surya bowyer
curator & historian
linktr.ee/suryabowyer
- I am giving a (free!) talk at the V&A Museum on 3 June with @shreyagupta.bsky.social @libertypaterson.bsky.social & Niti Acharya, on the history of institutional collecting. Sign up to attend here: www.vam.ac.uk/event/Yq2NZK...
- Today I'm looking at: Remedios Varo's "Simpatía (La rabia del gato)" aka Sympathy (the cat's rage).
- Today I learned that @theguardian.com is running a contest for “Invertebrate of the Year”. At a time of increasing climate crisis, of course the tardigrade—which has survived all 5 great extinction events—should win www.theguardian.com/environment/...
- In Waterstones. What’s the story here then
- And here’s the research article in The British Art Journal britishartjournal.co.uk/recovery-of-...
- Great bit of art detective work this www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...
- Great bit of art detective work this www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...
- Does Norman Foster think Manchester United are relocating to Dubai? www.theguardian.com/football/202...
- Some of us will go to an art gallery this weekend. Maybe it will help us reflect or inspire us. Isn’t that part of a life well lived? ... But what if you didn’t? What if there were no galleries, theatres, publishers or concert halls? What if we got rid of art? www.theguardian.com/books/2025/m...
- Today I'm thinking about Ceal Floyer's Working Title (Digging), a stereo sound installation that aurally represents the act of shovelling dirt. freunde-der-nationalgalerie.de/en/blog/acqu...
- A sad day: RIP to the @britishlibrary.bsky.social's vaguely Italian-sounding, impressively laconic sign which greets visitors on the entrance piazza. Replaced with this much more conventionally grammared yellow sign. Interesting to note the continuing commitment to capitalising "piazza".
- "The painting had been hanging in the National Museum in Gdańsk, when on 24 April 1974, a cleaner knocked it from the wall, the frame broke, and she discovered the painting had been replaced with a photograph." www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...
- Will be in New York next week for the College Art Association annual conference #CAA2025 — so looking for NYC recommendations
- I would bet on this being a verbatim play at the Almeida within 10 years www.theguardian.com/environment/...
- To the tune of “we found love in a hopeless place”
- Wow, these paintings by Eric Tucker are extraordinary. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign... ‘Secret Lowry’: the ex-gravedigger who painted northern life, from factory to fuggy pub
- If you told me this, an image of the Horsehead Nebula captured by telescopes, was a promo image for the film Wicked, I would believe you www.eso.org/public/image...
- These are very good
- Reposted by surya bowyer'The feeling of the show, then, is of provisionality, of history in the process of being digested and rewritten.' Wonderful encapsulation of what History is and how it 'works'. (And NB the exhibition itself is also a real treat).
- Like just LOOK at this panopticon... Wonder what Foucault would have thought
- Escape from the terrordome: how Netherlands panopticon prisons are being reborn as stunning arts hubs. They were built to instil fear. Now these giant domed jails, which date back to the 1700s, are being turned into creative centres www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...
- This is a great, Pynchon-esque story: Secretive underground exploration group assists with missing museum artefacts in Melbourne. Members of clandestine group retrieve objects from drains after burst pipe at Australian museum’s storage facility. www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/01/06/s...
- Escape from the terrordome: how Netherlands panopticon prisons are being reborn as stunning arts hubs. They were built to instil fear. Now these giant domed jails, which date back to the 1700s, are being turned into creative centres www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...
- hi @willpooley.bsky.social just to say I really enjoyed "Sheet Happens" and have found it helpful in my own work. so thank you
- Reposted by surya bowyerEl Greco’s portrait of the great renaissance miniaturist Giulio Clovio in 1570, holding one of his masterpieces. Today has been his day.
- This handbag would EAT at Paris Fashion Week
- Reposted by surya bowyerLacan wishes you a happy new year, from the first seminar of Lacan.
- "patriarchy puts women in a sceptical scenario, making the distinction between the men you can and can't trust difficult to draw." An excellent, important piece by Sophie Smith in the @londonreview.bsky.social - www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
- I hate the term "museum professional". It's work. You are a museum worker.
- Reposted by surya bowyerIt's my tenth anniversary of moving to Neasden today. To celebrate, here are ten Top Facts about the suburb everybody loves to deride ... #NWology
- Reposted by surya bowyerI don't see many long threads on here, but I'll try one - it's about Holbein's Ambassadors, his 1533 masterpiece in the National Gallery. It's often presented as a great mystery, but I think once we understand the circumstances in which it was made, its meaning becomes clearer. 1/
- Versailles: Science and Splendour is the Guardian's exhibition of the week (with a great photo of my colleague Hannah Cenusa cleaning Louis XV's rhino). Very proud to have worked on this exhibition! www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...
- "What good might be achieved if auction houses and academia were to work more closely together on provenance research?" A blog post on the recent "State of the Field" article by @shreyagupta.bsky.social, @libertypaterson.bsky.social, Niti Acharya, & me. www.history.org.uk/higher-ed/ca...
- Reposted by surya bowyer[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by surya bowyerThis excellent article by @suryabowyer.com, Shreya Gupta, @libertypaterson.bsky.social , and Niti Acharya includes a generous reflection on AHRC funded work in collections, and a challenge for the future @hisjournalha.bsky.social
- Reposted by surya bowyerNeil Postman’s Seven Question are useful here (Neil was on my dissertation committee):
- The arrangement of this board makes it look like Rudiger is some omnipotent god looking down upon his subjects from heaven, and the hippo at bottom right is screaming out at him for the unfairness of god’s judgement ⚽️
- Reposted by surya bowyerAll ills of the human race
- I would like a return to this style of phone number please. Simple. Chic. Mysterious. (No this was not the number for a museum.) 📜
- Reposted by surya bowyerhistorians:
- Reposted by surya bowyerArchives hold the keys to history. You can find information on so much, from your local area, your own house or street, to large political movements and social history. There's so much to discover in your local archive!
- Reposted by surya bowyer
[This post could not be retrieved] - Reposted by surya bowyerSlowly thinking thru a BA lecture on “materiality” as an art historical tool/lens. My focus will prob be on Victorian painting & the many “materialities” & “materialisms” of the #c19th. Soliciting recs for a good set text on art history and materiality to accompany it 👀👀 #arthistory #c19th
- Reposted by surya bowyerMan with a Beer Jug, by Frans Hals, 1630, 📸 by @zachosterman.bsky.social
- Reposted by surya bowyer'The animal is an enormous bit of surviving evidence of a period of so-called “rhinomania” that swept Europe at the end of the 18th century, with clocks, decorations and occasionally even wigs all styled to feature the shape of the animal.'
- One of the most perfectly executed "letters to the editor" I have ever seen. www.economist.com/letters/2024...
- Reposted by surya bowyer[Not loaded yet]
- screaming crying throwing up (but not in a good way) www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
- Friday reshare: By analysing the work of a new generation of scholars, this article charts recent research trends and looks forward to future directions in the field of the history of collecting and its institutions. That future is a thrilling one. Read free: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
- "The history of collecting has sometimes been understood as the history of individual collectors. But collecting institutions (e.g., museums) are worthy of attention because they profoundly impact why we, as historians, look at some things and not others." onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
- This was the only logical thing to do actually
- It's been really enjoyable to work on this exhibition. It includes so many absolutely exquisite objects, many on loan from European institutions. Also: an enormous taxidermied Indian rhino given to Louis XV by the French governor of Chandernagor. Gonna be a big one. Tickets: tinyurl.com/zyndvz3z
- Reposted by surya bowyer"by paying attention to the history of collecting we can better understand why particular documents, objects, or artworks are permitted to become history's ‘materials’." onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
