Tim Brinkhof

Amsterdam, New York

Journalist at Freelance

General Assignment Reporter at Big Think

Writes about art and history for @bigthink. Also seen in @vulture, @jacobin, @JSTOR_Daily, @newlinesmag + more.

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Articles

Oopsie! 6 Times Small Children Caused Big Damage at Art Museums

3 days ago | news.artnet.com | Tim Brinkhof

It’s up there on the list of parents’ worst nightmares: You bring your kids to a museum, turn around for a moment, then turn back to find they have broken or damaged some priceless piece of art. No, this doesn’t only happen in movies. At a museum in the Netherlands, for example, a child under the age of five recently scratched a painting from American artist Mark Rothko, causing it to be removed from display for restoration. Children, it should be noted, rarely damage art on purpose.
The Many Lives of Istanbul’s 1,500-Year-Old Architectural Icon

3 days ago | news.artnet.com | Tim Brinkhof

Few buildings, including culturally significant places of worship, have a history as rich and complicated as the Hagia Sophia. First erected in the 6th century C.E., the structure has variously been used as an Orthodox cathedral, Catholic church, Islamic mosque, and secular museum, with appropriate decorations to boot.
The Many Lives of Istanbul’s 1,500-Year-Old Architectural Icon

3 days ago | flipboard.com | Tim Brinkhof

13 hours agoRebecca McLellan is trying to safeguard the future of a rare breed of sheep one scarf at a time. She fell in love with the Castlemilk Moorit and now has her own flock of 18 on the farm where she and her husband live in Rockcliffe on the Solway Firth. Rebecca was keen to look at ways to help ensure …
Kim Kardashian’s Surprisingly Wild History With the Art World

4 days ago | news.artnet.com | Tim Brinkhof

Most people wouldn’t associate Kim Kardashian with fine art. Entertainment, fashion, skincare—yes. But art? Well, think again. Over the course of becoming one of the biggest media personalities on the planet, Kardashian has worked alongside and come into contact with numerous artists, from fashion photographers who turn her into the centerpiece of their latest shoots to painters who designed albums for her ex-husband, Kanye West.
Inside the Monumental Project to Carve Mount Rushmore

4 days ago | news.artnet.com | Tim Brinkhof

The four presidential faces that make up Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota have become such a fixture of American visual culture, it’s hard to imagine that the monument might have looked very different from the imposing view we’re used to. But in an alternate reality, it very well could have. First, some history. Like any other part of the United States, the land on which Mount Rushmore rests used to belong to Native Americans, specifically the Lakota tribe.
7 Times A.I. Helped Unlock Ancient Secrets

6 days ago | news.artnet.com | Tim Brinkhof

Nowadays, most people associate artificial intelligence with language models like ChatGPT. However, machine learning can do more than generate text. In the fields of archaeology and philology, A.I. is being used to analyze data that humans cannot process, either because they are too large or too noisy. As a result, the last couple years have borne witness to numerous unprecedented breakthroughs.
7 Times A.I. Helped Unlock Ancient Secrets

6 days ago | flipboard.com | Tim Brinkhof

3 hours agoAs the Trump administration continues to try to defund NPR and PBS, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting said this week that the Department of Education has ended a federal grant that helped fund children's shows. In a press release on May 6, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting said the …
Rujm el-Hiri: The Mysterious 'Stonehenge of the East' is Moving

6 days ago | news.artnet.com | Tim Brinkhof

For decades, it was believed that Rujm el-Hiri—an ancient stone megalith located on Syria’s Golan Heights plateau consisting of circular walls orbiting a central mound—was used as an astronomical observatory. This belief, based on the notion that the placement of its structural elements aligned with the movement of celestial bodies, was difficult to refute. That is, until researchers discovered their position may have shifted over time.
Decoding Babylon: 4 Discoveries That Transformed Our View of the Ancient Empire

1 week ago | news.artnet.com | Tim Brinkhof

Cuneiform script, developed in Mesopotamia around 3,200 B.C.E., is the oldest known writing system. Closely associated with the legendary kingdom of Babylon, this distinctive script—seemingly composed of lines and triangles—was primarily recorded on iPad-shaped clay tablets using reed styluses. Due in part to their durability, many of these tablets have survived into the present. Actually, “many” would be a bit of an understatement.
How South Korea's Directors Took Their Discontent Global

1 week ago | newlinesmag.com | Tim Brinkhof

Five years ago, Jane Fonda announced “Parasite” as the best picture at the Academy Awards, ushering in an age of unprecedented global interest in South Korean film and television that has spanned generations and continents, enticing audiences above all with stories about the failings of contemporary capitalism.