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surya bowyer

@suryabowyer.com

890 followers 480 following 110 posts

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surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Nov 25

"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....

State of the (Future) Field: The History of Collecting and Its Institutions

This article considers the state of the field of the history of collecting and its institutions. Following on from a 2021 ‘state of the field’ article, also published in this journal, the present pie....

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Jul 15

Yeah this is a fair assessment. Also get your point about the repeated mispronunciation by anglophone commentators

surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Jul 15

I hear the stress on the first syllable

surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Jul 15

unsure! www.youtube.com/shorts/r57Az...

West Ham Player Squad Name Pronunciation Guide #football #name #shorts

YouTube video by PureFooty

www.youtube.com

surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Jul 15

why is google search so good but google books search so bad?

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surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Apr 16

www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

My parents holding hands after their assisted deaths: Martin Roemers’ most personal photograph

‘Their lives were getting harder, even with help. They did not want to go to a nursing home and neither wanted to live without the other. So they left this life together’

www.theguardian.com

surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Apr 10

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...

V&A Provenance Research Seminar: State of the (Future) Field - Talk at V&A South Kensington · V&A

This talk will consider the state of the field of the history of collecting and its institutions, looking forward also to the future of this evolving field of study.

www.vam.ac.uk

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surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Apr 2

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.

surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Mar 26

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/...

‘Lego and tardigrades’: when humans finally destroy the world, what will remain?

Milnesium tardigradum is only 0.5mm long and has survived all five great extinction events – plus it’s cute

www.theguardian.com

surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Mar 19

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.

surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Mar 18

And here’s the research article in The British Art Journal britishartjournal.co.uk/recovery-of-...

surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Mar 18

Great bit of art detective work this www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

The art expert did it: LGG Ramsey revealed as 1951 thief of Van Dyck painting

Exclusive: How one historian’s investigative work led to artwork finally being returned to ‘English Versailles’

www.theguardian.com

surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Mar 14

I’ve read it but haven’t logged it on my Goodreads, but I’d give it 5 stars

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surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Mar 11

Does Norman Foster think Manchester United are relocating to Dubai? www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Manchester United to build new 100,000-capacity stadium next to Old Trafford

Manchester United have confirmed their intention to build a new 100,000-capacity stadium ‘footsteps’ from their Old Trafford home of 115 years

www.theguardian.com

surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Mar 10

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...

The big idea: should we abolish art?

Down with expensive trophies at art fairs: it’s time to reclaim a more radical vision of creativity

www.theguardian.com

surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Mar 7

What about the good half 😏

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surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Mar 7

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.

surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Mar 5

I think it’s one of the best emoji because it is so versatile

surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Mar 5

Oh I can certainly imagine

surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Mar 5

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."

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surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Mar 4

"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...

Brueghel painting stolen from Poland in 1974 found in local Dutch museum

Art detective and magazine help crack case of Flemish masterpiece thought to have been stolen by Polish agents

www.theguardian.com

surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Feb 5

Will be in New York next week for the College Art Association annual conference #CAA2025 — so looking for NYC recommendations

surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Feb 5

I would bet on this being a verbatim play at the Almeida within 10 years
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

‘It’s like solving a murder’: who dumped 30 tonnes of rubbish on Lichfield?

The city is determined to solve the ‘whodumpedit’ mystery after a huge pile of refuse was discarded, blocking the road. But with fly-tipping across the UK on the up, will it be possible to find the cu...

www.theguardian.com

surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Jan 28

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.

surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Jan 23

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

‘Secret Lowry’: the ex-gravedigger who painted northern life, from factory to fuggy pub

He repaired his car with Sellotape and kept his trousers up with rope. But Eric Tucker had a hidden life – painting drinkers, smokers and factory-workers without saccharine or sentiment. Now a book ce...

www.theguardian.com

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surya bowyer @suryabowyer.com · Jan 23

Aren’t arguments stories?