Newcity Chicago April 2019

CHICAGO’S FOOD AND DRINK 50 APRIL 2019 NICK KOKONAS RESTAURATEUR OF THE MOMENT

From theater to visual art: you want to be here. The Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago is a multidisciplinary home for artistic practice. Connect with the Logan Center for concerts, exhibitions, performances, family programs, and more from world-class, emerging, local, student, and international artists. logancenter.uchicago.edu Logan Center 773.702.ARTS for the Arts 915 E 60th St loganUChicago Photo: Iphigenia. Photo: Matthew Gregory Hollis, courtesy of UChicago Theater and Performing Studies (TAPS)

APRIL 2019 CONTENTS ARTS & CULTURE SUPERFLY ART PIMP ARTIST Gregg Bordowitz gets a Tony \"Bright\" Davis has lived the life retrospective at the Art Institute he depicts 36 7 DANCE RESTAURATEUR OF THE MOMENT Chicago Dance Month gets healthy 42 Nick Kokonas is the Tock of the town 13 DESIGN BIG HEAT FOOD The U.S. Pavilion at the 2018 AND DRINK FIFTY Venice Architecture Biennale comes home 44 These people are why we eat so well. Plus, a Hall of Fame DINING & DRINKING 16 Rise of the influencers 46 APRIL 2019 Newcity FILM Doc10 at four 48 LIT T Fleischmann discusses “Time Is The Thing A Body Moves Through” 51 MUSIC Post-rock thrives 53 STAGE A conversation with UrbanTheater Company Co-Founder Ivan Vega 56 LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL Teen Dream: It's class picture day! 58 3

LETTER FROM campaign, that its tenor had been adopted against his THE EDITOR better nature in the interest of political victory, a sen- timent echoed in today's campaign where the once-im- peccably progressive Toni Preckwinkle is suffering from the burdens of her own opportunistic dealings with the Machine devils. Chicago will soon have an African-American woman I met Richard M. Daley, too, right around the time of mayor. No big deal. his first election in 1989. At that point, Newcity's tran- sition from a South Loop neighborhood newspaper to Though you may know her name when you read this, a citywide alt-weekly was underway, and we'd taken an as I do not when I write this, the fact that it will be an aggressive position on the Daley candidacy, putting African-American woman mayor, and the fact that this ourselves on the map with a cover that parodied the is inevitable since we are choosing from two Afri- sycophantic way the local press was covering him, vir- can-American women, and the fact that it is no big deal, tually coronating him before the election. is a very big deal. So on the day I met him, at the last-minute behest of Newcity started in 1986, three years after the election someone or some organization long forgotten, I did so of the last African-American mayor, Harold Washing- with a fair bit of trepidation. Would this powerful man ton, and that event was a very big deal. For those who be aware of the hard-hitting story that this tiny little supported him, it was a new beginning, a near-Messi- publication had just published? If he was, he did not in- anic movement that would change the city forever, for dicate such. He was gracious and friendly. I met him the better. The vigor of his support was met with an again at the end of his reign, just a month or so after he almost equal share of antagonism from his opposition, stepped down in 2011, when he was being honored by who felt with equal certainty that the election of an the Harold Washington Literary Award. While the African-American mayor would be the beginning of the crowd of literati and moneyed types mingled over cock- end, the moment that would change the city forever, for tails at the Union League Club, Daley was stashed in the worse. another room nearby, a seemingly sad man alone with just a bodyguard for company. The gaggle of favor-seek- Harold's opponent in the 1983 general election for may- ers and suck-ups that always clinged to his power were or was Bernard Epton, a liberal Republican put forth to nowhere to be found. Again, he was friendly, indicating be the routine electoral victim of a city nearly unani- no more awareness of Newcity than he'd had two de- mously Democratic. But when Harold won the Demo- cades earlier. cratic primary, Epton's political fortune soared and his campaign took on the tenor of the Last White Hope, Earlier this year, his brother Bill Daley seemed to be on even adopting the racist dog whistle campaign slogan, a similar inevitable path to be our mayor. He'd raised the \"Before It's Too Late.\" most money, and gathered most of the trappings of pow- er around him, from the business establishment to the I met Harold Washington once, in the earliest days of endorsements of the Chicago Tribune and Crain's. Newcity, when we had a booth at a street fair on Print- ers Row and he was out making the rounds and stopped But then, so much more quietly than in 1983, the peo- by and said hello. Someone memorialized it in a photo ple spoke and we're going to have an African-American and to this day it hangs proudly on my wall. mayor again, a woman no less. No big deal. Newcity APRIL 2019 I never met Bernie Epton, but I would over time meet BRIAN two of his sons. One was a South Loop resident active HIEGGELKE in neighborhood issues, the other started an alt-week- ly in Dayton Ohio. I recollect that both indicated a sadness in their family over the nature of their father's 4



CONTRIBUTORS NANCY CHEN (“A Space for Citizenship”) ON THE COVER is an arts organizer and a freelance arts Nick Kokonas at Tock headquarters DAVID HAMMOND (“Restaurateur of and culture writer from Philadelphia. She Photo: Monica Kass Rogers the Moment,” “Rise of the Influencers” recently moved to Chicago, working on Cover Design: Dan Streeting and editor, “Big Heat”) is Newcity’s dining an MA in the Humanities at the University and drinking editor. A longtime food and of Chicago. Vol. 34, No. 1390 travel writer based in Oak Park, David is known for a particular penchant for hats. CRAIG BECHTEL (“God Isn’t My Only PUBLISHERS Co-Pilot”) is assistant music director for Brian & Jan Hieggelke MONICA KASS ROGERS (Photographer, CHIRP Radio, 107.1 FM. As DJ Craig Associate Publisher Mike Hartnett Cover/“Restaurateur of the Moment” Reptile, you can hear him play music and “Big Heat”) writes and photographs, on the FM dial or at chirpradio.org most EDITORIAL enjoying the adventures that come with Sunday nights from 6pm to 9pm. He also Editor Brian Hieggelke both. Beyond featuring food and food fancies himself an armchair herpetologist, Managing Editor Jan Hieggelke people, she's got a book project and and has a day gecko and a veiled Art Editor Elliot Reichert screenplay in the works. chameleon in his collection. Dance Editor Sharon Hoyer Design Editor Vasia Rigou DAVE HOEKSTRA (“Superfly Pimp AMANDA FINN (“Not For Sale”) is an Dining and Drinking Editor Artist”) spent thirty years as a staff writer “explorer, writer, actor, car karaoke buff, David Hammond at the Chicago Sun-Times. He is a 2013 lover of the arts, philanthropist and Film Editor Ray Pride recipient of the Studs Terkel Community connoisseur of quote tattoos.” Lit Editor Toni Nealie Media Award. He has written seven books, Music Editor Robert Rodi the latest being \"The Camper Book: Theater Editor Kevin Greene A Celebration of a Moveable American Contributing Writers Isa Giallorenzo, Dream\" (Chicago Review Press). Dave Aaron Hunt, Alex Huntsberger, Hugh Iglarsh, hosts \"Nocturnal Journal\" on Saturday Chris Miller, Dennis Polkow, Loy Webb, nights on WGN-AM Chicago. Michael Workman CDiner-NewCIty-BigHeat-2018-v1.ai 1 3/16/18 1:34 PM ART & DESIGN Senior Designers MJ Hieggelke, meat free Fletcher Martin, Dan Streeting , Billy Werch since ’83 Designers Jim Maciukenas, Stephanie Plenner C 10-year consecutive winner, Chicago MARKETING M Reader, Readers’ Poll • veggiediner.com Marketing Manager Todd Hieggelke Y OPERATIONS CM General Manager Jan Hieggelke MY Distribution Coordinator Matt Russell CY Distribution Nick Bachmann, CMY Adam Desantis, Preston Klik, K Quinn Nicholson Newcity APRIL 2019 One copy of current issue free at select locations. Additional copies, including back issues up to one year, may be ordered at Newcity.com/subscribe. Copyright 2019, New City Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Newcity assumes no responsibility to return unsolicited editorial or graphic material. All rights in letters and unsolicited editorial or graphic material will be treated as unconditionally assigned for publication and copyright purposes and subject to comment editorially. Nothing may be reprinted in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. Newcity is published by Newcity Communications, Inc. 47 West Polk, Suite 100-223, Chicago, IL 60605 Visit NewcityNetwork.com for advertising and editorial information. 6

Tony Davis’ artwork/courtesy of Project Onward Superfly Pimp Artist The Life and Times of Tony “Bright” Davis By Dave Hoekstra T ony “Bright” Davis limps The present-day mixed media artist is now a Is there room for redemption? APRIL 2019 Newcity into the Edgewater Public caregiver to his wife Felicia in their small After a long conversation, Davis reaches for Library on a black cane. studio-home down the street from the library. his black fedora. A tiny silver pin depicting a It is a dark winter afternoon and the collar of Felicia suffers from multiple sclerosis and skull sparkles in the warm light. “That’s a his coat is turned up against his neck. Davis uses a wheelchair. Davis’ story has turned warning I might be poison,” he says with a has slowed down considerably since 1977 into one of humanity, mid-life devotion and sly smile. “You might want to leave this guy when he was kicked out of Westinghouse atonement. “Felicia is worried about me and alone.” Davis puts on his coat and hat and High School for stealing ROTC rifles. His I’m telling her I can’t be stopped,” he says of negotiates the library stairs with his cane. measured pace is dictated by buckshot he his partner of ten years. “When I’m in nice He doesn’t look dangerous. Davis slowly took in his younger days as a Chicago pimp spaces like this [the library], I think of a lot of walks home against the wind under the Edge and player. ideas. I wish our house was roomy like this.” 7

of Sweetness bakery sign on North Broadway. Minnesota to Chicago. D’Ante’’s older post from June 2017 scolds women for brother Kelly Waits was driving near the posting naked pictures and jumping into He fades into the night he once owned. Wisconsin border. He lost control of the relationships. mini-van in oncoming traffic. D’Ante’’s sister Davis, who is fifty-eight, is one of the Taquana was in the passenger seat. Davanta Diab is a DCFS family support specialist who up-and-coming artists at Project Onward in and Ruby were in the back seat with D’Ante’. works with One Hope United in Chicago. the Bridgeport Art Center at 1200 West 35th He sustained only bumps and bruises. “It “Tony told me about his past,” she says. “And Street. Project Onward is a nonprofit was my little brother’s birthday and Thanks- how his [art] pieces remind him of all those organization for artists with disabilities such giving,” he says. “The dates always went times. There has been a lot of pain and as autism and mental illness. Davis’ pseu- with each other.” drama. This is my future family. They taught do-biographical illustrations depict the pimps, me a lot. It has made my view of how to hustlers and prostitutes that defined his world Tony “Bright” Davis was devastated. “He interact with DCFS children and families a lot nearly forty years ago. Deploying markers, couldn’t even look at the caskets,” his son broader. ink and gel pens he uses bright colors, thus says. “He sat there with his head in his hands. his nickname, and his detail goes as deep as It changed him. He started focusing more on “It has made me want to fight for these kids street-life pistols, fine wine, Dobermans and his art.” D’Ante’’s oldest brother Anthony even more.” outlandish wigs. Davis, Jr. was in military training at the time of the accident. After serving in the military, In 2015 D’Ante’ and his father collaborated Davis has cultivated an underground Anthony Jr. now studies law at Southern on a “Dante’s Inferno” drawing depicting hell following in Chicago as well as in Europe. Illinois University in Carbondale. D’Ante’ says on earth. The piece was filled with demons Pierre Muylle was director of MADmusée, these are the only siblings with whom he’s and devils. Tony helped his son with color an outsider art museum in Belgium when he genetically linked, but father and son agree patterns that were etched in his soul. “It discovered Davis’ work at Project Onward in there are other children with other women. showed how drugs and murder link to the 2014. “I was convinced immediately,” Muylle devil,” D’Ante’ says. “And that’s why I put the writes in an email. “The pimps, the cops, they D’Ante’ often visits his father in Edgewater. apostrophes in my name.” are all part of this ‘American comics-hip-hop’ He sees beyond the lines. “I sit with him,” culture to us. But the way he turns this into says D’Ante’, a South Side resident and Rob Lentz was program director at Project great work is impressive. We bought two former criminal justice student at Benedictine Onward when Tony Davis came to the artist’s bigger drawings showing a scene of whores University in Lisle. “We talk about his art. I collective in 2007. At the time Project Onward behind bars and a cop looking at them. drew but I wasn’t as good as him. I’d mess was under the visual arts division of the city’s up and he’d explain, ‘Art is your world, so Department of Cultural Affairs and Special “The composition makes it a mix between there are no mistakes.’ He encouraged us to Events (DCASE). “Immediately I thought to Snoop Dogg and Rembrandt.” keep trying. We’d play baseball with a myself, ‘This guy can really draw,’” says broomstick. He taught me how to ride a bike. Lentz, who is also an artist and sculptor. “He Project Onward studio manager Robyn had obviously learned to draw and letter from Jablonski says, “Tony’s graphic-novel style “So I’ve been trying to help him get a comic books, but he wasn’t copying anything. and openness offers emotional distance and computer to teach him the internet, using This was completely original. I’d never seen space from judgment, which allows viewers social media to get his art out. And he’s anything like it. These were pimps and who aren’t from his society to think and talk Felicia’s caregiver. He should get some prostitutes cruising through a cartoon ghetto, about these topics in less-guarded dialogue.” actual help. I try to work with him and Felicia. but he wasn’t making fun of them. There’s a His body is not up to par.” safe nostalgia to his work in terms of the His father’s life has had many dark moments. fashion and the styles. There’s a sense of On November 24, 2009, D’Ante’ survived a D’Ante’’s fiancée Montaha Diab also visits community about it.” minivan accident that killed his mother Ruby her future father-in-law. She met Tony nearly Alexander and his brother Davanta Alexander, five years ago. D’Ante’ and Montaha created Davis says most of the characters in his who was six years old. Ruby and her children a Facebook page for Tony (Anthony Davis illustrations are real people and he makes were heading from her home in Rochester, Sr.). They mostly manage the page. The last sure to sneak a self-portrait into ninety percent of his pieces. It is his Disneyesque choice of colors that helps ease his world into a more conventional world. His muse is to “Tony’s graphic-novel frame pimps and prostitutes as bold superheroes taking back the Chicago streets. style and openness His heroes of redemption are from what he calls the “Night Army” and “Black Goons.” In offers emotional one piece, a member of the “Night Army” is rescuing a prostitute underneath a huge distance and space yellow angel spreading its white wings. Newcity APRIL 2019 from judgment, which Muylle says his viewers of Davis’ art do not allows viewers who view it through a #MeToo lens. “We don’t aren’t from his society take it literally,” he explains “It’s part of the to think and talk about image we have of America and in this way, these topics in less- it has a specific appeal. I don’t think the guarded dialogue.” European audience is very sensitive to this topic. In the same way the lyrics of rappers —Robyn Jablonski, Project Onward studio manager are not so shocking.” Diab is twenty-six. Her father is Lebanese and her mother is Palestinian. She lived in Lebanon between the ages of eight and thirteen and learned to speak and write the Arabic language. Diab has no issues with 8

Tony “Bright” Davis/Photo: Dave Hoekstra

Tony Davis’ artwork/courtesy of Project Onward Newcity APRIL 2019 Tony’s controversial subject matter. “It is he was in grammar school. “He went away party back into gear from yesterday!” amazing,” says Diab, an Orland Park and I didn’t see him again until the Davis once told Project Onward, “I started resident, “I had never seen anything like it. I seventies,” Davis says. “He did it again and drawing in Sunday School when the teacher studied art [at Benedictine University]. He that’s it. The first time was murder, second drew a clown on a paper plate. He could looks from a broad dimension. He draws in time was a double murder.” Davis knows hardly tell which one he drew and which such detail and puts all the shadows and his father was incarcerated but he does not one I drew. I used to sketch portraits in highlights in his pieces, that must take so know if he is dead or alive. The family says Grant Park for a few bucks, but I stopped much work with the stroke of an ink pen. I Tony has a brother, Calvin, who ministers on drawing for a long time. When I started back paint. It is quicker than drawing it with a pen. the South Side. The family does not keep in I realized it was a fun, easy way to make There is a human aspect to his work.” regular contact with Calvin and several ends meet.” Lentz says, “Some people have a knee-jerk efforts to reach him were unsuccessful. Between 1994 and 2007, D’Ante’ lived with reaction to who Tony was forty years ago, Davis gave up street life in 1986 and began his father and an aunt in the ABLA [Jane without understanding the conditions that dabbling in drawing in 1989. “A girlfriend was Addams, Robert Brooks, Loomis Courts and made that way of life a necessity—conditions trying to write a note,” Tony says. “She had a Grace Abbott] Homes, the since-razed that still have not changed for most of the couple markers. I said, ‘Pam, can I use some public housing development on the near South and West Sides—and the terrible toll it of these markers?’ I started sketching and West Side. Myths and stories often had to has taken on his mind and body since then. ended up drawing a guy in a suit with a be built in order to survive. The fact that he is alive is a miracle and the bright red valet vest.” In the summer of 2005, ABLA had a higher capacity than the fact he has turned this all into art is amazing. Davis was selling his art on downtown Cabrini-Green projects and was a focal Davis was born in Chicago and stayed in Chicago streets when a customer tagged point for the Black Gangster Disciples. the Henry Horner Homes on the Near West him with the nickname “Bright” because of Much of the 2001 Keanu Reeves film Side until he was six or seven. His family his choice of colors. “I had to have some- “Hardball” was filmed at the ABLA Homes. moved to an apartment near the original thing [the colors] to take the edge off of “We deflected from ourselves,” D’Ante’ says. Maxwell Street Market. He was raised by everything,” he says. His earliest drawings “We got used to being looked at ‘bad,’ so a lot his mother Delores Thomas. His father had his characters talking with lines like, of black people lived outside our means. We Eddie Davis was convicted of murder when “…I’m gonna set out some candyland pop a coupla corks (sic)! We can kick start this 10

companion, there was almost always a dog. I bought one of them. He told me all about them, gave me their names and everything.” Davis recalls, “I told him they were all original characters but they weren’t as vicious as some of my other characters. He liked that.” Davis became prolific under the guidance of Project Onward. He has now turned out more than sixty drawings. He says he spends three to four days on each piece of work. Last year Davis made a smaller painting of Santa Claus as a pimp on a sleigh merrily shouting, “Ho Ho Ho!” He laughs and says, “’Pimp-A-Claus.’ That’s what we called them. During the day Pimp-A-Claus would walk around the neighborhood giving kids toys.” Vick says, “You often see once you get some encouragement and support then the work takes off. He went from a pretty rudimentary style to extremely vivid content, but also the composition, which is extraordinary. It is a very involved compositional factor.” Tony Davis’ “Black Goons Street Mode”/courtesy of Project Onward Mark Jackson is one of Chicago’s top collectors of Davis’ work. He owns eleven “I had to have something pieces. He contributed some of his pieces to [the colors] to take the the recent INTUIT show “Chicago We Own It,” edge off of everything.” curated by Bill Swislow, a writer and professor at Northwestern University. Jackson met —Tony “Bright” Davis Davis through Vick and Project Onward, where he was studio director. “Without training but with a strong need to tell his story, he brings his world vividly to life,” Jackson says. “I love Chicago stories, especially those told with artistic talent and originality. Stories that I don’t know much about. He has lived a one-of-a-kind life, a life full of wonder and not often seen.” got used to lying to everyone else because three months he was removed from Tony and It is a Chicago story that can only be we didn’t want to be seen as who we were. It Ruby. They were deep into drugs. Diab says, appreciated with an open mind. eventually becomes real in our own minds. “D’Ante’ was given to his aunt [who lived in Davis has battled drug addiction and But ignorance is a good thing. That’s how the ABLA projects]. ” Aunt Cynthia Annison physical challenges from living on the you learn, to acknowledge what you didn’t died in 2011 when D’Ante’ was a sophomore Chicago streets. Lentz attempted to get Davis know at first. Being around him [Tony], I at Dwight D. Eisenhower High School in Blue some health services only to discover the started realizing who I was. Island. Diab says, “That story is what artist had no identification or Social Security brought me to my job. Some people can be number. “It was like he never existed because “My dad is obviously not a violent person. But careless with children and DCFS families. I the life he previously lived was completely off being told that his dad committed double didn’t like that. My future father-in-law was a the grid,” Lentz says. “For years we wanted to homicide, people figured he was a gangster, parent who had to deal with DCFS. DCFS compile his story and turn it into a graphic too. Once he said it so long he believed it. But was very negative to him and it hurt. I novel—he has always loved comic books and he was always artistic. Even when we were in learned about the different things DCFS in his art he was always turning his friends the projects he kept us drawing on papers. never offered to them. and associates into superhero-like characters. He took cardboard boxes and cut them down But all those years of hard living and to tiny track size and cuffed them. I don’t “They were the puzzle pieces that connected addiction have taken a toll on his focus.” remember much about the projects, but we what brought us where we are today.” In a separate conversation, D’Ante’ had a room where he taped the tracks on the concurs, “He was literally off the grid. wall around the room. He had a bunch of Randy Vick, a former consulting art therapist Those things weren’t necessary for the life marbles. I was six. When me and my friends at Project Onward, found Davis selling art in he was living in the projects. Even today, if APRIL 2019 Newcity came in we’d race the marbles on the track. I late 2005 at the corner of a parking garage he sends me a few dollars it goes through later realized he did that to keep us in the across the street from Sears Tower. Vick later Felicia’s name. He’s always found a way to house, away from the gangs. He even drew introduced Davis to Project Onward. He survive within his means.” cartoon shirts for us to wear. He never asked that Davis bring his best work to show Project Onward hosted a November 2018 believed in whupping us. He had a way of the group. Vick is a professor in the depart- exhibition of Davis’ work. D’Ante’ and other teaching us. That’s why, out of all the project ment of Art Therapy at the School of the Art family members came to support their father. kids, his turned out to be better.” Institute. “Stylistically, I loved his work,” Vick Davis’ more overt works were tucked away in says. “They caught my eye. They were a gallery corner. “I’m sure some people D’Ante’ was a DCFS child. At the age of superheroes. A couple of them had a 11

“Art is very subjective. my art. I had a successful show there [at Proj- The history of artists ect Onward]. I need to go there more is full of questions about because I have a chance to have a big wall propriety and shock where I can put up my stuff. A lot of people don’t know about my art.” When Davis does go to the Project Onward studio, he takes the El from Edgewater to the Bridgeport neighborhood. value. It’s a little more “Tony is very patient,” Diab says. “When we’re unusual in this kind of sitting there and Felicia is in pain, he is on his studio setup where toes to her aid. If she’s tired, he will fix up the people delve into the place for her to sleep. He is on time with all provocative. But it her medications. Even if we take them to the [Project Onward] gallery he makes sure she has sweaters and a jacket. She can’t walk, so her body isn’t building up the heat. He really has a happy spirit.” happens often.” Does D’Ante’ worry about his father? —Randy Vick, former consulting art therapist at Project Onward After a long pause, he answers, “My Dad has some mental illness from the way he grew up. He had some drug problems. But he is very intelligent. When I was studying object to the subject matter,” Vick says. “Art what they call ‘the zenith,’ I had five girls at criminal justice and social work in college [at is very subjective. The history of artists is full one time. All the guys in the ‘hood talked Benedictine University], even though I came of questions about propriety and shock value. about the pimp game. My main girl—M. D. from the projects I realized I was smarter It’s a little more unusual in this kind of studio [Margarita]—she was bad.” than most kids. My other brother [Tony] Junior is very intelligent and he’s in the setup where people delve into the provoca- Margarita and Davis were in the same Marines. The system messed up my dad. He tive. But it happens often. I’ve gone to any number of these places in Europe, where the homeroom at Westinghouse. She was and my uncles grew up at the end of Jim outgoing, pretty and a fast talker. The teens Crow. It was tough. The more I learned about more overt stuff gets to be accepted.” got “married” in a faux Valentine’s Day my father the more I educated myself on During last fall’s INTUIT “Art Against the Flow” ceremony in the school cafeteria. “Her drugs and what they do to you. My dad is on symposium Davis’ work was discovered by brothers were into pimping, so she got methadone. He does not want to go back to intrigued,” he says. “She couldn’t be into it drugs. He will do whatever it takes to not go the Outsider Art Museum in Amsterdam, with them so she came to me with it. back to what he was. He is like a child in Netherlands. “A show of Tony’s work might be a little easier in Amsterdam,” Vick says. Everything happened across the tracks from mind and body.” “But people enjoy his work. I don’t know what Franklin and Homan. There was an aban- his sales are like, but they’re not cheap.” doned building. If you couldn’t buy it there, it D’Ante’ met his fiancée at Benedictine couldn’t be bought.” The building was University. She says, “When I met him he was A few years ago I purchased Davis’ twenty- sandwiched between a pool hall and the going through a situation and I helped him five-by-nineteen-foot “The Snake Pit” for $200 Zodiac Lounge, which was once managed out. The first people I contacted were his from Project Onward. He made that painting by late blues harmonica player Malcolm brother [Anthony] and his father Tony. We got in the summer of 2014. He remembers the “Little Mack” Simmons. Their turf extended as through it and it was mostly through the help actual pit. The painting is full of bright orange, far south as 92nd and Stony Island. of Tony and D’Ante’’s siblings.” yellow and blues. Davis rubbed shoulders with the celebrity Lentz recalls, “When I met Tony he was “It was a sunken living room,” he says. “It was West Side pimp-impresario Bishop Don Juan. gracious, friendly and very humble—not at all a corner house at Franklin and Homan. They “He knew me as a youngster,” Davis says with what I was expecting from the work I had called the house ‘The Devil’s Lair.’ The pit a smile. “He’d say, ‘You young bloods all seen. He was visibly worn down by life on the was just a couple of love seats, couches and keep it up. We’ll see you at the top. That was street, but he retained a few of the trappings a bunch of throw pillows. There were nice his famous saying. I’m not a Don. I wasn’t of what I learned to be his former life: always that kind of material.” a sharp fedora, shiny shoes and fancy shirt.” cocktail tables and beads for curtains. I wasn’t over sixteen. I’m standing at the front door telling everyone to hurry up. If the Davis says he comes from a more genteel Davis was always intrigued by Cadillacs and generation of pimp life. “There was sipping white gold and platinum rings. He came of situation wasn’t right, we had sayings like and tripping,” he says. Davis’ generation age in the era of intoxicating urban movie hits ‘Ain’t nothing movin’ but the breeze on the trees.’ I had girls there but I didn’t know what sipped fine champagne and liked to party. like “Superfly,” “Coffy” and “Shaft.” “All my The next generation was more into tripping uncles and my father wore these big fedoras; I was doing. Ducking when they say duck, straw, beaver, alligator, snakeskin,” he says. swinging when they swing. I was learning. I [drugs] and guns. “Don Juan said to stop was there because of an uncle named tripping and keep sipping,” he says. “That’s all I saw. We used to stuff newspapers Newcity APRIL 2019 in velvet caps with big brims to make them Maynard. He was tall and slim. He whistled By the time he was nineteen years old, Davis’ look like a big crown. They were dressed so while he walked. I can’t think of his pimp name because I was so little. So many guys street pimp life was over. sharp and nice. I thought that was the top of the game. Some of them twirled chains. gave him so many names: ‘Tables,’ ‘Loops.’ But if you went to Jew Town [Maxwell Street] Davis now brings in money from his artwork They’d just twirl them all day, twirl them, twirl and saw six hookers standing there, three or and the kindness of some friends. “Felicia is them…,” and he looks at his aluminum cane four of them was my uncle’s. This was in the on disability,” he says. “We’re hanging on by propped against a soft library chair. Davis late sixties. “When I was hot in it, it only a thread. Things took off when I was at Sears leans forward and dozes off. Time plays lasted two or three summers. It fell off. At Tower. Tourists, everyone was gobbling up strange tricks. 12

RESTAURATEUR OF THE MOMENT TALKING TO ABOUT EVERYTHING BUT APRIL 2019 Newcity HIS BUSINESSES BY DAVID HAMMOND PHOTO BY MONICA KASS ROGERS ick Kokonas and chef Grant Achatz are behind some of Chicago’s most innovative dining experiences. Starting in 2005 with Alinea—Chicago’s only Michelin three-star restaurant—the team of Kokonas and Achatz later established the Alinea Group to manage Next, The Aviary, Roister, Crucial Detail, The Aviary NYC and, most recently, a pop-up in Madrid. In 2015, under the Alinea Group umbrella, Kokonas launched Tock, the online restaurant tick- eting and customer-relationship-manage- ment system that serves over two-and-a-half million diners in twenty countries. My visit with Kokonas at Tock headquarters wasn’t to talk about the business of Tock, nor even his restaurants, although inevitably those topics poked in. The goal was to dis- cover Kokonas’ other passions, which are also among Newcity’s central concerns: lit- erature, art, music and movies. The culinary accomplishments of Kokonas, largely in league with Achatz, are so monu- mental—we haven’t mentioned his books, including the stunningly designed, eight- pound The Aviary Cocktail Book—that it’s easy to forget there’s a guy in the middle of all that development, who, in what spare time he has, likes to read, listen to music and go to movies. 13

I ’ V E K N O W N KO KO N A S for over ten see modern-day parallels to the antihero Lateral thinking, seeing a situation from years, and before we met up, I read every- of Lermontov’s novel. a different angle, is one of the hallmarks thing by and about him. His book, “Life on of how Kokonas has led his professional the Line,” co-written with Achatz, contains Kokonas, who attended Colgate Universi- life, the way he has challenged the author- a lot of detail about his time before he met ty as a philosophy major, is a strong be- ity of business-as-usual. Tock, for in- Achatz and the early years of their partner- liever in the importance of a liberal arts stance, was formed when Kokonas and ship at Alinea. Kokonas had an amazingly education, a general introduction to many Achatz lamented Alinea’s no-shows, the dense and rich conversation with entrepre- fields of learning, few of which a person people with reservations who didn’t show neur-author-tech start-up investor-pod- will enter again. He believes one of those up, didn’t call to cancel and ended up caster Tim Ferriss late last year, mostly liberal arts, literature, may be the best costing Alinea thousands of dollars in lost about business. It went on for over three- preparation for a career, any career. revenue. The answer was to develop a and-a-half hours as a podcast. ticketing system that would discourage “People say to me, ‘I want to be an entre- no-shows and offer significant enhance- I didn’t want to cover well-traveled ground preneur.’ I get ten emails a day like that be- ments to customers’ dining experience at about his brilliant business successes. I was cause the Tim Ferriss podcast has been Alinea Group restaurants. In the past, no eager to find out about life-changing events— downloaded millions of times. I get those one had questioned the hidebound, particularly aesthetic experiences—that ten emails a day saying ‘Wow, I want to do time-honored system of holding a table shaped this extraordinary Chicagoan. what you did. What business book can you for a customer and hoping they’d show recommend?’ And I’m up. This is the way restaurant reservations like, I don’t know! Read had been handled for years and the way old French literature or most restaurants are still run. like read, read, read GOSH, I’M NEVER Shakespeare and Hem- “You come into situations and you look at GOING TO DO ANYTHING ingway. It’s all the same. the way things are done, and you ask, ‘Why People have been doing are we doing it this way?’ I look for the AS WELL AS THAT.” the same thing for years workaround. I’m not afraid to say I’d rather and years. Every busi- work less hard to accomplish the same ness is ultimately serv- amount. That’s progress. I’m always aston- KO KO N A S R E C A L L S T H E moment ing other people in some way and literature ished when you get somewhere and he was gripped by the power of words, helps you understand human nature. I can there’s a really long line and there’s a sign by literature. figure out the accounting. That’s just there that says, ‘Form two lines.’ But for counting the shekels as they come in and some reason, there’s only one line that’s “I was in high school, I got mono my senior out. Right? Like, I mean, it’s complicated, been formed. This happened to me the year, really bad. On top of that, I had chick- you know, but it’s doable.” other day, I swear at, of all places, Portillo’s. enpox. I’d never had chickenpox until I was I walked past every- eighteen, which is a terrible thing. So I body, forty people in started reading Dostoevsky, ‘Notes from one line, even though Underground.’ Now that is a dark, dark the second line was book, and I remember the feeling of read- “GIVING THE MIDDLE FINGER clearly delineated and ing it. Have you ever gone to the sympho- TO AUTHORITY.” functional. People were ny and looked at all the people who are like, ‘Hey, don’t cut into playing and just thought ‘I’ve never dedi- line.’ I said, ‘The sign cated myself to something as well as every O N E O F T H E C L A S S I C quotes from says to form two lines. I’m forming the sec- single one of those eighty or so people up Pablo Picasso is “It took me four years to ond line. This is it. I’m a line of one.’ And as there has dedicated themselves?’ And I re- paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint soon as I did that, a whole bunch of people member reading ‘Notes from Underground’ like a child.” I was reminded of that as came and filled in behind me. That, as a and thinking, ‘Gosh, I’m never going to do Kokonas explained that he tries to bring metaphor, is how I feel about authority.” anything as well as that.’” innocence and openness to whatever’s being done, and a willingness to ask “why,” So, given Kokonas’ iconoclastic attitude to- An ironic confession, in that Kokonas has and then suggest how to do everything ward established ways of doing things, did probably been a restaurateur as well as better. That attitude was the motivating he possibly, when he was younger, have a anybody has. “Then I got into this big force not only behind Tock, but behind the problem with authority? He laughed hard. phase of reading the Russian classics, like other innovations at the Alinea Group. I remember, reading [Mikhail] Lermontov, “That is the best question. I’ve been asked ‘A Hero of Our Time.’ The hero in the title is “Lateral thinking is the stuff that’s exciting. a million questions during the past eight an antihero—this was considered one of I didn’t know how to run a restaurant. I still years. That was the best, but, uh, I guess the first books with an antihero—and he don’t think I really do. I don’t think anyone so. Yes. Mostly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, now, really was an awful guy. ‘A Hero of Our does. Every restaurant is different, you I was nearly a straight-A student and, um, Newcity APRIL 2019 Time’ is also a really, really great book for know. The zen philosophy is that you must I smoked a little pot here and there and right now in America.” have a beginner’s mind. So, if you ap- stuff like that, the normal stuff, and I was proach something always with a begin- very, very fortunate that I came from a fam- The main character in “A Hero of Our Time” ner’s mind, you’re always trying to learn, ily where I was an only child, so I got dot- is Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin, a high- you’re always trying to look at it differently. ing, devoted parents. Solid people. I’m very ly manipulative individual who sees life as You’re always trying to see around the cor- fortunate in that regard and I was terrified a constant struggle to gain power over oth- ner a little bit and see how it is done and of doing anything wrong, mostly just be- ers. It’s all about the power, so, yes, I can why is it done that way.” cause of my dad. 14

“Even though I was pretty privileged grow- “I try to grow, but I find myself listening to the focal point. So, what happens is you ing up, I was very much aware that I was things I listened to long ago. Satie’s ‘Trois now have a new constraint. Like people the son of immigrants. The rest of my fam- Gymnopédies,’ I absolutely love and listen can’t use forks, knives—it can’t be noisy— ily, there’s a lot of double Greeks there. And to all the time. It’s so simple and unstruc- but it still needs to be comfortable. We’re some of them were from what they called tured, and it was written without measures only going to do four courses. But I just ‘the old country.’ That’s a very Chicago and so it’s completely left to the interpre- didn’t think we could get it done before ev- thing, having these neighborhoods and tation of the artist who’s doing it. It’s just a erything was in sync. That’s fine. Let’s not these people. This is a roundabout way of perfect little piece of music. do it yet.” saying I was a good person. The good teachers I loved very much. The people “I’m a huge Wilco fan. I know they’re home- Kokonas also has plans to put an art gallery who were just using their authority to keep town favorites and they call it ‘dad music’ in the still-to-be-built supper club-style per- their authority, I very much subverted.” and all that, but what Jeff [Tweedy] does formance space. “Yeah. Yeah. I love, love, with his music is that he can take some- love visual arts,” he says with the enthusi- Kokonas constantly surprises me with thing like ‘Sunday Morning,’ it’s just the asm evident in everything he does. learning that he’s explored. Given the paint- simplest little round, something that could ings hanging on the walls at places like Alin- have been written in 1700. Three chords “NOTHING ea and Roister, I was not surprised to hear that the band deconstructs and recon- IS WRITTEN.” that he had an interest in art. “When I was structs. Brilliant. I like things that have that in college, I studied in England for a year mix of simplicity and complexity. T H E M O S T P O P U L A R visual art form and studied the Pre-Raphaelite Brother- in the last century was cinema. Finding out hood at the University of London. Then I “If you put in the right music in the morning, the movies someone likes is a ready entrée was at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris over it can change your whole day. I’m a terrible into the way their mind works, the things Thanksgiving, and all that stuff I liked in col- singer, just atrociously bad singer, but I’ll that please and the things that don’t, the lege, I just hated it. And, I think what I liked be the guy in the car, music blasting, sing- fantasy worlds they enjoy, if only for an about it at the time was how they were kind ing at the top of my lungs at the stop light hour or two. I asked Kokonas what movie of just giving the middle finger to authority.” and just not caring who’s looking.” he saw, either recently or in his youth, that shaped him. He had a quick response, the Kokonas’ love of art big Oscar-winning movie of 1962. and music may come “’Lawrence of Arabia,’ number one, all-time. Over the years, they replay it at the Music “I COULD READ MUSIC together in an empty Box in 70mm. So, I have gone and seen it BEFORE I COULD space for which he has there and I own the Blu-ray of it. I watch it big plans. “We’ve spent once a year. It’s a very, very inspiring movie. One of the craziest nights of my life has got READ WORDS.” three years on a space to be about ten years ago. I saw Peter next to Roister that O’Toole sitting alone at a hotel bar in New York. I was about to go to bed. And I was we’ve never opened. I like, that’s Peter O’Toole, right? I do not bother people, but I have my exceptions, D U R I N G A C H I C AG O Public Radio in- remember one of our former employees so, I went over to him, I said, ‘Mr. O’Toole.’ And exactly as you’d expect, he said, terview with Achatz years ago, I asked was like, ‘Oh, they’re never going to get that ‘Uhhh?’ And I said, ‘My God, I really apolo- gize for bothering you. I would like to buy about the music that inspired him, expect- done.’ And they’re sucking on the rent and you another, whatever you’re having, if that’s okay.’ He’s like, ‘I’ve never turned ing it would be Bach, the Brandenburg it’s terrible and all that. ‘No, it’s doing ex- down a free beverage in my life.’ That’s ex- actly what you’d expect he’d say. Right? So, Concerti, something precise and nuanced actly what we want it to do right now. he gets another martini, and I say ‘It’s just really a pleasure meeting you. You were in like that. But no. Achatz preferred, at that Which is nothing.’ I really want to open a my favorite movie of all time.’ He’s like, ‘Well, everyone loves “Lawrence.”‘ I said, ‘No, no, time, Rage Against the Machine, because music venue. You know that stuff in the “Caligula”!’ That got him a good smile be- cause, of course, it’s ‘Lawrence.'” he found the unexpected twists and turns twenties and thirties, there was a dinner It was very telling, the line that Kokonas in that music inspired him to build similar music thing, right? The Copacabana, Stork remembers, the one that really struck home: “Nothing is written.” into expectation-breaking lateral moves in Club, you know, those kinds of places. And “That’s it. Lawrence goes back into the des- his menu. I really want to serve a Michelin-star meal ert, grabs those two young kids, drags them back and says, ‘Nothing is written.'” and have world-class musicians. Kokonas has said that a characteristic of very successful people is that they are not uni-di- “So, I talked to world-class musicians. I’m mensional; they’re multi-dimensional. They like, ‘What do you need?’ They say, ‘We don’t go in one direction, they go in many want a great-sounding room. We want a directions. They try a lot of different things. recording of every night.’ All of which is do- Again, that’s the liberal arts education talking. able nowadays. We talked to sound design And it turns out, unsurprisingly, Kokonas engineers. We figured out the whole layout. might have been a musical prodigy. We have the plan done for the whole space. We rented the two apartments above it so “I could read music before I could read words. we could give it thirty feet of volume. And When they wrote down C, I couldn’t read the then I realized I don’t personally have the letter, but I could read the note. I was three time to get the bookings together. You have APRIL 2019 Newcity and a half so I could read the notes before I to do that a year out. Last year, Tock grew could read words. I remember memorizing by 300 percent and it’s really a passion. It’s children’s pieces at four or five years old. I not really a passion of Grant’s. He knows, would make up the lyrics to the music in loves fine dining better than anyone in the order to memorize what came next. To this world. I start dragging avant-garde jazz or day, I can hear a song once and pretty much spoken word, or any kind of sound artist on remember all the lyrics. top of a meal, and suddenly, the meal is not 15

Newcity APRIL 2019 CHICAGO’S FOOD AND DRINK 16

his year, we celebrate those people who APRIL 2019 Newcity stand behind or often beside the chefs, sommeliers and others who make and serve the best food and drink in the world. We’re talking about investors, restaurant groups, the pur- veyors—even the media!—and all the other people who work in their own ways to make Chicago the premier food city that it has become. To narrow the list of contenders, we called upon those who made the list before, who provided in- valuable insights and suggestions about figures to include in the Big Heat 50 for 2019. You will see some players you know, while those who’ve been on the list for years have been elevated to the Hall of Fame. This list will introduce you to up-and-comers as well as those so deep within the business they’re almost invisible. We can’t recognize everyone who deserves mention, but here is a cross-section from across the hospital- ity spectrum. For every person mentioned, there are so many more equally deserving of our support, and of our gratitude. (DAVID HAMMOND) BIG HEAT 50 2019 IS WRITTEN BY DAVID HAMMOND, REBECCA HOLLAND, LAUREN KNIGHT ALONG WITH KRISTINE SHERRED AND FREDA LOVE SMITH. ALL PHOTOS BY MONICA KASS ROGERS WITH PHOTO ASSISTANCE BY RYAN THOMAS LAY. SHOT ON LOCATION AT TOCK HEADQUARTERS. 17

2. CRAIG GOLDEN AND BRUCE BRUCE FINKELMAN FINKELMAN & CRAIG GOLDEN PARTNERS, 16” ON CENTER Bruce Finkelman and Craig Golden own and operate Bite, Beauty Bar, Dusek’s, Empty Bottle, Empty Bottle Presents, Long- man & Eagle, MONEYGUN, Promontory, Punch House, Revival Food Hall, Saint Lou’s Assembly, Space, Tack Room, Thalia Hall, The Ruin Daily and Union Pizza. What holds these disparate endeavors together, says Finkelman, “is the collaboration between food, drink and music. Right now, we’re working on Sound Bites, a collaboration between our musical artists [at Thalia Hall] and our kitchen [Dusek’s]. We ask the musi- cians to make a dish that reminds them of home or that’s connected to the inspiration for their music.” Sounds delicious! GREG MOHR & SCOTT WEINER OWNERS, FIFTY/50 RESTAURANT GROUP The Fifty/50 Restaurant Group owns and operates West Town Bakery, Apogee, Stead- fast, Roots, The Sixth, The Berkshire Room, Bunny Slope, Bodega, the Fifty/50, Portsmith, Leviathan and Homestead on the Roof. Owners Greg Mohr and Scott Weiner focus on Chicago’s neighborhoods and their employees. Since day one, the Fifty/50 Restaurant Group has offered subsidized 3. SCOTT WEINER Newcity APRIL 2019 NICK The Aviary NYC and the namesake restau- KOKONAS rant. Kokonas has also developed and over- seen the exponential growth of Tock. “Rev- FOUNDER-CEO, TOCK AND olutionary” is an overused word, but Tock CO-FOUNDER, THE ALINEA GROUP is exactly that: a restaurant reservation As if it were not enough to have had a hand system that’s so much more than just a in spawning Alinea, Chicago’s only Miche- ticketing service. Tock is also a customer-re- lin three-star restaurant, Nick Kokonas has lationship-management system, and the also, with his partner Grant Achatz, built service is every bit on par with the food at The Alinea Group which manages and devel- his restaurants. “At Alinea,” says Kokonas, ops Next, The Aviary, Roister, Crucial Detail, “we have a mix of people coming in all the time. We have people who’ve saved up for two years to eat there because it's their special occasion, and then we have heads of state. We treat them identically.” 18

health insurance, retirement and other valu- 5. RAFID HINDO, NADER HINDO, able benefits. “That’s always been one of DANIEL ALONSO AND FADI HINDO our main focuses,” Weiner says, “to open up restaurants in the neighborhoods and provide experiences that people might be used to getting downtown, while also invest- ing in our people.” Fifty/50 Restaurant Group will open three new restaurants this year in South Loop, Old Town and the financial district. They keep an eye on trends. “Whether it’s this year or next, cannabis is going to start playing a role,” Weiner says. “As soon as it’s legalized, I can see it being incorporated into Chicago’s fine-dining restaurants. It’s going to become less taboo, and while we’re not necessarily involved in it right now, we’re definitely paying attention.” DOUG DUNLAY, MICHAEL DUNLAY, DEREK RETTELL & JOSH RUTHERFORD OWNERS, 4 STAR RESTAURANT GROUP Isn’t it great to have a go-to restaurant right around the corner? Easy to get to and reli- ably delicious? That ethos powers 4 Star Restaurant Group. Owners Doug Dunlay, Mike Dunlay, Derek Rettell and Josh Ruth- erford have created an impressive lineup of 4. DEREK RETTELL , MICHAEL DUNLAY, concepts, including the sleek Ella Elli, piz- JOSH RUTHERFORD AND DOUG DUNLAY zeria and wine bar Frasca, comfort food-fo- cused Crosby’s Kitchen, taqueria Tuco and Blondie, and two locations of longtime bar- beque favorite Smoke Daddy. “People really love to stay in their neighborhood to eat, especially with their families,” says Doug Dunlay. “We feel we have been able to bring extremely high-quality food and beverage programs to the neighborhoods in Chicago.” DANIEL APRIL 2019 Newcity ALONSO, FADI HINDO, NADER HINDO & RAFID HINDO FOUNDER AND PARTNERS, BONHOMME HOSPITALITY You’ve probably visited one of the bars, restaurants or nightclubs under the umbrella of Bonhomme Hospitality: Beatnik, Beatnik on the River, Black Bull, Bordel, Café Bon- homme, Celeste, Disco, and Fulton Market Kitchen. Founder and partner Daniel Alonso tells us Porto, a Galician-Portuguese restau- rant, and The Christensen, a Wicker Park 19

tavern, will also be opening soon. “Each of our concepts is meticulously composed,” says Alonso, “and carefully curated to max- imize the experience for our guests, through design, cuisine, beverages and music. At the same time, we’re interested in preserv- ing and bringing historic pieces to renewed life in our concepts. Because each one of our places has a true vision that informs every detail, from the interior elements to menus to programming, they are each unique and genuine. We do not attempt to imitate or replicate something that's already in Chicago—or anywhere else.” JOHN ROSS & PHILLIP WALTERS OWNERS, B. HOSPITALITY CO. When John Ross and Phillip Walters opened The Bristol in 2008, they opted to “start self- ishly,” in the words of Ross, opening the kind of place where they’d want to dine: a farm-driven restaurant with whole animal dining, as many beers as wines, and a con- vivial atmosphere. “All these things are common, everyday occurrences now,” says Ross, “but in 2008, they were not.” Six restaurants later, B. Hospitality is a leader. “Chicago has grown into its own,” Walters 7. JOE GRAY 6. PHILLIP WALTERS AND JOHN ROSS says. And with that growth, there are chal- whole company is moving toward a digi- lenges. “We’re going to see separations of tal-first world. We also wanted people who the pack, specific to the automation of food could give us quick turnaround and who knew and touchscreens taking the place of a per- neighborhoods.” That last point is particularly son,” Walters says. “By continuing to grow important, because in 2019 and beyond, the our concept we can stay in front of that Tribune food team will laser-focus on some- versus just putting an iPad on the table.” times-overlooked neighborhoods, where the culture and history that produced specific JOE foods largely unknown to a larger public. A GRAY beautiful example of this is Nick Kindelsperg- er’s investigative work on the peppermint stick-in-the-pickle snack, a street treat that really does exist. Newcity APRIL 2019 FOOD EDITOR, CARMEN CHICAGO TRIBUNE ROSSI Chicago Tribune food coverage looks differ- ent than it did even a few years ago, and a FOUNDER, big part of that is due to Joe Gray’s oversight 8 HOSPITALITY and cultivation of a new generation of dining From a career in law to dining entrepreneur, and drinking writers. “About three or four Carmen Rossi can clearly handle the facets years ago,” says Gray, “there were buyouts of a successful restaurant group. Starting and we saw an opportunity to bring in peo- with a partnership in Hubbard Inn and learn- ple who were internet-savvy, because the 20

9. SCOTT HARRIS ing the industry as he went owner. There have been plenty C O N T E M P O R A RY, C L A S S I C I TA L I A N C U I S I N E along, Rossi has developed a of lessons over the years, from Located in Printers Row at 616 S. Dearborn Street company with colorful concepts pacing himself (“We once and a well-rounded approach opened seven restaurants in to doing business. His 8 Hos- sixteen months; it was not pitality group now has many good”) to keeping up with the locations under its belt, includ- times. Nowadays, it’s the mil- ing Joy District, HVAC and Old lennials that Harris is courting, Grounds Social. While these pursuing sexy décor and quality places cater to enjoyment and cocktails as well as delicious whimsy, Rossi’s development food. Regardless of the audience, of each is conscientious and Harris attributes his success to calculated, taking into account the people he works with. Taking line items and laws as well as care of them is his priority. New the community around his restaurant Joe’s Imports, for establishments. “When we example, is a reward for longtime decide to acquire a property partner Joe Farley. “The only way and develop a hospitality con- you can grow is to have good cept, we first want to assess people,” Harris says. “If people what the community wants,” he in my company have an idea and says. “Investing considerable I like it, I try to make their dreams time and financial resources come true.” requires that your strategy con- template not only those details SCOTT inside your brick-and-mortar WORSHAM four walls, but in the community as a whole.” & SARAH ZERNICH WORSHAM SCOTT CO-OWNERS, HARRIS BAR BISCAY, MFK Scott Worsham is fed up. “Food, OWNER, FRANCESCA’S by which I mean cooking and RESTAURANTS eating, is now a spectator sport,” he says. A recent trip to Spain, Scott Harris is a true industry where he ate high-quality food man. From his first restaurant in an unpretentious atmosphere, job when he was fourteen, Har- was the inspiration for mfk and ris has made the journey to Bar Biscay, where his partners successful restaurant group

are Sari Zernich Worsham, Joe Campagna 10. SARAH and chef Johnny Anderes. “We realize we ZERNICH can’t change the American lifestyle,” he says, “but we can put up a fight for the right to WORSHAM, slow down and relax a little.” He hopes SCOTT there’s a shift toward more neighborly restaurants but notes it’s hard for small WORSHAM restaurants to stay afloat. “The big changes 35. GARY I see coming are already happening: big, well-funded companies from both coasts LAZARSKI swooping in and paying top dollar for prime real estate locations and making us more 11. KEITH SHAPIRO not an art project, and I only back those that and more chain-riddled,” Worsham says. understand the business of running restau- “We’ve got long leases and cheap rents, so rants. Number two, the food has to be excel- we’ll keep pushing people to slow down and lent. There is no exception to this rule for relax for as long as we can.” any amount of profit. Third, leases make or break restaurants before the doors open KEITH and I never invest without reading the lease SHAPIRO and believing it gives us a fair chance to suc- ceed. I didn’t make these investments to get INVESTOR rich. There are infinitely safer ways to invest Attorney Keith Shapiro has spent over thirty your money. I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t years investing in restaurants, including take great pleasure in playing a role in fueling Prairie Grass and Smyth and The Loyalist, the creative side of this industry.” as well as the Alinea Group and multiple Lettuce Entertain You projects. “I’m fairlyNewcity APRIL 2019 PHIL agnostic about the type of food or whether VETTEL it’s casual or competes for Michelin stars. Most importantly, a restaurant is a business, FOOD CRITIC, CHICAGO TRIBUNE 22 In 2018, Phil Vettel shed the traditional ano- nymity of the restaurant critic. Restaurants use data to learn about their customers, so higher-end restaurants with more resources knew his face already. “But a lot of restau- rants don’t have that technology, so I felt I was working in a two-tier class system,” Vettel says. This class system ties into big- ger problems in Chicago’s dining scene.

cafes in Chicago. Cannabis will likely be his next challenge, and he’s looking forward. “What spirits were to baby boomers, canna- bis is to millennials,” who represent a large number of Chicago’s fifty-seven million visitors. “Culinary tourism is bringing mil- lennials from St. Louis, Milwaukee and Min- neapolis. They grew up with the Food Chan- nel and Food Network, so it’s all about the experience.” He notes that restaurants are opening on the South Side and in neighbor- hoods like Pilsen and Avondale, and millen- nials are more likely to venture farther than older generations. Toia says, “We want to make sure we keep promoting the culinary industry all over Chicago.” 14. STEVE DOLINSKY “The big challenge is economic,” he says. 48. ANTONIO FIASCHE While big restaurant groups can handle 12. PHIL VETTEL higher rent and healthcare costs, Vettel is worried about others. “As a critic, I support 13. SAM TOIA restaurants doing things the right way, and, I hope, persuade people to put their support STEVE APRIL 2019 Newcity that way. The public will decide what they’re DOLINSKY willing to pay for quality food and businesses that take care of their employees. We need JOURNALIST-AUTHOR to decide just what kind of a restaurant city Steve Dolinsky has been a crucial voice for we want to be.” the Chicago dining and drinking scene for twenty-four years. He’s chowed down as SAM the Hungry Hound on ABC7 Chicago, hosted TOIA the award-winning podcast “The Feed” with chef Rick Bayless, highlighted hidden gems PRESIDENT-CEO, ILLINOIS on his blog, and in 2018, he wrote “Pizza RESTAURANT ASSOCIATION City, USA,” a book celebrating the diversity The Illinois Restaurant Association brought of Chicago pizza. “Chicago is kind of the the James Beard Awards, Chicago Gourmet whole package,” he says. “I’ve been report- and other food-centric events to town. But ing here since 1995, and the food scene has IRA president-CEO Sam Toia is just as grown along with me.” Dolinsky particularly excited about advocacy. He’s supported an relishes his ability to be an advocate for small, increase in the minimum wage, protection for tip credit, and he’s also supporting an ordinance allowing year-round sidewalk 23

overlooked restaurants in the city. “I’m not interested in some big restaurant group coming into Chicago to make a splash,” he says. “I’m going to continue to shine a light on the little guy; that keeps me going.” DANIEL GERZINA EDITOR, EATER CHICAGO Dozens of publications and blogs discuss Chicago's food scene, but Eater—with heat maps, best-of lists and feature stories— stands out as an authority. \"We play a huge role in giving people information,\" says Dan- iel Gerzina. \"We don't play any favorites and we stay very strict with our editorial standards to give people the real nitty-gritty.\" Gerzina takes pride in Eater's coverage of areas that have been underrepresented in food publi- cations, such as the South Side or small family restaurants. “There has been a restau- rant boom in Chicago in recent years,” which Gerzina is worried could burst soon. At the same time, he sees a trend toward more international flavors, especially Korean, Viet- namese and upscale Indian cuisine. \"We're going to be on the frontlines reporting these changes. Sadly, we're also going to be on the frontline of reporting closings.\" 17. JIM SLAMA 24. SONJA KASSEBAUM 41. MICHAEL MUSER 16. MELISSA FLYNN MELISSA says Flynn. “I’m a mom and I cook every FLYNN night. If you buy celery root and don’t know what to do with it, take it to our ‘Ask a Chef’ tent, where they can explain how to clean, store and cook it.” Newcity APRIL 2019 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, JIM GREEN CITY MARKET SLAMA Green City Market celebrates its twentieth year in 2019, and Melissa Flynn is proud of FOUNDER/CEO, FAMILYFARMED how it has “played a huge role in transform- Before the Good Food movement was com- ing the farm-to-table movement in Chicago monly understood, Jim Slama started Fam- and how chefs get their food. A lot of people ilyFarmed to build a better food system feel the farm-to-table movement has already where people would be able to eat locally happened, and now we’re onto the next sourced food produced using sustainable thing, but I think we’re going to see a re-in- and fair practices. Through activities like terest in it. You’ll see chefs going out of their the Good Food Expo and Good Food Accel- way to let diners know where their food erator, the organization has changed the comes from and see more sustainably and way Chicagoans eat. FamilyFarmed con- locally sourced foods on the menu.” Of nects farmers and food artisans with sup- course, the market is for home cooks. “I want the market to be completely accessible,” 24

Chile, a spicy, mole-flavored Amaro. CH THE HALL expanded into an off-site Pilsen distillery OF FAME in 2017, a move in step with the city’s explosion in craft cocktail programs. “The These folks, or the roles they inhabit, demand for high-quality, interesting spir- are so well-established and its just continues to grow,” says Atkinson. foundational to the dining and SONAT drinking world of Chicago that they & ROBERT BIRNECKER are always near the top of the list. OWNERS, TERRY ALEXANDER, KOVAL DISTILLERY PETER GARFIELD, Chicago has become known for its pleth- ora of breweries, but there’s also cool PAUL KAHAN, DONALD MADIA things happening on the spirits side. AND EDUARD SEITAN KOVAL Distillery has led the way in urban One Off Hospitality spirits, creating organic, from scratch, KEVIN BOEHM 18. TREMAINE 19. ROBERT AND AND ROB KATZ ATKINSON SONAT BIRNECKER Boka Restaurant Group pliers, and includes places that affect JESSE DIAZ masses of consumers, including Chicago Dark Matter Public Schools and Whole Foods. Emerg- ing food businesses have raised $15 CODY HUDSON, JOHN MARTIN, million through the Good Food Acceler- ROBERT MCADAMS, ator, and $80 million through Family- PETER TOALSON Farmed’s Financing and Innovation Land and Sea Dept Conference. “That’s over a hundred investors engaged and interested in good BILLY LAWLESS food business from hundreds of entre- The Gage Hospitality Group preneurs,” Slama says. “Big food is con- tinuing to look for innovation and to ROB LEVITT collaborate with folks like us.” Butcher & Larder TREMAINE TONY MAGEE ATKINSON Lagunitas Brewing Company CO-FOUNDER-DISTILLER, beautifully bottled liquor. “We really DAVID MANILOW APRIL 2019 Newcity CH DISTILLERY wanted to be in Chicago,” says Sonat “Check, Please!” Birnecker, who founded KOVAL in 2008 It might surprise Chicagoans to learn that with her husband Robert. Leaving behind RODRICK MARKUS Jeppson’s Malört, that iconic Chicago their respective jobs in academia, the Rare Tea Cellar booze—the flavor of which has been lik- couple turned to Robert’s family history ened to a tire fire, among other unlikely of distilling as their path in the Windy City. MATT MATROS tastes—hadn’t been manufactured in “We wanted to put Chicago on the map Protein Bar, Limitless Coffee & Tea Chicago since the 1970s. With the recent as a place for fine spirits,” she says. Now acquisition of Malört by Chicago-based KOVAL is one of the largest independent RICH MELMAN AND RJ, MOLLY CH Distillery, Malört returns home. “We distilleries in the country, with global AND JERROD MELMAN are bottling our first Malört as we speak,” distribution and a consulting arm that says Tremaine Atkinson, who opened CH has helped set up 180 distilleries around Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises in 2013. CH began by manufacturing the world. “We’ve made it part of our vodka from organic Illinois grain, and business to help people however we can,” ALPANA SINGH serving it in the company’s Randolph she says. “We grow the business by help- “Check Please!” Host; Street tasting room and distillery. The ing others grow theirs.” Owner, Terra and Vine success of CH Vodka inspired Atkinson to venture into the creation of liqueurs BRENDAN SODIKOFF like Limoncello, Fernet and Amargo de Hogsalt Hospitality JANET ISABELLI WILKERSON Isabelli Media Relations 25

FLORIAN are sourced from Illinois. As part of their continue to expand our menu offerings with PFAHLER Chef Series, they invite local chefs to develop more heatable options and new seasonal a sandwich, with ten percent of the proceeds dishes.” In Chicago, you’ll find Farmer’s going to the chef’s charity of choice. Turns Fridge machines at Revival Food Hall, Block out doing the right thing tastes good. 37, Riverside Plaza and locations you can locate on the Farmer’s Fridge app. MANAGING PARTNER/ LUKE CHANDRA FOUNDER-CEO, SAUNDERS RAM HANNAH’S BRETZEL FOUNDER-CEO, AUTHOR, EDITOR, PLATE “When we started Hannah’s Bretzel fourteen FARMER’S FRIDGE With degrees in journalism and culinary arts, years ago,” says Florian Pfahler, “we didn’t “Our goal,” says Farmer’s Fridge founder Luke Chandra Ram is well-positioned to serve as want to compete just on price and size, like Saunders, “is to make fresh, healthy food as editor of Plate, a magazine that introduces all the others. We wanted to elevate the accessible as a candy bar.” Saunders chefs to ways of preparing and serving ingre- sandwich.” Using the pretzel bun, popular achieves that by stocking his branded vend- dients old and new. “I love it when I hear ing machines with chef-curated, high-qual- about chefs connecting with each other 20. FLORIAN ity, reasonably priced meals and snacks. because of a recipe or technique we feature,” PFAHLER “I'm most proud of the fact that as we've ” says Ram. “That's the best; when you feel grown to more than 200 Fridges, the quality, like you made their lives more fun.” In 2018, variety and value of our food has actually Ram co-authored with chef Bill Kim the gotten better,” Saunders says. “We'll double book “Korean Sauces: Master Your Grill in the number of Fridges locally in 2019 and 37. GREG O’NEILL AND KEN MILLER 21. LUKE SAUNDERS Newcity APRIL 2019in his hometown of Stuttgart, Germany, Pfahler makes a next-level sandwich with ingredients uncommon at most fast casual restaurants, including bresaola (salted, air- dried ham) and wild-caught salmon. Fol- lowing the company mantra of “Do the Right Thing,” the eight downtown locations of Hannah’s Bretzel all are powered by solar or wind energy, make extensive use of com- posting and use only minimal quantities of biodegradable paper products, all of which 26

42. HUGE GALDONES 22. CHANDRA RAM Seven Sauces.” (Ram’s work also includes “The Complete Indian Instant Pot Cookbook: 130 Traditional and Modern Recipes.”) “I’m excited about the rise in modern Indian cooking,” Ram says. “There's been a boom of modern Indian restaurants over the last few years in New York and San Francisco, and now Chicago is getting in the game with Superkhana International and ROOH.\" MEGAN WALSH DESIGNER, co-owner husband want people to drink ARIA ARCHITECTS better. “We’re transparent about how it’s “You need to be able to create an experience,” made, we use only real ingredients, and says Megan Walsh, who has designed and we run in an environmentally conscious renovated rooms in some of Chicago’s most way.” They compost or recycle almost beautiful restaurants, including Rick Bayless’ everything, leaving behind a single square Bar Sótano and Topolobampo. “Patrons foot of trash each day. Education is also have evolved and expect more. It’s about important, and while she loves experiment- telling a story of the concept and the restau- ing, she wants bartenders to truly under- stand how ingredients work before using 23. MEGAN WALSH them. “We think through the ramifications and share what we’ve learned.” SONJA KASSEBAUM BRUCE KRAIG OWNER, NORTH SHORE DISTILLERY “During the polar vortex, we geeked out about how to freeze booze,” Sonja Kasse- baum jokes, in a display of the nerdiness she says is integral to North Shore Distill- ery’s success. “We love to play with ingre- dients and techniques with the goal of making truly amazing spirits that are not possible on a mass scale.” As owner of the oldest craft distillery in Illinois, she and her 25. BRUCE KRAIG AUTHOR-FOOD HISTORIAN Roosevelt University professor emeritus rant.” She works with lighting and space, Bruce Kraig has written about a lot of things, APRIL 2019 Newcity and ties her design into everything from the including the all-American hot dog and the music to the menus. And it’s not only in fine “Cuisines of Hidden Mexico.” He’s also edited dining: her firm works with Nando’s Peri-Peri a world encyclopedia of street food as well and other fast-casual restaurants who want as “The Chicago Food Encyclopedia.” We to prioritize design and experience to draw asked him when he thought Chicago had customers. “Bringing it down to all levels is its golden age of dining. “The golden age is important,” Walsh says. “Many people do today!” he says. “It started in the 1970s with take-out, so if they’re going to sit down in Louis Szathmary, Jovan Trbojevic… all lead- a restaurant, they want an experience.” ing to Alinea. Chicago is the capital of inno- vative fine dining [with] a greater variety of good ethnic restaurants than any city out- side of New York. It is a center for culinary mash-ups, a very American way to think about food. Chicago’s restaurants would be much more attractive if they were quieter. Old restaurants provided more pleasant dining experiences.” 27

28. LIZ GROSSMAN AND RACHEL GILLMAN RISCHALL LOU BANK FOUNDER, SACRED SACRED (Saving Agave for Community, Recreation, Education and Development) was founded by Lou Bank to introduce Americans and others—through tastings, guided travel and other experiences—to Mexico’s agave distillates. Also important is the work SACRED is doing in Mexico’s agave-producing regions: the group works with Mexican communities to build libraries, develop water preservation systems and cultivate and grow agave plants for future generations to make a living as well as enjoy 26. LOU BANK MIKE creativity rather than an attempt to get atten- SCHALLAU tion or shock value.” In spite of the flow of new beers coming from Pipeworks, Schallau OPERATIONS MANAGER- says that “the accomplishment we are most MASTER OF BARRELS, proud of in the past year is producing a fan- tastic pilsner. In the brewing world, making PIPEWORKS BREWING CO. a pilsner is one of the most difficult things to Pipeworks Brewing Co. is always trying out do. There is very little margin for error and new brews, which always sell out. “Creativity nowhere to hide.” In 2019, Schallau and the and experimentation are the heart of why Pipeworks team plan to open a taproom at we’ve made beer,” says Mike Schallau. California and Logan in Logan Square. “Exploring ideas, concepts and flavors is the fuel that burns in our engine. We are very MOLLY EACH, conscious of the implicit agreement we have LIZ GROSSMAN with our fans that when we do something ‘experimental,’ it arises out of curiosity and & RACHEL GILLMAN RISCHALL 27. MIKE SCHALLAU Newcity APRIL 2019 agave spirits. Bank’s tastings of agave dis- FOUNDERS, tillates are inspirational. “I know people BETWEEN BITES who’ve left SACRED tastings,” he says, “and Molly Each, Liz Grossman and Rachel booked flights to Oaxaca. In a broader sense, Rischall, the three Chicagoans who created I hope that my educational tastings for bar Between Bites, are still expanding their and restaurant workers have resulted in moveable feast of language, a spoken-word Chicago diners being encouraged to find platform for journalists, chefs and restaura- mezcals and other agave spirits that appeal teurs to read their works about food and life. to their palates. It’s hard to get someone to Each tells us, “At our first event, we hosted go from cocktails to neat spirits, but agave sixty people at TWO restaurant. This past shines brightest when consumed neat.” October, we held our five-year-anniversary party at Savage Smyth, where more than 130 guests helped us toast the milestone. Through ticket sales, we've raised more than $65,000 for local charities. This year, to raise additional funds, we've secured ticket dona- tions from coveted events like the James Beard Awards and Chicago Gourmet, and we’ve offered those tickets through charity raffles.” Readings from Between Bites are also available as podcasts. 28

KEN & DAN RASKIN OWNERS, MANNY’S DELI Gino Gambarota is the main man behind the counter at Manny’s Deli, but the men behind him are owners Ken and Dan, representing the third and fourth generations of the Raskin family. Together, the Raskins and their staff have served presidents, aldermen, senators and other power brokers over the past sev- enty-five-plus years, as well as regular guys who just want to have lunch (or, now, dinner) with their families. “We’re a place for every- body,” says Ken. “I love the multigenerational families who come in here, and we’re a mul- tigenerational business, offering something for everybody. Our customers know we’re not super-upscale, but we serve very high-quality food.” Their number one best- seller? No surprise: corned beef. MICHAEL GEBERT 43. TITUS RUSCITTI EDITOR-PUBLISHER, FOODITOR 29. MELISSA GRAHAM Fooditor is one of Chicago’s smartest online 40. MONICA ENG AND LOUISA CHU chronicles of the city’s evolving food scene. Michael Gebert doesn’t just report news, he 30. KEN AND DAN RASKIN goes into the why and how behind stories. MELISSA APRIL 2019 Newcity GRAHAM FOUNDER-CEO, PURPLE ASPARAGUS “We’re creating educated consumers,” says Melissa Graham, whose organization Purple Asparagus educates children, families and the community about sourcing, preparing and eating food that’s good for both the body and the planet. “The better we create knowl- edge in future generations, the more we’re going to see change and development in the future. It’s a lifetime thing.” There has been increasing interest in sustainably sourced food over the last decade, something Graham thinks will become mainstream. “We’re at a very critical point for our planet, and our food systems are very much responsible for part of that,” she says, adding that restaurants, food businesses and nonprofits can work together to educate people on how their choices affect the earth. 29

ALEXANDRA DESORBO- QUINN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PILOT LIGHT Pilot Light was born when local chefs expressed growing interest in connecting with the city’s future: children. “Not only is food an important part of all of our lives,” says executive director Alexandra DeSor- bo-Quinn, “but it’s a life skill, and it’s one that our students need.” Since hiring former 33. ALEXANDRA DESORBO-QUINN 49. CHRIS CHACKO 32. TONY AND JEFF DREYFUSS The work posted on Fooditor, and in the ciates the community and professionalism annual “Fooditor 99” listing of Gebert’s picks developing through the new-age notion of is, according to Rick Bayless, “decidedly not “coffee roasting as an enterprise.” Since mov- the PR-driven pap that passes for lots of ing roasting and wholesale operations into clicky food journalism today.” After doing a swanky new facility on the northern end time at the Reader and Grub Street Chicago, of the North Branch development, next to Gebert says he is not interested in the latest Metropolitan Brewing on Rockwell, Dreyfuss news of openings and closings and chef or eagerly awaits the future of manufacturing. menu changes. “I turn down a lot of things “Chicago is uniquely designed for this sort that are not that interesting to me,” says of thing,” he says. “Together we are more Gebert. “I’m just not interested in the big, than the sum of our parts. broad categories that lots of people are writing about. I talk to the people involved 31. MICHAEL and try to get at the living food culture GEBERT around the restaurant.” JEFF & TONYNewcity APRIL 2019 Elizabeth and Kitsune chef Justin Behlke as DREYFUSS its first full-time culinary director, the orga- nization realized that the primary connection OWNERS, with students starts with the teachers they METROPOLIS COFFEE see every day. Instead of chef-led lessons, Father and son Jeff and Tony Dreyfuss DeSorbo-Quinn and company now pair started roasting, brewing and selling “Great teachers directly with chefs to develop a Coffee for Everyone” sixteen years ago in curriculum and delivery method that will Edgewater. This very magazine named those work well into the future—making food edu- beans the city’s best. Today Metropolis has cation a staple for 6,000 students. “They “uncountable” competitors, as Tony Dreyfuss can carry this through their lives,” she says, says, but no regrets: “Chicago coffee, like whether to a future in food or simply to “con- Chicago architecture, worships no para- fidently ask the important questions about digms. Classic, modern, eclectic—there the food available to them in their schools, seems to be room for all of us.” He appre- homes and communities.” 30

Rick Bayless has been a champion since MATT 2016. “It’s been so gratifying,” says Gary MALONEY Lazarski, “to hear from Chicago chefs how much they appreciate the quality.” Before FOUNDER-CEO, MightyVine, especially during the winter, GRUBHUB Chicagoans settled for a watery, flavorless thing, what Michael Pollan refers to as “a If you order takeout in Chicago, chances are notional tomato,” the idea of a tomato. “That you’re ordering from GrubHub. The company was the genesis of the whole venture,” says (which merged in 2013 with Seamless, the Lazarski. “I asked the question: why can’t other platform you might be ordering you get a good tomato in the winter?” Since through) has more than 17.7 million users 2015, MightyVine has grown vine-ripened who can order from more than 105,000 tomatoes in its energy-efficient, hydroponic restaurants nationwide. Maloney is basically greenhouses in Rochelle, Illinois. They are the reason you’re able to order anything at expanding, doubling operations for the third your desk, from a chicken-and-waffle slider time to meet the incessant demands of to a peanut butter açaí bowl. According to retailers, including Jewel, Costco and GrubHub’s annual “Year in Food” report, Walmart. By the end of 2019, MightyVine will be producing 105 million tomatoes a year. Not a single one of them “notional.” 38. CHERYL MUÑOZ 34. ADAM SOKOLOWSKI ADAM APRIL 2019 Newcity SOKOLOWSKI DIGITAL CONTENT CREATOR Adam Sokolowski (@chicagofooddude) is one of those young people you see hovering over dinner, snapping photos. Influencers. Sokolowski, however, “loathes” that title and prefers to be called a digital content creator. He wants you to understand “how much work and thought goes into” what he does. What he does is leverage social media to broadcast images and other information about products and services. But Sokolowski is not just a camera for hire. He has an ethical backbone, and although his audience is the right demo- graphic for specific commercial products, he knows when to draw the line. “I have turned down work,” he says, “with e-cigarette com- panies.” Sokolowski’s audience trusts him, and he knows that he needs to keep that trust to do his job effectively. GARY LAZARSKI CEO, MIGHTYVINE You’ll find MightyVine tomatoes all over Chicago: sandwiched into a bagel at Stein- gold’s, layered on pizza at Coal Fire, blended into a Bloody Mary at Kite String Cantina. 31

forty-three percent of people order food to the office more than twice a week. Earlier this month, GrubHub’s stock hit an all-time high in partnership with Yum! brands, which also means more jobs. Before the Yum! partnership, GrubHub employed about 20,000 drivers as independent contractors. Now, the company has agreed to double the number of markets it serves in order to deliver brands like KFC and Pizza Hut. “Not only are we increasing our markets by more than double, we’re going deeper and adding more drivers in all of the eighty markets we’re serving,” Maloney said in an interview on MSNBC. In 2019, delivery jobs and food options—from deep dish to tacos—aren’t going anywhere. GREG O’NEILL & KEN MILLER OWNERS, 44. MITCH AND PASTORAL ARTISAN CLIFF EINHORN Greg O’Neill and Ken Miller hit on something special when they opened the first Pastoral day.” In the past two years, Sugar Beet in the reader which will motivate action to Artisan fifteen years ago. “We tried to Schoolhouse classes have grown from a attend a market, try a new restaurant or become part of the culinary fiber of the city,” single class to over twelve per week. “Our recipe, meet a farmer, and maybe drink a says O’Neill, and they succeeded. The spe- classes and camps are all running at capac- new local artisan cocktail.” cialty food shop is known for getting new ity,” Muñoz says, “and our programs reached producers off the ground, providing the city’s over 1,200 kids and their families last year.” best restaurants with incredible cheeses, Newcity APRIL 2019 and delivering quality catering. While ANN LOUISA CHU full-service restaurants have always been FLOOD & MONICA ENG part of their repertoire, O’Neill and Miller are getting back to the intimate, service and EDITOR, EDIBLE CHICAGO CO-HOSTS, CHEWING education-focused spaces where they excel. When her brother began to focus on local, Louisa Chu (Chicago Tribune) and Monica “We’re not trying to be everyone, but we are seasonal eating for health reasons, Ann Eng (WBEZ) are co-hosts of the podcast trying to be our best Pastoral,” O’Neill says. Flood took a hard look at her own eating with the mash-up title “Chewing,” recent “Being a small retailer, you have to stay hyper- habits. Her exploration led her to commu- episodes of which included “FEMA Junk tuned to where the winds are blowing. If nity farmers’ markets, where the stories of Food, Foraging and Kids That Cook Better you’re not listening, you’re not learning.” the producers enlightened and inspired Than You” and “Acid Trip, Salad Club and her. “It was exciting.” she says, “to now Herbal Jelly.” “The main mission is to have CHERYL have a name, a face and a story behind the a load of fun,” says Eng, “but I also wanted MUÑOZ carrot I was about to consume.” Eager to an outlet for my continuing interest in food share these stories, Flood helped establish after WBEZ killed food as a beat in our news- FOUNDER-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, Edible Chicago, the local outpost of a room. After studying and writing about food SUGAR BEET SCHOOLHOUSE national chain of food journals. The publi- and food policy for decades, it seemed like cation covers not only narratives from the a shame to waste all that.” Both Chu and After helping to establish Oak Park’s Sugar restaurant community, but chef-written Eng know a lot about food, and “Chewing” Beet Co-op, Cheryl Muñoz founded Sugar recipes that employ the kind of local ingre- allows them to present their information and Beet Schoolhouse, with a mission of getting dients that changed her perspective on the insights in an easygoing conversational people, especially children, excited about the food she eats. “My hope,” says Flood, “has format. Also, sometimes, in a segment called joys of growing, cooking and sharing food been that the content, both editorial and “Will She Eat It,” the women try food that you together. “Preparing food together is the advertiser, will continue to evoke curiosity will probably never eat, like balut (chicken perfect opportunity for introducing new con- or duck embryo), but that you can taste, cepts about everything from basic botany to mercifully, vicariously. cultural sensitivity,” Muñoz says. “I have built a preschool culinary program that builds on what they are learning in their regular school 32

MITCH & CLIFF EINHORN MICHAEL 46. SETH ZURER OWNERS, TWISTED SPOKE, MUSER AND MICHAEL GRIGGS LUSH WINE & SPIRITS HOST, JEAN BANCHET “While the abundance of food photographers When Twisted Spoke opened twenty-five AWARDS COMMITTEE does affect business from a client-pool years ago, it was at the forefront of the gas- 2018 was a year unlike any other for Michael standpoint,” Galdones says, “it's made me tropub trend, and when Lush Wine & Spir- Muser. After Grace, where Muser was Gen- reassess how I operate as a business. It its opened in 2005, it was a leader in wine. eral Manager, closed at the end of 2017 and used to be a volume game where I'd try to “It seemed like the hospitality aspect of wine the resulting legal snarls, Muser, a self-pro- shoot as much as I could. Now, it's more was lost in Chicago,” Mitch Einhorn says, fessed “dude who does eighteen-hour days about fostering and maintaining relation- so he created a shop where people could just because,” had to hit the pause button ships with clients who understand and trust linger and taste wines before buying. This on his industry endeavors. Yet this sabbat- the style of photography I provide.” Asked turned into a wine bar, and the newest Lush ical has not stopped him being a cheerleader whether he’d rather shoot food or people, location in Evanston will build further upon for the Chicago dining scene. “Every few Galdones says that he would rather photo- the concept, thanks to a full-size kitchen years, Chicago sends up a flare and makes graph “people engaging with food.” This and flavor profiles from places like India and other cities talk—not just about fine dining, aesthetic attitude enables him to highlight Japan. Despite new openings, Einhorn notes but burgers, hot dogs,” he says. “That’s Chi- a “side of the industry that the consumer Chicago’s restaurants are in a tricky spot. cago. That’s what we do. That’s why we’re doesn't usually get to see, the stories of how “The pool of talent is really small,” he says, amazing.” His enthusiasm makes him a food gets to the plate.” and “minimum wage is making everything seamless fit as the face of the Jean Banchet more expensive.” He’s looking at ways to Awards, turning a little-known event into TITUS maintain standards without burdening the the dining community’s own mini-Oscars. RUSCITTI customer. “I’m just trying to make good food “I’m so proud it’s its own thing—a show for at a reasonable price that people can appre- restaurant kids written by restaurant kids.” FOOD SCOUT ciate every day.” As for 2019, Muser can say only, “Chicago’s No one we know seeks out and eats more got a lot to look forward to.” regional chow than Titus Ruscitti. Appearing KEVIN frequently in Thrillist with articles like “Why McCONKEY HUGE Chicago is America’s Top Taco Town” and GALDONES “Chicago’s Ten Best Under-the-Radar Sand- CO-FOUNDER-PRINCIPAL, wiches,” Ruscitti believes “regional Ameri- GRIP DESIGN OWNER-PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHER, can food is taken seriously now more than GALDONES PHOTOGRAPHY ever.” Sometimes the deliciousness is found Kevin McConkey’s Grip Design has worked in unexpected places: “Taco Bell and their for places like Bellemore and Swift & Sons, Today, everyone is a photographer, and while factory-made shells gave the crispy taco a and he says it’s all about conveying the feel few get close to the quality of photos that bad rap. But if you dig deep enough, you'll of a restaurant before diners even step foot come from the lens of Huge Galdones, that find that the crispy taco is alive and well in it. “Long before a diner decides where to tsunami of amateur photographers must across America.” Ruscitti travels around, spend their time and money, what do they have an impact on his business, right? chows down and writes about it in “Smokin’ do? They go online,” he says. Grip Design Chokin’ and Chowing with the King” (chib- bqking.blogspot.com/), although he says 45. KEVIN McCONKEY he’s no influencer. “The only people I try to influence,” he says, “are local food folks APRIL 2019 Newcity interested in the same things as me and maybe the local media by sharing whatever it is I find out there.” 33

Newcity APRIL 2019 47. INA INA roaster, Chacko founded Sparrow in 2012 PINKNEY PINKNEY to showcase his skills and knowledge and Sparrow Coffee has since become an exclu- helps restaurants represent their vision BREAKFAST QUEEN sive and sought-after supplier. Beyond chal- online and elsewhere. “Dining out is perhaps OF CHICAGO lenging the status quo of conventional the most consistent entertainment people roasting with methods like a sous-vide of leave their homes for, and we believe it Even after feeding Chicago for thirty-three beans, Chacko also recognizes the environ- should be more than food on a plate,” years, right up until she served her final break- mental change that affects his industry: he McConkey says, noting the importance of fast at Ina’s in 2013, Pinkney remains a force employs a smokeless roaster and uses only loyalty programs, behind-the-scenes offer- in the dining scene. Most recently, she’s hit sustainably sourced beans. ings, and the importance of a stellar front- the breakfast beat, introducing readers of of-house. While personal service is import- the Tribune to little-known spots to fill up on SISOUK ant, he’s willing to innovate to please younger that most important meal of the day. “Because SISAVATH customers. Think cashier-less ordering my standards are really high, I like to think systems and more mobile app features. my readers will come to expect more and FOUNDER, better,” says Pinkney. She is particularly ada- STRANGE FOODS MICHAEL mant about the need for hospitality, which CHICAGO FESTIVAL GRIGGS, ANDRE she credits as the secret to her long-running Sisouk (or Keng, as he’s known) Sisavath is VONBACONVITCH restaurant. “We’re missing that kindness the man behind Strange Foods Chicago & SETH ZURER today, and I worry about it,” she says. “But Festival. During past festivals, Sisavath has I’ll be around to remind [the restaurant com- brought in performers to pair music and FOUNDERS, BACONFEST munity] what it should be and what it can be. dance from the countries that produce foods Baconfest—the brainchild of pork belly I have respect for innovation; I have more that could seem strange to Western eaters. brothers Griggs, Vonbaconvitch and Zurer— respect for tradition and consistency.” is revving up for its second decade, more 50. SISOUK bacon-y than ever. “Every year,” says Zurer, ANTONIO SISAVATH “we pull in new restaurants from every cor- FIASCHE ner of Chicago foodie firmament. Thirty Silk worms with kaffir lime leaves, cricket Baconfest first-timers join the lineup, ‘NDUJA ARTISAN, tacos, boiled chicken embryo, you get the including NoMI, About Last Knife, Blue CO-FOUNDER, TEMPESTA MARKET idea. “I started Strange Food Festival,” says Door Kitchen & Garden and Steingold’s ‘Nduja is a sweetheart of the Chicago dining Sisavath, “because I wanted to give an oppor- of Chicago. But Baconfest does more scene, found on charcuterie plates, pizzas, tunity for the restaurants to share the food of than fill us with delicious pork. “Our grand and pastas. The spicy, spreadable salumi their motherland. For 2019, I have plans for total of financial support for the Greater owes much of its Chicago popularity to doing the festival outside, mixing small restau- Chicago Food Depository grows every year,” Antonio Fiasche. Working alongside his rants with bigger-name restaurants.” Zurer says. “We’ve surpassed $440,000 in father Agostino, Fiasche tapped into family support over the last ten years. That trans- traditions and quality ingredients to create lates to more than 1.3 million meals for ‘nduja so good that it racked up accolades hungry Chicagoans.” and launched an entire salumi business. Marketed under the name Tempesta and accompanied by a brick-and-mortar deli, Fiasche’s company serves up a wide selec- tion of artisan meats that continue to win awards and wow eaters. CHRIS CHACKO FOUNDER/CEO, SPARROW COFFEE With the advent of “third wave” coffee and the rise of specialty roasters, coffee has moved in the general consciousness from commodity to a recognized craft product. Chris Chacko and his Sparrow Coffee roast- ery embody this shift. A veteran coffee 34

“Red, White & You,” 2018, Collage on Panel, 20 x 16 inches each (Diptych) Genevieve Gaignard: \"Black White and Red All Over\" at Monique Meloche Gallery beginning April 5 rts & Culture

Art Newcity APRIL 2019 Gregg Bordowitz, \"Some Styles of Masculinity\" 2018. Performance, New Museum, New York /Photo: Chloe Foussianes. “My future's bleak, ain't it neat:\" On Gregg Bordowitz’s Chicago Retrospective By KT Hawbaker When it comes to the work of Gregg Nelson and fellow curator Robyn Farrell have “Similarly, Gregg’s recent video ‘Only Idiots Bordowitz, the revolution will be televised. worked closely with the artist in bringing the Smile’ (2017) switches between two cameras show from Reed College to the the Art in a way that resonates with early television’s In the late eighties, Bordowitz experimented Institute, attaching “Chicago additions” along aesthetic limitations and possibilities,” Nelson with televisual technology as he navigated the the way that attest to Bordowitz’s relationship says. “In other words, like many artists stories central to his personhood: Judaism, with the city. The end product will be an associated with appropriation and conceptual queerness and AIDS activism. Combining the exhibition chronicling over thirty years of art, the goal may not necessarily be invention, intimacy of memoir and the raw edges of multimedia work, including selections from but rather generating new ways of seeing, public broadcast, Bordowitz dropped in on a the artist’s personal library archive as well as sometimes via repetition. longer history between social movements and his well-known art made for television. the moving image. ”Bordowitz, born in Brooklyn in 1964 and raised “He subsequently utilized this protest footage in Queens, landed in Manhattan’s East Village “Bordowitz was among the first video-makers in very different modes of work within his at eighteen. The pre-Giuliani cityscape was a to record direct action protests within ACT oeuvre, from didactic videos intended to glam and gritty underground of nightlife and UP, yet this innovation was made possible by advocate for a public health movement, to punk scenes, situating Bordowitz in a an attention to prior histories—activists’ the influential essayistic video 'Fast Trip, Long pulse-pounding moment of chaotic creativity. innovative thinking about the role of media Drop' (1993), which juxtaposed performance within direct action civil-rights movements of documentation, archival footage and “But as postmodernism, feminism and the forties to the sixties,” says Solveig Nelson, recordings of ACT UP demonstrations. multiculturalism assayed the canon, AIDS co-curator of \"I Wanna Be Well,\" the Art began claiming lives and the legislative Institute of Chicago’s forthcoming retrospec- ”According to the curators, “Fast Trip, Long disciplining of the ‘infected’ body became part tive of Bordowitz’s work. (ACT UP is an Drop” builds upon histories of early feminist of an extant conservative agenda to oppress acronym for The AIDS Coalition to Unleash video art, drawing deeply from the work of labor, social equity and freedom of expression,” Power, in which Bordowitz was active.) Martha Rosler and Barbara Kruger. Nelson says. “In New York in the eighties, the 36

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO It’s time to register for Spring programs DEPARTMENT OF VISUAL ARTS 2019 BA THESIS EXHIBITION with the Chicago Park District! for an Online registration begins: easier recipe, Monday, February 25 at 9AM sear pork shoulder for parks WEST of California Ave. (2800 W.) apr 5 28 Tuesday, February 26 at 9AM for parks EAST of California Ave. (2800 W.) OPENING RECEPTION FRI APRIL 5, 6-8PM In-Person registration begins: LOGAN CENTER GALLERY Saturday, March 2 for most parks. 915 E 60TH ST. CHICAGO, IL 60637 Some parks begin Monday, March 4 Activities start the week of April 1 for most programs. Please note: registration dates vary for gymnastics centers as well as Morgan Park Sports Center & McFetridge Sports Center. For more information visit: MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL STAY CONNECTE D. Chicago Park District Board of Commissioners Michael P. Kelly, General Superintendent & CEO L to R: by Aden Weisser, by Debby Peck, by Diane Kamm, Racine Art Museum Don’t Miss the 10th Anniversary of PEEPS Art at RAM! Learn more about all Racine Art Museum current exhibitions and events at ramart.org April 11 – 28 RAM 10th Annual International PEEPS Art Exhibition APRIL 2019 Newcity Through August 4 Treasure Trove: Establishing Jewelry and Metals Archives at RAM Through September 1 Represent: Portraits from RAM’s Collection Through October 6 From Nature: Contemporary Artists and Organic Materials Racine Art Museum Racine, Wisconsin 262.638.8300 ramart.org 37

choice was clear: act up or die.” Upon his HIV diagnosis in 1988—before antiretroviral drugs were readily available— Bordowitz devoted himself to guerrilla artistic work with ACT UP. His work was at once diaristic and a form of public politicking. ART TOP 5 “I’m not sure if Gregg would use 1 Gregg Bordowitz. the word ‘radical,’ but I think Art Institute of Chicago. The videos, poems and we can ask, how does Gregg’s performances of Chicago- based artist and activist Gregg work position media and art as Bordowitz examine his queer, Jewish identity and his impact capable of generating social on AIDS activism in America. transformation? Take for 2 Genevieve Gaignard. Monique Meloche Gallery. example Gregg’s first video Gaignard's photography and mixed-media installations ‘some aspect of a shared operate at the intersection of race, gender and class. lifestyle’ (1986), exhibited in 3 Devan Shimoyama. William Olander’s exhibition at Kavi Gupta Gallery. Coming off a solo show at the New Museum, ‘Homo The Andy Warhol Museum, Shimoyama shows new Video: Where We Are Now’ portraiture taking up the complexities within the meeting (1986-87), one of the earliest of queer culture and black American culture. exhibitions of queer video,” 4 Context 2019. Filter Photo Nelson says. While the video Space. This year's edition of the annual juried show of preceded ACT UP’s formation new photography is curated by Ariel Pate, assistant curator of in 1988, Bordowitz analyzes photography at the Milwaukee Art Museum. CDC statistical reports that 5 Abstractly Speaking. suggested a shared pattern of Woman Made Gallery. Juried by gallerist Melanee risks within the homosexual Cooper, this group show focuses on and favors and Haitian communities, along form, color, texture and mark-making over traditionally with drug users. representational work. Gregg Bordowitz addressing a crowd in front of the Food and Drug Administration, 38 “Bordowitz identifies a particular 1988. Courtesy of the artist. formal pattern—narratives in newspapers and television news broadcasts that describe AIDS as a problem “I don’t know that Bordowitz would identify with only for certain groups—and then proposes a a desire to produce legacies, but he does talk about the importance of a second generation different kind of pattern that is both formal/ of conceptual artists—including, but not aesthetic and political: the formation of limited to himself—who brought questions of coalitions,” Nelson says. “In other words, Gregg uses strategies found in art movements gender, race and sexuality into our interpreta- such as conceptual art to the ends of activism. tions of the space of the museum,” Nelson says. “Bordowitz might be more interested in ”But, as this activism waned in the early nineties collective legacies, as well as the role of teaching in creating intergenerational dialogue.\" and Bordowitz' health and community were dissolving, he channeled his despair into “Fast Nelson and Farrell assert that while these Trip, Long Drop.” dialogues now take up space in an abundance \"So total was the burden of illness—mine and of media including poetry and opera, the others'—that the only viable response, other moving image remains at the center of his than to cease making art entirely, was to adjust projects, with Bordowitz exploring how film to the gravity of the predicament by using the and video relate to language. For example, his 2012 poem “There: A Feeling” features the crisis as a lens,\" Bordowitz writes in the introduction of \"The AIDS Crisis is Ridiculous artist stating, “I’m trying to show how and Other Writings: 1986-2003,\" a collection conjunctions yield new substances.” documenting his experiences during the “Bordowitz's recent works, from poetry to the epidemic and within its repercussions. performances ‘Some Styles of Masculinity’ Newcity APRIL 2019 As his career moved into an institutional (2017), accumulate identity positions that are setting, Bordowitz landed teaching and sometimes seen in contradiction,” Nelson says. research positions at spots like the School of “Bordowitz’s goal does not seem to be to produce equivalences, but to allow for the the Art Institute of Chicago and Brown friction that multiplies the ways that we University. He currently directs SAIC’s Low-Residency MFA Program. The curators conceive of sexuality.” see Bordowitz’s legacy occupying the gray area between the museum and the rally, even “Gregg Bordowitz: I Wanna Be Well” shows though they are sure he’s hesitant about through July 14 at the Art Institute of Chicago, naming his impact on queer history. 111 South Michigan.

Deana Lawson & Dru Donovan APRIL 19–MAY 25, 2019 The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection 1711 WEST CHICAGO AVENUE CHICAGO ILLINOIS 60622 Presented by The Helis Foundation WW W. R H OF F MAN G A L L E RY.C O M January 29–May 19, 2019 AAdllmariesswioenlciosmalew. ays free. smartmuseum.uchicago.edu S AV E T H E D AT E 2019 Visit 80+ artist workspaces Racine Studios Kenosha Studios Saturday, April 27 • 11-5 Sunday, April 28 • 11-5 Art Exhibition • Meet the Artists • Live Entertainment APRIL 2019 Newcity Art Demonstrations • Free Food • Cash Bar Preview Party | Friday, April 26 $5 for 3 Days of Art | 1601 Washington Avenue, Racine www.getbehindthearts.org 39

EXHIBITIONS THE ARTS CLUB OF CHICAGO DEPAUL ART MUSEUM 201 East Ontario Street At DePaul University 312 787 3997 935 W. Fullerton Avenue [email protected] / www.artsclubchicago.org 773 325 7506 Tues–Fri 11-6, Sat 11-3 [email protected] / artmuseum.depaul.edu Through April 27 Thessia Machado: Toward the Unsound Mon–Tues closed, Wed–Thurs 11-7, Fri–Sun 11-5 Opening April 14 Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford: Garden Gipsoteca closed April 1-25 April 25–August 11 New Age, New Age: Strategies for Survival THE BLOCK MUSEUM OF ART April 25–August 11 Eric J. Garcia: The Bald Eagle’s Toupee At Northwestern University MONIQUE MELOCHE GALLERY 40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston, IL 847 491 4000 451 N. Paulina Street [email protected] / www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu 312 243 2129 Tues, Sat–Sun 10-5, Wed–Fri 10-8, Mon closed [email protected] / www.moniquemeloche.com Through July 21 Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, Tues–Sat 11-6 April 5–May 24 Genevieve Gaignard: Black White and Red All Over and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa Through April 14 Isaac Julien: The Leopard (Western Union MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY Small Boats) At Columbia College Chicago CARL HAMMER GALLERY 600 S. Michigan Avenue 312 663 5554 740 N. Wells Street [email protected] / www.mocp.org 312 266 8512 Mon–Wed 10-5, Thurs 10-8, Fri–Sat 10-5, Sun 12-5 [email protected] / www.carlhammergallery.com April 11–July 7 Birmingham, Alabama, 1963: Tues–Sat 11-5:30 Through April 27 New Paintings by Amy Laskin: COME AS YOU ARE Dawoud Bey/Black Star April 11–July 7 Chicago Stories: Carlos Javier Ortiz DEPARTMENT OF VISUAL ARTS AND LOGAN CENTER EXHIBITIONS and David Schalliol At the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts THE NEUBAUER COLLEGIUM 915 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637 FOR CULTURE AND SOCIETY 773 702 2787 [email protected] / arts.uchicago.edu/logan-center At the University of Chicago Tues–Sat 9-9, Sun 11-9, Mon closed 5701 South Woodlawn Avenue April 5–28 2019 BA Thesis Exhibition 773 795 2329 [email protected] / www.neubauercollegium.uchicago.edu Mon–Fri 10-5 Through April 5 Kleine Welt: Paul Klee + Zachary Cahill, R. H. Quaytman, David Schutter April 25–September 6 Hutopia: John Preus, Guy Moreton, Goshka Macuga, Alec Finlay

POETRY FOUNDATION SCHINGOETHE CENTER 61 W. Superior Street of Aurora University 312 787 7070 1315 Prairie Street, Aurora, IL [email protected] / www.poetryfoundation.org 630 844 7843 Mon–Fri 11-4 [email protected] / www.aurora.edu/museum Through April 25 The Lushness of Print: Samiya Bashir Mon, Wed–Fri 10-4, Tues 10-7 Through April 26 BECOMING: Transformations in American & Letra Chueca Press May 10–August 22 Yoko Ono: Poetry, Painting, Music, Indian Art, The Schingoethe Contemporary Collection Through April 26 Stitches of the Soul / Las Puntadas del Alma: Objects, Events, and Wish Trees Story Quilts from the National Museum of Mexican Art THE RENAISSANCE SOCIETY SMART MUSEUM OF ART At the University of Chicago 5811 S. Ellis Ave., Cobb Hall, 4th Floor At the University of Chicago 773 702 8670 5550 S. Greenwood Avenue [email protected] / www.renaissancesociety.org 773 702 0200 Tues–Wed, Fri 10-5, Thurs 10-8, Sat–Sun 12-5 [email protected] / www.smartmuseum.uchicago.edu Through April 7 David Maljković: Also on View Tues–Wed 10-5, Thurs 10-8, Fri–Sun 10-5 April 27–June 23 Liz Magor: BLOWOUT Through May 19 Solidary & Solitary: The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection Through May 19 Smart to the Core: Embodying the Self RHONA HOFFMAN GALLERY ZHOU B ART CENTER 1711 W. Chicago Avenue 312 455 1990 1029 W. 35th Street [email protected] / www.rhoffmangallery.com 773 523 0200 Tues–Fri 10-5:30, Sat 11-5:30 [email protected] / www.zhoubartcenter.com March 1–April 13 Robert Heinecken: Mr. President... Mr. President... Mon–Sat 10-5 April 19–May 25 Deana Lawson & Dru Donovan March 15–April 5 61 at 61, Rock & Roll Photography by Michael G. Bush March 15–April 5 Out of Nowhere, presented by Defibrillator Gallery RICHARD GRAY GALLERY March 15–April 12 Jasper Goodrich: Boat, presented by 062 Gallery April 12–14 IMPACT Performance Festival, featuring work by MFA Richard Gray Gallery, Hancock: 875 N. Michigan Avenue, 38th Floor Mon–Fri 10-5:30, Sat by appointment and BFA students from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago Gray Warehouse: 2044 W. Carroll Avenue April 19–May 3 IMPACT Exhibition, featuring work by MFA students Wed–Sat 11-5 312 642 8877 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago [email protected] / www.richardgraygallery.com April 4–June 29 Theaster Gates: Every Square Needs a Circle (Gray Warehouse)

Dance DANCE TOP 5 Newcity APRIL 2019 1Mega Israel. Harris Theater. Photo: Jackie Kling German contemporary Stronger Dancers, company Gauthier Dance Stronger Dance Scene presents a program of works by Israeli choreographers, all Chicago Dance Month Puts a Focus on Health and Wellness influenced by Batsheva Dance company director Ohad Naharin By Sharon Hoyer and his groundbreaking approach to movement. April 5-6 In my fifteen years covering dance in themselves saying, “I mean to get out and see Chicago, I’ve witnessed our city evolve from more dance,” now is the time. 2 STOMPING GROUNDS. being the best place in the Midwest to see Venues around the city. dance shows on the regular to one of the great Chicago Dance Month was conceived by The Chicago Human Rhythm global centers of dance, performance art and SeeChicagoDance, a nonprofit dedicated to Project’s annual festival of physical theater. Chicago today is a magnet for supporting the art form, as a way to draw rhythmic dance is one of the U. S. premieres by internationally renowned attention to the truly remarkable depth and city’s true gems. A half-dozen companies at world-class theaters, fertile variety of dance happening in our city. This year, Chicago companies visit each ground for under-the-radar experimental SeeChicagoDance added a new feature: a Day others’ home bases for shared performers in DIY spaces and home to of Dancer Health on April 22. I spoke with performances and cultural countless companies and artists everywhere in Heather Hartley, executive director of SeeChica- exchange through May. Through between. goDance, about this year’s focus on dancer May 31 health and wellness, as well as performance This is true year-round, but April in particular is a highlights. 3 Across the Pond. time to celebrate the richness of our dance Auditorium Theatre. The scene, dubbed Chicago Dance Month, How did the Day of Dancer Health come Joffrey welcomes spring with a featuring free performances, workshops, about? program of works by U. K. special events and deals on tickets to shows The official title is the Dance/USA Day of Dancer choreographers. April 24-May 5 running monthlong. If you’re the type who finds Health. That organization started this back in 4 Of Whales, Time and Your Last Attempt to Reach Me. Dovetail Studios. Molly Shanahan and her company Mad Shak continue to develop “Of Whales...” since the first showing last spring at Columbia College. April 5-6 5 Open Studio Tuesdays. Chicago Cultural Center Dance Studio. Local artists take over the Cultural Center studios for a series of free mini- performances, workshops and classes. Plus snacks. Tuesdays (except April 30) through May 7 42

2015 as a pilot program looking at specific areas or areas for improvement. One station Are there highlights from the Chicago health issues and needs of dancers. Dancers focuses on ankle strength. Six out of eight Dance Month programming you’d like place very high demands on their bodies and dancers in the United States get an ankle to mention? usually don’t make high paychecks. There’s a injury at some point. We’ll have counseling There is a bounty of activity: seventy-two disparity between physical demands and on nutrition—how do you build a healthy events listed throughout the month. There’s a ability to pay for self-care. I go to the national meal plan on a tight budget and when you’re little bit of everything, something to appeal to conference every year and folks in other rehearsing till 10pm? Then dancers will meet everyone. The range of activities happen at service organizations in other cities were with an M. D. at the end, and if anything every venue I’m familiar with, from the Joffrey talking about it—San Francisco, Boston. It needs greater medical care, then provide at the Auditorium to Winifred Haun and was important to me with Chicago having a referral or follow-up opportunities. We hope Dancers at Links Hall, to Chicago Human major dance community for it to happen here. they’ll walk away with more knowledge about Rhythm Project. I’m excited about the event How do we make our organizations stronger their strength and weaknesses. we’re hosting; we always do a kickoff. It’s and how do we make our dancers stronger? April 1 this year, a free performance at the We did a survey in October at our quarterly What does follow-up care look like for Cultural Center at 4:30pm. Six dance convening of the dance community: here’s a attendees without health insurance or on companies perform under the Tiffany dome. couple things we’re thinking about doing in tight budgets? It’s a great opportunity to come together as a 2019, what do you think? Across the board One of our sponsors is Dance For Life. They’ll community and see the range of activity. everyone said, “Yes, more info on healthcare.” give out information on micro-grants. David We knew the community wanted and needed Hinkamp is the co-director of Health in the April 30 we have a scavenger hunt for it. As we’ve launched into the project, we’ve Arts at University of Illinois Chicago. Within site-specific performances along the found that it creates a network of healthcare their sports medicine department, they have Riverwalk. It’s fascinating to see companies in providers who form a cohort, it not only has a healthy arts program. The natural progres- that architectural setting. We encourage benefits for the dancers, but it creates a more sion is that if someone needs deeper care patrons to find companies with written clues informed network of specialists—acupunctur- they would get a referral for free or deeply and collect stamps. There are fabulous prizes ists, physical therapists, mental health discounted care at David’s program. for visitors who collect all their stamps. It will professionals. wind up at City Winery where we put down a Who do you hope will attend the event? dance floor. Patrons twenty-one and over will What services will be offered? We hope it’s a broad cross-section of the be invited to have a glass of rosé. Last year We’re partnering with the Menomonee Club’s dancer community, anyone who feels they we had gorgeous weather and had people Drucker Center in two of their studios. could use better care or don’t have a general doing participatory hip hop and boats pulling Dance/USA offered a template, a screening practitioner. We imagine it will be younger up to watch. It’s great fun. process. Dancers will check in first, do a dancers or those affiliated with smaller, wellness check in with an M.D., then move pickup companies that don’t have access to Chicago Dance Month is celebrated at through the stations with specialists—physi- resources or artists in a freelance point in venues across Chicago throughout the cal therapists, orthopedic surgeons—and get their career. But everyone is welcome. We’re month of April. For a complete list of events assessed at each one. They’ll look at issue open-minded about who can show up. visit seechicagodance.com. Lights, Camera, Action. The APRIL 2019 Newcity Hangar. A prime location for your next event or production. 43 For more info or quotes email [email protected]

Design Dimensions of Citizenship, Wrightwood 659/Photo: Tom Harris A Space for DESIGN TOP 5 Citizenship 1 Dimensions of Citizenship: The U.S. Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Architecture and Biennale on View for the First Time in the United States Belonging from the Body to the Cosmos. Wrightwood 659. By Nancy Chen A reinstallation of the official U.S. Pavilion from the Sixteenth Newcity APRIL 2019 \"Dimensions of Citizenship\" is an exhibition “It is urgent that architecture act as an important International Architecture of the American architectural imagination that tool in understanding, shaping and envisioning Exhibition of the Venice Biennale premiered to a global architecture and design what it means to be a citizen today,\" stated the explores the idea of citizenship audience at the official U. S. Pavilion at the curators of \"Dimensions of Citizenship\" when and its relationship to architecture Venice Biennale’s International Architecture they were chosen to organize the U.S. Pavilion. and design. Through April 27 Exhibition last year. Co-commissioned by the \"Our goal is to present the United States as a School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and site of critical research and practice in 2 Mies van der Rohe: the University of Chicago, with the curatorial architecture, at the intersection of old and new Chicago Blues and team of Niall Atkinson (professor of art history, forms of community engagement, political Beyond. Matthew Rachman University of Chicago), Ann Lui (professor of action and public policy,\" they said. Gallery. A collection of original architecture, SAIC) and Mimi Zeiger (L. A.-based blueprints, artifacts and furniture critic and faculty in media design at the Art To that end, the curators posed the following by pioneer of modernist Center College of Design in Pasadena, questions to seven multi-disciplinary teams of architecture, Mies van der Rohe. California), and associate curator Chica- artists, architects and other creative collabora- Opens April 13; through July 21 go-based architect Iker Gil, the cosmopolitan tors: “What does it mean to be a citizen?” and exhibition was conceived in Chicago and, with “How can architecture and design respond to 3 The Whole World a its recent reinstallation at the Wrightwood 659 the shape, and express today’s complex Bauhaus. Elmhurst Art art space in Lincoln Park, it has come home. conditions of citizenship?” These are broad Museum. Celebrating the questions, so it isn’t surprising that the answers one-hundredth anniversary of The Venice Biennale is characterized by some delivered by the seven creative teams in their the founding of the Bauhaus. as the pinnacle for showcasing architectural resulting projects cover broad territory in terms Through April 20 speculations. The 2018 Architecture Exhibition of approaches and themes. presented sixty-three national pavilions, each 4 Macy’s Flower Show. one representing a platform they can use to Three examples: (Macy’s State Street. present ideas, to foreground a specific issue, or \"Journey to Paradisios: Operation to showcase innovative architectural forms. A Chicago-based artists Amanda Williams and Inspiration\" is the theme of the conventional pavilion might include renderings, Andres L. Hernandez worked with coiffure artist annual Macy’s flower show. sketches or maquettes illustrating the Shani Crowe to create \"Thrival Geographies (In Through April 7 architectural process from design to construc- My Mind I See a Line),\" an interactive sculpture tion. Surprising entries are not uncommon, visitors see as they enter Wrightwood 659. The 5 The Three Escapes of namely the case of the 2018 Biennale's debut creative team began their project with Hannah Arendt. Spertus pavilion from the Vatican, which featured a discussions about Black American experience, Institute for Jewish Learning and series of intimate chapels that were temporarily and specifically how Black women have  Leadership. New York cartoonist installed in a garden, on an island, accessible experienced or been denied the right to exist in Ken Krimstein illustrates Hannah only by boat. public space. Then, they created a physical Arendt's encounters with the artists, writers and thinkers of pre-World War II Europe in a biography. Through June 23 44

sculpture that wove these ideas into being. The The video then chooses sites to zoom in, to public space re/making project in Memphis, but sculpture takes the form of a round carriage, discover detail, with one-sentence captions—a as a citizen I wonder if the resources that went big enough to t two adults inside, whose steel seemingly neutral delivery of information—about into “unlocking the civic potential” of cobble- the lack of correlation between where stones—shipping the heavy stones from frame is dressed in braided paracord. The hand-braided strands evoke African American populations are concentrated versus where Memphis to Venice to Chicago and presumably hair. The carriage is attached to a graceful, there are the brightest regions of light (“The back to Memphis again once this exhibition is upward-curving track. \"Thrival Geographies\" absence of light does not always mean the over—could have been put to better use. responds to a need “to create a space of safety, absence of people”). Williams, Hernandez and Crowe’s sculpture, for creativity and breath.” In other words, a geography (even if partially imaginary) where a \"The curators of \"Dimensions of Citizenship\" or- \"Thrival Geographies,\" is by far the most artful citizen can thrive, as opposed to merely survive. ganize these disparate projects by spatial scale, presentation. Installed within the high-ceilinged starting from the most intimate (Citizen), atrium of Wrightwood 659, a space lled with Studio Gang, the architecture and urban expanding into ever greater collective bodies natural light, it immediately opens up a sense of design rm founded by Jeanne Gang, created (Civitas, Region, Nation, Globe) and nally to imagination and possibility when you walk into an installation called \"Stone Stories: Civic the abstract sense of the heavens above the building. It’s regretful that this energy was Memory and Public Space in Memphis, (Network, Cosmos), a organizing principle not sustained through most of the exhibition on Tennessee,\" sharing the story of Memphis makes sense in a print publication, but in the the second oor. Landing, a nineteenth century cobblestone physical exhibition it does little to amplify the Tadao Ando is the architect who designed river landin that is culturally and historically inherent impact of the projects. the renovated interior of Wrightwood; to his signi cant to the city, but remains underutilized Inga Saffron, the Pulitzer Prize-winning credit, the elegantly designed venue is itself as public space. The installation includes an exemplary response to how architecture components such as a video with excerpts of architecture critic, describes what is really at interviews with Memphis community members, stake in this exhibition: “Only a citizenry that’s can shape the citizen’s experience: by an inclined plane of cobblestones that visitors informed about architecture and how cities are creating an ideal space for contemplating made can lobby for the kind of communities and elevating the arts. can walk on, print collateral overlaid onto a large drawn map of Memphis and a series of and spaces they want.” So, whether one is encountering this exhibition as an architect, \"Dimensions of Citizenship\" will be on view sculpted cobblestones. designer or neither of these things by profes- at Wrightwood 659 on Thursdays, Fridays Diller Sco dio + Renfro, the New-York based sion, we can share this common framework: do and Saturdays through April 27. A limited design studio that completed the transforma- the projects presented here connect us and number of free tickets will be released every tion of the High Line public park, led another inspire us with the sense that, as citizens, we Monday at 10am for the current week. team which produced a video, \"In Plain Sight.\" are collaborators in shaping cities and public Guests wishing to make advanced reserva- It begins with a zoomed-out portrait of Earth, a spaces? Some of them more than others, and tions may purchase tickets for $20. Walk-ins perhaps in unexpected ways. will not be accommodated. For information so-called “Black Marble” image because we on exhibition-related public programs, please see the planet at night, with trails and regions of bright lights within larger swathes of darkness. Studio Gang’s \"Stone Stories\" introduces a visit: wrightwood659.org. APRIL 2019 Newcity 45

&DiDnirningking shares the same spaces with influencers and a public relations professional who has worked with influencers to bring attention to her clients. Rise of the Influencers Adam Sokolowski, chicagofooddude: “’Influencers’—I loathe the term.” Adam Perspectives on Internet Influence Sokolowski leverages social media to get messages out to his 43,000 followers. By David Hammond Sometimes these messages are clearly Newcity APRIL 2019 product-related and sometimes they seem just for fun. Either way, Sokolowski is open Pumpkin/Photo: David Hammond and straightforward about what he’s doing. He prefers to be called a “digital content creator,” which puts the emphasis more upon what he’s doing rather than upon what the intended effect—influence—is upon his followers. Credit must be given to Sokolowski and others for figuring out a way to make a living from emerging technologies and for being honest about what they’re doing. The photos from one of his Instagram accounts frequently contain the hashtag “#ad” to make it clear that these are paid advertisements. That’s the way it should be, I guess, although not all of those who post advertisements seem as scrupulous about alerting readers that they are being paid for the promotion. Unlike the other influencers I contacted for this article, Sokolowski was willing to answer a few questions about his profession. You’re sitting in a restaurant. At tables around relations representative who asked to What kind of clients do you have and you, every other person is taking photos of remain anonymous tells me, “We have to what kind of work do you do for them? their food, sometimes a snap or two, use influencers in our business. They are a I have clients as an influencer, and I have sometimes surreptitiously. Then there are necessary evil.” That word hung in the air: clients as a social media marketer. Influencer those who’ve brought their own lighting gear, “evil.” Evil? Perhaps that’s an overstatement, is for my page. Marketer is for other business- sleek sources of illumination, usually quite but there is no doubt that influencers work es’ pages. As an influencer, I create digital bright, to make their photos look about as in a mysterious way, and people are content that is broadcast to my audience as close to professional quality as possible suspicious of what they don’t understand. an advertisement for a brand in between all without benefit of a studio. Some of these the other organic content. As a marketer, I people are, indeed, professional photogra- Influencers establish a reputation that enables create digital content that is curated and phers because they’re shooting photos and them to influence their followers’ decisions to published to other business’ pages both videos and then posting them online—on act, usually by buying a product or service. organically and through paid promotion. For Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, Influencers provide a kind of celebrity each of these, the brand or their agency Facebook—for compensation. Some of these endorsement for a product, like, in the decade reaches out with a campaign proposal. Once posted photos may earn over $1,000 based past, Brad Pitt for Chanel No. 5 or Bill Murray we agree to a fee for my time, talent and upon their level of perceived “influence.” There for Suntory. One reason influencers are reach, I orchestrate a photoshoot and create are many ways to measure influence, including mysterious is that few want to speak on the content that communicates the brand’s key the number of Instagram followers who may record about what they do. In preparing this messaging in a way that’s also authentic to my see the posted photos. More followers mean article, I contacted local influencers who did audience. more impressions, more people who might be not want to talk about what they do for a living. influenced by a photo of a delicious hamburg- Public relations professionals, some of whom I What’s your background for this kind of er and inspired to go to that restaurant and consider friends, said “thanks, but no thanks” work? order one for themselves. Most of us are for the opportunity to talk about how their I have a bachelor’s degree in political science comfortable with mass marketing, and we company works with influencers. and marketing with a minor in psychology, as don’t have any problem with people promot- well as recognition in photography from ing products and getting paid for it. So why Why would influencers, or people who hire Washington University in St. Louis. are some scandalized by influencers who influencers, be hesitant to talk about what promote products—food, cosmetics, influencers do? To get a better sense of who Do you feel there are any negative whatever—and get paid to post pictures on influencers are and what they do, we talked to connotations to “influencer?”  social media? three people, each on this year’s Newcity Big Absolutely. I loathe the term. It’s presumptu- Heat list: an influencer (though he doesn’t like ous. Just because someone has tens of “Influencers are a necessary evil”: A public the term); a more traditional journalist who thousands of followers, doesn’t mean they’re 46

necessarily an influencer. Look at their content. We also vet influencers who reach out to us, DINING & DRINKING APRIL 2019 Newcity Is it compelling? Read their copy. Do they either those who are living here or traveling to TOP 5 know what they’re talking about? Chicago from other markets, and who are interested in featuring client content to their 1 Baconfest. UIC Dorin Forum. Some traditional journalists view audiences. Lastly, some influencers approach Hundreds of chefs, tons of influencers with suspicion. Why do you us with their media kits and rates for clients bacon and creative tastes that will think that is? who may be interested in larger partnerships. blow your pork-loving palate. I have noticed that. I’ve been fortunate enough April 5-6 to have a dialogue with some of those What value do influencers provide to journalists and I sympathize with their you and your clients? 2 Taste of Iceland. Elske suspicion. It arises from people calling Not unlike the traditional press, social and other locations. A themselves influencers just because they have influencers have avid followers who not celebration of Icelandic culinary thousands of followers when they fundamen- only appreciate, but anticipate their content. and cultural tradition, with a tally don’t know much about food or drink. A When an influencer is aligned with a client’s pop-up menu at Elske, a cocktail big problem with influencers and information target demographic, their coverage provides class at LH on 21, plus films, in general on social media is that it’s entirely an opportunity for increased exposure among music and other matters unvetted. a like-minded audience that has opted in to Icelandic. April 11-14 follow that influencer and who trusts his or Michael Gebert, Fooditor: “Influencing her opinions. Once a post is live on a feed or 3 Liquid Education on can be one answer.” Mike Gebert is one of a story, it has the potential to reach thou- Thirsty Thursdays: Sours. Chicago’s most respected food journalists. A sands of engagement points. While it doesn’t Bar Biscay. It started when bar James Beard award winner, Gebert has happen with every post, we have seen fans manager Archie Powell opined written for the Reader and Grubstreet Chicago, decide to visit a client’s establishment that a “good way to commit and he’s the publisher and main voice of because of a post or story they saw. The ROI cocktail recipes to memory is Fooditor, a solid online source for food news can be immediate and translate to new to recognize the basic builds and analysis. guests for our clients. of the classics and then see how they’re repeated throughout What value do influencers provide? Could you give a general sense of what other recipes in the cocktail I was at some conference and one of the influencers charge for services? lexicon.” It ends on April 11, Melman lads—Jarrod, I believe—said they We have seen a range, anywhere from with a last class devoted to the were spending “some” money on influencers $250-$1200 per Instagram post. I’m sure gimlet, daiquiris and pisco. to see if it led anywhere. That, to me, is the there are also rates for larger campaign and April 11 right answer. It’s a new medium, and if you extended partnership options. have money, it’s worth spending some to get 4 Threat Level Midnight experience with influencers. Will the pictures Why are some people wary of influenc- Party. SafeHouse. of your Instagram-able dessert posted with ers? Traditional media people, for All the well cocktails, wine and lots of exclamation points be THE answer to instance, tend to be suspicious of them.  beer you can drink. Come marketing your restaurant? Did we figure it all As with any industry, you’re going to have dressed as your favorite character out instantly? No, but that kind of influencing individuals who set the bar for good work from “The Office.” April 12 can be one answer, to draw some people to and creativity and those who don’t. Unfortu- some restaurants, as can reviews, chef nately, it’s those who don’t who tend to 5 Mexico in a Bottle. profiles and appearances on morning TV receive the lion’s share of attention and bring Logan Square Auditorium. shows. down the reputation of the group. With social The landmark annual event media, there also seems to be some room to that introduced many Why is the value of influencers some- question: Did this person buy their followers? Chicagoans to agave distillates times not recognized? Are their engagements “real”? Are they taking and other south-of-the-border Influencers have cheapened their collective advantage of their hosts’ generosity for spirits, including Mexican rum brand, by buying absurd numbers of pretend freebies? Is this an “#ad” or not? These days, and whiskey, revealing the rich followers, by sounding like shills—and worse, there are tools that allow for comprehensive liquid heritage of our neighbor cheap shills—bought for the price of dessert. vetting. Influencers with whom we work are to the south. April 28 To some extent, it can work anyway: if your transparent and willing to quantify their visits dessert looks good, gushy text full of emojis by sharing their posts/stories, as well as 47 can’t hurt it. Influencing is not exactly a engagement numbers. This information rigorous science yet. indicates the reach resulting from their visits, which helps us understand the potential Janet Isabelli, Isabelli Media Relations: return. “ROI can be immediate.” Janet Isabelli is founder, owner and manager Overall, what’s your impression of of Isabelli Media Relations, one of the city’s influencers? most powerful public relations agencies. Many of the influencers we’ve come to know Isabelli and her staff work with influencers to and work with over the years pride them- increase exposure for IMR clients. selves on authenticity, organic growth and a real commitment to their fans. I’ve seen some What services have influencers offered influencers host meet-and-greets, with your agency? hundreds showing up to meet them in Influencers work with us in a few different person. This doesn’t happen overnight, and ways. Most often, we extend invitations for influencers do the best with smart, curated them to join us at client establishments for content that speaks to a wide audience. It’s events or individual experiences for the  fantastic that they’ve found a way to harness opportunity to be featured on their social what was once an emerging marketing media channels or corresponding blogs. platform and turn it into a career.

Film FILM TOP 5 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in “Knock Down the House” 1 High Life. Music Box. Claire Denis in space. (Yes!) Making And Marketing With Juliette Binoche, Robert Anthony Kaufman on Nonfiction Doc10’s Fourth Edition Pattinson, André Benjamin, By Ray Pride Mia Goth. (Yes!) Photographed by Yorick Le Saux. (Yes!) Newcity APRIL 2019 We caught up with programmer Anthony was National Geographic’s insightful Music by Stuart A. Staples Kaufman right after selections for the fourth planning for so many streams (or maybe of Tindersticks. (Oui!). edition of the Doc10 nonfiction showcase just collapsing windows) for “Free Solo,” were slated for its April berth. There’s much which was the Oscar-winning documen- Opens April 12 to consider in the always-evolving scene, tary, including a pre-Oscar IMAX week even without looking back to last year’s roster, that had great grosses with a larger 2 The Brink. “Ai Weiwei: where five selections—“Minding the Gap,” public, followed by the commercial-free Never Sorry” director “RBG,” “Crime + Punishment,” “On Her television premiere. That’s high heaven Alison Klayman follows the Shoulders” and “Won’t You Be My Neigh- compared to the fate of many fine works sticky trail of self-proclaimed bor”—made their way to the Academy Award either of us could cite. Leninist self-promoting political shortlist. Kaufman talks about how the Doc10 nihilist Steve Bannon (beating selections reflect the best of nonfiction today. I’d agree that for some documentaries there Errol Morris’ self-distributed is now a huge institutional support structure feature-length interview to From the vantage of this highly curated that is helping them get made and seen. the marketplace). April 5 showcase are we nearing a meeting From billionaire Jeff Skoll’s Participant Media— of what has forever been dubbed “the which has backed such high-profile docs as 3 Hotel by the River. marketplace of ideas” and a marketplace “An Inconvenient Truth,” “RBG” and this year’s Siskel. Hong Sang-soo’s for sustainable distribution and doc Doc10 entry “American Factory”—to literally midlife renaissance continues filmmaking? Are the big players learning the largest media companies in the world apace, with his seventh how to maximize exposure for these (Netflix and Amazon, which acquired such released feature since 2015, stories, or once the films are in their Doc10 entries as “Knock Down the House,” a melancholy black-and-white hands, this “product”? One bold example “American Factory” and “One Child Nation”), dive into all things small and large of life in confined time and space. April 19-25 4 A Bread Factory. Siskel. Mammoth modest epic of community and commerce and gentrification and globalization and celebrity and performance art by renegade filmmaker Patrick Wang. April 12-17 5 The Beach Bum. Music Box. Rooting for you, Harmony Korine. March 29 48

documentaries are in a new I would add “American Factory” we’re trying to do is analogous talented voices, whether Bing Liu to Industry Days at the Chicago (“Minding the Gap,” which played heyday. For a while, I’d say this to this list: It’s extremely meticu- International Film Festival, where at Doc10), Assia Boundaoui (“The we bring knowledgeable and Feeling of Being Watched”) or was mostly a creative resurgence, lous in its observational portrait experienced filmmakers and Shawn Convey (“Among Wolves”), of the clash between U.S. and industry to the city to network and others, who I’ve programmed which was part of the impetus with the local film community, at Chicago International. Unfortu- Chinese autoworkers. so everyone can network, learn nately, I think a lot of filmmakers for Doc10. But now there’s and grow from one another. in Chicago still operate in silos or segregated cliques, but it’s also definitely a commercial factor— How would you characterize true there’s a spirit of collaboration docs are fulfilling the demands of Which of these films provide the ambition and range of and collectivity, especially in the a marketplace that is looking for cinematic beauty or power Chicago documentary work doc world. I think the example ideas, issues and, in our current, equal to any “movie”? right now? Newcity’s extensive of Kartemquin plays a big part in Film 50 profiles are built each that, and other organizations like highly politicized environment, Definitely “The Distant Barking year on ideals of “community” Film Fatales (largely made up and “cooperation,” but can you of female documentary filmmak- stories that can spur on a spirit of Dogs” and “Anthropocene: convey a sense of how sharing ers) and the doc departments and willingness to share on all at Northwestern, DePaul and of activism and advocacy. The Human Epoch.” These are levels happens here? And the Columbia are part of that group. role of DOC10, and your role, And I think Doc10 has become But… gorgeous, beautifully photo- in the midst of that? a significant part of that communi- ty, because it’s one of the few graphed films—the first feels like Together with my programming places where all of those groups work at Chicago International, will come together, excited to Having said all that, I want to a Dardennes-esque portrait of I would say that I see everything see great films, and have great that’s being made doc-wise in discussions about artistry and emphasize that this commercial a child living against the misty Chicago, and it’s true that there’s the big issues of our times. a lot of vibrant documentary support is only for some docs. backdrop of war, while the latter filmmaking coming out of the city, The fourth Doc10 plays April Foreign documentaries have [made by Canadian filmmakers whether that’s the continuously monumental work of Steve James 11-14 at the Davis Theater, always had a particularly tough and artists Jennifer Baichwal, (“America to Me”) or the discovery every year of new, amazingly 4614 North Lincoln. For complete time. I’m heartened by the fact Nicholas de Pencier and Edward listings and panel information: that [public television’s] POV Burtynsky] is a stunning big- doc10.org [series] acquired a beautiful and screen epic about humankind’s massive exploitation of the planet. touching Ukrainian film called “The Distant Barking of Dogs” that Does any of the work capture we’re showing at Doc10, and personalities of subjects in that another Doc10 selection, a fashion that only a documen- the thrilling, morally ambiguous tary feature can convey? Mexican doc “Midnight Family” has been acquired for U.S. release. Or that rising distributor Again, I think of ten-year-old Neon bought this small doc about Oleg and his loving babushka a Macedonian beekeeper called Alexandra in “The Distant Barking “Honeyland.” Neon has this year’s of Dogs.” There’s also an incredibly memorable woman in Doc10 closing night film “The “One Child Nation” who used to Biggest Little Farm,” which is perform abortions and has now a big crowd-pleaser about sustainable farming. This is what dedicated her life to saving children, and has a room in her I’d expect from a commercially minded distributor. But I remem- house plastered with thousands of pictures of babies as a kind ber when I saw “Honeyland” at of haunting tribute and stinging Sundance, Neon’s acquisition 164 North State Street • Between Lake & Randolph team was sitting in the front row self-rebuke. Mike Wallace is also a fantastically complex and 24TH ANNUAL of the theater, and I joked with them: What the heck are you guys compelling real-life character. The ASIAN doing here at this Macedonian art film about him, thankfully, is no doc? But then they bought it and hagiography or one-dimensional AMERICAN will be releasing it later this year, celebration of “60 Minutes,” but a SHOWCASE portrait of a deeply troubled man. so maybe even that’s changing. APRIL 5 - 17 Let’s look at some familiar and How does DOC10 fit into the GO BACK TO CHINA, APRIL 5 unfamiliar nonfiction styles. active Chicago documentary 18TH ANNUAL community? Which documentaries in the CHICAGO PALESTINE FILM FESTIVAL line-up are built upon precise, investigative reporting? As we all know, Chicago has a APRIL 20 - MAY 2 strong record of documentary It depends what you mean by filmmaking, anchored by the likes “precise, investigative reporting,” of Kartemquin. Doc10 is a place but the one that comes to mind for that community to come is Nanfu Wang’s Sundance Grand together with other exciting documentary filmmakers from Jury prizewinner “One Child around the country. This year, we Nation.” While it combines personal inquiry and self-reflection, have more parallel events to the films—an editing workshop with it’s also very much a detailed Aaron Wickenden, who edited expose of China’s one-child policy and the devastating effects “Hail Satan?” this year and “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” last year; on an entire population. “The a doc-making seminar lead by Infiltrators” is also a direct and SCREWDRIVER, APRIL 20, 25 Toronto International Film Festival well-researched attack on ICE $12 GENERAL | $7 STUDENTS | $6 MEMBERS doc programmer Thom Powers; and for-profit detention centers, W W W. S I S K E L F I L M C E N T E R . O R G the Chicago Media Project’s even though it’s a unique hybrid annual pitch session. What of fiction and documentary.

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