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Art & Design NPR explores the visual arts including design, photography, sculpture, and architecture. Interviews, commentary, and audio. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

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Scott Adams sit in an office next to Dilbert works in 2014.

Cartoonist Scott Adams, pictured in 2014, said Monday he has metastatic prostate cancer and does not expect to survive the summer. Lea Suzuki/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images hide caption

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Lea Suzuki/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

'Dilbert' creator Scott Adams says he's dying of 'the same cancer that Joe Biden has'

Adams said he expects "to be checking out from this domain sometime this summer." The controversial cartoonist, a vocal supporter of President Trump, expressed compassion for former President Biden.

Shen Yun dance troupe on a billboard advertising an upcoming performance in Leavenworth, Kansas.

Shen Yun dance troupe on a billboard advertising an upcoming performance in Leavenworth, Kansas. Michael Siluk/Universal Images Group/Getty Images hide caption

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Michael Siluk/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

Two former Shen Yun dancers allege forced child labor, brutal conditions in lawsuit

Two former dancers allege that they lived under a culture of fear and routinely performed despite injuries. Shen Yun has vehemently denied the claims.

Two former Shen Yun dancers allege forced child labor, brutal conditions in lawsuit

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Ruth Asawa, Albert’s Rose Bouquet (PF.564), 1990; private collection. This bouquet, given to the artist around Mother's Day in May 1990 by her husband, Albert Lanier, was among the many Asawa sketched over the years.

Ruth Asawa, Albert's Rose Bouquet (PF.564), 1990; private collection. This bouquet, given to the artist around Mother's Day in May 1990 by her husband, Albert Lanier, was among the many Asawa sketched over the years. © 2025 Ruth Asawa Lanier Inc., courtesy David Zwirner; photo: James Paonessa hide caption

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© 2025 Ruth Asawa Lanier Inc., courtesy David Zwirner; photo: James Paonessa

Mother's Day

Mother's Day flowers don't last, but these bouquet sketches live on

The late artist Ruth Asawa regularly drew the bouquets people gave her. Years later, some of the sketches made it back to those who gave flowers.

RUTH ASAWA'S BOUQUET DRAWINGS

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The Wellington, Pine Hill, N.Y.
Shandaken Historical Museum; Shelley Smith/National Trust for Historic Preservation

Culture

Here's the 2025 list of most endangered historic places in the U.S.

This year, the annual list from the National Trust for Historic Preservation includes a mysterious castle, flooded communities in Florida and North Carolina, historic hotels and a gigantic turtle.

Most Endangered Historic Places 2025

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The Met Gala: the indisputable best & worst looks of the night

Teyana Taylor at the 2025 Met Gala Theo Wargo/FilmMagic hide caption

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Theo Wargo/FilmMagic

It's Been a Minute

The Met Gala: the indisputable best & worst looks of the night

They did THAT. The biggest designers and celebrities showed up at the 2025 Met Gala, everyone from Rihanna to Madonna. And in this special bonus episode, Brittany and her guests break down the best and worst looks of the night.

The Met Gala: the indisputable best & worst looks of the night

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Bob Mackie

Photo: Daniel Speer / Maximum Fun Daniel Speer/Maximum Fun hide caption

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Daniel Speer/Maximum Fun

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

Bob Mackie

This week, it's Bob Mackie! Mackie has made a career out of dressing big personalities in kinetic, sparkling garb. His life and career were profiled in an incredible documentary late last year. Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion covers the era-defining design work he did and the extraordinary life he's lived. Mackie talks to Bullseye about his early affinity for performance outfits, marrying costumes and comedy, and getting started in the business working with old Hollywood legends.

Bob Mackie

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The Met Gala is tonight, and it's already historic. Here's why.

Who will attend the 2025 MET Gala? Getty Images hide caption

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Getty Images

It's Been a Minute

The Met Gala is tonight, and it's already historic. Here's why.

It's the first Monday in May. AKA it's time for the annual Met Gala. Or as some call it, "fashion's biggest night."

The Met Gala is tonight, and it's already historic. Here's why.

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Ada Limón

Ada Limón Shawn Miller/Library of Congress hide caption

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Shawn Miller/Library of Congress

Interview highlights

Ada Limón reflects on her tenure as the poet laureate and bringing us back to wonder

U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón reflects on her term and the urgency of connecting to nature through poetry.

Ada Limón reflects on her tenure as the poet laureate and bringing us back to wonder

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Durham, N.C. - April 26th, 2025: Former Carolina Chocolate Drop member Rowan Corbett (left) and a shopper look at banjos inside a pop-up shop at the Biscuits and Banjos festival. (Cornell Watson for NPR)

Durham, N.C. - April 26th, 2025: Former Carolina Chocolate Drop member Rowan Corbett (left) and a shopper look at banjos inside a pop-up shop at the Biscuits and Banjos festival. (Cornell Watson for NPR) Cornell Watson for NPR hide caption

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Cornell Watson for NPR

The Picture Show

Rhiannon Giddens' new music festival celebrates Black music, art, culture in N.C.

Grammy-winning artist Rhiannon Giddens brings Biscuits & Banjos, a music festival that features Black musicians on guitars, fiddles and banjos, history, dancing and more, to Durham, N.C.

Three rows of prints made by artist Ana Inciardi show colorful items such as a cup, sardine tin, popsicle, artichoke, bow-tie pasta, red chili pepper, olive, a jar of jam, peaches, a strawberry and a fried egg.

Artist Ana Inciardi's vending machine prints feature food items and the tools that are associated with them. Ana Inciardi hide caption

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Ana Inciardi

Culture

At these vending machines, you get mini art prints, not stale chips

Print artist Ana Inciardi sells her art through vending machines at 50 locations. Instead of snacks, Inciardi's three-slot machines produce prints you can collect, for the low price of four quarters.

Mini art prints from vending machines make one artist's dream

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A colorful, whimsical illustration showing a writing desk covered with tools used to write letters, including an inkwell, a letter opener, a feathered pen, scissors, stationery, stamps, washi tape, and a seal.

"Correspondence is a leap of faith, and that is part of what makes it wonderful," says Rachel Syme, author of Syme's Letter Writer: A Guide to Modern Correspondence. "You may never know if the person you are writing to will write you back." Illustration © by Joana Avillez, Reprinted with permission from Syme's Letter Writer by Rachel Syme/Clarkson Potter Publishers hide caption

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Illustration © by Joana Avillez, Reprinted with permission from Syme's Letter Writer by Rachel Syme/Clarkson Potter Publishers

Life Kit

The delightfully analog art of letter-writing

Tired of texting? Send your loved ones some snail mail instead. Rachel Syme, author of "Syme's Letter Writer: A Guide to Modern Correspondence," shares whimsical ways to start a letter-writing habit.

The art and pleasure of writing a letter

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A bug that jets pee? These comics illustrate nature's real-life superpowers

This panel is from the "Slingshot Spiders" comic that describes the manuscript "Ultrafast launch of slingshot spiders using conical silk webs", published in the journal Current Biology. Lindsey Leigh/Bhamla Lab hide caption

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Lindsey Leigh/Bhamla Lab

Short Wave

A bug that jets pee? These comics illustrate nature's real-life superpowers

Did you know there's an insect that can fling its pee 40 times faster than a cheetah accelerates? We did — thanks to a comic from the Bhamla Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Since 2020, principal investigator Saad Bhamla has been leading the charge to make science more accessible by publishing comics alongside every paper his lab publishes. Today, he introduces Emily to two of the most popular characters — Sheriff Sharpshooter and Captain Cicada — and shares why a comic about butt-flicking insects is a valuable way to take science beyond the lab.

A bug that jets pee? These comics illustrate nature's real-life superpowers

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Artist Arewà Basit poses in front of Trans Forming Liberty (2024), a 10-foot oil painting by Amy Sherald.

Arewà Basit poses in front of Trans Forming Liberty (2024), a 10-foot oil painting by Amy Sherald for which she served as the model. Sansho Scott/BFA.com hide caption

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Sansho Scott/BFA.com

Fine Art

Painter Amy Sherald asks: What is American?

Amy Sherald, who painted former First Lady Michelle Obama's portrait in 2018, has a major survey of her work opening this week at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

Painter Amy Sherald reimagines the 'American sublime' in new show

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Opinion: Art fair flyers should showcase human creativity
Oakland First Fridays

Opinion

Simon Says

Opinion: Art fair flyers should showcase human creativity

Organizers of Oakland's First Fridays art festival made a flyer promoting the event using AI, and are facing backlash for not using an actual artist. NPR's Scott Simon explains.

Opinion: Art fair flyers should showcase human creativity

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John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres, Jamese Jefferson and Gloria Bollock, 1992, acrylic on Hydrocal plaster life cast

John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres, Jamese Jefferson and Gloria Bollock, 1992, acrylic on Hydrocal plaster life cast Anacostia Community Museum/Smithsonian Institution hide caption

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Anacostia Community Museum/Smithsonian Institution

Fine Art

This art exhibition is 'divisive' or 'eye-opening' — it depends who you ask

A new White House executive order says the exhibition is an example of how the Smithsonian portrays "American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive."

Smithsonian Art exhibition deemed 'divisive'

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The Gamble House in Pasadena

The Gamble House in Pasadena Alexander Verikoff
/Vertikoff Archives hide caption

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Alexander Verikoff
/Vertikoff Archives

California Wildfires

Beloved historic landmarks navigate an uncertain future after the LA fires

In Pasadena, The Gamble House was in a fire evacuation zone and its custodians are trying to safeguard its future. In Altadena, only concrete walls are left from the former home of novelist Zane Grey.

Beloved historic landmarks navigate an uncertain future after the LA fires

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The site of a former lead and zinc mine in Kabwe, Zambia. Thirty years after the closure of the mine, the land remains highly contaminated, yet artisanal miners continue to work here, exposing themselves daily to dangerously high levels of lead.

The site of a former lead and zinc mine in Kabwe, Zambia. Thirty years after the closure of the mine, the land remains highly contaminated — and artisanal miners continue to work here, exposing themselves daily to dangerously high levels of lead. Tommy Trenchard for NPR hide caption

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Tommy Trenchard for NPR

Goats and Soda

This may be the most lead polluted place on Earth. Is there any hope?

The U.N. has identified Kabwe, a city of almost 300,000 people in Zambia, as one of the most polluted places on the planet. Who is to blame? And can justice be done?

A sculpture of Aphrodite is displayed during an exhibition of ancient Greek art in 2007 in Beijing, China. The collection is from the 5th and 4th centuries BC. Many ancient statues were scented, a researcher says.

A sculpture of Aphrodite is displayed during an exhibition of ancient Greek art in 2007 in Beijing, China. The collection is from the 5th and 4th centuries B.C. Many ancient statues were scented, a researcher says. China Photos/Getty Images hide caption

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China Photos/Getty Images

History

Ancient Greek and Roman statues often smelled like roses, a new study says

Ancient Greek and Roman statues didn't originally look like they do now in museums. A new study says they didn't smell the same, either.

Vincent D'Onofrio

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - FEBRUARY 24: Vincent D'Onofrio attends the Daredevil: Born Again red-carpet launch event at The Hudson Theater on February 24, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Disney) Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Disney hide caption

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Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Disney

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

Vincent D'Onofrio

This week on Bullseye, it's Vincent D'Onofrio. He talks about his many memorable roles in Full Metal Jacket, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Men in Black, and Daredevil. He also talks about how an actor accesses these grand characters through physical and emotional inspirations, as well as the Kingpin costume made of material developed by NASA.

Vincent D'Onofrio

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The Wichita Art Museum in Wichita, Kan. says more young people have been attending exhibitions since it decided to stop charging admissions for its permanent collection in 2023.

The Wichita Art Museum in Wichita, Kan., says more young people have been attending exhibitions since it decided to stop charging admissions for its permanent collection in 2023. Naama Marcos
/Wichita Art Museum hide caption

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Naama Marcos
/Wichita Art Museum

Culture

Report: (Smaller) Museums should make admission free

A new study out this week from the museum think tank Remuseum suggests free admission attracts more visitors without increasing costs.

FREE MUSEUM ADMISSION

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