This article is part of the Fine Arts & Exhibits special section on the art world stretching boundaries with new artists, new audiences and new technology. It’s rare to experience art in a nearly totally dark room. But last year at the National Nordic Museum in Seattle, that’s where visitors …

This article is part of the Fine Arts & Exhibits special section on the art world stretching boundaries with new artists, new audiences and new technology. Back in 1838, Louis Daguerre captured the first photo of a human being with revolutionary technology. Not long after, the French painter Paul Delaroche …

This article is part of the Fine Arts & Exhibits special section on the art world stretching boundaries with new artists, new audiences and new technology. It’s always nice to put a face to a name, and visitors to the new exhibition at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston — “Power …

Ever since the pandemic lockdowns of 2020 inspired a wave of sourdough starters and Zoom drawing classes, hobbies have been having a resurgence. These seven podcasts spotlight their importance, featuring expert tips and interviews with casual hobbyists that may inspire you to pick up a new pastime. ‘The Dork Forest’ …

While Bryan Ferry was picking songs for “Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023,” — a new boxed set recapping his long solo career apart from Roxy Music, the pioneering British art-rock band he led — the singer noticed a recurring theme. “There’s a lot of love songs, a lot of romantic songs,” …

Phil Lesh, the bassist and a charter member of the Grateful Dead who was 84 when he died on Friday, will be remembered as a versatile musician and a pioneer for his instrument of choice. Lesh co-wrote songs and was an occasional lead vocalist across his 30-year career with the …

There are a few things that New York theatergoers can always expect to see on Broadway stages: some Disney, some Sondheim, some Hollywood stars. One may not expect to see the Colossal Titan. What is the Colossal Titan? That would be a giant, skinless humanoid creature, all red tendons and …

This summer, Ayad Akhtar was struggling with the final scene of “McNeal,” his knotty and disorienting play about a Nobel Prize-winning author who uses artificial intelligence to write a novel. He wanted the title character, played by Robert Downey Jr. in his Broadway debut, to deliver a monologue that sounded …

Why did Vincent van Gogh paint a skeleton smoking a cigarette? His 1886 painting doesn’t quite seem to fit into his larger output, one teeming with swirling landscapes and emotive portraits. Some art historians have said that “Head of a Skeleton With a Burning Cigarette” was merely van Gogh, still …

Some rock bassists make it their job to hold down the bottom of a song: to hone parts that crisply but unobtrusively stake out a harmonic and rhythmic foundation, that are felt as much as heard. Phil Lesh, a founding member of the Grateful Dead who died on Friday at …