Newcity Chicago July 2018

#DIVA Welcome to the Gilded AgeLead Corporate Sponsors: JOHN SINGER SARGENT & CHICAGO’S GILDED AGE July 1–September 30 Lead individual sponsorship is provided by Ann and Samuel M. Menco . Lead foundation support is generously contributed by The Chauncey and Marion Deering McCormick Family Foundation. Major support is provided by the Shure Charitable Trust. Additional funding is contributed by Patricia Hyde, The Suzanne and Wesley M. Dixon Exhibition Fund, and an anonymous donor. Annual support for Art Institute exhibitions is provided by the Exhibitions Trust: an anonymous donor; Neil Bluhm and the Bluhm Family Charitable Foundation; Jay Franke and David Herro; Kenneth Gri n; Caryn and King Harris, The Harris Family Foundation; Liz and Eric Le ofsky; Robert M. and Diane v.S. Levy; Ann and Samuel M. Menco ; Usha and Lakshmi N. Mittal; Sylvia Neil and Dan Fischel; Thomas and Margot Pritzker; Anne and Chris Reyes; Betsy Bergman Rosenfield and Andrew M. Rosenfield; Cari and Michael J. Sacks; and the Earl and Brenda Shapiro Foundation. John Singer Sargent. Mrs. George Swinton (Elizabeth Ebsworth) (detail), 1897. Wirt D. Walker Collection.

CONTENTS ARTS & CULTUREDone Wrong ArtThe amazing comeback of Thai David Wojnarowicz, ART+Positiveand Danielle Dang at HaiSous and AIDS activism8 35SUMMER 2018 Dance Aerial Dance Chicago gets verticalO, Sweet Summer: An Ode to Chicago Love 4230 Meters, Straight Down, Portage Park, c. 1961The Life and Times of the Fullerton Rocks DesignSummer Girls: A Ghost Story Great ideas at The Chicago Design Museum’sThe Lighthouse at The End of The World “Great Ideas of Humanity”And a photo essay and a poem 4413 Dining & Drinking Vodka gets a second chanceWould You Like to Dance? 46The singular charms ofSummerDance Film27 Bergman at 100 48Four Hundred Miles to ClevelandThe Midwest gets a triennial, LitFront International Nina Barrett’s “The Leopold and Loeb Files”30 51 Music The boundary-erasing music of Morton Feldman 54 Stage A Conversation On Non-Binary Inclusion 56 JULY 2018 Newcity 3



T H E BRUNO J A C K ARC TIC TRAVISWEEKND M A R S WHITE MONKEYS S C O T TTHE NATIONAL • VAMPIRE WEEKEND • ODESZA • LOGIC • POST MALONEKHALID • LIL UZI VERT • PORTUGAL. THE MAN • TYLER, THE CREATOR • CHVRCHESST. VINCENT • ZEDD • EXCISION • WALK THE MOON • DUA LIPA • LL COOL J FEAT. DJ Z-TRIPGUCCI MANE • GALANTIS • CAMILA CABELLO • PERRY FARRELL’S KIND HEAVENDILLON FRANCIS • JAMES BAY • BROCKHAMPTON • CATFISH AND THE BOTTLEMEN • BORNSGRETA VAN FLEET • TASH SULTANA • ILLENIUM • REZZ • REBELUTION • LYKKE LI • CHROMEOLUKE COMBS • TYCHO • PLAYBOI CARTI • FRANZ FERDINAND • LIL PUMP • MALAARAINBOW KITTEN SURPRISE • MANCHESTER ORCHESTRA • DANIEL CAESAR • THE NEIGHBOURHOODBILLIE EILISH • JUNGLE • ALINA BARAZ • ZOMBOY • QUINN XCII • GOLDLINK • HIPPIE SABOTAGEA BOOGIE WIT DA HOODIE • KALI UCHIS • JADEN SMITH • BAZZI • NAV • LIZZO • DAYACARLY RAE JEPSEN • WHAT SO NOT • ALL TIME LOW • LANY • BEBE REXHA • REX ORANGE COUNTYCIGARETTES AFTER SEX • ANDERSON EAST • SABRINA CLAUDIO • PETIT BISCUIT • THE WOMBATSKAYZO • PARQUET COURTS • ALAN WALKER • STARS • A R I Z O N A • THE VACCINESBOMBA ESTÉREO • RUSKO • DERMOT KENNEDY • TROYBOI • BIG WILD • LAUV • SHIBA SANVALENTINO KHAN • GHASTLY • TERROR JR • LEWIS CAPALDI • AUTOGRAF • TANK AND THE BANGASCHRIS LAKE • HEROBUST • G HERBO • TAYLOR BENNETT • KNOX FORTUNE • GANG OF YOUTHSTYLER CHILDERS • FRENSHIP • DURAND JONES & THE INDICATIONS • BASEMENT • CUCOLONDON ON DA TRACK • K?D • TWO FEET • EKALI • POST ANIMAL • JESSIE REYEZ • WELSHLY ARMS • GOLDFISHALEX LAHEY • PALE WAVES • WALLOWS • YUNGBLUD • LOUDPVCK • SIR SLY • CHARLOTTE CARDIN • MADISON BEERSUPERORGANISM • THE CORONAS • THE REGRETTES • CURTIS HARDING • ALLIE X • 4B • SPACE JESUS • SALNADVEMSO(URKE)!AMY SHARK • SASHA SLOAN • FREYA RIDINGS • SUPA BWE • MATT MAESON • THE HIM • BROHUG • NICK MULVEYDREAM WIFE • CLAIRO • KUURO • VALEE • JESSE BAEZ • LOVELYTHEBAND • FEMDOT • JOHN SPLITHOFF • BUDDY • R.LUM.RDOROTHY • CHASE ATLANTIC • DROELOE • MEDASIN • MELVV • VIRGIL ABLOH • OSHI • GASHI • VERA BLUE • MIKKY EKKO

Newcity JULY 2018 EDITOR’S My summer generally starts each year with the LETTER Printers Row Lit Fest, which is taking place in our “front yard” the weekend that I’m writing Summer vacation. Summer songs. Summer this. Various events around the festival put me movies. Summer camp. Summer books. Sum- in contact with so many wonderful writers that mer loves. Picnics and BBQs. Baseball. Golf? my reading list for the season gets solidified, if overly ambitious. It was a special treat this year, The carefree spirit, the shallowness of aspira- for example, to meet Harold Washington Lit- tions, if aspiration isn’t too aspirational a sen- erary Award winner Rabih Alameddine, with timent, and the relentless sunshine makes the his sardonic wit, social generosity and black nail season less than beloved for some folks, for sure, polish. His “Angel of History” is the novel I’ll but don’t count me among them. read next. Or to catch up with Chris Nashawaty, the longtime Entertainment Weekly film crit- I live in Chicago, where the city butterflies alive ic and writer who started his career right here, each summer. Perhaps it’s a reflection of my in the early nineties, when he interned at New- intrinsic shallowness, but I love virtually ev- city after finishing at Medill. erything associated with the season. Cocktails at the beach. Classical concerts in Millennium Chris has a book out now, “Caddyshack: The Park. Rooftop cookouts with friends. Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story,” that takes a behind-the-scenes look at the chaotic Newcity has almost always published a summer making of what is now an iconic movie. Filled issue. And unlike fall, our only other seasonal with Chicago characters like Bill Murray and venture, which is tethered to the new arts sea- Harold Ramis and infused with the influence son each year, our summer issue is free form. of Second City and improv, it sounds like a de- You might even suggest it’s seasonal editorial lightfully fun summer read about the early days laziness in how we reach out to writers for sto- of a now-legendary moment in comedy. ries of all shapes and sizes to help us craft our version of a diversion. So you’ll find odes to I think I’ll walk outside to the book fair and romance, memoirs of days and nights at the grab a copy. Happy summer reading all around. beach and the pool, a photo essay and a poem. Not to mention a piece about the melting-pot- BRIAN in-motion that is SummerDance, or another HIEGGELKE that offers, if you need it, a good reason for a road trip to Cleveland.6

ON THE COVER CONTRIBUTORS JENN DANKO FENSKE (Writer, “Summer Girls”)Cover Design: Dan Streeting is a Chicago-based writer who grew up onCover Photo: Monica Kass Rogers FREDA LOVE SMITH (Writer, “Done Wrong”) Chicago’s Southwest Side. She curates wares is a writer, drummer and teacher. Her book, at her online vintage shop, Ask for Janet, whichVol. 33, No. 1381 “Red Velvet Underground: A Rock Memoir, with features clothing and inspired stories from Recipes,” was published in 2015. She drums for fashion’s past. Jenn currently resides in WestPUBLISHERS Sunshine Boys, Blake Babies and Mysteries of Town and forever believes in ghosts.Brian & Jan Hieggelke Life, and teaches writing classes at StoryStudioAssociate Publisher Mike Hartnett and Northwestern University. At Northwestern DINA ELENBOGEN (Writer, “Summer” poem) she is also a part-time MFA student, an academic is a widely published and award-winning poetEDITORIAL advisor and faculty-in-residence in the Elder and prose writer. She is author of the memoir,Editor Brian Hieggelke Residential Community. She lives in Evanston “Drawn from Water” and the poetry collection,Managing Editor Jan Hieggelke with her partner, son, canary and 350 “Apples of the Earth.” She has a poetry MFA fromArt Editor Elliot Reichert Northwestern undergrads. the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and teaches creativeDance Editor Sharon Hoyer writing at the University of Chicago GrahamDesign Editor Vasia Rigou CYNTHIA COOK (Writer, “O, Sweet Summer”) School. You can visit her at dinaelenbogen.com.Dining and Drinking Editor is a freelance writer based in Chicago. She holdsDavid Hammond an MFA in creative nonfiction from Columbia JADE KELLY (Writer, “The Lighthouse”) is a writer,Film Editor Ray Pride College Chicago and has an interest in writing freelancer, ghostwriter and former editor for theLit Editor Toni Nealie about arts, culture, and also love and relationships. literary journal Hotel Amerika. They recentlyMusic Editor Robert Rodi published “The Return of Top Girls: A SacredTheater Editor Kevin Greene DAVID WITTER (Writer, “Fullerton Rocks”) is a Drama for The Priestesses of Avalon” whichContributing Writers Isa Giallorenzo, Chicago-based freelance writer and author. His was performed last summer in Glastonbury,Aaron Hunt, Alex Huntsberger, Hugh Iglarsh, books include “Oldest Chicago,” “Chicago Magic: England. Their work has appeared in The RedChris Miller, Dennis Polkow, Loy Webb, A History” and “Bebop Swing and Bella Musica.” Wheelbarrow, The Interlochen Review and wasMichael Workman His work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, featured by SHARKGRAVY and The Living Room Washington Post, Living Blues and numerous Punks on their album “Never Lucky AlwaysART & DESIGN other publications. He is also Newcity’s longest- Falling.” Jade serves as creative director forSenior Designers MJ Hieggelke, serving writer, having contributed since the Ransack Press. They hold a BFA in fictionFletcher Martin, Dan Streeting publication’s third issue in June, 1986. from Columbia College Chicago.Designers Jim Maciukenas,Stephanie Plenner, Billy Werch JULY 2018 NewcityMARKETINGMarketing Manager Todd HieggelkeOPERATIONSGeneral Manager Jan HieggelkeDistribution Nick Bachmann,Adam Desantis, Preston Klik,Quinn Nicholson, Matt RussellOne copy of current issue free at select locations.Additional copies, including back issues up to oneyear, may be ordered at Newcity.com/subscribe.Copyright 2018, New City Communications, Inc.All Rights Reserved.Newcity assumes no responsibility to returnunsolicited editorial or graphic material. Allrights in letters and unsolicited editorial orgraphic material will be treated as unconditionallyassigned for publication and copyright purposesand subject to comment editorially. Nothing maybe reprinted in whole or in part without writtenpermission from the publisher.Newcity is published byNewcity Communications, Inc.47 West Polk, Suite 100-223, Chicago, IL 60605Visit NewcityNetwork.com for advertisingand editorial information. 7

Newcity JULY 2018 Thai and Danielle Dang “Two pennies,” answered the chef. For Do Right at HaiSous the first time all afternoon he fell silent, making eye contact with his wife and by Freda Love Smith business partner—Danielle Dang—who stood at the back of the room. After a hef Thai Dang was wrapping up a public cooking few long seconds he added, “That’s demonstration in the culinary studio at Macy’s on how much money we had to open Hai- State Street. He’d been in constant motion for an Sous with.” He hesitated and laughed. hour, constructing a garlic noodle salad while shar- “It’s a good story.” ing his culinary knowledge and biography with a standing room-on- ly audience. Without slowing down or missing a beat, he talked The story goes like this. In 2012, Thai about his immigration to the United States from Vietnam with his Dang became part-owner and execu- parents and nine siblings; about the colonial French and Chinese tive chef of Embeya, a high-end South- influences on Vietnamese cuisine; about the history of oyster sauce east Asian restaurant in the West Loop. and Sriracha; and about HaiSous, his now one-year-old, highly ac- Danielle Pizzutillo (at that time his girl- claimed restaurant in Pilsen. With only a few minutes left, he took friend; the couple married in 2015) was one last question from the audience: “What does the name of your a renowned mixologist, and she took restaurant mean?” charge of the beverage program. To- gether, they led Embeya to consider- able success. In 2014, unexpectedly, things crumbled when the majority owner, Attila Gyulai, fired Danielle after she expressed con- cern about how he was handling busi- ness. The following year, Gyulai fired Thai, and it soon became clear that Danielle’s earlier concerns about the business were well-founded. Gyulai and his wife and business partner Komal Patel, according to federal pros- ecutors, misappropriated funds and, according to the criminal complaint in February of this year, engaged in “a scheme to defraud and to obtain money and property by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses.” Patel and Gyulai closed Embeya in 2016 and fled the country, leaving Thai with an estimated one-and-a-half-mil- lion dollars in damages. The Dangs were stunned, but they mo- bilized to open their own restaurant in Pilsen, only to encounter the trail of de- struction Gyulai and Patel left behind. According to the Dangs, their restau- rant partners failed to pay multiple city fines, bailed on the Embeya lease and defaulted on a large business loan. There seemed no end to the obstacles the Dangs encountered as they at- tempted to secure the funding and li- censes to open HaiSous. Two weeks after the Macy’s cooking demonstration, I met Thai and Danielle an hour before the restaurant opened8

Photo by Ronnie Cabello JULY 2018 Newcity Papaya salad Photo: Mistey Nguyen 9

for dinner. HaiSous is one of the best-look- she asked her, “Do you want to be on the mash down and mix up the ingredients. ing restaurants in Chicago, with exposed brick, big windows, gleaming open kitchen floor or in the kitchen?” The grilled ribeye comes with a wedge of and bamboo accents. When I arrived, Danielle was finishing a meeting with the lime and a container of salt, black pepper, waitstaff while Thai oversaw the hanging of new artwork on the walls. Danielle “It was the most amazing kitchen I’d ever chilis and kaffir lime leaf. “You squeeze the swept through the room, producing a glass of water for me and we sat down together seen,” says Rodarte. Instead of taking the lime juice in there and it makes a sauce at a table in the dining room. I had the sense that sitting down wasn’t something waitressing job, she accepted a position as that you dip the ribeye in.” this hardworking couple often allowed themselves. prep cook, and when the café opened and “It was a time of desperation. We couldn’t pastry production began, she assisted the “We built the restaurant around the cuisine,” sit around. We had to open,” says Thai about that tenuous period of legal and fi- pastry chef. Now Rodarte is the pastry chef, adds Danielle. The kitchen is open for nancial hardship. After years of success in the culinary world, they had each cultivat- training her own assistant. “They look after guests to see, enhancing interactivity and ed a ferocious work ethic. Now they would have to push themselves further than you,” she says of Thai and Danielle. “They connection between diners and the food. they’d ever imagined. “We wore multiple hats,” says Thai. Danielle served as archi- ask how you are doing, how they can help, The open kitchen also highlights the tect, designer, foreman and project man- ager. Together they acquired the permits they ask if you are happy.” It’s a sound strat- unique Lo Dat, charcoal-fired clay pots, they needed, assembled a staff (some of whom they’d worked with at Embeya), and egy, she says. “If I’m happy—the pastries the same type his mother used back in developed a menu. On June 21, 2017, Hai- Sous opened, followed four months later come out beautiful!” Vietnam, which were custom made to re- by Cà Phê Dá, the attached café. What was the highlight of the past year, I ask? produce the flavor of Thai’s favorite child- Danielle replies, “The chance to try again, to rebuild our lives.” Danielle attributes their cooperative ap- hood grilled seafood and meats. The bam- Metaphors about rebuilding, structure and proach in part to the injustice they expe- boo tables in the dining room were made foundation come up a lot with the Dangs, perhaps because of Danielle’s background rienced. “We got screwed and we are con- by Thai’s aunts and uncles. as an architect. If Embeya was built on a foundation of deception and lies, HaiSous tinuously having to deal with that. It’s is built on a foundation of mutual respect and integrity. The Dangs have created a going to be a long time before we really The beverage program, too, is built around collaborative work culture that includes profit sharing and high hourly wages for get ourselves out of it. That’s all terrible, the cuisine. Danielle’s path to the culinary staff, and they have remarkably little turn- over, a rarity in the restaurant world. The but something great came out of it. Now world has been less straightforward than menu at HaiSous lists the name and posi- tion of each staff member. That listing may I know that the point of this is different. Thai’s, who graduated from the now- be a small thing, but it reflects the regard that management has for employees. The point of this is to create a positive cul- closed L’Academie de Cuisine in Maryland, On a subsequent visit, I spoke with Leticia ture. The point of this is to inspire our staff where as a student he dreamed of open- Rodarte, the pastry chef for HaiSous and Cà Phê Dá. Rodarte produces innovative, to love their jobs, to push swoon-inducing treats including Bánh Trái Vi, lychee Danish, a buttery cream-cheese themselves, and for us to be pastry soaked in lychee syrup and filled with whole lychee fruit. Rodarte came to fair. It’s not about being mil- Cream puff HaiSous last August when a friend told lionaires and opening multi- Photo: Mistey Nguyen her they were hiring waitstaff. She didn’t particularly want to wait tables, though ple restaurants. We’re not she was in bad need of a job. When Dan- ielle learned of Rodarte’s background as trying to be grand restaura- a graduate of the French Pastry School teurs. We’re trying to do the right thing.” “Because of what we’ve gone through,” adds Thai, “we want to create something more meaningful, something that has heart.”Newcity JULY 2018 Many of the dishes at Hai- ing his own restaurant. From there he pro- Sous originated in Thai’s gressed through excellent kitchens, in- family. “I created menu items cluding a stint at L2o with chef Laurent that have a story,” he says. Gras, the opportunity which drew him to Goidu du, shaved papaya Chicago in 2009 from Washington, D. C. salad—one of the most popular items at Thai and Danielle met in D. C., where she HaiSous—is influenced by a dish one of worked as an architect, and she came with his sisters prepared for him on special oc- him to Chicago, assuming she’d find work casions when he was a child. Bò Nuong in a firm. This turned out to be hard, even Toi, grilled ribeye, employs his mother’s with thirteen years of experience in the trick of using the Swiss-created Maggi field. She was too experienced for en- sauce in the marinade. Mì Chay, a Chi- try-level jobs and lacked the required cer- nese-influenced egg noodle dish topped tification in Illinois to be a senior architect. with pickled Fresno pepper, is based on The economy had not recovered from his mother’s standby party dish. “She 2008, building was slow, and the kind of would make big pans of it,” he says. mid-level position she sought was elimi- nated at many firms. Thai prides himself on presentation, espe- cially on interactivity: the way in which a dish invites the customer to engage with it. The egg noodle dish is served piled high along with two spoons and instructions to10

She found a job as a bartender at the Ely- trip to Vietnam. From its inception, Cà Phê They have plenty to be bitter about, too,sian Hotel, assuming it would be tempo- Dá has been a means to connect directly yet there’s not a trace of bitterness aboutrary. But the more she learned about cock- to their Pilsen home. The couple live just them. The Dangs are living in the momenttails, the more interested she became. She down the street, and they want to make and looking to the future, but much oftook the work seriously and began to their business accessible to their neigh- what makes HaiSous special and distinc-study the bar’s high-end spirits. “I went bors. The café menu, which Thai describes tive has been shaped by the challengesthrough every single bottle, every single as more playful than the restaurant menu, of their recent past. The couple openly ac-day. I picked it up, I read it, and I figured features banh mi, chicken wings, Vietnam- knowledge the hardship that the Embeyaout how to use it in a cocktail.” After six ese pastry, cocktails, local beer and cof- scandal has wrought upon them withoutmonths, she says it was like a “chip had fee. All menu items are under $12, and Cà dwelling on it. We didn’t discuss the suc-been planted.” Danielle began to under- Phê Dá opens early (7am) and closes late cessful settlement that Thai was awarded—stand the ingredients of a cocktail the (midnight). While I spoke with Thai and and never paid—in his lawsuit against Gyu-same way she understood the materials Danielle, the café was packed with District lai, or Gyulai’s federal indictment this pastof a building. As beverage director at Em- 12 police officers chatting with neigh- February for fraud. On the subject, theybeya, she received rave reviews. borhood residents, part of a “Coffee with tend to be philosophical and reflective. Egg noodles Grilled ribeyePhoto: Mistey Nguyen Photo: Mistey Nguyen“Danielle has a special gift for always push- a Cop” series, a casual, open “Hopefully,” says Danielle, “we’ve learned JULY 2018 Newcity ing through, always wanting to understand forum with no agenda other than enough from our mistakes.” and learn. Whatever she does, she does connection and dialogue. Thai one-hundred percent,” says Thai. “She and Danielle donated the coffee “What you need to understand,” says Thai, would always ask me, ‘How did you cre- for the event, and they mingled “is that what we got in this trade-off is ate this, how did you cut this?’ Those ques- with the attendees, including a one-hundred percent freedom. We have tions helped her.” police officer who grew up in no one breathing down our necks, no cor- Pilsen. “This kind of thing is my poration or restaurant group that owns us.“I tried to take everything you did in the biggest joy,” says Thai. We have no limitations. We can close kitchen and apply it to beverage,” she says. whenever we want, open whenever we Thai and Danielle are wrapping up a tri- want. If something doesn’t work we canThai and Danielle see HaiSous as a means umphant first year. HaiSous has earned change it right away, we can implement to challenge themselves, to achieve great- glowing reviews, both locally and nation- new things when we want.” His voice er excellence in their craft. Cà Phê Dá ally, secured a position on the Michelin Bib grew more animated and emphatic. serves a different function. The café was Gourmand list and was nominated by the “That’s the beauty of what we’ve created, inspired by the coffee scene in Hanoi, James Beard Foundation as semifinalist that’s the outcome of the sacrifices we’ve which the Dangs fell in love with during a for best new restaurant. They admit, made and everything we went through. though, that they must remind themselves What all that has given us is freedom.” to acknowledge their accomplishments. It’s almost time to open, a staff member “When you’re always striving to be the best, sweeping the floor, others setting tables, with your nose to the grindstone, you can the kitchen swirling with activity. “Some- get bogged down,” says Danielle. They times I can’t fathom how we established both say the restaurant still feels new, still this,” says Danielle. evolving, still in the process of becoming what they want it to be. “We have a lot to “We took our two pennies,” says Thai, “and be thankful for,” says Thai. rubbed them together.” 11

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JULY 2018 Newcity 13

SUMMER sidering our stark changes. We find 2018 an earnest appreciation in the con- trast, peeling off layers and hitting up O, SWEET SUMMER: Big Star for Saturday afternoon mar- AN ODE TO CHICAGO LOVE garitas. Nobody is shivering and no- body slips on their ass and the ease and clarity is felt brighter than the whitened teeth of society’s upper echelon of housewife.Newcity JULY 2018 by Cynthia Cook I guess it’s here I shall admit my truth: I’ve fallen in love in Chicago in the An anthem for romantics: the crowing summer summer and I’m living to tell the tale. locusts, their unified, soulful reverberance that I’ve been here for six official summers doesn’t just permeate the air but sort of creates it. thus far, and to varying degrees: have They’re summoning something. That’s probably been in love, chasing love, dreamily why I identify so strongly with them; our eager falling in love, and harpooned by love’s cruel spike of hy- summoning once Chicago becomes warm and perbolic heartbreak. The most recent was a time that re- wanting and often bewitching. sulted in an existential lovelorn dread wherein I watched “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” seasons one-through- T hose creatures provoke a Proustian cookie moment twelve and all its New York, Miami and Hamptons spinoffs for me, instantly transported à la the senses to sum- in a matter of three very dead, very dedicated, grievous mer nights and dewy evenings where youth and weeks. I realized a lot about how much Kim’s face dramat- magic were so pervasive we were unaware of their ically changed over the years and I barely ate anything. existence—or, more importantly, their significance. It’s this magic I’m still chasing and will most likely always Even so, from my experience, I can tell you one thing: fall- chase, high off the excitement of its rarity. It’s this magic ing in love—and in our beloved city—is worth the gamble. I’ve found—and should be infinitely grateful for—a few I’ve felt the syrupy warm winds while biking home around times in my still-young experience; a magic unmatched; 5am, blasting Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” a feeling like it’s been there all along once encountered aware of the inevitable trauma about to take us down but and light years away once eluded. swooning in the sweetness regardless. I’ve laid in the park by Belmont Harbor when the ground was sort of hard but This is not necessarily a pledge to assume that Chicago doable and a daddy long-legs caught on my dress but I is the best place to fall in love or that its inherent charm didn’t care because I was so infatuated with kissing. I’ve and adventure scale surpasses any other place. Growing been two of about five people at a sweetly squalid dive up in the suburbs of Toledo, Ohio, for example, I would bar at 2pm on a Friday, slow dancing to some obscure argue for the cinematic quality of summer love in a 3am Rolling Stones after a few throwbacks of whiskey, low sneak-out and a game of truth-or-dare that ends up in lighting, tattered seats and balmy air coming through the the kissing of your crush hoping he doesn’t acknowledge, open door. I’ve dodged drug-addled tweens at Lollapa- get nicked by or maybe even notice your braces. looza with loving arms wrapped around my waist, catch- ing the iconic diamond building against a pink and orange With that said, Chicago presents its own specific enchant- sky while the band mellifluously dove into their first tune, ment, ripe for big, hot-blooded love. We have one of the inadvertently consecrating the moment as one to be re- best skylines in America, truly, apt for setting the mood membered. The grass was dewy and the air warm and whether it’s towering above Grant Park or pronouncing wet and the sky rolled on and everything was bright and itself ebulliently, mythologically, in the distance. A spar- not yet dead. kling John Hancock peeking over the trees seals the deal of a nighttime kiss: drunk on cheap white wine, approach- Of course, I need to address the obvious and the sad: ing potential heartbreak and guaranteed fever. what if you don’t fall in love this summer? What if you’re There’s also something to be said about the seasons con- alone? What if love doesn’t come? What if you’re shaking at a stop-n-go, Mad Dog 20/20 in hand, dreading an up- coming Tinder date that feels “cool” but definitely is not giving you the stomach flip? There is no worse a feeling than to imagine love has al- ready come and gone and you are now past your prime but not yet thirty. This is terrorizing even at forty, fifty, be- yond. Everyone else has dogs. People are visiting Venice, putting each other on the car insurance and splitting the14

cost for Crate & Barrel ice trays. Peo- JULY 2018 Newcityple say things like “Bye, babe” withsuch seemingly inimitable ease andswiftness that is the stu of envy.These closely felt gems of intimacymight intimidate you, frustrate you,maybe even discourage you. Might aswell hop on the dating app of the hourand pretend that Brenden from LeoBurnett could do because he wouldappease your parents and has a de-cent credit score. Go with Brenden, be-cause fear and anxiety and absolutedread about not finding love—and hav-ing someone to walk to brunch withthen subsequently bicker about mean-ingless bullshit with on the way home—are all too searingly uncomfortable.Let’s be straight here: I’m totally awareI don’t need someone to say they likeme or think I’m somethin’ else, and thatmaybe it would make me sublimelyfucking pathetic to even release onespeck of a tear over that asinine idea.But I’d probably kill to hear that again,over and over, with a bit of Malört an-imating my veins and a rumbling Elfreewheeling to nowhere. It’s an expe-rience whose richness feels neces-sary—painful, serendipitous, maniacal,starry-eyed, luscious, tragic, trashy—arichness made richer by its combina-tion of elements.I hope it doesn’t discourage you thatyou don’t yet know all there is to knowabout your desired other. I hope youcan revel in this mystery. I hope youcan marinate in the curiosity, in the notknowing, in the weird wonder thatcomes about when stumbling uponsomething that sort of feels as if it’sbeen there all along.I guess I believe in you. I believe in theprocess of becoming. I know about thepleasure that derives from grace. I’veexperienced the elegance in how cer-tain love just sort of finds you, reveresin moments begging to be memorized.That kind of exquisiteness is only beingimagined in my current mind, but whenI imagine it, I can feel it right now; allaround me; within me; whispering andmaybe singing through me like the lo-custs seeking another vibration—an-other harmonious match—to hear. Idelegate my calls; but I remember tosing a song of myself first. 15

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SUMMER as I descended, I was to slowly bring my arms straight 2018 down to my sides to balance myself as I plummeted through space. We’d all heard rumors about kids bel-30 METERS, ly-flopping, tearing their stomachs open, guts everywhere.STRAIGHT DOWN, These were urban myths, but there’s no doubt that hittingPORTAGE PARK, the water flat on your stomach, after falling over thirtyC. 1961 feet, would hurt a lot. by David Hammond Stepping off, I kept my eyes open all the way down. It was a fast, exciting ride, lasting just seconds. I glanced downNine-year-old me, skinny and shivering, stood just once to see the water rushing up to swallow me, theat the top of Portage Park’s ten-meter diving underwater lights illuminating the depths into which I wasplatform looking down at the deep blue dive descending. Never felt anything like it. After I hit waterpool below. It was after dark and the and swam to the side, I watched my dad step off, lettingunderwater lights made the pool glow several out a “Wahoo!” as he went down. Wish I’d thought of that.shades of blue. My father was standing behindme, ready to go next. I forget whose idea it was Headed home and walking out the creaky men’s lockerto take this plunge. room turnstile, we passed a hot dog vendor, steam pour- ing out windows of his scuffed white van, serving up après-swim snacks for twenty-five cents. Those red hots always smelled so good, but I don’t think we ever stopped ortage Park, though less well-known Ten-meter diving platform, Portage Park Pool / Photo: David Hammond JULY 2018 NewcityP than Grant, Lincoln and other Chicago for one. My dad surprised me when he asked if I was hun- public parks, is a beautiful example of gry. As we ate our hot dogs under the street lamps and enduring WPA artistry, with portals trees, the air smelling vaguely of chlorine, I felt we’d ac-and walkways of pale flagstones. Time and changing complished something with that jump, even if gravity wastastes led to the dismantlement of some of these jagged doing most of the work. Our handheld victory feast wasand fanciful stone works—those that remain poke up here deliciously simple, a Depression dog: just the sausage inand there, like fossils of dinosaurs who fell into this mucky a steamed bun with onions, relish and mustard.land where Native Americans once portaged their canoesfrom the Chicago to the Des Plaines River. Arriving home, my dad told my mom about our adventure. She was not happy. A lifetime recreational worrier, myElsewhere in the park is a large playground but gone are mom gave my dad hell for “risking both your lives.” I wentthe wooden swings that have bonked the heads of thou- to sleep listening to my parents argue about the wisdomsands of kids and the tall metal slides without safety rails of a kid, not yet ten, jumping thirty feet or so into a verythat were so easy to fall from, as I did once. We now live deep pool. I was glad I did that jump, but I did it only oncein a safer, if maybe overly cautious, world. and I’m sure I’ll never do it again.The ten-meter board at Portage Park pool is now closed to the public. A nice manThe gorgeous pool on the eastern edge of the park, con- in the park office told me they had to close the thirty-me-structed in 1959 to host the Pan American Games, fea- ter diving platform because there were “lots of storiestured the ten-meter diving platform to accommodate about people injuring themselves.”fancy dives. During that warm night, as I was standingon the diving platform, the lifeguard told me I should stepoff into space with my arms straight over my head. Then, 17

SUMMER 2018 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE FULLERTON ROCKS by David Witter Tennessee, riding banana-seat bikes, walking barefoot on the cement and eating sandy hotdogs and drippy ice- My first experience with the Fullerton rocks came in cream bars sold from a wooden hotdog stand located the early 1970s. The hippie culture was in full swing where the Lake Shore Drive exit meets Fullerton Parkway. and Lincoln Park was its epicenter. A strip of cement beach and a grassy area where Lake Shore Drive meets As the decade advanced, the hippies waned and the Ful- Fullerton near the Theater on the Lake—the triangle— lerton rocks heading south toward North Avenue Beach became the center of a lifestyle that consisted of sun, were populated by large groups of Puerto Ricans who water, music and counterculture discussions. traveled east from Humboldt Park via the Fullerton bus and brought with them scores of bongos and drums. They eading north toward Diversey, the “rocks” were would pound out rhythms while poets like David Hernán- dez read “Chi-Town Brown,” and songs like WAR’s “Cisco H where the true subculture reigned. Fifteen-foot wide Kid” and “Summer” played on 8-track tapes while men strips of cement were layered downward toward the and women in Puerto Rican flag bikinis would dive in and lake like a wedding cake. On the lower strata, artists out of the lake. This melded into the disco and exercise armed with acrylic paints would use four-by-six foot eras, as many of the same people later donned flashy ex- squares of sidewalk as their canvas. They drew bold, col- ercise suits, headbands and lots of gold chains. They orful images of sixties icons like the peace sign, perfect would rollerskate up and down the strip, showing off their reproductions of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon,” the dance moves. Grateful Dead’s lightning bolt skull, Robert Crumb’s “Keep on Trucking’” and the Peter Max-like 7UP ads. They drew After the eighties began, Lincoln Park become “yuppified,” all night, and rumor had it that the police so respected their and the beach-rocks lifestyle withered almost to nothing. work, they did not strictly enforce the 11pm beach curfew. The Fullerton rocks became a passing point for runners, When daylight came swimmers would spread their blan- bicyclists and rollerbladers. In the last decade, the cement kets on them, a sunny beach towel over a Persian rug of along the immediate lakefront has been remodeled to a vibrant color. smooth sheen. Besides the scores of volleyball players at North Avenue, you can usually see a few people tanning while texting or listening to music on their phones. Against the backdrop of today’s sterile silence, you close your eyes and almost hear the strains of WAR’s “Summer” in the lake breeze:Newcity JULY 2018 On the rocks and grass women in flowered bikinis and Riding ’round town with all the windows down guys in cut-off jeans would dance, play guitar and talk Eight track playing all your favorite sounds about cosmic happenings and how much they hated The rhythm of the bongos fill the park “Tricky Dick” Nixon. There was plenty of drinking, either The street musicians trying to get a start wine from Spanish suede botas, or in the case of “the jug bunch,” from well-stocked coolers. There was a constant ‘Cause it’s summer lookout for the police who roamed the lakefront on three- Summer time is here wheeled Harley Davidsons. In those days getting caught Yes, it’s summer smoking pot was a major offense, so “toking” was done My time of year carefully. This was also before the mass availability of air Yes, it’s summer conditioning. Every day the Fullerton beach walkways My time of year featured torrents of people escaping the heat; mothers toting groups of children, fathers dragging beach chairs, and groups of “hillbilly kids,” migrants from Kentucky and18

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SUMMER to reveal herself, if only in restrained instances? What was 2018 she doing here? My older brother, Jimmy, had never seen I imagined the girl who appeared to me that summer was killed in the yard—past her, but said he had heard things. Once, a bout with my gangway, past the pick-up games of Wiffle ball in the alley, past the tire marks insomnia drove him to our living-room couch at 3am. He left by little girls learning to ride bikes laid there listening to quiet darkness while the burnt- orange cover scratched his back and the sharp giggle of a girl scratched his ears. He froze in a coffin-like pose, a bedsheet his only protection from supernatural sound. Later he told me her laugh sounded like it was coming from out- SUMMER side in our gangway and that it sounded like me and that he thought I should stop playing GIRLS: those kinds of tricks on him.while their fathers pushed them off in A GHOST I believed I had seenteetering lines. I did not know if she ever STORY the girl even though myrode a bike. I did not know if she had legs mother kept her secretbecause I never saw them. from me until I was older and I rarely talked about her to anyone. Whenever I tried to talk to non-imaginary peo- y mother said she did. She told me, later, by Jenn Danko Fenske ple, my words came out in hard, stutteryM when I was older, that she saw her and sounds—distant from her legs three times, two summers be-fore I did. She was planting tomatoes the soothing thump ofin our garden, a sliver of land padded with a ball against bricks.cheap soil from Capek’s Garden on 39th Street. The im- Angular shards of consonants and vowels would lodgeperfect plot encroached upon the cracked walkway of in the blackness of my throat and sometimes never comeour Southwest Side home. As she maneuvered silver out. At night, the pieces would rise—hot and haunted—stakes into the ground to support her little growing plants, while laughter from school kids tangled around them. Nota sense of death crept upon her like an inching vine. She even summer could stave off the burn.careened her neck to see the girl standing in the yardacross our alley for the first time, if only momentarily, be- It was easier to be alone—to bounce a ball, to ride a bike,fore vanishing in the hot haze of summer. My mother at- to meet the girl as I did: solitary and silent on that thicktested that later that season, she appeared again in our July day. When she revealed herself to me in that moment,own gangway—unblinking and unmoving—a twisted ver- I was guiding my pink Schwinn bike down our gangway.sion of an untouchable porcelain doll. It was mid-afternoon. From across our yard and through the alley, I watched her horizontally jut from behind theDolls never interested me as a child, unless they were corner of an adjacent garage, stopping me like invisibleghosts. I chose to spend summers playing alone on the glass. From the waist up, her cartoonish face leered atstreets, sometimes in front of our small brick bungalow. me: yellow, yarn-like hair woven into two long braids, hugeWords came out most fluently when I talked to myself black-saucer eyes, giant freckles that looked as if theywhile methodically tossing a tennis ball against the sides were drawn onto plump cheeks with brown marker. Herof our house. Its fuzzy skin bounced off tan bricks in rhyth- puffy-sleeved, pinafore dress glowed blue and white andmic pops while I invented stories of alternate realities. electric in sunlight while she grinned into me, exposingOne was about a girl and boy who fell in love until a hur- two protruding rabbit teeth that looked huge and real andricane came and swept her away. She’d been killed while fake and droll.trying to reach the calming eye of the storm. Her spiritwent on to rest in peace while the boy stood vigil in the She hovered sideways, her lower half concealed behindwind, his fingers raised in the shape of two peace signs. the side of the garage, before vanishing forever. As I stood JULY 2018 Newcity alone in the hush of humidity and concrete, I felt a dark-At night, long after I put away my tennis ball, I often ness I had never seen before but had known my whole life.thought about the girl I saw in the yard and I wonderedwhy she wasn’t resting in peace—why she had returned The sun shone down. I didn’t look away. 21

SUMMER Someone stole summer out from under 2018 the place you hold most sacred. Someone took your 93rd summer SUMMER as you slumber in the place by Dina Elenbogen you once rode wild into July. They stole your summer the one that felt like a gift as you biked toward sunset so alive you didn’t hear, once, when we called your name in the wind. Someone took summer out from under your biking shoes they took your 93rd summer the way war took your 18th and pneumonia your 62nd and all those other summers of cracked sidewalks in Humboldt Park your father’s candy store that swallowed your youth, his colon cancer that took your young manhood— They took your 93rd summer, the way mom’s death took your 73rd and my 37th— my daughter’s first summer. This one was taken suddenly a carpet pulled from under you—not while you slumbered but as you turned a corner onto Lake street toward home, they knocked you off and cracked your spine as you stumble, now, toward autumn and prepare for another summer.Newcity JULY 201822

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SUMMER 2018 THE LIGHTHOUSE here’s a small park illuminated by AT THE END T streetlights to the left, and a OF THE WORLD sandy stretch of sepia beach on your right. In front of you there is by Jade Kelly a narrow concrete walkway with a low fence on either side stretching into blackness. If you stop and stare for one, two, three, four, five seconds you’ll see it. A dim flash of red light in the distance that vaguely illuminates… something. A tall structure of rusted metal and concrete. There it is, the lighthouse at the end of the world. The lighthouse is a secret place. You can watch a city of nearly three mil- lion bustle the night away but no one can see you. We would always go there at night, my friends and I grow- ing up. I’ve never been while the sun shone. Oh, of course I’ve seen it, but in the light of day it is crowded with people fishing, playing with their chil- dren, or just sitting together in the heat. During the day it was not our place, but at night… If you take the Red Line north to To get there you wait on the end of Pratt where a low Loyola and walk a few blocks cracked concrete wall separates the street from the beach. down Sheridan, dodging through We’d sit and lean against it, keeping low on the west side the crowds of students and bums of it, at around 11:45pm, just before the beaches close. So that populate the street at all we’d sit and wait till the tell-tale crunch of gravel under hours, you will come to a residen- tires meant the cops were doing their midnight round. tial street, Pratt. Turn east and Sometimes we’d hear them over their bullhorn, scaring walk up two more dark blocks to off the stragglers. what appears to be a dead-end street. Do this at night. Do this in One of us, brave enough to risk being caught out after summer. Just when you think curfew, would peek up over the wall, only high enough you’ve gone the wrong way, some- for our eyes. A quick up and down, like a soldier who fears how, you’ll see it. a sniper’s bullet. The rest of us crouched, low, ready to run. But usually the cops didn’t see us, and once the cruis- er’s taillights were out of sight down the beach we’d hear JULY 2018 Newcity the relieved “Aight, we’re good” from the lookout. Then we’d get up, leisurely stretch and wipe the grit off the ass of our pants. We’d laugh knowing we had half an hour till the cops’ next round, then saunter into the dark- ness of the pier knowing we were safe. Once out there, at the end of the quarter-mile-long pier, we’d reach the lighthouse, staring at it for those five long 25

Newcity JULY 2018 seconds, waiting for the flash of red to show us the struc- We walked around on those sordid muggy nights like we ture. Its ugly, beige, graffitied, concrete base, from the top owned them. That summer seemed somehow pregnant. of which sprouted a ten-foot chain-link fence, which en- There was a tremendous feeling of newness in the stink- closed the rusted iron, Eiffelian madness of the lighthouse ing beautiful allies that we prowled, looking only for ex- itself. At the apex some twenty-five feet up rested that perience. Our young bodies bursting with hormones, we ever-blinking red eye. baptized ourselves in the city. It’s a wonder that being occasionally robbed or picked up for curfew were the After looking, we’d walk behind it, to the twenty-foot worst things that ever happened to us. square patch of concrete and become invisible. Someone would bring out the beers, or we’d light up a blunt, but it It was that summer we found the lighthouse, and after wasn’t just about teenagers doing drugs. To us the place we found it seemed like every time the night didn’t go our was almost sacred. way we’d end up there. We’d go when we had been ripped off, or someone had been picked up for underage drink- In those days of algebra and crushes and cliques; in those ing, or when someone’s parents got divorced, or some- days of surreptitiously raided liquor cabinets and loneli- one’s grandma died, or when we were all just having a ness and acne we were, of necessity, a very private group; shitty day. We’d go out there just to sit and be with each five or six boys who had no one but each other. We grew other for a while. To be outside Rogers Park, to be out- up together. Nick and Seth, two of my closest friends, I’ve side the city, to be outside of our parents and our class- known since I was three years old. mates, to be able to look at our little world and everyone we’d known. To realize that, no matter how shitty things We met at C.W.S. (the Chicago Waldorf School) that stood got, that the world was bigger than the lives we were liv- just a few blocks away at 1300 West Loyola, back of the ing and someday we would be too. Loyola Red Line. It’s a small school, where everyone knows everyone by name. In my day, each class K-12 was As the years passed things got better. We even had other not bigger than twenty-five kids. In that close-knit, almost friends sometimes, but we didn’t talk about the lighthouse incestuous little society there was no getting away. No with them. We didn’t take them there. If one of us invited starting over with a new crowd or any hope of anonymi- someone to the lighthouse it was a big deal, an initiation, ty. No embarrassing misstep was ever forgotten, no pup- a test. When I was fifteen I asked Andy, who had just py-love heartbreak ever forgiven. We were, suffice it to transferred to C.W.S., if he wanted to go somewhere cool say, not popular. that Friday. At once I felt my friends’ eyes on me, silently saying “Are you sure about him? Are you sure he’s one of We were the outcasts of this little microcosm of human- us?” When he asked where we were going that night we ity. We didn’t even know or like each other at first, but just laughed quietly. I said, trying my best to be mysteri- sometime between ages eleven and twelve we realized ous, “the lighthouse at the end of the world.” That’s how that hanging out with each other was better than being it got the name, though it had never needed a name be- alone. Even if we were fat, pimple-faced, learning-dis- fore, we all knew what it was without words. abled, angry little introverts, I’m sure we all had our rea- sons. I know in my case anything was better than having It was our church. Beer and weed may have been the a birthday party with only two guests, my aunt and uncle. sacrament but the view was the altar and the night-tossed, lake darkness, the confessional. From the lighthouse you Slowly we began to accept ourselves, and each other, for can see the whole city burning, bright, bejeweled. The who we were. In an odd way, we became proud of it. We glittering backdrop to a foreground of seething dark water. sucked at sports, we hated homework, and we couldn’t get girls. So we played video games, blew stuff up and You can see clear down south to Navy Pier, its enormous beat the shit out of each other for fun. If society didn’t wheel spinning, pulsing with white light. Behind it the want us then fuck it, we didn’t want it either. We learned classic skyline standing high in the haze of ambient light to wear our loneliness like a feather in our caps. from the city. To the north clear up to Linden Street in Evanston, sits Northwestern University stark and clear, In my thirteenth summer we learned to bribe homeless its old stone buildings lit by cold, polarized floodlights. men to buy us booze and sell us shitty weed. We discovered that anything could be fun if your state of Sometimes when I see my friends from the old days we consciousness was altered. Seth’s apartment was on still go out there for old times’ sake. Grown now, we go Newgard right off Devon only a couple blocks from to sit on the edge of everything we knew as children. Be- school. That, and the fact that his mother worked for hind us, nothing but blackness; talking only rarely and Amtrak, meaning she was gone two weeks out of every quietly, passing the blunt, sipping our beers; sitting feet month, made it the perfect home base. So with only the dangling over the edge, almost but never quite being nominal supervision of his heavily medicated, bipolar kissed by lapping waves, only illuminated to each other father, it was easy to sneak out and explore the complex every five seconds by a dim pulsing red light that is en- urban nightscape of Rogers Park. tirely our own.26

SUMMER 2018 WOULD As the dance editor, I’ve been waiting of a dance, but not necessarily. They JULY 2018 Newcity YOU LIKE years to write the following words might strike up small talk between TO DANCE? in this publication: I love social songs and, over time, become friends dancing. By “social dancing,” I mean or lovers or spouses or exes. Or they How SummerDance Connects the type of dancing where you take might discover that the only thingChicagoans Across All Spectrums a stranger by the hand or shoulder or they have in common is a shared love full-on embrace them and move to- of spinning and sliding around to by Sharon Hoyer gether to music with some pattern music… and that’s enough for a or set of steps or rules to keep you in wordless relationship of mutual re- SummerDance / Photo: Department sync. It is a gentle, humane experi- spect and shared joy to exist in three- of Cultural Affairs and Special Events ence with a type of intimacy that has to five-minute increments on the no comparison. At its best, it can be dance floor. Expectations about age, transcendent, even utopian. I’m will- race, background, and in a few, but ing to bet most of my fellow social not nearly enough dance traditions, dancers feel the same way, though gender, fall away, and the delight of they rarely articulate it. Indeed, the being in a body, moving in time with diversion from talking is, at least for other bodies, lights up parts of the initially shy folks like myself, part of brain that lay dormant in front of the charm of social dancing; the screens or perched atop barstools. main, and remarkably articulate, mode of conversation is movement. Sure, participants might introduce themselves at the beginning or end 27

Newcity JULY 2018 Don’t believe me? You can put it to the test. if you’re not a dancer or a music enthusiast, named SummerDance Dance Down is Chicago summer heralds the opening of people like the energy and the diversity on part of the DCASE 2018 “Year of Chicago SummerDance: an opportunity for your- display. You see things that are sort of Youth” programming. “We’re helping doc- self to try out dancing with hundreds of shocking at first—they shouldn’t be and ument what’s been an under-appreciated strangers many days a week, outdoors, to you wish they weren’t—but you see class historical tradition in Chicago,” he says. live music and free of charge. The twenty- divisions break down, you see folks dance The fest also spends one extended week— plus-year SummerDance festival is a long- together that you would think would be Wednesday through Sunday—at Bucking- standing gem of Department of Cultural unusual, but at SummerDance it’s the ham Fountain during Taste of Chicago: an Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) pro- norm. The dance etiquette exhibited, the invitation for mobs of visitors who might gramming: each week from June 28 to Au- amount of respect displayed in just asking never have considered doing more than gust 25, throngs will gather on and around someone to dance—I think those values bobbing their heads to a beat, to put down a 4,900-square-foot permanent dance that are reinforced by the program speak their sausage and beer and cut a rug. floor in the Spirit of Music Garden in Grant to people.” Park for a one-hour dance lesson, then What started as a modest partner-dance practice their moves to bands and DJs as Just about every culture has a folk dance series that, according to Tortolero, was in- the sun sets. The series overlaps with the based in communal values and Summer- spired by the Lincoln Center’s “Midsummer Park District’s Night Out in the Parks Dance strives to include as many Chicago Night’s Swing” events in the nineties, has events, which host Wednesday evening communities as possible. This year’s line- evolved into a festival that ties together SummerDances at neighborhood parks. up features iterations of social dance sta- participatory social dance, informal spec- SummerDance is the apex of the utopian ples like swing and salsa, but also includes tatorship in public spaces and formal pre- scene described above: each event draws nights of African Highlife, Palestinian Dab- sentation of professional and emerging anywhere from hundreds to a few thou- ke, Balkan folk dances, and dances from performers. “It’s gone beyond the social sand attendees from all parts of the city regions of India. Contemporary Chica- dance diaspora,” Tortolero says. “Particu- and beyond, most ready to enter the social go-born dance traditions are core to the larly with the finale; there are a wide array compact of dancing: grab a partner of any SummerDance programming, too: House of events scheduled from line dancing to age or background and try to step in time is on the schedule three times this season Indian circle folk dances. On the Pritzker together. The spectacle of South Siders, and Steppin’ four. This year the program stage we’ll have dance companies per- North Siders, West Siders and suburban- includes three Dance Downs—showcases forming works. What’s under the banner ites joining hands to salsa or square dance and battles born from African-American of SummerDance has definitely expanded; is an inspiring sight. Rows of lawn chairs communities—which will take place at the it’s become the city’s premiere dance fes- around the dance floor fill with folks who Hamilton Park Cultural Center on the tival. There’s no longer the Chicago Danc- come for the music or just to sit, enjoy the South Side and the Austin Town Hall Park ing Festival. SummerDance in many ways weather, picnic and watch. “I hear from on the West Side, then on stage in Millen- is trying to, in a more egalitarian and ac- patrons that it’s a great people-watching nium Park as part of the big Summer- cessible manner—and not to knock what experience,” Carlos Tortolero, program Dance finale celebration on August 25. the Chicago Dancing Festival was, be- manager of SummerDance tells me. “Even Tortolero tells me the rather awkwardly cause what they put together was beauti-28

ful—but in a more civic manner, to produce tival could become one of the rare and ic, and an activity that many shy away froma wide array of dance events, coupled withthe higher-produced events you’re accus- precious places where distinctions be- out of fear of embarrassment or belief thattomed to seeing on the Pritzker stage.” tween high art and folk art disappear. they simply can’t do it. The beautiful phi-The Chicago Dancing Festival was an an-nual, weeklong series of free dance per- losophy of social dance is that everyoneformances at major venues featuring toplocal and national professional companies. Tortolero envisions SummerDance con- can participate and have fun at whateverIt ran the last week of August starting in2006 until 2016, when the organizers an- tinuing to broaden its reach and influence, skill level they’re at: all are invited. Dancingnounced it would not return for an elev-enth year. The festival drew tens of thou- within and without the festival itself. “I is part of the great triumvirate of culturalsands, particularly to the closing nightshowcases at the Pritzker Pavilion, and its think SummerDance has influenced traditions—along with music and cuisine—loss leaves a gaping hole in the calendarof awesome free things to do in the city. [DCASE] commissioner [Mark Kelly]—and that forges community through joyful, cre-The big idea behind the Chicago DancingFestival was accessibility: all events, in- he would gladly tellcluding seated shows at the Harris andAuditorium Theatre, were free of charge. you this—to include Just about every cultureAnd yet Tortolero’s statement about the dance more in ourcivic power of SummerDance is spot-on;the folks in the seats at Joffrey Ballet per- thinking throughout has a folk dance basedformances are not the same ones dancing our festival booking,” in communal valuestwo-step Friday evenings at the Empty he says. “A lot of pre-Bottle. There is dancing and there isDance and they are promoted, presented senters get boxed and SummerDance strivesand consumed as though they have little into thinking ‘This isto do with one another. If SummerDancecan be a place where presentations of pro- a jazz festival, this is to include as many Chicagofessional-level virtuosity, education about a blues festival,’ but communities as possible.the influence of folk dance and “pedestri- the way we experi-an movement” on choreographers, andthe invitation to get up and join in at what- ence the arts is moreever level you’re at are integrated, the fes- and more on a multi- disciplinary level. I think SummerDance ative acts. So stop by some weekend eve- touches on so many things; there’s some- ning this summer, even if it’s just to hang thing for everyone. There are so few events out and hear some fantastic live music. But I can think of for young people, for single you might also consider saying yes should people who can go with their grandpar- a stranger approach you, look you in the ents and have fun. I’d like to explore more eye, extend their hand and, smiling, ask, of the community engagements, push it “would you like to dance?” more into the neighborhoods.” SummerDance takes place June 28- JULY 2018 Newcity Great news for folks like me who are look- August 25 at the Spirit of Music Garden ing for every opportunity to turn an open in Grant Park, 601 South Michigan space into a dance floor and coax some- Avenue, and at neighborhood park one onto it. And great news for an art form districts. All events are free. For more that can seem unapproachable or esoter- info, visit cityofchicago.org. 29

Newcity JULY 2018SUMMER 2018 FOUR HUNDRED MILES TO CLEVELAND: FRONT INTERNATIONAL IS THE MIDWEST’S LATEST MAJOR ART VENTURE by Elliot J. Reichert With road trip season finally upon us, there is no better time to take advantage of Chicago’s proxim- ity to a plethora of Midwest cities quaint enough to make you feel like a New Yorker does when they visit Chicago. My perennial favorites are Detroit and Pitts- burgh, but this year I’ll be driving over to Cleveland, a city I know nothing about except that LeBron James intermittently calls it home, which is saying a lot com- ing from someone with little interest in sports. For better or for worse, an art critic is never truly on va- cation when there is art to be seen, and so it is for my upcoming trip to the “Rock and Roll Capital of the World.” Yes, I did Google that, and with no shame.30

his July, Cleveland joins the If it must be done, there is no one Grabner is quick to acknowledge more suitable for the role of artistic the problematic nature of bienni-T hundreds of cities worldwide director of a Midwest triennial than al-mania, but makes a strong case that seek the promises of vi- painter and curator Michelle Grab- for why Cleveland will stand out in brancy and visibility offered ner, a former Chicagoan who re- this crowded landscape. Unlike theby hosting an art biennial or trien- sides in Milwaukee but continues Carnegie International and thenial. Front Internation- to teach at the School of the Art In- Whitney Biennial, Front is not con-al promises to show- stitute of Chicago and maintains an fined to a single institution, and un-case “an American outsized presence in the city’s art like Prospect New Orleans, Cleve-City” to the nation and, world. When Fred Bidwell, an Ohio land is not recovering from apresumably, the world. philanthropist and art collector, ap- natural disaster or economic crisisIf I had been consulted proached her in 2015 about the for which art is the unlikely cure. Inon the matter, I would idea for establishing a triennial in fact, Cleveland is apparently doinghave surely tried to Cleveland, Grabner was just off the just fine. “The river doesn’t catchdissuade the organiz- high of co-curating the prestigious fire anymore,” Grabner jokes, refer-ers from investing in a 2014 Whitney Biennial and well un- ring to the 1969 Cuyahoga River in-trend that, as early as derway curating Portland2016, a cident and Cleveland’s infamous2012, was already statewide biennial for Oregon. history of industrial pollution. “Theenough of a bubble for Grabner originally shared the role steel mills are still pumping outGlenn Lowry, director with Jens Hoffman, former director smoke, but they’re automated. Theof the Museum of of the Jewish Museum and the Mu- economy is fueled by the ClevelandModern Art, to exclaimexasperation at the Works by Allan Sekula will be exhibited at the Steamship William G. Mather, a retired Great Lakes bulk freighter restoredimpossibility of keep- as a museum ship docked at the Great Lakes Science Center. Allan Sekula, “Panorama. Mid-Atlantic, November 1993,”ing up with the mush-rooming field. Or, as from “Fish Story,” 1989–95 / Allan Sekula and Christopher Grimes Gallery, Santa MonicaCharles Esche, direc-tor at the Van Abbemuseum and seum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Clinic and Progressive Insurance, JULY 2018 Newcitycurator of many biennials, re- before allegations of bullying and which are the largest employers inmarked last year, “There’s been an sexual harassment led to his ouster the city.” For Grabner, Cleveland isexplosion of biennials, triennials at these institutions and his depar- a model Midwestern city, whichand their ilk, and so many cities ture from the Cleveland venture as makes it, in a sense, a model Amer-now have one. There seems to be well as the forthcoming 2019 Ho- ican city, if we accept that the hearta new one every week.” Chicago nolulu Biennial. In the #MeToo era of this country beats far from thejoined the fray in 2015 with the Chi- it is fitting that Grabner, who is no coasts. Tellingly, she observes, “Atcago Architecture Biennial, and stranger to the art world’s misogy- a time when we feel like Americanow Cleveland has stepped up, too. ny, having once been derisively is at war with itself, the worldliness called a “soccer mom” in a conde- of the triennial is more importantJulian Stanczak, Carter Manor, 1973. scending review by a prominent than ever.”Painting on acrylic board, marquette for mural, New York critic, now directs the31.5 x 15”. Courtesy of Barbara Stanczak. project on her own. 31

ront will be decidedly global, Predictably, not everyone was im- with the public library, the Federal mediately thrilled by the prospect Reserve—I found so much enthu- F despite the undoubtedly of a global art event in their small siasm within these civic spaces,” local audience. Only a few of city. To coincide with Front, Collec- Grabner observes. Civil society is the exhibiting artists come tive Arts Network, a coalition of art- not typically something we asso- from Cleveland, and others hail ists and organizations that publish- ciate with the world of contempo- from as far away as Saudi Arabia es a quarterly journal of the same rary art, so perhaps this truly will and Beijing. Unsurprisingly, many name, has organized a massive, be something different, an Amer- of the Americans are based on the three-story juried exhibition of ican triennial in the middle of a di- coasts. However, Grabner has in- work by artists from Northeast vided nation. stituted a distinct regional program Ohio that they call the CAN Trien- called “The Great Lakes Research,” nial. “The Art World is coming to “Front International: An American Cleveland. We’ll show you the City” opens July 14 and shows world of Cleveland art,” proclaims through September 30 in their website. Grabner, with her locations throughout Cleveland. a group exhibition at the Cleveland typically earnest cheer, is genuine- Yinka Shonibare MBE, “The British Library” 2014. Institute of Art culled from dozens ly enthused by this project. “Of A version of this work will appear at the Cleveland of studio visits she has conducted course you should get pushback,” Public Library for Front International / Photo: Phoebe throughout the eponymous territo- she says. “That is the sign of a vital ry. In a minor but remarkable act of community. If there isn’t pushback, D’Heurle, James Cohan Gallery, New York transparency, Front has listed the how do you grow as an artist, aNewcity JULY 2018 full roster of the visited artists on community, a cultural city?” its website, itself a curatorial act even if the artists aren’t placed in Veterans of the biennial circuit will the show. find some familiar footing if they visit Cleveland this summer, with non-traditional venues hosting performances, lectures, public art and exhibitions alongside Cleve- land’s art institutions. “Working32

Ingmar Bergman’s “Summer with Monika”A Summer Retrospective of the Films of Ingmar Bergman at the Gene Siskel Film Centerrts & CultureJuly1throughAugust31

MARY NOHL AND THE WALRUS CLUBMary Nohl, untitled, n.d.; wood and paint; (clockwise l to r) 4 1/2 x 4 1/4 x 1 1/8 in., 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 x 7/8 in., 3 1/8 x 5 1/4 x 3/4 in. John Michael Kohler Arts Center Collection, gift of KohlerFoundation Inc. New works by Cecelia Condit, Sheila Held, Robin Jebavy, Anne Kingsbury, Sarah Luther, Kim Miller, Maggie Sasso, and Sonja Thomsen respond to the art of Mary Nohl. This exhibition was organized in collaboration with Polly Morris, executive director of the Bradley Family Foundation and administrator of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation's Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowships for Individual Artists program. It is supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts. Funding was also provided by the Kohler Trust for the Arts and Education, Kohler Foundation, Inc., and the Frederic Cornell Kohler Charitable Trust. Opens June 23. L to R: Karen Johnson Boyd at RAM in 2006 with gifts she presented to the museum, by Edward Eberle, Racine Art MuseumFrom Private Collection to Public Treasure at RAMLearn more about Racine Art Museum exhibitions and events at ramart.orgThrough December 30 Honoring Karen Johnson Boyd: Collecting In-Depth at Home and at RAMJune 24 – February 3July 1 – January 20 Honoring Karen Johnson Boyd: A Multi-Dimensional Approach Honoring Karen Johnson Boyd: Contemporary ClayRacine Art Museum Racine, Wisconsin 262.638.8300 ramart.org

ArtART TOP 5 Installation view of “Militant Eroticism: The ART+Positive Archives” at Iceberg Projects with Wojnarowicz’s1 Front International: “Untitled (When I put my hands on your body…)” An American City. on the right, Summer 2015 / Dr. Daniel Berger Venues throughout Cleveland. Cleveland All’s Fair Projects, his backyard exhibition space. The joins the ranks of cities in Love story of this exhibition, which opens in late June, determined to showcase and War is the story of two men united by a struggle their cultural prowess with against homophobia, hatred and oppression; its inaugural art triennial. David Wojnarowicz, ART+Positive two men whose lives were intertwined despite and AIDS Activism Then and Now never having met. It is the story of an archive that2 David Wojnarowicz. Berger acquired in 2015 and exhibited that same Iceberg Projects. By Elliot J. Reichert year, and a catalogue borne of that exhibition.This focused look at the This story, like history itself, tends to repeat itself,American artist and activist which is all the more reason it must continue comes in response to a to be told, lest we forget the sacrifices of those history of censorship who struggled and died before us, without and homophobia. which our world would not exist as we know it.3 Inquiry 01. Spertus Last year, the Whitney Museum of American Like many others of my generation, I first heard JULY 2018 Newcity Institute. The cul- Art indefinitely postponed a retrospective of Wojnarowicz in 2010, when the Smithsonian’s minating exhibition of the of the queer American artist David Wojnarowicz, National Portrait Gallery opened the first compre- first cohort of the new a key figure of the New York avant-garde of hensive exhibition of queer American portraitureJewish Artists Fellowship. the 1970s and eighties and a member of the called “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in ART+Positive affinity group that was a major American Portraiture,” a show that was bound4 Devin Balara. voice in AIDS activism at the height of the to spark controversy. Seeking a scapegoat to Comfort Station. HIV-AIDS crisis. The story of Wojnarowicz, condemn the show, Speaker of the House Enjoy this show alongside who passed away in 1992 from complications John Boehner and the Catholic League ex- the screenings, musical related to the disease, is one of passion and pressed outrage at a film work by Wojnarowicz performances and talks rage, rejection and, at long last, restitution. titled “A Fire In My Belly,” which included a few Comfort Station programs When the Whitney delayed the Wojnarowicz seconds footage of ants crawling over a crucifix. throughout the summer. exhibition, America’s history of suppressing The Smithsonian, a federal institution, buckled queer artists seemed destined to repeat itself. under the outside pressure and removed the5 Gold. Aspect/Ratio Instead, Chicago physician and art collector work without consulting the exhibition curators, Projects. Chicago Daniel Berger galvanized a circle of friends to a move that ignited fierce backlash from seg- artists show off their shiniest organize a Wojnarowicz show at Iceberg ments of the left. stuff in this group show. 35

I was in my early twenties when I saw Draft of an Art+Positive letter to Senator Alfonse D’Amato urging the senator “Hide/Seek” on a trip to Washington, D.C. to support the NEA / Art+Positive Archives, Dr. Daniel Berger I remember that an activist group hadNewcity JULY 2018 managed to park a trailer outside of the The same year that Berger founded his Lovers: Combatting AIDS, Homophobia & NPG that screened “A Fire In My Belly” on medical practice, ART+Positive, established by Censorship” organized by Aldo Hernandez at a loop inside. At the time, I knew nothing Hunter Reynolds, Aldo Hernandez, Bill Dobbs the PS122 gallery. Wojnarowicz’s “Untitled about Wojnarowicz and very little about the and others, grew out of this nascent AIDS (When I put my hands on your body…),” an AIDS crisis. Nonetheless, I saw the work’s organizing with a mission focused specifically installation of a poetic text on acetate overlaid removal for what it was—censorship and to “fight homophobia and censorship in the on a world map with a pair of dog tags homophobia at the highest levels of my arts.” ART+Positive was directly responsible hanging nearby, was among the works. government. Unsurprisingly, the Smithso- for the 1989 Met protest as well as a series of Photographer Zoe Leonard contributed her nian’s decision to remove Wojnarowicz’s activist interventions in public and cultural own work as well as a triptych of pink-framed launched a nationwide protest campaign spaces, notably the exhibition “An Army of photographs she took at the behest of Ray that prompted dozens of American galleries, museums and other cultural institutions to screen “A Fire In My Belly”—including several screenings in Chicago. Wojnarowicz’s cause célèbre rapidly circulated to those who remembered the horrors and sadness of the AIDS crisis and among those, like myself, who were too young to feel the visceral pain and anger evoked by the memory of this chapter of American history. The memories triggered were not only of suffering and loss but also of bigotry and suppression. The “Hide/Seek” controversy echoed the bitter public debate over the 1989 Helms Amendment and conservative efforts to suppress government support of the arts—cutting the cashflow to the National Endowment for the Arts and imposing strict limits on the kinds of artistic content deemed acceptable for government funding. These repressive actions erupted in response to an exhibition of photographs by the queer artist Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano’s infamous “Piss Christ” image of 1987, both of which received some NEA support. In the summer of 1989, ART+Positive organized a march on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to oppose the Helms Amendment, drawing a crowd of over a thousand protesters demonstrating against censorship and threats to public arts funding. David Wojn- arowicz was among those organizers who fought for the rights of queer artists under the banner of anti-censorship, so it was especially cruel that his work was the target of the very same bigotry he had battled twenty years before. Daniel Berger, a queer physician who specializes in AIDS research and treatment, opened his practice in Chicago in 1989 at a time when HIV-infected young men were being told by their doctors to “get their affairs in order” after receiving a positive diagnosis. This was nearly a decade into the crisis yet treatment was limited to a single antiretroviral drug prescribed when persons living with AIDS (PWAs) were near their deathbeds. Artists were a major presence in the queer community and were used to fighting for recognition in the arts arena, so it was natural that queer artists were among the first to organize public advocacy to address discrimination against PWAs. AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), an affinity group begun in New York City, was replete with artists, many HIV-positive. 36

Navarro, who was blind and nearly unable to speak when hedictated the instructions for the work to Leonard. The day ofthe opening, Navarro died of AIDS.In his heart-wrenching essay “Symbiosis in Activism: Art,AIDS, Personal Recollections,” published in the ART+Positiveexhibition catalogue released last year, Berger weaves hispersonal experiences as a queer AIDS physician with thebattles fought by the artists and activists whose work hewould come to admire and eventually collect. In particular,Berger was drawn to the way that Wojnarowicz narrated hisexperiences. Berger writes, “Rather than noting that acommunity came together only because of this terribledisease and the political crisis it ensured, Wojnarowicz’swriting places the crisis in timeless sexual attractions andemotional connections. His work speaks of the depth ofthe bonds I have experienced in my own community, theemotional experience of trying so hard to hold onto but losingso many needlessly.”In the same essay, Berger speaks openly of his fight to David Wojnarowicz, “Sex Series (for Marion Scemama),”advance treatment against the apathy and outright hatred 1988-89, Silver print, 15 x 18 inches / Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.Wharbored against PWAs, comparing his experimental medicalpractice with the advocacy and artistic interventions under- time. Berger writes of the “queer ethics” shared by the members oftaken by ACT UP and ART+Positive. While Wojnarowicz and activist affinity groups, who promiscuously formed responsive networksothers fought for public acceptance of queer identities in a of support and advocacy around a plethora of causes, such as racism,climate of fear and loathing, Berger lobbied for expanded sexism, discrimination in the medical or artistic communities, or anytreatments, gaining access to unapproved investigational other matter of urgency. In the catalogue, activist and scholar Debraantiretroviral drugs and producing one of the first treatment regimes Levine writes of an affinity group formed specifically to support Rayof combined antiretrovirals, now commonly known as “the cocktail.”He corresponded with underground “buyers clubs,” including RonWoodruff’s now famous Dallas-based operation that distributed novelmedications, developing an experimental treatment network not unlikethe affinity groups emerging in the artist-activist communities at the sameMasteryin MotionExplore a summer of exhibitions up north, JULY 2018 Newcityincluding the etchings of Goya, William Kentridge:More Sweetly Play the Dance, and PhotographingNature’s Cathedrals.William Kentridge, More Sweetly Play the Dance. Installation view at EYE Film Museum, Amsterdam© William Kentridge. Courtesy of EYE Film Museum, Amsterdam. 37

Navarro as his health declined, examination of human bodies might have had something to a group that resulted in the work exhibited on the day of his do with this particularly corpore- death. Levine names this way of al approach to the work of care “prosthetic praxis,” a term Wojnarowicz, though his affinity loaded with the connotations of with both Wojnarowicz’s work medical care that permeated the and the lives of his patients exceeds the medical and extends queer environment of the era. to the realm of love and solidarity. In 2015, when Berger acquired We will likely never know why the Art+Positive archives with the Whitney delayed exhibiting the help of Hunter Reynolds, Wojnarowicz—perhaps they Navarro’s triptych was among were still shaken by the negative the many objects and docu- ments he and John Neff found response to their exhibition of Dana Schutz’s “Open Casket” among the boxes of press releases, photographs, letters, painting at the 2017 Whitney Biennial, or they were sensitive statements, protest signs and to the criticism lobbied against other ephemera. Five months the touring “Art, AIDS, America” after he took possession of them, Berger and Neff mounted exhibition that the shows an exhibition at Iceberg Projects, reinforced the dominant white Berger’s backyard gallery, that male narrative of the AIDS crisis—a critique that, in displayed artworks from the Chicago, spurred the curation “An Army of Lovers” exhibition of a companion exhibition at the and a rotating selection of ART+Positive archival materials. DePaul Art Museum, titled “One Day This Kid Will Get Larger” They called the show “Militant after a Wojnarowicz work Eroticism: The ART+Positive included in that show. Impor- Archives” after the name of tantly, both of these negative a promotional calendar the organization had made in 1990. reactions to exhibitions came Wojnarowicz’s dog tags were in from the left, not the right, the archives, and Aldo Hernan- an indicator of the incredible headway AIDS activism has dez helped Berger assemble the rest of the “Untitled (When I made into mainstream society, put my hands on your body…)” but also of the deep divisions within a fragile political coalition piece from his own collection shortly before the show. When facing renewed hostility in a “Militant Eroticism: The ART+Posi- moment of profound political dissensus—a subject Berger and tive Archives” opened in July 2015, it was the first exhibition co-curator Omar Kholeif took up in a group exhibition shortly after of this work by Wojnarowicz the 2016 presidential election, since “An Army of Lovers” nearly twenty-five years before. which also included material from the ART+Positive archives. This summer, Iceberg Projects Whatever the reason for the Whitney’s unexplained post- will mount the Wojnarowicz ponement of their Wojnarowicz exhibition “Flesh of my Flesh” weeks before the long-delayed exhibition, it triggered among Whitney exhibition will also open. Berger and his peers those same It will be a kind of homecoming deeply rooted furies that had mobilized protests in 1989 and in for Wojnarowicz, whose first retrospective was staged at the 2010. “Flesh of My Flesh” was OCTOBER 19-21, 2018 Illinois State University’s College born from precisely the respon- sive, affinity-led action that had Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E 60th St of Fine Art, curated by Barry propelled Wojnarowicz into the FEATURING Steve Bell and John Primer • Jerron “Blind Blinderman. The spirit of the Boy” Paxton, opening for Chris Thomas King • Sanctified public eye in the first place. If and Secular: Sisters in the Blues with Deitra Farr, Leanne Chicago show, organized in Faine, and Ruthie Foster • American Epic documentary response to perceived censor- it is worrisome that history has screening and conversation • Pulitzer Prize-winning poet repeated itself in suppressing the Tyehimba Jess • World-renowned blues poet Sterling ship at the institutional level, Plump, with Billy Branch • Free youth and adult is very much sympathetic with legacy of David Wojnarowicz, workshops • Grand finale concert • And much more it is inspiring that, each time, the strategies and aims that loganbluesfest.uchicago.edu birthed ART+Positive. It focuses an army of lovers have arisen toNewcity JULY 2018 on the artist’s symbolic language fight for him and his work. and the metaphors of flesh as a conduit for eroticism, intimacy “Militant Eroticism: The ART+ and death—subjects that are Positive Archives” is available as timely as they are ceaselessly controversial. Berger, who from Sternberg Press. “David continues to treat queer and Wojnarowicz: Flesh of My Flesh” opens June 23 and shows HIV-positive patients in his daily practice, admits that his through August 4 at Iceberg Projects, 7714 North Sheridan.38

In Real Life Image courtesy of Rosalie YuAiméee Beaubien, Nick Bontrager, TANG CHANGTom Burtonwood, Assaf Evron, THE PAINTING THATBurton Isenstein, Christopher Meerdo,Rosalie Yu IS PAINTED WITH POETRY ISJune 2nd - August 4th P R O F O U N D LY B E AU T I F U L MAY 8 TO AUGUST 5, 2018 904 Sherman Ave, Evanston, IL Embodied Politic Open Tues + Sat 12 - 4pm or by appt. Mequitta Ahuja, Mike Cloud, Natalie Frank, Arnold J. Kemp, http://platform904.com Deana Lawson, Ebony G. Patterson, Nicola TysonELMHURST Curated by Anastasia Karpova TinariARTMUSEUMFor the first time in 20 YEARS THROUGH JULY 6, 2018the full exterior of the McCormick House will be on view 1711 WEST CHICAGO AVENUE CHICAGO ILLINOIS 60607Mies’s McCormick House Revealed: New Views WWW. RHO FFM A NGA LLERY. C O Mand Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle: Untitled Film (Red) JUN 10 - AUG 26, 2018 ®

EXHIBITIONSANDREW BAE GALLERY ILLINOIS HOLOCAUST MUSEUM & EDUCATION CENTER300 W. Superior Street312 335 8601 9603 Woods Drive, Skokie, [email protected] / www.andrewbaegallery.com 847 967 4800Tues–Sat 10-6 [email protected] / www.ilholocaustmuseum.orgJuly 13–August 25 Da Bin Ahn: 2 + 3 Mon–Wed 10-5, Thurs 10-8, Fri–Sun 10-5 January 21–September 23 The 75th Anniversary of theBLOCK MUSEUM OF ART Warsaw Ghetto UprisingAt Northwestern University March 15–September 16 Where the Children Sleep:40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston, IL847 491 4000 Photos by Magnus [email protected] / www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu July 19–January 13, 2019 STORIES OF SURVIVAL:Tues, Sat–Sun 10-5, Wed–Fri 10-8, Mon closedApril 14–August 5 Hank Willis Thomas: Unbranded Object. Image. Memory.July 17–November 4 Paul Chan: Happiness (finally) after 35,000 years LINDA WARREN PROJECTS of civilization 327 N. Aberdeen, Ste. 151CARL HAMMER GALLERY 312 432 9500 [email protected] / www.lindawarrenprojects.com740 N. Wells Street Tues–Sat 11-5 or by private appointment312 266 8512 June 22–August 18 Emmett Kerrigan, Lora Fosberg,[email protected] / www.carlhammergallery.comTues–Fri 11-6, Sat 11-5 & Juan Angel Chavez: What Is Not Is Isn’t IsMay 11–June 29 HOWARD FINSTER - Man of VisionsJuly 13–August 18 FRESHLY PICKED: Summer Group Show LOGAN CENTER EXHIBITIONSDEPAUL ART MUSEUM At the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts 915 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637At DePaul University 773 702 2787935 W. Fullerton Avenue [email protected] / www.arts.uchicago.edu/logan/773 325 7506 [email protected] / museums.depaul.edu Tues–Sat 9-9, Sun 11-9, Mon closedMon–Tues closed, Wed–Thurs 11-7, Fri–Sun 11-5 Please contact gallery for information.April 26–August 5 Out of Easy ReachApril 26–August 5 BEVERLY FRESH: Really Somethin Else MONIQUE MELOCHE GALLERYApril 26–August 5 DPAM Collects: Happy Little Trees and 451 N. Paulina Street Other Recent Acquisitions 312 243 2129 [email protected] / www.moniquemeloche.com Tues–Sat 11-6 June 9–August 18 Jeff Sonhouse: Entrapment Viewing Room: Jarvis Boyland, Abigail DeVille, Sheree Hovsepian, Caroline Kent

MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY RHONA HOFFMAN GALLERYPHOTOGRAPHY 1711 W. Chicago AvenueAt Columbia College Chicago 312 455 1990600 S. Michigan Avenue [email protected] / www.rhoffmangallery.com312 663 5554 Tues–Fri 10-5:30, Sat 11-5:[email protected] / www.mocp.org May 25–July 6 Embodied Politic: Group exhibition curated byMon–Wed 10-5, Thurs 10-8, Fri–Sat 10-5, Sun 12-5April 12–July 8 In Their Own Form Anastasia Karpova Tinari featuring work by Mequitta Ahuja,July 19–September 30 Lucas Foglia: Human Nature Mike Cloud, Natalie Frank, Arnold J. Kemp, Deana Lawson,July 19–September 30 View Finder: Landscape and Leisure Ebony G. Patterson, Nicola Tyson in the Collection RICHARD GRAY GALLERYTHE NEUBAUER COLLEGIUM Richard Gray Gallery, Hancock: 875 N. Michigan Avenue, 38th FloorFOR CULTURE AND SOCIETY Mon–Fri 10-5:30 Gray Warehouse: 2044 W. Carroll AvenueAt the University of Chicago By Appointment July–August5701 South Woodlawn Avenue 312 642 8877773 795 2329 [email protected] / [email protected] / www.neubauercollegium.uchicago.edu Please contact gallery for information.Mon–Fri 10-5June 8–September 14 Anna Daučíková and Assaf Evron: FOR SCHINGOETHE CENTERPOETRY FOUNDATION of Aurora University 1315 Prairie Street, Aurora, IL61 W. Superior Street 630 844 7843312 787 7070 [email protected] / www.aurora.edu/[email protected] / www.poetryfoundation.org Closed For Summer / Staff AvailableMon–Fri 11-4 Reopens September 20 Joel Sheesley: A Fox River TestimonyJune 21–September 14 On Visiting the Franklin Park Conservatory SMART MUSEUM OF ART & Botanical Gardens: An Interactive Poetry Installation At the University of ChicagoTHE RENAISSANCE SOCIETY 5550 S. Greenwood Avenue 773 702 0200At the University of Chicago [email protected] / www.smartmuseum.uchicago.edu5811 S. Ellis Ave., Cobb Hall, 4th Floor Tues–Wed 10-5, Thurs 10-8, Fri–Sun 10-5773 702 8670 May 8–August 5 Tang Chang: The Painting that is [email protected] / www.renaissancesociety.orgOpen by Appointment June 18–July 22 with Poetry is Profoundly BeautifulThrough July 22 Richard Rezac: Address Through December 30 Expanding Narratives: The Figure and the Ground

Dance Aerial Dance Chicago. / Photo: Michelle Reid The Vertical DANCE TOP 5 Dance Floor 1 Rhythm World. Multiple venues. Aerial Dance Chicago brings The Chicago Human Rhythm Project’s Blackbird to the Ruth Page Center annual weeklong festival of tap and percussive dance features workshops, By Sharon Hoyer classes and showcases, culminating in “JUBA! Masters of Tap and Percussive Don’t call it circus arts. Chloe Jensen, Dance” performances at the Studebaker founder and artistic director of Aerial Theater in the Fine Arts Building. July 16-22 Dance Chicago, makes a clear distinction between what the company she founded 2 Tsukasa Taiko. MCA Stage. back in 1999 does and aerial circus perfor- Japanese drumming, Gin-ei poetry, samurai sword and fan dancing come mance. “We’re a contemporary dance together in a spectacular, free-of-charge, company that doesn’t restrict itself to the fiftieth-anniversary celebration of the traditional dance floor,” Jensen says. “We’re Nippon Ginkenshibu Foundation. July 29 really trying to keep the fine art of dance and take it into the air. We’re not about daredevil stunts, even though what we do is complex and takes that level of training.” 3 Blackbird. Ruth Page Center for the Arts. Aerial Dance Chicago presents gravity-defying work by three choreographers inspired by the symbol- ism of the blackbird. July 16-22 4 New Dances. Ruth Page Center for the Arts. Thodos Dance Chicago and DanceWorks Chicago team up to present new work by young, emerging choreographers. June 29-July 1Newcity JULY 2018 5 DanceChance. Lou Conte Dance Studio. DanceWorks Chicago’s monthly program is an informal works-in-progress showing at Hubbard Street’s home studio by three choreo- graphers, selected at random and given fifteen minutes to show and discuss new works. July 27 42

Jensen is a dancer who the Ruth Page Center for Music. became interested in moving the Arts, when Aerial Dance Dance. her choreography vertically Chicago presents their newest Movies. through space back in college, evening-length work, “Black- Theater. when she saw one of her bird.” The piece is a collabora- Festivals. choreography professors at tion between Jensen, ADC Family Fun. Northern Illinois University who, associate artistic director Karen though nearing retirement, was Fisher Doyle and Tracy Von Free events, in the parks, doing pull-ups on a trapeze Kaenel. Says Jensen, “I’ve all summer. in her office. “I didn’t know at had the idea to do a show with the time aerial dance existed,” some kind of bird concept for Night Out in the Parks brings world-class performances to Chicago’s neighborhood parks! Jensen says. “I was just very over twelve years or so. This curious about it. I was always year Karen and I decided we 2,000 130 77 drawn to using props, so it were going to explore the idea seemed like a natural explora- of the blackbird, which has EVENTS ARTISTS COMMUNITY tion. Then I couldn’t let go of symbolism around the idea of AREAS it.” Now Jensen trains the ten potential. A lot of different company members of Aerial cultures have deep meaning View our upcoming Night Out events at Dance Chicago to incorporate and mysticism attached to that www.NightOutInTheParks.com or access into their dance vocabulary bird. We’re not presenting a them in the free My Chi Parks™mobile app. climbing, swinging and hanging specific cultural idea but are upside down meters in the taking an abstract approach. THE OFFICIAL REWARDS STAY CONNECTED. air. “What continues to excite It will tell a story but it won’t tell PROGRAM OF THE CHICAGO @ChicagoParks #InTheParks me about it now is that how a narrative story. It’s inspired by PARK DISTRICT physically challenging it is. the symbolic freedom of flying I see the potential and love creatures in general, but also www.ChiParkPoints.com the challenge of it. And I think the specific mysticism of the there’s a universal human blackbird. Through the JULY 2018 Newcity desire to fly.” choreography we’re exploring lightness versus dark, and the And for Jensen, aerial artistry acknowledgement that there is in service to dance, not the is good and bad in each of us. other way around. She hires The blackbird represents the trained dancers into her higher path or greater wisdom.” company, usually with no prior circus or aerial training. “That’s Jensen says that the collab- how we prefer it,” says Jensen. orative process was fruitful“We give them a very specific creatively and helped fuel a approach in the aerial training. more expedient process. If they’ve trained in a circus “Aerial choreography can take environment they come to us a long time to develop,” she with a different quality and says. “We started ‘Blackbird’ approach they’ve learned. in August, so this is pretty fast We prefer to take dancers and for us. We are being inspired extend their training up in the by one another.” air. Dancers come with a certain body awareness, but Next year marks the twenti- when we audition we look for eth-anniversary season of dancers who have a natural ADC and Jensen hopes to sense for the work; it’s a very bring their work to a larger hard art form. It takes a lot of theater to celebrate. “There’s a core strength and that takes huge expense when we bring time to develop. If you think of our work into a theater,” she the silks and the ropes as a says. “We have to load in a vertical dance floor it’s like you truss and rigging which results have to learn how to walk on in an extra day of tech. Theater that first. Imagine if a modern expense for us is usually dance company had to first doubled. We do a lot of work train their dancers how to walk in our home studio space and across the floor. Sometimes Ruth Page, where the rigging it can take weeks to months setup is simpler. We’d like to to learn how to climb. They do something in a bigger go through a pretty intense theater next year.” training to do what we do. And it takes years of training At the Ruth Page Center for to have a more elaborate expression in the air.” the Arts, 1016 North Dearborn.That airborne expression will be Saturday, July 14 at 7pm on display July 14 and 15 at and Sunday, July 15 at 5pm. $25-$50. Tickets at aerialdancechicago.org. 43

Design When John Massey, former CCA head ofNewcity JULY 2018 design, encouraged the Chicago Design Museum to reimagine the “Great Ideas of “Great Ideas of Humanity: Out of the Western Man” campaign, Tanner Woodford, Container,” Chicago Design Museum / the Design Museum’s founder and executive Photo: Chris Mendoza director, began the reboot of an updated “Great Ideas” series in 2014, but wanted to widen its horizons to reflect a broader range of voices and experiences. Opening and diversifying the scope led to the new title, acknowledging that great ideas could come from sources who were not necessarily men or from the Western world. Substantially more of the ideas here belong to women, and an entire section of the show uses ideas provided by Chicago Public Schools’ students involved in the 826CHI literacy enrichment program, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students from six to eighteen years old with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write. It is unclear what kind of lasting impact the original “Great Ideas” series had on American values, but it’s earned a distin- guished place in the advertising pantheon. So it’s not surprising that Woodford and the Design Museum staff had no trouble assem- bling a lot of design talent happy to contribute to this effort. Image design changing the world for the better,” One of the most salient points about the Advertising says Lauren Boegen, museum director of exhibition is that all the material is digitally Revisited exhibitions and collections. Certainly “Great represented in an online version of the show Ideas of Humanity: Out of the Container” (found at www.greatideasofhumanity.com) Inside the Chicago Design speaks to this mission, cleverly mining one and although no one is discouraging you Museum’s “Great Ideas of the many all-but-forgotten remnants of from going over to Block 37 and visiting the of Humanity” Exhibit Chicago’s design legacy for its relevance today. show, the virtual experience is not markedly inferior to the real one, mostly because of By Philip Berger Following World War II, paperboard manufac- changes in technology. This would be more turer Container Corporation of America (CCA) of an issue if the entries were three-dimension- While it’s generally accepted that Chica- established itself as a progressive voice in al installations or paintings on canvas or even goans care and know about the city’s American industry, adopting cutting-edge screened prints, but the majority of the works treasure trove of architecture, recognition attitudes toward design and social responsibili- are computer-generated graphic images for its leadership in the other design disci- ty years before the mainstream. Its founder, printed on 18×24 inch sheets of paper, plines—environmental, industrial, communica- Walter Paepcke and his wife, Elizabeth, the suspended from the ceiling in an ensemble tions—lags behind. Where, you might ask, unfortunately nicknamed “Pussy,” were that makes excellent use of the museum’s is the love for its role in the printing arts or important tastemakers and patrons of the exhibition space and combines new works furniture manufacturing and so many other arts responsible for, among other things, with an informative display with materials non-architectural design arenas? Part of the the Aspen Institute and its progeny. CCA’s from the initial “Great Ideas” series, including mission of the Chicago Design Museum (CDM) advertising series “Great Ideas In Western some original artwork—a design archive that is to correct this. “It’s about promoting a Man” ran in the leading business magazines follows CCA’s merging into the Smurfit-Stone greater awareness of design in general but from the 1950s through the 1970s under the Container Corporation that found its way to also about its role in building community: auspices of Herbert Bayer, who Paepcke the Smithsonian. brought to CCA from the Bauhaus school. Never mentioning the company’s product, the If there’s anything awkward about the show ads instead paired pithy wisdom of western within the museum space, it’s the identifying philosophers with imagery from important signage, the so-called “wall cards:” Since contemporary artists and designers, resulting there’s no actual wall, most of the cards are in what was, conceptually, America’s first attached to the bottom of each piece and sophisticated image advertising campaign. most easily viewable by crouching. Those didactic materials—especially the text that provides the idea itself, which is often difficult to decipher in the artistic presentation—44

would probably be far more accessi- their impact. Jonathan D. Solomon, DESIGN TOP 5 ble if experienced on a desktop or director of architecture, interior other device. architecture and designed objects 1 Great Ideas of Humanity: Out of the at the School of the Art Institute of Container. Chicago Design Museum, An intriguing aspect of the exhibition Chicago, chose a quote from Harriet 108 North State, Third Floor. A design is that it’s easiest to describe it as a Monroe, founder of Poetry Magazine exhibition that looks into how the past helps show of posters, which provides an and opted not to make a traditional us comprehend the present by redefining what interesting forum to discuss what a poster at all but an “object,” an option “great” means, and reminding that great ideas “poster” is. To some designers, the that the project’s rules permitted.: can come from anywhere. Through August 18 term refers to something very specific A group of 3D-printed acrylic objects in its format and usage; others apply that resemble large, abstracted 2 Vintage Garage. 5051 North Broadway. a much looser interpretation. In this Monopoly houses, arranged on a It’s all about circle skirts and leather case, the majority of entries are surface bearing Monroe’s suggestion jackets at this month’s Vintage Garage. The standard 18×24 inch sheets of paper that “next to making friends, the most theme is Rockabilly and Tiki—two styles that (although some deviate) and in thrilling experience of life is to make blend to redefine your summer wardrobe. Get general, they can be described as enemies.” Via email, Solomon offered ready to dance to the oldies and shop like it’s agitprop—taking a point of view and that he intended his piece as “an the 1950s. July 22, 10am-5pm, $5 projecting a position. easily readable metaphor for agonism: or positive, permanent conflict,” An impressive stable of designers adding, “I want to remind people that offered their contributions to the effort, ongoing conflict, confronting differenc- from the internationally prominent, es, is a necessary part of democratic like Ivan Chermayeff—who repro- society.” Carol Ross Barney’s entry duced his original entry to the series, channels commentary from a foreign 3 Arte Diseño Xicágo. National Museum of Mexican Art. An exhibition focusing on the influence of Mexican travelers, immigrants and artists in Chicago’s art and design scene through artifacts, photography and design objects, from the World’s Columbian Exposition to the Civil Rights era. Through August 19“Great Ideas of Humanity: Out of the Container,” Chicago Design Museum / the only difference between the two visitor, the painter Fernand Léger, 4 The Astonishing Architecture Boat Photo: Mark Smalling, Office of Experience iterations being that he made his who visited Chicago and presents Tour. Summer of George at River City original by hand and the current one a “great idea” that is directly connect- Marina, 900 South Wells. An architecture-filled digitally—and Paula Scher, to newly ed to the city’s history of architectural cruise for the curious that gives the inside emerging talent. And while not innovation. In her piece “Plans, 1932; scoop into the city’s most famous landmarks, exclusively focusing on Chicago, it’s ‘Chicago Seen through the Eyes urban legends, hidden passages, criminal the hometown connection that often of a Visiting French Cubist,’” she activity and unsolved mysteries, organized by makes the Design Museum’s mission suspends an outlined Plexiglas Atlas Obscura and led by field agent and histo- most compelling. This may or may map of the city to suggest the role rian Adam Selzer. July 12, 7:30–9:30pm, $35 not explain why many of the more the city’s suspended bridges have accessible entries are part of the played in its development. 5 Wicker Park Fest. Milwaukee Avenue JULY 2018 Newcity “Chicago Voices” section, featuring from North Avenue to Paulina Street. work by Chicago artists commenting The exhibit offers a tremendous The neighborhood’s most anticipated summer on Chicago ideas—a special compo- amount to digest. Some entries are event, featuring art installations, live music and nent to the exhibition in conjunction instantly comprehensible as one-lin- a fashion show, amidst local small business with Art Design Chicago, an initiative ers; many others offer more complex, vendors, delicious food and beer options, of the Terra Foundation for American nuanced presentations. Still others and fun for the entire family. July 27-29: Friday Art that explores Chicago’s art and are so impenetrable as to defy design legacy. interpretation, which is why a visit in 5-10pm, Saturday-Sunday 12pm-10pm, real life merits further contemplation My Chicago-centrism may account and pondering, both online and off. $10 donation for the fact that two of my personal Great ideas are timeless, but they favorites are from the “Chicago take time to absorb. Voices” section, and despite the comments about viewing the work “Great Ideas of Humanity: Out of on the exhibition website, they really the Container” at the Chicago should be viewed IRL: both are Design Museum, Block Thirty three-dimensional pieces, and are Seven, 108 North State, Third floor. from artists trained as architects, for Through August 18, free and open which photography does not convey to the public. 45

&DiDnirningking DINING & Why Give DRINKING TOP 5 Vodka Another 1 Windy City Smoke- Chance? out. 560 West Grand. Because It’s a Bouquet of Flavors This is a big one, drawing Just Dancing Under the Surface 45,000 or more, all By David Hammond gnawing Q and grooving to tunes. July 13-14 Vodka cocktail by Julia Momose, lobster by 2 Square Roots. Lincoln Square. Noah Sandoval, at Oriole Craft beer, music, and / Photo: Daniel Kellighan food, presented by Old Town School of Music.Newcity JULY 2018 In 2015, in a piece entitled “Is Vodka Good A few weeks ago, at Egerton House in London’s Fun for the whole family, for Anything?,” bartender Graham Crowe of posh Knightsbridge, I had one of their house especially if you like Two said “The number-one use for vodka is martinis, expertly made with Grey Goose vodka, good beer. July 13-15 poured on a bev nap to wipe down the touch- icy cold from the freezer. The frigid spirit, undilut- screen computer.” ed by ice because it was already very cold, paired 3 Bastille Day excellently with small salmon sandwiches, much Celebration. Chez Ouch. like those served at tea time (and at the royal Moi. Enjoy a festive food wedding in May). So, at the very least, vodka can fight as chef Dominique Vodka, however, can be more than a personality- be put to good use as palate cleanser between Tougne presents two free spirit that works as a cleanser and affords bites of fatty fish. But that’s still just using the menus, one reflective of a fast and easy trip to Drunky Town. Richard spirit as a solvent. royalty, the other of the Richardson at Band of Bohemia believes “vodka people, in honor of is disrespected because people start consuming Alain Ducasse, the renowned French chef and history’s most celebrated vodka in very mediocre cocktails at a time when the first chef to hold three Michelin stars for three prison break. July 14 they don’t yet have an appreciation of spirits. different restaurants, recently consulted with Grey Once an individual develops an appreciation Goose to develop his own line of vodka, which 4 #DoYouDimSum. for spirits in general, they quite commonly feel uses toasted wheat. I was suspicious, but then Imperial Lamian. Be they’ve progressed past the point of vodka I went to Oriole, where dinner was prepared by the first one on your block because they now ‘know better.’” Noah Sandoval, featured in this year’s Newcity to learn how to make Big Heat. Paired drinks were created by Julia Xiao Long Bao. July 24 So, let us all give vodka another chance. Momose, one of the city’s better-known and 5 Lasagna Day. All Francesca’s locations. Bet you didn’t know about this a holiday. Francesca serves lasagna all day to celebrate an august day in July. July 2946

rightly celebrated mixologists, start with a blank canvas. While 164 North State Street • Between Lake & Randolph using the Grey Goose “interpret- there are slight flavor and textural ed by Alain Ducasse.” variations, cocktails can be LIQUID designed to match a dish from SKYThe food was spectacular, as scratch. Most spirits have distinc- expected, but the real eye- tive flavor profiles; vodka is clean JUNE 29 - JULY 5 opener were the vodka cocktails and light, and it can be a vessel prepared by Momose, who has for any flavors you want to pair.” NEW 4K DIGITAL a much higher opinion of vodka RESTORATION than I did. “The rule that vodka At The Peninsula Chicago, Vlad is odorless and flavorless is Novikov of Z Bar says that “as THE not necessarily true,” she says. an immigrant from Russia and CAKEMAKER“A successful pairing showcases with a name like ‘Vlad,’ people both the drink and the food. make reference to how much I JULY 13 – 26 Neither should overpower the must love vodka. I did not enjoy other, though they both should vodka for a long time. The first \"A twist-filled story be strong on their own and person to get me excited about a—bJoeurtulsoavleemanPdoslot ss\" somehow better together. vodka was Tremaine Atkinson of High-quality, expressive vodka CH Distillery. I asked Tremaine BUY TICKETS NOW at cocktails work well with food why he uses expensive Illinois www.siskelfilmcenter.org because the vodka can be used wheat as the base of his vodka to highlight both savory and despite the fact that all of the JULY 2018 Newcity sweet notes in food.” flavor would be removed during rectification [distillation up to a Momose prepared a cocktail point where only ethanol and called Vanilla, paired with Maine water remain]. Tremaine excitedly lobster and accented by parsnip told me about how they didn’t (surprise!) and truffle (another fully rectify their CH Vodka so surprise!!). “The first thing I you’re able to actually taste the thought of when Noah shared grain. Since then, I have grown this dish with me was buttered to love and appreciate vodkas.” lobster,” she says. “It can be savory, it can be sweet, it can Momose believes that although be both these things at once, vodka may be understood as and this led me to vanilla. There neutral, there are flavors in the is a delicate hint of vanilla bean spirit, and so you have to mix in the vodka, from the lightly vodka with ingredients that bring toasted wheat. I highlighted this out those latent tastes. “Many note using some complementary people approach vodka as if it flavors such as banana and a really is lacking in aroma and toasted Belgian biscuit malt. flavor. I would challenge people For depth and a bit of earthiness to approach vodka as if it has a to tie in the parsnip and Périgord bouquet of flavors just dancing truffle, I added a snow chrysan- under the surface. All it takes themum tea and a touch of is sometimes a splash of water, nutmeg, served in a large tea or juice to open it up and Burgundy wine glass to capture pull these flavors to the surface. aromatics. White, lavender Maybe we all just need to be and purple florets provide more open to the possibilities. aromas of vanilla, cinnamon I am extremely picky about the and apple spice, which accent vodka I choose to work with— each element in the glass and not all vodkas have the character on the plate.” and depth of flavor needed to make an outstanding drink, soThat is a beautiful example of it’s good to get to know the how an accomplished mixologist various types for what they are. can use vodka as a blank slate Barley, wheat, corn, potato, and help the spirit achieve grapes, each of these raw greatness. A lot can be going ingredients have much to offer. on in a well-made vodka cocktail, The key is to find a distiller who and the very neutrality—the is able to bottle that essence in a alleged tastelessness—of vodka colorless, odorless and flavorless is a benefit. package.” “I am also an avid lover of gin,” says Richardson, “but Ryan Hoffman, head bartender I concede that gin is actually at Entente, put together a flavored vodka. The beverage delicious vodka gimlet that paired industry will dismiss vodka but perfectly with the restaurant’s embrace gin because they know unorthodox, circular wedge gin is cool, and vodka is for those salad. “Because vodka is a who don’t know any better.” neutral spirit,” says Hoffman,“it gives you the opportunity to But now we know better. 47

Film Ingmar Bergman’s “Persona” FILM TOP 5 Bergman 100 1 Bergman 100. Siskel. He’ll Be Back “Film as dream, film as By Ray Pride music. No form of art goes beyond ordinary conscious- The archive has become self-aware. The signs aren’t galvanizing for sustainability of ness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the theatrical feature film exhibition, but its traces, twilight room of the soul.” A heaping helping from Ingmar It’s as if modern moviegoing were from the its artifacts—classic films on bigger, properly Bergman’s forty-one-feature filmography in centennial retro- “Terminator” saga: “The system goes online illuminated screens—the reflected light of the spective. July 7–October 3 April 2016 when the Metrograph opened in things a hundred years of cinema have left Manhattan. In a panic, they program and behind: It’s electric. 2 Two Friends. Chicago Film Society at Chicago watch every movie that suits a genre or “Film as dream, film as music,” Ingmar Bergman Filmmakers. Jane Campion’s typology or filmography or fulfills a listicle.” wrote in “The Magic Lantern” in 1987. “No rarely seen television feature debut on a privately held It is the best of times, it is the most frantic of form of art goes beyond ordinary conscious- 16mm print, a tale of adole- scence prefiguring later themesNewcity JULY 2018 times. Chicago has the Siskel Film Center of the ness as film does, straight to our emotions, and imagery. Saturday, July 7 School of the Art Institute, Facets, the Music deep into the twilight room of the soul.” 3 Sorry to Bother You. Boots Riley arrives in Box, Doc Films, Chicago Film Society and so kinetic, crackerjack satire of race in Oakland, California by many other groups programming most weeks Bergman believed that through-and-through, way of modern-day America. of the year. New York City also gained the wildly amply demonstrated by the thirty-four or so Opens Friday, July 6 ambitious, restored Quad Cinema with its own features and extended television versions he 4 The Landlord. Chicago Film Society at NEIU. toppling mountain of the better moments of crafted across a fifty-plus year career with a A 35mm print of Hal Ashby’s directorial debut, a comedy of movie history. Film fan heavy breathing quickly wide range of gifted collaborators. (There was race and economic relations in New York 1970, from a script turned to breathlessness. Film Twitter takes a raft of theater, too, most lost on night by Bill Gunn. July 11 flight at each flush of canny curation. whispers of the twentieth century.) 5 Eighth Grade. Shim- mering, simmering adolescence. Opens Friday, July 2048

He’ll be back: Janus Films is releasing 35mm catastrophically, and a wondrous welter of Reviewsprints and digital restorations of almost all ofhis handiwork this summer, including at Siskel, cinephilia-embracing smaller films dazzle, likewith local cinémathèques choosing whetherto program everything, an immensity, or Chloé Zhao’s “The Rider,” Lynne Ramsay’s The Misandristsa mere daunting of Bergman’s film work.Janus, with the logo familiar from its historical “You Were Never Really Here,” Claire Denis’ Canadian provocateur, queercore founder,releases, its acquisitions since 2009 and itsCriterion output, began its association with “Let The Sunshine In,” and Paul Schrader’s filmmaker, writer, photographer and self-Bergman in the 1950s, grossing over a milliondollars from his work in 1959 and winning an “First Reformed.” (The box-office spark for described “radical centrist” Bruce LaBruceAcademy Award for Bergman’s “Virgin Spring”in 1960. Janus Films’ concerted efforts to Schrader’s late-career concatenation of all his is highly visible this season, with dips into narrative and religious leanings is heartening.) sterling personal film criticism under theburnish Bergman as an author of moralityplays (and sexually charged dramas) through I mentioned to a fiftysomething film patron “Academy of the Underrated” rubric at thecalculated release strategies is noted in TinoBalio’s essential history, “The Foreign Film Talkhouse, stylized hardcore pornographyRenaissance on American Screens, 1946– that I hoped to see on screen ten or twelve of shorts collected as “It Is Not The Pornogra-1973,” and with this retrospective, continues however many of the Bergman films that are pher Who Is Perverse…” and the theatricalthat tradition, beyond video, beyond Blu-ray programmed at the Film Center across thevia Criterion and back onto 35mm prints and release of revved-up exploitationer “Thedigital projection: from the Swedish sound-stage to scandalized American cities and Misandrists.” Described as an extensioncollege towns to “art” enshrined in the archive. Ingmar Bergman’s “Persona” of his 2005 “Raspberry Reich,” there’s muchThe intensity of Bergman’s work can surprisethe initiate, in levity and passion, in lust and self-pleasure as self-parody in his blazinglyself-excoriation. What I drew from seeingBergman films in college is a far cry from outlandish satire set in 1999 at a Germanwhat’s available on screen as a lifelong filmcritic. “’Persona’ is bound to trouble, perplex school for girls—read: radical feminists inand frustrate most filmgoers. Or so one wouldsuppose,” Susan Sontag wrote a decade a convent—who are to exterminate all meninto the high art-house years, where reviewersalternated the altar and the cross for Bergman as well as punch at dogma of a far left stripe.as artist. Pretentious fraud or soulful sinner?These dividing lines recur in recent writings: There’s sex, as in other LaBruce work,how does Bergman compare today to hisprior reception? and he does not care to resist the call ofMore importantly, how will these dramatically the salacious as the Female Liberationdiverse movies be received in 2018, and howwill I perceive them? I think this, even with Army sets off in schoolgirl skirts to becomecopies of Bergman’s movies on my officeshelves, movies like “Persona” and “Scenes “mistresses of our own destiny.” LaBrucefrom a Marriage” and “Fanny and Alexander.”Will they seem fresh, bulletins from another has cited Ida Lupino’s “The Trouble Withtime and place, or irrelevant museum pieces?(There is joy in the rediscovery, excavating Angels” (1966) and the insertion of aanew, of a movie you thought you hadconsumed whole those many years ago.) wounded “leftist” soldier into the isolatedWill Bergman’s voice keen clearly in a yearwhere a $200-million-plus budgeted product lair of the avenging women recalls bothlike “Ready Player One” and “Solo” failed the Siegel and Coppola versions of “The summer, but with the usual delirious pileup Beguiled,” of which he calls his film a “very loose remake.” Other movies in the blender: of retrospectives, I doubted I would see more Robert Aldrich’s “The Dirty Dozen” (1967), than four or five. And I don’t want to preview Claude Chabrol’s “Les Biches” (1968) and them on video for review purposes: the prints, Nagisa Oshima’s “In the Realm of the Senses” the prints! Where can you even see Bergman (1976). And there’s more than a little of films, they asked? I have some DVDs, some LaBruce’s own touch with transgressive Blu-rays, but they’re not the same as the pornography at play. With Kita Updike, bursting light of the artists’ intentions. “Who Susanne Sachsse, Kembra Pfahler, Caprice the fuck even has a Blu-ray player anymore?” Crawford, Grete Gehrke. 91m. (Ray Pride) they said as my eyebrows raised and I choked back the Netflix Talk, which, in the essence “The Misandrists” opens July 6 at Facets. a local filmmaker shared with me, “Conve- nience is about the only advantage, and it’s Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist convenience for such limited choice.” “Do we have to cover every bit of it, you know?” Dame Vivienne Westwood teases And then I think, these retrospectives are the filmmaker Lorna Tucker early in the straight- ultimate convenience, the boldest convenience forward but poppy “Westwood: Punk, Icon, on the horizon if you care deeply about movies. Activist.” “It’s so boring to say all this!” At a It’s as if the century of movies could be called brusque eighty-minute running time, there’s to a close, the form given over to revival after no danger of extinguishing the “all-this” revival and reevaluation after reevaluation. So of Westwood’s provocation, activism and much beauty still to discover, right? relentless reinvention across four decades in the sphere of British fashion, from the The cinema has a great future behind it. “swinging sixties” to the 1970s days when And yet, we don’t know every person sitting she and her late ex-partner and student of Situationism Malcolm McLaren launched beside us in the dark at any of these movies, punk style and other incendiaries (The Sex at Ingmar Bergman’s heaping helpings of Pistols, Bow Wow Wow), from the confines heavy-osity or of carnal contemplation or of of “SEX,” their Kings Road boutique, to the obstinacy of human meanness. (There today’s sixty-outlet retail chain around the be visionaries. I promise.) A heartening thing talking to modern image-makers forty-five world that she still controls. Her prickly and younger, in Chicago and elsewhere, proclamations are at the heart of Tucker’s JULY 2018 Newcity telling: even at the age of seventy-seven, is the mad range of influence: these artworks, Westwood is restless and notions pour from like Bergman’s life’s work, are not finite. her. (Visionary in the house.) Three years in Respected, preserved, revived, they are the the making, “Westwood” is less comprehen- sediment of things to come: sounds, images, sive biography than grumpy, captivating the human face, the silence of God. Inspired, depth charge. 80m. (Ray Pride) a producer may be born, a financier may be stricken, an artist will rush toward inner “Westwood” opens Friday, July 13 at the lyricism. He’ll be back. Music Box. 49

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