We're surrounded by design genius every day, yet most of us barely notice it. That humble paperclip holding your documents together? It's a marvel of engineering. The espresso cup cradling your ...

Israeli artist Dudi Ben Simon has an incredible knack for blending the ordinary and extraordinary into surreal visual poetry. His art fuses everyday objects with clever photography, creating whimsical ...

This fall, writing and fine arts students collaborated to make ordinary objects extraordinary. The Third Mind Project involved students in the two disciplines coming together to elevate everyday ...

This is FRESH AIR. The artist Claes Oldenburg once said, I am for art that embroils itself in everyday crap and still comes out on top. Oldenburg died yesterday. He was 93. He and his wife and partner ...

Rackstraw Downes’s stature as one of today’s most important “realist” painters is secure, but perhaps we can be excused for thinking of him as also a brilliant poet/engineer. During the past six ...

Romain Joly is a French illustrator who loves to mix drawings with everyday objects. An onion, a bottle of nail polish, or a peach—he sees something funny in the most ordinary things. With just a few ...

FLORENCE — It was during the pandemic that artist Joseph Kameen began to notice the way objects can take on human emotions. From the right perspective, a spoon can appear lonely. A slice of fruit ...

Works by the Swedish-born artist include an oversized rubber stamp in Cleveland, a clothespin in Philadelphia and a flashlight in Las Vegas. Oldenburg died July 18. Originally broadcast in 1992. This ...