfectly embody philosopher Edmund Burke’s concept of “the sublime.”

Art historians have studied Picasso's Blue Period throughout the last century, but researchers have now uncovered something previously unknown: an underpainting of a woman under one of the artist's portraits.

Artsy's Olivia Horn considers the American Impressionist's work from a 21st-century perspective, unpacking how her focus on women's lives was a revolutionary act for the 19th century that still resonates today.

The Nazis deplored the Bauhaus style, until they found a way to use it for themselves. This deep dive explores the connection between the Nazis and three Bauhaus-affiliated designers—Franz Ehrlich, who was sent to Buchenwald and forced to design the camp's gates (seen below), Fritz Ertl, who designed the shower rooms at Auschwitz, and Herbert Bayer, who helped design Third Reich propaganda.

Critics had long been puzzled by the unrealistic flower pinned to the woman's chest in the 1905 painting "Mother and Child." In exploring the painting's history, researcher Nikki Georgopulos discovered that the flower alluded to a women's suffrage badge popular at the time, something Cassatt emphasized in the painting's original title, "Woman With a Sunflower."

Archaeologists stumbling upon statues from ancient Greece often found weathered creatures, their faces and figures marred by age and conflict. But evidence of polychromy—painting sculptures with color—has continued to mount.

This gallery showcases how Maya culture endures through both ancient monuments and modern artistic expressions, tracing visual traditions from pre-Columbian carvings and murals to contemporary works created by Maya artists.

In preparation for sitting in one place for hours on end, Abramović placed a hole in her chair for urinating. She also prepared for the experience with a strict diet and hydration regimen.

In early 20th-century Zurich, one nightclub was the epicenter of avant-garde art and performance: Cabaret Voltaire. Night after night, crowds of artists, writers, philosophers, and others would gather to watch—or participate in—wild, unrehearsed performances that could include anything from sound poems to traditional folk dance. The atmosphere at Club Voltaire was the ideal breeding ground for outside art movements, and it is thought to be the birthplace of Dada, a precursor to performance art.

Each year Burning Man's Black Rock City sees major achievements in design. Many creators remain anonymous and do not seek fame, profit, or acclaim, valuing the process of creating, and seeking to cultivate culture and identity.

Warhol’s life and work hold clear religious through lines, from his Byzantine Catholic upbringing to reexaminations of his catalog, including an unfinished work for the 1968 world’s fair commissioned for the Catholic Church through a local Catholic university.

Sabin Howard is the sculptor for the National World War I Memorial, soon to be installed in Washington, DC. This Smithsonian Magazine article talks to the artist and details his approach and style in designing the piece. The finished sculpture will tell the story of a young WWI American soldier across five scenes featuring 38 larger-than-life figures, stretching out over 60 feet and standing at 10 feet.