Pete Seeger's lyric, When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn? (1961) was a fitting refrain for "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," but also about how people perpetually ignore history. This poster (its designer unknown at this time) reprises the lyric without singing the song.

Recognizing that life needs shelter, water and food to survive, these hand-sculpted biotopes combine craft with ecology to show how low-tech approaches can be a viable solution to creating diverse and healthier urban ecosystems.

His artwork involves ordinary objects and materials that are repurposed or reconfigured to create new, unexpected things.

Alex MacLean’s Up on the Roof peeks in on NYC’s most mysterious (and underutilized) spaces.

In the late 1970s, bohemian hipsters on L.A.'s west side were getting Wet. Despite its small circulation, it became highly influential among local artists, designers, and architects. And now, "Making Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing," provides a sampling of its spirit.
 

Danish firm Monstrum, founded by Ole B. Nielsen and Christian Jensen, are responsible for some of the most brilliant playscapes ever seen.

As the world heats up, it will be increasingly important to have itty-bitty swimsuits to wear (under your voluminous poncho, of course, once the ozone layer crumbles and turns sunlight to poison).

Standing at 25 to 50 metres (82 to 164 feet) tall, the Supertrees are designed to be covered with diverse plants of all kinds, from climbers, flowers, bromeliads to epiphytes and ferns.

In their project Camping, Caravaning, Arquitecturing, artists and designers Miquel Olle and Sofia Mataix spent 30 days learning from people who live with less in creative ways.

Clip shows a painting she completed over 1.5 hours as part of the 1000drawings project last month.

There was a time when nudist magazines were also considered taboo nudie magazines. Sunshine & Health was one of the sought after books for both the followers of sunbathing and the enjoyers of the consequence thereof.

The 1930s sketch, never previously seen in public, was hidden among a handful that art buff Andy Fields bought for $5.

Artist Bovey Lee hand cuts wonderfully detailed illustrations into Chinese rice paper creating nearly weightless artworks that seem to buzz with fantastical narratives.

Watch the video.

San Francisco-area landscape artist Andreas Amador etches massive sand drawings onto beaches during full moons when his canvas reaches its largest potential.

What if the Old Masters had our standards of beauty? For her "Venus" project, Italian artist Anna Utopia Giordano took classic paintings of Venus from art history and digitally altered them to reflect the kind of look prefered by the media today, making waists tinier, thighs skinnier, and breasts bigger. The results are both a form of social commentary and a kind of unintended Surrealism. (View the Slideshow.)

Passersby are confronted with a spray painted canvas bearing the repeated prompt “Before I die…” and can use provided chalk to complete the sentence, creating a public space for spontaneously shared dreams, hopes, fears and aspirations.

Urban art projects can help change the way we see our cities, but can they actually improve the way cities work? A group of Moscow-based artists/activists think they can.

In the age of PDFs and electronic everything, paperclips seem old-fashioned, even anachronistic. Toronto-based design trio Interstice Studio doesn't seem to think so, and in their latest room-sized installation have taken paperclip reuse to new heights.

Awesome photos from the 1940’s.

Kodachrome is a type of color reversal film introduced by Eastman Kodak in 1935. It was one of the first successful color materials and was used for both cinematography and stills photography. Kodachrome was the subject of a Paul Simon song and a US state park was named after it. For many years it was used for professional color photography, especially for images intended for publication in print media. Its manufacture was discontinued in 2009 and film processing ended in 2010.

Japanese artist Makoto Tojiki uses long strands of lights to create representations of people and animals.

Here is a giant installation called The Purge by artist Chris Whiteburch who decided to imagine how the house itself would confront impending doom. The result is a structure purging its contents, all manner of debris and structural material shooting violently through a window into a giant wooden splash. (Suddenly a little dog vomit now and then doesn’t seem so bad. –B)

In his Face of the City series, Toronto-based artist Dan Bergeron (aka Fauxreel) examines the identity of cities by juxtaposing the “abrasive charm found in the distressed surfaces of modern cities with the intimate familiarity of the prominent features of the human face”.

For design wonks around the world, there’s a new must-see destination opening in Italy in June: a sprawling 6,000-square-meter installation space by the Bisazza Foundation, a non-profit devoted to design and architecture, freshly launched by the Italian brand of fine mosaic glass tiling.

With Valentine's Day around the corner, you've got just a few more days to pick up a gift....or make yourself the gift.

A copy of Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" was painted by a pupil or follower of the artist at about the same time as the original was created, and is now considered the oldest known copy of the enigmatic piece of work.

The best way to use tobacco.

Somehow these photographers did: Postcards from America—a box set containing zines, bumper stickers, postcards, and a build-it-yourself-poster—which became available this week, is the proof.

In 2008 Lee Jeffries, an amateur photographer and accountant by profession, began photographing homeless people. His portraits may be uncompromising, but they are also beautiful.

Berlin-based artist Matthew Davis creates these surreal images by using his brush to slowly drip oil paints into small pools.

Australian architect and paper artist Horst Kiechle recently constructed this geometric paper torso complete with modular organs including lungs, intestines, kidneys, pancreas, stomach and more.

More artists exist than can possibly make it without a change in the way society consumes visual art.

Stairs may serve a utilitarian purpose, but this breath-taking set of treads by UK-based Atmos Studio takes it to new heights. Designed as part of a residential project, the stairs seem to come alive as it turns the corner, unravelling sculptural elements that organically encase and animate the transitional space.

Made by one guy in Oregon.

We are communicators, aesthetes, conceptual thinkers and craftsmen. Here's how to make it all work.

The leafy parts of the trees with be surrounded with engraved metal rings, six metres in diameter and weighing almost half a ton. The rings will be engraved as a memorial to the games.

Notes on customs, habits, and mating rituals of the residents at Yaddo, MacDowell, and other artists’ retreats.

Entry for 'Land art generator' competition. (Not quite as current as we would like but too good to pass up. –B)

Check it out. (There’s some Complex Shit here. -B)

I dreamt I took a bullet to the chest
And fell in a poppy field in Kandahar…

A Poem.
 

A photo essay on intersection-painting urban art projects.

They aren't the kinds of images the phrase "intelligent design" brings to mind.

American Apparel has trumped Benetton for the most provocative advertising campaign.

The visitor climbs on foot via differently steep steps the roller-coaster-sculpture. So the sculpture subtly and ironically plays with the dialectic of promise and disappointment, mobility and standstill.

What does a game of strip poker, currently being played for a week straight in a Manhattan storefront window, have to do with the economy? Well, everything — according to the artist at least.

You won’t find too many star-studded exhibitions like this one. Work by a variety of masters such as Paul Gauguin, Auguste Rodin, and Eugene Delacroix will be a draw, framed as direct influences on the great Impressionist. But the centerpiece is Degas, whose nudes offer the fullest expression of the fascination with human form. (If you can’t make it to Boston, view the slideshow. –B)

The winning posters for London's 2012 Olympics have been released and many deserve a Gold medal.

Something is stirring in Detroit. Here, in a city that in the past decade alone lost a quarter of its already dwindling population, plans are in the works to revive the manufacturing economy -- at least on a small scale.

What we learn by misremembering our favorite lines.