10 New Photo Shows Expose the Insides of Statues and Atoms, Women and Revolutions ( English Version )

David Maisel’s X-rays of art objects offer glimpses of what could be the secret troubled soul of antique statues. Against a black background, glowing traces show what is normally hidden by carefully worked surfaces; twisted supports and fillings, nails, and unexpected hollows suggest the unseen interior life of these objects.

David Maisel, History’s Shadow GM3, 2005-6, archival pigment print.

©DAVID MAISEL, COURTESY THE ARTIST AND YANCEY RICHARDSON.

Matthew Brandt: Excavations

12 Museum-Worthy Power Suits from Around the World ( English Version )

Yinka Shonibare, Magic Ladders, 2013, mannequins, Dutch wax-printed cotton, leather, fiberglass, wooden ladders, paper-covered wooden books, globe heads, and steel.

©YINKA SHONIBARE MBE. COURTESY JAMES COHAN GALLERY, NEW YORK/SHANGHAI AND STEPHEN FRIEDMAN GALLERY, LONDON. PHOTO: STEPHEN WHITE.

Post-colonial hijinks from Yinka Shonibare in Magic Ladders, his show at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. The ladder is made of books written or read by the collection’s founder, Dr. Albert C. Barnes, whose then-unorthodox approaches to African art and African American education helped inspire this discovery-themed artwork.

How Michelangelo Made David into a Giant ( English Article )

n Rome, Michelangelo lived very close to the Column of Trajan, where he could not help but be awed by the sophistication of ancient Roman technology. The column is formed of 20 colossal marble drums, each weighing 32 tons. To lift a 32-ton marble drum to the top of the almost finished column was an engineering feat worthy of a Roman emperor, but it was not within the capacity of any Renaissance builder. There is no avoiding the tyranny of weight.

A contemporary artist imagines the scaffolding that might have been used to lift David to the roofline of Florence Cathedral.

ANDREW C. RUBIN

It is well known that Filippo Brunelleschi devised a number