TED Talks
TED: Can art amend history? | Titus Kaphar
Artist Titus Kaphar makes paintings and sculptures that wrestle with the struggles of the past while speaking to the diversity and advances of the present. In an unforgettable live workshop, Kaphar takes a brush full of white paint to a...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The chaotic brilliance of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat - Jordana Moore Saggese
Like Beat writers who composed their work by shredding and reassembling scraps of writing, artist Jean-Michel Basquiat used similar techniques to remix his materials. Pulling in splintered anatomy, reimagined historical scenes and...
Curated Video
What is the Future of Art?
New ReviewHow do smartphones and 3-D models change how we experience art? And even history itself? In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll learn how technology is shifting the ways we think about art’s past, present, and future. Crash...
Curated Video
What's the Difference Between Art & Design?
New ReviewWhat counts as design? What counts as art? And how did this debate start? In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll trace the history of privileging some materials and techniques over others. We’ll explore how street fashion,...
Curated Video
Who Gets to Be a "Real" Artist? (Amateur & Outsider Art)
New ReviewFor centuries, “official” art spaces have shaped whose work gets taken seriously. But there are no required qualifications for making art! In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll explore amateurs and outsiders. We’ll learn how...
Curated Video
Does Defacing Art = Activism?
New ReviewArt is the perfect tool for activists to get across their message and make people pay attention. In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll learn about the centuries-long practice of iconoclasm, how art intersects with protest...
Curated Video
Why Is Art So Expensive?
New ReviewWhat makes a painting worth millions of dollars? In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’re looking at the history behind today’s art industry and how we determine an artwork’s financial value. We’ll also learn how the big...
Curated Video
Is AI-Generated Art Original? (Authenticity & Originality)
New ReviewWhat’s the line between inspiration and flat-out appropriation? In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we grapple with questions about artistic originality and authenticity that have plagued the art world for hundreds of years. In...
Curated Video
Graffiti, Street Art & Murals: What We Learn from Public Art
New ReviewIndependent public art like graffiti and street art often gets a bad rap, thanks to its legal classification as vandalism. But these art forms have much to offer as a means for people to speak truth to power and take ownership of...
Curated Video
How a Banana Sold for $150,000: Modern Art
New ReviewOur cultural perspectives shape how we perceive art, including who we see as contributing to its most important movements. In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll get to the truth behind the creation of modernism and bust the...
Curated Video
Origins of Color (Trade & Exchange)
New ReviewHow can the color “red” be a global commodity? How can the way a statue stands be a sign of cultural exchange? In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll explore how trade networks have moved both materials and ideas — and how...
Curated Video
Bodies in Art
New ReviewIn this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll hold a mirror to our bodies…in art, anyway. We’ll learn what portraits and self-portraits can tell us about the people they represent and about artists who’ve used bodies to critique...
Curated Video
The Hidden Meanings in Nature Art
New ReviewFrom sunsets to double rainbows, nature’s full of beautiful things. So it’s not surprising that artists have found inspiration in Mother Nature for millennia. What is surprising is the wide variety of human concerns that nature art has...
Curated Video
How Do Religions Use Art?
New ReviewFrom the Egyptian Book of the Dead to Tibetan Buddhist sand mandalas, humans have always reached for art to express religious ideas and impulses. In this episode, we’ll explore how concepts of the divine and spirituality intersect with...
Curated Video
How Does Art Tell Stories?
New ReviewFrom cave paintings to public murals, humans have told stories with art for thousands of years. In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we discover that visual storytelling is elementally human — and so is competing over whose story...
Curated Video
What Is Good Art?
New ReviewWhat makes some art valuable enough to hang in museums? In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll look at different ways we can figure out the value of art beyond the number on the price tag, and we’ll examine how culture,...
Curated Video
Should We Separate Art from the Artist?
New ReviewIn this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll keep digging into the myth of the Great Artist, with whether we can—or should—separate artists’ personal actions and beliefs from the art they create. Art historians are exploring new...
Curated Video
What Makes an Artist “Great”?
New ReviewMichelangelo. Vincent Van Gogh. Pablo Picasso. The story of art history is told through the biographies of individual celebrity artists. In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll learn about where the myth of the Great Artist...
Curated Video
The History of Museums
New ReviewIn this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll learn why museums are so much more than just collections of interesting and pretty objects. Their legacy includes everything from violence to theft, to, oddly enough, mermaid hands.
Curated Video
How to Look at Art
New ReviewHow long do you typically look at an artwork, and what can you learn in that time? In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll acquire a toolbox of terms to help us discover how all art is influenced by the time and place it was...
Curated Video
Why We Study Art
New ReviewArt history is much more than names, dates, and creepy babies. It helps us understand how history itself gets constructed and told. In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll learn how interpreting artwork reveals connections...
Curated Video
Crash Course Art History Preview
New ReviewWelcome to Crash Course Art History! Over the next 22 episodes, Sarah Urist Green will explore the hidden stories behind artworks. We’ll make connections across time and space, unlock the secrets of the past, and look ahead to the art of...
Curated Video
The Importance of Preserving, Restoring, & Conserving Art
New ReviewArt tells the story of humanity across societies and cultures, but keeping that art around for future generations can be a monumental task. In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll learn how art historians preserve, restore,...
Curated Video
Why Is Everyone So Mad About Public Art?
New ReviewFrom giant rock sculptures to Confederate statues, there’s something about public art that cranks up the temperature of debate. In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll learn about public art’s diversity of media, how it shapes...