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surya bowyer
@suryabowyer.com
890 followers 480 following 110 posts
curator & historian
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Today I'm looking at: Remedios Varo's "Simpatía (La rabia del gato)" aka Sympathy (the cat's rage).
A painting: Remedios Varo's "Simpatía (La rabia del gato)". A surrealist scene. A woman sits at a table, looking down at an orange cat with its hind legs held aloft in the air. A glass of water has spilled on the table; the water runs off, creating a river on the floor.
April 2, 2025 at 1:39 PM
suryabowyer.com
In Waterstones. What’s the story here then
A pair of black shoes on the floor of a Waterstones. The shoes’ owner is nowhere to be found.
March 19, 2025 at 10:51 PM
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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...
Ceal Floyer's Working Title (Digging), a stereo sound installation that aurally represents the act of shovelling dirt. Two speakers lying face up on the floor, in opposite corners of an otherwise blank room in a gallery. A CD play, connected to both speakers by wires, sits in another corner.
March 7, 2025 at 5:34 PM
suryabowyer.com
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".
A (now outdated) sign outside the British Library in London which reads: Please take care, Piazza slippery. Please take care. Piazza can be slippery in wet/icy conditions. British Library Estates." The new sign outside the British Library, which reads: "Please take care, the Piazza can be slippery in wet or icy conditions."
March 5, 2025 at 2:24 PM
suryabowyer.com
To the tune of “we found love in a hopeless place”
A label from the British Museum exhibition “Silk Roads”. It reads: Byzantine connections in a desert palace - Also from Jordan, this section of a vibrant mosaic once decorated the floor of Qusayr Amra, an Umayyad 'desert palace' built for royal entertainment. Mosaics in early Islamic architecture drew from Byzantine traditions, sometimes reusing tesserae (small blocks) taken from churches. Wall paintings at this site also reference Byzantine art in their figurative imagery. Qusayr Ama was one of the desert complexes that the Umayyad caliphs constructed. Many were built along major routes connecting the Silk Roads, and may have provided respite for travellers.
January 28, 2025 at 3:02 PM
suryabowyer.com
Like just LOOK at this panopticon... Wonder what Foucault would have thought
January 7, 2025 at 5:07 PM
suryabowyer.com
This handbag would EAT at Paris Fashion Week
The “VARSYREN” tea light lantern sold by IKEA, with me holding it The “VARSYREN” tea light lantern sold by IKEA, with me holding it
January 3, 2025 at 7:54 PM
suryabowyer.com
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 ⚽️
An image of the board that is beside the enclosure for Toni the Pygmy hippo at Berlin Zoo, who is sponsored by the German footballer Antonio Rudiger
December 6, 2024 at 10:56 PM
suryabowyer.com
I would like a return to this style of phone number please. Simple. Chic. Mysterious. (No this was not the number for a museum.) 📜
A cropped image from an issue of the magazine Pictorial Education, bearing the text, "Telephone: Museum 8521".
December 6, 2024 at 3:23 PM
suryabowyer.com
One of the most perfectly executed "letters to the editor" I have ever seen. www.economist.com/letters/2024...
A screenshot of a letter to the editor that appeared in The Economist. It reads: Spotting a trend As an airship enthusiast, I am glad to see that the industry is on the verge of taking off ("The sky's the limit", November 2nd). I always get a lift out of this story when you run it, such as "Airships could be returning for commercial travel" (March 22nd 2016), "Reviving airships" (March 8th 2014), "Flying saucers" (December 11th 2010), "Are they coming back?" (no, alas, July 12th 2008) and "Pushing the envelope" (May 29th 1999), just to name a few. With soaring spirits I look forward to your next report about the sky-high future of airships. JOHN ASTELL Holden, Massachusetts
November 29, 2024 at 7:08 PM
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This was the only logical thing to do actually
A screenshot of a headline from the Art Newspaper. The photo shows a man eating a banana that has tape attached to it; he is holding a microphone. The headline reads: Crypto investor eats Cattelan banana he bought for $6.2m. The subheadline reads: Justin Sun, who purchased the work just last week, also pledged to buy 100,000 bananas from the vendor who originally sold the fruit for $0.25
November 29, 2024 at 1:50 PM
suryabowyer.com
I know nothing about this type of trompe l'oeil — a curtain, painted over the main part of the composition. Can anyone enlighten me? I'm rather in love with it... www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6...
November 26, 2024 at 5:37 PM
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Y2K fears! in the Archive
October 27, 2023 at 11:46 AM
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At the Foundling Museum
October 25, 2023 at 9:39 PM
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In their guidance for the Weston Loan Programme grant, Art Fund gives an example list of artworks being sought for loan from national institutions for an exhibition at a regional museum. And it is an absolutely unhinged list. Can you imagine the exhibition these would make???
October 24, 2023 at 4:23 PM
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I mean cmon
October 20, 2023 at 3:11 PM
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Ananda Ranga Pillai (1709–1761), who worked as a translator for the French East India Company, and looked rather a lot like Robin Williams
October 20, 2023 at 2:43 PM
suryabowyer.com
Looking for a good overview of French colonial activity across the world during the 17th century and up to the early 18th century — can anyone here help?
October 19, 2023 at 6:34 PM
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Timothée Chalamet: “Be honest. Be honest! What car did your dad drive you to school in? What car was it? What car did you get your dad to drive you to school in? No no no no no. What car? Thank you.”
October 19, 2023 at 7:43 AM
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On the chasm between curators and visitors: “Why is it here? How was it made? & why was it made? are three of the most popular questions overlooked by curators whose own key questions are: When was it made? What size and medium is it? & who owned it before us?” - 'Very Spaghetti'
October 18, 2023 at 11:18 AM
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Auguste Rodin carrying his Gates of Hell as a heavy weight. Caricature by Ferdinand Paillet. 1884. Watercolour.
October 17, 2023 at 4:39 PM
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Office for the day. Not a bad view
October 17, 2023 at 8:53 AM
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Looking for good intro reading on C19 ethnographic portrayals of people where the person is anonymised / de-individualised to stand for a broader “type”. Particularly interested in British treatment of people of colour. Also particularly interested in drawings rather than photos.
October 16, 2023 at 2:04 PM
suryabowyer.com
Just came across this portrait of Charles James Fox, 18th-century Whig politician. Why's man looking so worried? What does it say on that piece of paper??
Portrait of Charles James Fox by Karl Anton Hickel, 1794. Fox is smartly dressed, holding a bundle of papers, and looks worried.
October 16, 2023 at 10:48 AM
suryabowyer.com
Who gets remembered, and who forgotten?
PAPER CUTS: Art, Bureaucracy, and Silenced Histories in Colonial India
An exhibition at Peltz Gallery, London
25 April - 12 July 2024
Launch event: www.bbk.ac.uk/events/remot...
Image credit: Ravista Mehra, Kusmi Tea, English Breakfast, 2016
A collage. Fractured figures, objects, and patterns from South Asia, pasted onto a fuchsia background. Artist: Ravista Mehra. Artwork title: Kusmi Tea, English Breakfast. Date: 2016.
October 13, 2023 at 2:36 PM