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Andrew Wasserman

@onceatrophic.bsky.social
1.2K followers 397 following 1.2K posts

Art Historian. Etc. The World Atlas of Public Art (Yale University Press, 2024) now available: yalebooks.yale.edu/book/97803002725…

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Sarah Archer @sarcher.bsky.social · 17h
Final weekend for “The Workshop of the World” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art! Fabulous and fascinating, bravo @colinfanning.bsky.social ⚒️
A black and ivory floral woven textile with a crest that reads INDUSTRIAL ART SCHOOL, PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM
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Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Big Friday!
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Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
I truly almost @-ed you!
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Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Was looking into something else for very different project and came across this from 2024 and this sculpture is ABSOLUTELY NUTS (complimentary) www.smithsonianmag.com/history/a-se...
smithsonianmag.com
A Secret Sculpture Built for John F. Kennedy's Grave Vanished in the 1970s. Half a Century Later, the Mystery Has Been Solved
The bronze wreath immortalized the moment when the members of the Honor Guard removed their hats and placed them on the president's grave during his burial
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Sarah Archer @sarcher.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
“If IBM had Paul Rand, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority had Massimo Vignelli, and Alfred Hitchcock had Saul Bass, nature itself had Charley Harper.” www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org/art/exhibiti...
A detail from Charley Harper’s mosaic Space for all Species” in the lobby of the John Weld Peck Federal Building in Cincinnati. A stylized flying squirrel seems to glide across the grid surrounded by yellow and brown birds.
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
thrilled this piece on bicentennial and sesquicentennial art and culture is now out online!
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K R @kringelberg.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Our job opening to teach with me in the art history and museum studies curricula of our Big Beautiful Department that includes various forms of history including art history & also geography is live and featured on the College Art Association website! Remember that you can sign in as a guest. Apply!
Screenshot of the College Art Association featured job listing for a job with me, teaching art history at Elon in our big department of History, Geography, and Art History! Apply! (note: you can sign in to the CAA website as a guest if you are seeking jobs!)
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Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
I say this as someone who went to a grad school that was the home of the Seawolves: wtf is a Springbird???
Insta announcement of cardinals becoming the springbirds. I’m waiting for the revelation that Springbird is the name of some investment firm that now has controlling stake in the team
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profchander @profchander.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
basking in an amazing archival find today before the dread of engaging with it sets in
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gregorg @greg.org · 07/10/2026
Holy moley, this plaster version of Alberto Giacometti's 1934 Tête-crâne (Head-Skull) is going on public view—and on sale—for the first time during Art Basel Paris. greg.org/archive/2026...
a geometric, faceted and cubistic skull made of plaster with rounded shallow indentations for eye sockets on the flat planes of this polyhedron, sits in a blank display environment. a sculpture by alberto giacometti at sotheby's paris
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Tyler Green @tylergreenbooks.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Black quilt maker Elizabeth Morris Bolden of Bath County, Virginia deserves better than this.
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Suzanne Karr Schmidt @drkarrschmidt.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Oh My Gourd
Large pumpkin or other gourd on stem, black and white, framed.
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Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Today’s research
SHAFTS
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Sarah Archer @sarcher.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Your email has never found him
A metal helmet in the shape of a sleepy-looking lion mid-roar, with a stylized curly mane 

Italian
ca. 1475–80
This helmet is the earliest surviving example of Renaissance armor all'antica (in the antique style). The lion's head is an outer shell made of embossed and gilt copper that is fitted over an underlying plain steel helmet. It represents the head of the Nemean Lion, whose pelt was worn as a headdress and cloak by the mythological hero Hercules. He was frequently portrayed in Renaissance art as a symbol of indomitable strength, courage, and perseverance.
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gregorg @greg.org · 03/10/2026
well this earthenware grave marker is not at all what I expected to see when I searched for north carolina potter mark hewitt www.liveauctioneers.com/item/2427484...
you know how when you do a search for the north carolina pottery your parents collect, and it's just endless rows of the same brown speckled vases and planters and coffee mugs, until one day it's an eighteen inch tall stoneware butt plug, with a kind of ridged, pointed egg shaped top on a gently flared conical base, a torpedo head sitting on a megaphone, and it, too, is all that brown speckly woodfired glaze you got kind of tired of and which is not why you left north carolina, but it comes to stand for why you left north carolina, and then you get sidetracked by an entire previously unknown history of earthenware grave markers in the south, especially in north carolina, which are more urn shaped than this, certainly none are quite so ass shaped, whatever, but there is a history and context here, though not quite one that explains why hewitt, a contemporary british transplant potter, would make a generic one, nor that explains who would buy it. anyway, maybe you're the one who's gonna buy it now, because it's for sale
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McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 02/10/2026
Wait. What? www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/ten...
mcsweeneys.net
Ten Objects Around Your House That Are Actually Just Tilda Swinton Getting Lost in a Role
November 5, 2021 (her b-day) 1/13/23
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Ian Petrie @icpetrie.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
The hero we need in Philly today
inquirer.com
Orifice the Awebot is Philly’s ‘magical’ response to Uber Eats robots
"She’s part of our bringing delight and surprise and letting it ripple through the city."
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Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I know, girl. I know.
George Romney, Siddonian Recollections, ca. 1785-90
Oll on canvas
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gregorg @greg.org · 01/10/2026
holy moley Alexander Calder baby fork greg.org/archive/2026... in a lowkey weird Calder auction www.ragoarts.com/auctions/202...
a baby fork made of two pieces of flattened silver wire, one looped to form the handle and the outer two tines, the other wrapped around the neck and outer tines to form the inner tines. more of a baby pitchfork, tbqh, but still. selling at rago arts in 2026
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Jesse Locker @jessemlocker.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I can't think of a better way to start October than with Max Klinger's Der Tod am Wasser (Der pinkelnde Tod), c. 1880. Yes, that's Death taking a leak. Remember your mortality and stay hydrated! 💀
Max Klinger, Der Tod am Wasser (Der pinkelnde Tod), c. 1880, Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig. A vertically formatted landscape painting with the figure of Death as a skeleton resting his scythe on the ground and taking a piss
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Anne Trubek @atrubek.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Incredibly grateful for this incisive piece
publicbooks.org
Long-Distance Talkers: The Great Depression Speaks - Public Books
During the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration conducted thousands of interviews among American workers. Anne Trubek's “American Made” gives them new voice.
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Adam Shprintzen @veghistory.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
“Tell me what random painting you shove in the back of your fridge, and I’ll tell you what you are.”
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Sheila Liming @seeshespeak.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
IDEA: rehabilitation centers for the modern, digitally ravaged attention span They could feature activities like lectures, seminar-style discussions, and reading. They could be called colleges, or maybe universities.
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Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
(Yes there was a break to write book 1 while writing book 2. But still. A better way must be possible.)
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Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
(Book 3 absolutely cannot take the 10+ years that book 2 took/is taking. It just cannot.)
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Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Just sent the editor the post peer review revisions for book 2 🎉 🎉 Now to work on book 3 🫩🫩
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Lincoln Michel @thelincoln.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Typo has me thinking of changing my email signoff from "all best" to "all beast"
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Michael Lobel @mlobelart.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Georgia O'Keeffe, "Patio Door with Green Leaf," 1956 access-ok.okeeffemuseum.org/object/28/
Abstracted picture of a green leaf, against stylized image of a structure
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Michael Lobel @mlobelart.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The painting placed at center, in prized spot just above Helene Kröller-Müller's coffin, is "Four Sunflowers Gone to Seed," which Van Gogh painted in the summer of 1887 in Paris—one of earliest treatments of one of his most iconic subjects www.krollermuller.nl/en/collectio...
B&W photo of coffin, surrounded by flowers, in front of wall of Van Gogh paintingsPainting of sunflowers, laying on a table with patterned fabric
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Ghoul-in’ Dickey @colindickey.com · 18/09/2026
[Mrs. Buttle in “Brazil” voice] What have you done with his b-o-o-o-o-day….”
The cabinet of Jeremy Bentham’s “autoicon,” which was designed to display his taxidermied corpse. The cabinet—at University College London in an otherwise unremarkable hallway—reads “JEREMY BENTHAM” above the door, but inside, there is no Bentham corpse, only a series of posters of various UCL bigwigs.
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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I wonder how much it cost Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen to license this William Eggleston photo for a full-color, double-page spread, mentioning The Row only in microscopic type on the back corner, in today's Times
A photo of a flat field, a row of tiny trees in various species, big puffy clouds filling most of the frame
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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
On Tues evening we launched our first two Cross-Reference Coalition publications at the Ctr for Bklyn History 🥰 Anyone can download digital copies — libraries (we’ll prioritize Metro members) can request FREE print copies — via the pubs’ respective pages! crc.metro.org/projects/ (📸 by Mina Leazer)
Four people on a stage in a fancy room, with a set of zines projected on a screen behind themThe crowd at the end of the night, holding candles to recognize the equinox. Xinan Helen Ran, a member of the Search & Discovery cohort read a lovely acknowledgment Our colorful Misfit book and Search & Discovery zine set A cross-cohort planning team planned a range of activities — like bingo (card displayed here) — to help folks meet one another at the event, to promote social
“cross-referencing” :)
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gregorg @greg.org · 26/09/2026
With Spanish fascists about to hand him over to French nazi collaborators, Walter Benjamin took his own life on 26 Sept 1940. I'd only had the vaguest idea of the circumstances of his death and memorialization when I took the kids to Portbou for a fun beach day in 2014. greg.org/archive/2014...
a 2014 photo of a large maroon painted metal sign in portbou spain with info on the four stops of the ruta walter benjamin. the philosopher's name is on top of the sign in white, a black and white photo portrait of him, with thick slightly rumpled hair, his eyes lost behind thick round glasses, and his hand resting pensively just under his bushy dark mustache, is next to a map of the little port town nestled in a tiny valley, which does not in any way indicate that the fourth stop, the actual benjamin memorial, is in a cemetery on top of a hill, not a simple stroll around the beach promenade. taken by greg.org
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
and give it up for ornamental cabbage assholes
purple beauties
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Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Mary Lee Bendolph, Get Ready (2006), Color soft ground and spit bite aquatint etching Just casually hanging in the library
A Gee’s Bend print hanging in the library as further evidence that this is absolutely not a real place bc truly how is this a real place
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Alexander Luckmann @aluckmann.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Norman Foster's models for possible Reichstag cupolas, 1993. Photo by Richard Davies, from Julia Walker's "Berlin Contemporary"
26 different models for the Reichstag cupola arrayed on a dark background.
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BOO! k HistoriAAAH 🎃 @book-historia.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Literal hooting and hollering in the reading room as we come across a partially used box of condoms in a collection being processed
A box of natural lamb condoms among pamphletsWider shot of archival box with files, ledgers, pamphlets, envelopes, and condoms
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Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Look until they erect a statue to him on the grounds too, this is the only former member I know about. History is/as statues.
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Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
View from the office for the next year
Pastoral af🦌🦌
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Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Would contribute to the bagel support fund!
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Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
!!!!
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Suzanne Karr Schmidt @drkarrschmidt.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Here's the full cover...
Accordion folded book with fabric cover with many small Japanese figures and characters.
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Ryan Boyd @ryanboyd.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
NEW BRAIN DROPPED
med.stanford.edu
Human brain is two separate organs, Stanford Medicine-led research finds
Stanford Health Care delivers the highest levels of care and compassion. SHC treats cancer, heart disease, brain disorders, primary care issues, and many more.
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Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
This sounds like my favorite version of art history tbh
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Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Also a very excited 👀👀 at whatever this new project is 🛤️🚂
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Ghoul-in’ Dickey @colindickey.com · 21/09/2026
Mary, Queen of Scots goes the way of all flesh
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Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Missed opportunity by Bonhams to not have that lot fully illuminated. Glowing derpy mustached demon cat lantern feels like a guaranteed seller
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Andrew Wasserman @onceatrophic.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Oh no! (Complimentary)
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Sarah Archer @sarcher.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Check out the lots in the Sandy Lerner Cat Collection sale (part 1) at Bonhams, and be dazzled: www.bonhams.com/auction/3258...
An Andy Warhol drawing from the series “25 Cats Name[d] Sam and One Blue Pussy.” A pink striped tabby reclines on an ivory background; he has green eyes and he’s labeled “Sam” with Warhol’s signature at left.
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Michael Lobel @mlobelart.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Gotta admit I've lived in NYC a very, very long time and don't think I ever knew about this mural Keith Haring did in 1987 for the Carmine Street Swimming Pool. I just stumbled upon it while walking past and was like👀 www.haring.com/!/art-work/242
View of a swimming pool area with an extremely long mural above of stylized fish and human figures swimming
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