Friday Links: prison art, truck art, temporary-tattoo art

Photographer: Robert Howlett | Isambard Kingdom Brunel, builder of the Great Eastern | ca. 1857-1858 | George Eastman House, eastmanhouse.org
Some stories we’ve been reading this week:
- A prisoner slowly created an enormous work of art from bed sheets, hair gel, and a plastic spoon, which he sent out of prison piece by piece to assemble when he was released.
- Tough ethical question: Does one ethnic group own its cultural artefacts?
- According to a study in the European Journal of Finance, major artists are also major narcissists.
- We shouldn’t laugh but we can’t help it: A driver tried to drive through a painted tunnel, Wile E. Coyote style.
- We’re pretty impressed with this Instagram account that integrates album covers into famous works of art.
- We deserve class credits in Art History for playing MondriPong.
- An artist made a temporary finger tattoo of the anamorphic skull in Hans Holbein’s “The Ambassadors.” The skull is seen in its undistorted form when you point the finger. (Reminder: we wrote about the many other reasons that painting is interesting.)
- A 10th-century crucifix suggests Christianity may have come to the Vikings earlier than originally thought. Bonus: the crucifix looks amazing.
- After browsing this fantastic photo gallery we can’t wait to watch Horn Please, a documentary about India’s truck art.
- It’s understandable that ancient artworks might take a long time to surface, but it’s kind of weird when they disappear again for four decades.