Newcity Chicago September 2020

SEPTEMBER 2020 FEATURING MARIA G A S PA R AND FALL ARTS PREVIEW

Anna Martine Whitehead FORCE! an opera in three acts 2020 Graham Foundation Fellow For more information about this project Anna Martine Whitehead is in residence and all of the Graham Foundation’s at the Foundation’s Madlener House programs visit our website, join our this fall. In this experimental activation mailing list, and follow us on social media. of the house, Whitehead continues development of FORCE! an opera in three grahamfoundation.org acts, a dance-based project about queer @GrahamFoundation and trans women of color within the prison-industrial complex, featuring a Image: Anna Martine Whitehead, still from FORCE! QT+ and BIPOC cast and crew. (our labor has become more important than our silence), with Jenn Freeman, Jasmine Mendoza, and Zachary Nicol (2020); digital film; 7:29

SEPTEMBER 2020 CONTENTS ARTS & CUTURE 8 UNSUNG HEROES ART How art handlers Sasha Phyars-Burgess hustle to make it in the art world and the work of abstraction ........................... 57 DESIGN 13 FALL ARTS Bridging creativity, innovation and PREVIEW 2020 community with BRNDHAUS PL-ZEN ..........62 DINING & DRINKING ART— “Upkeep” at the Arts Club and the Amy Morton positions her politics of care restaurants to survive the pandemic .............6 4 FILM DESIGN— Navigating a season like no other Chicago Film Archives with Tanner Woodford finds a lost silent ............................................66 LIT DINING & DRINKING— Sam Toia and An interview the art of restaurant management right now with Rachel Swearingen................................68 MUSIC FILM— Manual Cinema's Candyman Dream How the Old Town School MUSIC— The Moody Blues’ Justin Hayward, solo  is adjusting to the pandemic.......................... 7 1 STAGE— How The Dance Center of Columbia S TA G E An Interview with Kamilah Rashied about College is reinventing the Fall Season Making Room for Marginalized Voices.......... 73 26 ARTIST OF THE MOMENT Maria Gaspar explores the complicated interplay between body, place and power 31 SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity The Chicago artists making a difference 3

AFTER A NIGHTMARE YEAR, WE'RE READY TO DREAM AGAIN. LETTER My earliest memory of going to the movies was in the backseat of our baby-blue Volk- FROM swagen Beetle in the summer of 1968 at the drive-in in Lincoln, Nebraska. We brought THE EDITOR our own popcorn in a matching baby-blue tin container—mom and dad in the front seat, and two-year-old Brent and six-year-old me in the rear, with the backseat folded down so we could sprawl out and sleep when we got tired. I remember seeing “Camelot,” and dozing off before the end, but with a three-hour running time, I bet I wasn't the only one. I also remember “The Love Bug”—we had a special connection to that one in our own beloved bug—and perhaps another Disney movie or two. So you can imagine I’m excited to share the news that Newcity’s third movie, “Dreaming Grand Avenue,” will have its world premiere at the drive-in. There have been few silver linings in this dark COVID cloud, but the revival of the nearly extinct drive-in theater is one of them. (And this is coming from someone who does not own a car.) The drive-in is an iconic part of American film and cultural history and even family history, since my dad told me, not long before he died, that he’d worked a summer at the White Spot Drive-In in Fargo, North Dakota in the 1950s where part of his job was busting kids who hoped to sneak into the theater by hiding in the trunk of their car. (Nowadays, most drive-ins charge by the car so the jig is up on that move.) Many years and miles away, “Dreaming Grand Avenue” premieres on September 23 at ChiTown Movies in Pilsen, a theater recently constructed in the parking lot behind the ChiTown Futbol indoor soccer facility. We’re partnering with the Music Box Theater and Elevated Films on the evening, and we hope to see you there so we can dream together. But don’t sleep on tickets: the premieres for our previous two films, “Signature Move” and “Knives and Skin,” quickly sold out. But if you get caught napping and miss this one, we'll be opening September 25 at the Music Box Theatre, both in physical and virtual cinema formats. Who should see “Dreaming Grand Avenue”? If you liked the “Twilight” movies and especially Jasper Hale, you’ll love seeing Jackson Rathbone toddling around your hometown. If you liked the “Narcos” series, you’ll love seeing the range that one of its underused stars, Andrea Londo, brings to our very big screen. If you like Chicago’s own Tony Fitzpatrick, for his museum-caliber art or his Newcity “Dime Stories” columns or both, you'll love seeing his best performance yet as an actor on screen. If you like David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks,” you’ll enjoy seeing the Chicago member of that TV show’s cast, Wendy Robie (she of the eye patch) as she deploys her formidable acting skills in mystical ways. If you love poetry, whether slams or classic verses, you’ll love seeing Walt Whitman interacting with Marc Smith at the Green Mill. In fact, if you’re a Chicagoan in body or spirit, you’ll love the many locations ranging from the Seminary Co-op Bookstore to the Smart Bar to the Lincoln Park Zoo to the Chicago River tour boat. And if, like me, you’ve always been a dreamer, this movie is made for you. Speaking of Tony Fitzpatrick, he’s been writing about the political conventions for us, in his own singu- lar voice, at Newcity.com. Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 See you at the movies. — BRIAN HIEGGELKE Brian Hieg gelke...................................................................... 4

OPENS SEPT 5 Advance Tickets Required Lead support for Monet and Chicago is generously contributed by Major funding is provided by Lesley and Janice Lederer, the Shure Charitable Trust, Richard F. and Christine F. Karger, Mark and Charlene Novak, and Margot Levin Schiff and the Harold Schiff Foundation. Additional support is contributed by the Alice M. LaPert THE KENNETH C. GRIFFIN Fund for French Impressionism, Alison R. Barker in honor of Ruth Stark Randolph, the Kemper Educational and Charitable Fund, CHARITABLE FUND the Rose L. and Sidney N. Shure Endowment, Gail Elden, and Michelle Lozins. Members of the Exhibitions Trust provide annual leadership support for the museum’s operations, including exhibition development, conservation and collection care, and educational Lead Corporate Sponsors programming. The Exhibitions Trust includes an anonymous donor; Neil Bluhm and the Bluhm Family Charitable Foundation; Jay Franke and David Herro; Karen Gray-Krehbiel and John Krehbiel, Jr.; Kenneth C. Griffin; Caryn and King Harris, The Harris Family Foundation; Josef and Margot Lakonishok; Robert M. and Diane v.S. Levy; Ann and Samuel M. Mencoff; Sylvia Neil and Dan Fischel; Anne and Chris Reyes; Cari and Michael J. Sacks; and the Earl and Brenda Shapiro Foundation. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. Claude Monet. Houses of Parliament, London (detail), 1906. The Art Institute of Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection.

CONTRIBUTORS KERRY CARDOZA (Writer and editor, AMANDA ROACH (Writer, “Art 50”) is ON THE COVER “Art 50” and “Artist of the Moment”) is a an emerging arts writer and art historian who Cover Photo Nathan Keay journalist who writes about the intersection focuses on sculptural, textual and perform- Cover Design Dan Streeting of arts and culture and social justice. She is ance-based work concerned with how we the Art Editor at Newcity. conceptualize, create and restrict social space. Vol. 35, No. 1407 NATHAN KEAY (Photographer, Cover, ALISA SWINDELL (Writer, “Art 50”) PUBLISHERS “Artist of the Moment” and “Art 50”) is a curatorial research assistant at the Brian & Jan Hieggelke photographs Chicago’s art and design world, Block Museum, a reviewer for Newcity and Associate Publisher Mike Hartnett along with musicians, beautifully designed a PhD candidate in art history at UIC. EDITORIAL objects and paintings. nathankeay.com Editor Brian Hieggelke HOLLY LEE WARREN (Writer, “Art 50”)’s Managing Editor Jan Hieggelke AMANDA DEE (Writer, “Art 50”) is a chapbook “Glaciation” was published by Art Editor Kerry Cardoza multimedia storyteller fixed on Midwestern Chicago’s Meekling Press and her work Design Editor Vasia Rigou identities and relationships to place. has been featured in Chicago Artist Writers. Dining and Drinking Editor She holds an MFA from the School of the David Hammond CIERA MCKISSICK (Writer, “Art 50”) Art Institute of Chicago and is the assistant Film Editor Ray Pride is an independent writer, curator, cultural director of events at the Reva and David Logan Lit Editor Tara Betts producer and the founder of AMFM, a Center for the Arts. Music Editor Robert Rodi creative arts brand that supports emerging Stage Editor Sharon Hoyer and established artists. ALAN D. POCARO (Writer, “Unsung ART & DESIGN Heroes”) is an artist, educator, and writer. Senior Designers Fletcher Martin, ZAKKIYYAH NAJEEBAH DUMAS Pocaro is currently assistant professor of Dan Streeting, Billy Werch O’NEAL (Writer, “Art 50”) is a visual artist, Printmaking and Foundations at Eastern Designers Jim Maciukenas, arts educator and independent curator. Illinois University and associated with the  Stephanie Plenner Her topics of interest include photography, New Aesthetics movement, an informal MARKETING spatial practices, video assemblage, vernacular group of artists and writers who emphasize Marketing Manager Todd Hieggelke photography and social engagement practices. the physical and material nature of art. OPERATIONS General Manager Jan Hieggelke Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 Distribution Nick Bachmann, Adam Desantis, Preston Klik, Quinn Nicholson Retail price $10 per issue. In certain locations, one copy is available on a complimentary basis. Subscriptions and additional copies of current and back issues available at Newcityshop.com. Copyright 2020, New City Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Newcity assumes no responsibility to return unsolicited editorial or graphic material. All rights in letters and unsolicited editorial or graphic material will be treated as unconditionally assigned for publication and copyright purposes and subject to comment editorially. Nothing may be reprinted in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. Newcity is published by Newcity Communications, Inc. 47 West Polk, Suite 100-223, Chicago, IL 60605 Visit NewcityNetwork.com for advertising and editorial information. Subscribe at Newcityshop.com 6

Made in 20 L.A. 20 OPENING FALL 2020 LOS ANGELES a version Presented by: FULTON LEROY WASHINGTON (AKA “MR. WASH”), POLITICAL TEARS OBAMA (DETAIL), 2008. OIL ON STRETCHED CANVAS. 24 × 18 IN. (61 × 45.7 CM). COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

UNSUNG HEROES An Art Handler On the Hustle It Takes to Make It in the Art World by Alan Pocaro illustration by Dan Streeting I’ve been winding my way through Chicago’s spasmodic art scene for nearly eight years. I’ve attended countless openings and closings, artist talks, press previews and every type of art fair imaginable. I’ve seen a lot of good art, at least as much bad, and a precious- ly slim slice of truly outstanding work. rough it all, I’ve been struck by how many peo- ple it takes to keep the ship upright. Not just artists-of-the-month and gallerists, but han- dlers and painters, preparators, conservators, adjuncts and the like. Hundreds of unsung heroes, all on the hustle. All trying to find a way to make it. Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 But when so few artists How did you get actually get shows, let into art? Were you alone sell any work, always interested what does it mean to in a life of it? make it in Chicago? Reasonable people can I was always interested disagree, but a steady in drawing, but I didn’t paycheck tied to some- get into art in any kind thing art-related is of serious way until I probably a good place took a painting class at to start. A steady pay- McHenry County Col- check with health insur- lege with a professor ance? Even better. With named Matt Irie. I first that in mind, I sat down attended NIU for a de- with longtime gallery-hopping companion gree in computer science, which I quickly and art handler Tom Pekovitch—a hustler ex- dropped out of. But that class with Irie traordinaire—to find out what “making it” changed my life in a significant way. It was means to him. the first time I remember being interested in something that someone was teaching. I’d I met Tom in , when he was a student of never experienced that before, so I went all in. mine in a nine-month MA program at East- ern Illinois University. I remember our first In , I transferred to Illinois State Univer- studio visit vividly. On the wall: a wildly di- sity and got a BS. I was told I didn’t have verse selection of paintings. The air filled what it took to enter the BFA program, which with academic talk about art and capitalism, seems funny now, because most of the stu- and later, a healthy dose of laughter. Behind dents who got in are now doing graphic de- the laidback veneer of a reformed pothead sign or nothing related to art at all. I basical- in slim-fit jeans, Tom was a curious, obscene- ly ditched all of my academic courses and ly well-read individual whose knowledge of just went to the art classes. All of the teach- modern and contemporary art is nothing less ers seemed to encourage it. After that, I got than expansive. His work ethic is unsur- the MA at Eastern Illinois University where passed and we’ve been friends ever since. we met. 8

A lot of artists I know opt for bartending SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity and temp work as a way to make ends meet. I don’t think I’ve ever known you not doing something art-related. Was that a conscious choice? I don’t know how conscious I was of making a choice. I think it was more like desperately try- ing to tread water, and keep the dream afloat. I’ve always forced myself down a path that al- lowed me to be surrounded by things that I’m interested in, even if that wasn’t the easy choice. I also used to think that if I didn’t exist in the community that I wanted to be a part of, I wouldn’t be able to succeed in it. After I got out of grad school, I interned for a contemporary gallery in Roanoke, Virginia, called Alexander/Heath Contemporary. I got paid in tubes of paint. While in Virginia, I applied to a bunch of jobs, literally everywhere. Any- thing art-related, anything I thought I was re- motely qualified for. I eventually landed a job back in Chicago at the School of the Art Insti- tute of Chicago as a gallery preparator. That’s the gig that got me started. Four years later, I realize that you don’t need to work in the field to exist in the art world or make art. You can provide for yourself a lot better if you stay out of it and just make your work on the side. No need to get hit by a car on your way to a job that doesn’t pay shit. Yeah, tell me about that. After SAIC, which was just a contract job, I got a job [at an established art handling company]. I was crossing the street on Augusta and Damen, in the crosswalk, with the right-of-way. While I looked away for a second, there was a pickup truck turning right on red. He was sneaking into his turn and he hit me. After he made contact, he accelerated his truck. I was almost dragged completely under before he realized I was there. I hobbled to the sidewalk, and then the driver just took o . That wasn’t the worst of it. I broke two fingers at that job, and fell o of a ladder fifteen feet in the air. When I busted my fingers, the owner had me work the rest of the day, and when I fell o the ladder, he just stood over me and didn’t even help me up. And then told me he didn’t have any workers comp when I asked to go get a physical, and of course, no health insurance. There would be these weird pop quizzes about art handling, it was fucking crazy, and no mat- ter what, I was always broke. 9

Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore small drawings, hung salon style: Gi- like Chris Hyndman who’ve been in and I split. Between jobs I picked up acometti, Stella, Reinhardt, Serra, you the city for years making great work, some side work at a Goodwill in the name ‘em, they were on this wall. but haven’t had a lot of traction. I don’t suburbs where, ironically, I came know how students even get shows across a Giacometti print on sale. I One of the coolest things I may have at these galleries. don’t think they knew what it was and ever done was installing a Giacometti I bought it that day. on a wire above a bathtub, it looked Speaking of the art scene, you amazing and was quite unique. I’ve also make work and try to get it They say “it’s a small world” worked with Monets, countless Dalis, out there. Has working jobs that and everywhere we go it seems Calders, Miros, Warhols and Kerry keep you in regular contact with like someone knows you. James Marshalls. galleries and collectors ever been a source of tension? It’s because I was at SAIC for a while Do you think handling and there are just an absurd amount all that gave you special If anything, I go back and forth on of students that come and go through insight into things? where, if anywhere, I actually fit into there. I’ve also worked for enough the art world. I feel confident saying I places that I can go to any opening A very many things that I am grateful have a good eye for work, I’m not an and see a handful of people I know. for. Much of them practical, like how “art is subjective” type. I know why I like works need to be displayed. A lot of things and can usually express my It seems like all the handlers and pre- artists don’t think about that, which is thoughts definitively. Being an art han- parators in the city work together at odd considering everyone is making dler is great training for that. some point. You’ll see everyone work- with a public in mind. It also gave ing to set up at EXPO, for example. me insight into some things that aren’t But then do people see me as an art Also, people are always moving com- so great. handler rather than an artist? Or take pany to company, because that’s usu- my work less seriously because of ally the only way to get paid more, or Such as? it? I’m not sure. I don’t see it as a get better perks or whatever. source of tension. I wish I had gotten A lot of the things you hear people more shows out of it, but you can’t ex- I think of your job at bitching about are just that, people actly show a collector your work on The Conservation Center bitching. But in my experience, some Instagram while hanging a Matisse in as a good one, were you things ring true. A lot of collectors, or his hallway. pumped to get it? let’s say, people with a lot of dispos- able cash, have pretty bad taste. It’s funny, because I definitely At first? Not really. They initially offered thought of you as someone who me temp work, and I said: “No, thank A few months ago I was on a job on “made it,” and we’ve been talking you.” By then I had had enough, and I the West Coast packing up works for about this profile for a month or figured it was just going to be one of conservation that had been damaged two and then when we sat down those art-handling companies that just by wildfires. In the home of a certain to talk, I noticed you checking abuse their workers and pay them vir- individual who once portrayed 007, your phone more than usual. tually nothing. Then they came back there was an unbelievable amount of A few hours later, boom, you with a permanent staff offer. bad art. A lot of it was just total Pottery got a job in New York City. Barn crap and two days later, in the Did you think you could stay The Conservation Center is by far the home of a well-known actress, I saw in Chicago longterm? Did that best place for art handling as far as the same exact work! I mean, these ever look like a viable future? pay, benefits and rewards. The people people aren’t David Geffen, but they there are unbeatable, a lot of those could at least afford a Rauschenberg I think it’s pretty unlikely for someone other places have pricks in charge. Ev- or two. like me to make a living in the Chica- eryone at The Conservation Center is go art scene, which is one of the rea- nice and everything that I did, I felt like Closer to home, I’ve been disappoint- sons why I left. I’ve been on the grid I was rewarded for. I once got a $200 ed to see that a lot of galleries fill for a few years, and only within the cash bonus for having positive energy! up their exhibition seasons with last twelve months did I feel like I was recent grads from SAIC or UIC. These making some headway. People get And I’ve seen incredible stuff with schools suck up all the oxygen in the lucky and land curator spots in the them. I’ve been in Irving Stenn’s apart- city and distort the art scene. right gallery or museum, and art ment—he owns a wing at the Art In- handlers always want to get full-time stitute of Chicago—and that was noth- Since I installed a lot of student work at the Art Institute. But I’ve talked ing less than amazing. He had a Sol while I was at SAIC, it’s frustrating as to people who have the best posi- Lewitt drawing on one of the walls, a hell to see the same work hung at tions and they don’t seem especially Donald Judd on another and a Calder well-known spaces a few months happy to be getting paid what they on the ceiling. Also a whole hallway of later. Especially because I know artists want either. 10

ANNA KUNZ The Blue Magnitude New Works Midnight Poem, 2020 McCormick Gallery acrylic on canvas, 60 x 66 inches 835 W. Washington Blvd. September 12 – October 31, 2020 Chicago, IL 60607 312-226-6800 • 312-404-2119 The gallery is not keeping regular open hours, [email protected] you may phone or email for appointments or check the website for updated gallery information www.thomasmccormick.com

For the latest information, visit smartmuseum.uchicago.edu TAKE CARE FALL 2020–WINTER 2021 What does it mean to care for something, someone, or ourselves? Drawing generously from the Smart’s collection, Take Care seeks to unpack matters of care from the personal to the collective. CLAUDIA WIESER: GENERATIONS FALL 2020 A seven-year survey of the distinctive, multi-faceted practice of Berlin-based artist Claudia Wieser. Images: Laura Letinsky, Untitled #6 (from the series: Rome), 2009, Chromogenic print. Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, Purchase, The Paul and Miriam Kirkley Fund for Acquisitions, 2012.27. © 2013 Laura Letinsky. • Gladys Nilsson, Maximysing, 1993, Etching. Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, Gift of the artist in memory of Whitney Halstead, 1995.58d. © Gladys Nilsson. • Claudia Wieser, Untitled, 2017, Acrylic, ink, and gold leaf on wood, three works. Courtesy of the artist and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York and Aspen. © Claudia Wieser. Photo credit: Object Studies.

FALL ARTS FALL ARTS PREVIEW PREVIEW FALL ARTS PREVIEW FALL ARTS PREVIEW FALL ARTS SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity PREVIEW FALL ARTS PREVIEW 13

THE MAINTENANCE FALL ARTS ART OF PREVIEW Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 by Kerry Cordoza much in the foreground. Then the CARES of care, it’s colliding. The political situation Act was named, in response to COVID, not and the health-care situation and also this M aintenance is a drag; it takes all the that I feel like our government is caring for notion that we need to take care of each fucking time.” In 1969, Mierle Lader- us, but this idea that we need care. Then other in a difficult time became more and man Ukeles, wrote this in regards to when the protests of Black Lives Matter more relevant to us.” her all-consuming work as a housewife and started, this notion of self-care, and Audre new mother left with little time for tradition- Lorde, who’s a poet who started writing The work on view ranges from highly con- al art-making. Her response was to make her about self-care as an important topic for ceptual to tongue-in-cheek to the more care work into art work, helping to revolu- Black Americans decades ago, so this notion literal. Dutch artist Lily van der Stokker will tionize the ways everyday, life-maintaining show text panels featuring phrases related work was viewed in the art world. While the ways in which we conceive of this work has shifted since then, our notions of care are still heavily gendered. Fast-forward to 2020, when married women who work full-time still spend forty percent more time on aver- age than their partners on child-care respon- sibilities. The coronavirus has only exacer- bated this inequity, with forty percent of child-care centers saying they will be forced to close without government assistance. With a third of the female workforce now considered essential workers, many women face the tough decision of either earning a living or caring for their children. The increasingly relevant politics of care are the subject of “Upkeep,” a forthcoming exhibition at the Arts Club of Chicago. Co-curated by Arts Club curatorial assistant Daly Arnett and executive director Janine Mi- leaf, the exhibition is part of the Feminist Art Coalition, a nationwide initiative of feminist art exhibitions that was intended to take place ahead of the 2020 presidential elec- tion, but the project has extended or post- poned some programming dates into 2021. “The idea of care is particular, there’s dif- ferent forms of care. The one that we want- ed to zero in on is the kind of unnoticed daily small acts that maintain life,” Mileaf says. “Then as the world shut down around us, and we were in our homes for so many months, this experience of everyday life became so above: Lily van der Stokker, “Pulling out Hairs from the Drain,” 2015, acrylic on wood panel, 42.52 inches height x 49.61 inches width/Courtesy the artist and Kaufmann Repetto, New York and Milan next page: “Red Film,” Sara Cwynar, 2018, 16mm film on video with sound/Courtesy the artist and Foxy Production, New York 14

to household upkeep. (One reads: show wall hangings made from de- WINDOWS TO THE WORLD SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity pulling out hairs from the drain.) New constructed mattresses. And Lenka York-based artist Sara Cwynar will be Clayton will show new work stemming Curators from the Justice Hotel at showing “Red Film,” which examines from her Mothers’ Days project, where 6018North asked eleven artists to create the semiotics of the beauty industry, eighty-one mothers were asked to street-viewable artworks to spark dialogue while Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. will record their activities on a particular with the community about justice. AJ show photographs that evoke care. day in . McClenon created T-shirts memorializing On a more abstract level, South the death of the United States, Mashaun African sculptor Bronwyn Katz will The exhibition will be coordinated Hendricks hung banners on the fence which with “Nine Lives,” on view at the Re- ask who benefits from the criminal justice naissance Society, which is also part system. In response to COVID-19, the of the FAC project. “Nine Lives” con- exhibition will be progressively installed cerns the agency of real and imagined throughout the fall. 6018North invites protagonists. The exhibitions will have the community to join the conversation shared themes, like intimacy or labor, by installing work on social justice in your and will announce programming, like- own windows. ly virtual, this fall. ARTISTS RUN CHICAGO 2.0 “Normally the fall show, everyone’s here for EXPO. It’s a huge thing,” e Hyde Park Art Center hands their Mileaf says. “But what we’ve done, galleries over to fifty of the city’s artist-run since we know we’re not going to get project spaces, from the bathroom gallery, that giant rush of people at the begin- Loo, to the ephemeral Western Pole to ning, we’ve extended the show. It traditional spaces like Roots & Culture. gives us more of a chance to get peo- A more ambitious follow-up to HPAC’s ple in here.” 2009 first iteration, highlights include a kitchen takeover by 062, which will create For the sake of social distancing, a mini-bodega in homage to artist and “Upkeep” will also forgo a formal open- convenient-store proprietor omas Kong, ing. This fall arts season will look dif- a re-creation of backyard gallery e ferent than any in recent memory, and Franklin with a visually confounding not only due to the pandemic. The re- installation by Alberto Aguilar and altars newed Black Lives Matter movement, throughout the building from artists which has spurred calls for greater invited by Rootwork. transparency and equity in institu- tions, is also bringing much-needed I STAND BY ME conversations on racial injustice in the art world. For Amoako Boafo’s first solo exhibition at Mariane Ibrahim, the Ghana-born, “We’re really, really trying to take se- Austria-based painter shows a stunning riously the calls for equity,” Mileaf says. series of never-before-seen works that use “We’re thinking very seriously about photo transfer to explore the beauty and our public engagement and all of our autonomy in Blackness. Boafo’s images policies across every committee and center the figure, making marks that range the board about ways in which we can from detailed figuration to minimal design be more responsive. When all these to washed out backgrounds. e details cultural institutions were making bold Boafo chooses to focus on give life to the statements, we thought very carefully subjects, leaving out information the artist about not just putting something out deems unnecessary. there that was empty and wanting to really move forward.” — Kerry Cardoza “Upkeep” opens at the Arts Club of Chicago, East Ontario, on October . 15

N AV I G AT I N G FALL ARTS A FALL PREVIEW ART SEASON LIKE NO OTHER WITH TANNER WOODFORD Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 by Vasia Rigou dialogue. Certainly, artists have taken to the Consistently throughout this great pause, streets amid the pandemic, creating hun- I have been overpowered by information W ith the arts particularly vulnerable dreds of murals in an effort to beautify relin- anxiety. “Doomscrolling” is so hard to avoid. during the pandemic, Tanner Wood- quished shops and practice nonviolent re- Punctuating unhealthy obsessions have ford, founder and executive director sistance synchronously. Likewise, a recent been fleeting moments of relentless pro- of the Design Museum of Chicago, talks to illustration of the importance of public art in ductivity. I process the world through my Newcity design editor Vasia Rigou about the this moment is the conflict between citizens work. This clarity has manifested in many importance of public art during times of un- and municipalities across America over the forms, from virtual programming at the De- certainty, the city’s creative community statues and monuments that embellish pub- sign Museum of Chicago to a series of acryl- growing stronger, his upcoming projects and lic space. In this case, it isn’t the creation of ic paintings on an array of canvases, and how he plans to steer the museum through public art that is important, but its impas- even by way of a burgeoning coin collection. a fall art season like no other. sioned removal. This process reveals the One of my favorite projects has been with privilege of power, and forces us each to con- my two-year-old daughter Emi. Every few Tell me about your latest project, front the physical and psychological racist days, we add a new layer of paint to a one- “Postcards to Chicago.” structures that still need to be dismantled. inch-by-one-inch canvas. This has been a This is such an important moment in the his- “Postcards to Chicago” is a 600-foot-long tory of public art. “Postcards to Chicago, Navy Pier” public design project made by the Design /Photo: Murmur Ring Museum of Chicago on the north side of As we’re going through a time Navy Pier. Through colossal shapes, ener- of regeneration and reshaping, getic lines and vibrant colors, it references following the outbreak, what is the significant place Navy Pier holds in the different and what’s remained visual makeup of Chicago. The artwork is the same in the Chicago arts centered on representational forms of four and culture scene? Navy Pier icons: the USS Chicago, Lake Michigan, the Centennial Wheel and the So much has changed since March. Wave Wall staircase. Each is connected by Waves of artists and designers across cul- compositions made from the common geo- tural sectors have faced existential and ab- metric elements shared between them. We solute crises. Communities have lost mem- worked in collaboration with a talented bers suddenly. Many are on the verge of group of photography students from Harry homelessness. It may be too soon to have S. Truman College, the School of the Art In- an objective understanding of the full scope stitute of Chicago and the University of Illi- of change brought upon by these senseless- nois at Chicago. Ultimately, this artwork is a ly cruel times. What I know at my core is that gift to visitors of Navy Pier and the people we will emerge stronger and smarter. I hope of Chicago, and we hope it brings happiness we shed our old habits of competitiveness to each viewer. and stardom, and invest in the grit, passion, talent and drive that defines us. Can you talk about the importance of public art amid a pandemic? In what ways have these trying times of self-isolation, social Public art is more relevant than ever, as it distancing and political turbulence provides context, depth and informs public affected your creative process and eventually the work itself? 16

near-constant synthesis of dedication and We are planning to host this conference OPEN HOUSE SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity experimentation, with lots of messy hands two more times before the end of the year. CHICAGO to show for it. What’s a positive and inspiring CHICAGO ARCHITECTURE CENTER Any thoughts on how to steer the message you’d share with our organization through a fall art readers as the lockdown eases? e free annual two-day season like no other? What’s next public festival expands to a for the Design Museum of Chicago? The next generation of artists will be ten-day event to celebrate its massively a ected by what we are living tenth birthday as the city’s We have a lot up our sleeves! In May, we through. It may be too close for me to be architecturally, culturally hosted our first-ever Re:treat—an asyn- objective, but I remain irrepressibly optimis- and historically significant chronous, two-day event that kept only the tic about the minutes, months and decades sites open their doors for a best parts about conferences while leaving ahead. The “rising like a Phoenix from the behind-the-scenes view of out the worst. Themes were nostalgia and ashes” trope exists for good reason. Lead- Chicago landmarks. recovery, with topics including Bauhaus ers are often born in tragedy, and this mo- graphic design with Ellen Lupton, recovery ment is making many. I have full faith in our (October 16-25) after days in space with NASA astronaut ability to provide future artists with a land- Kjell Lindgren and a nostalgic crayon activ- scape that is more equitable, accepting and LUFTWERK ity with the Chicago Children’s Museum. collaborative than we found it. & NORMAL: COLOR CODE ELMHURST ART MUSEUM Luftwerk design duo Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero collaborate with Normal Studio’s Renata Graw to create “Color Code,” a work that visualizes SOS, the international distress signal, as color flags instead of Morse code. (Opening September 15) DESIGN CHICAGO MERCHANDISE MART e Midwest’s largest residential design conference provides two full days of open houses, talks and events featuring kitchen, bath and home furnishings by some of the industry’s most acclaimed designers and showrooms. (October 7-8) — Vasia Rigou 17

SAM TOIA AND THE ART OF RESTAUR ANT MANAGEMENT IN THESE TOUGH TIMES FALL ARTS PREVIEW by David Hammond S am Toia, president and CEO of the Illinois Restaurant Association (IRA), was featured in Newcity’s 2019 Big Heat issue, which recognized fifty leaders of Chicago restaurant culture. No one is in a better position than Toia to tell us how the state’s restaurant industry is navigating rough water. What are new ways of doing business that will become part of business as usual? Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 Contactless delivery and carry-out op- What is the IRA doing to keep Relief Fund in September, which will provide tions will be relevant for a long time to come. the industry going? direct financial support to hospitality indus- It has also been interesting seeing restau- try workers. rants convert all or a portion of their unused During this crisis, one-hundred percent indoor spaces to retail areas—places like Bar of our focus is on providing guidance, re- What do you want to see when you Biscay in West Town, Gene & Georgetti in sources and relief to our state’s 25,000-plus walk into a restaurant now, and River North and Terra & Vine in Evanston. eating and drinking establishments and the have you walked out of a restaurant Even when indoor dining is at full capacity vendors that supply these businesses. The because you didn’t see what you in the future, elements of retail and grocery IRA has been working with the National wanted to see in terms of diner will continue to generate revenue, even if Restaurant Association on a $120-billion re- or server safety precautions? they shift to online only. Virtual cooking lief fund, as well as other legislative and reg- classes and meal kits have proven to be a ulatory relief. We’re also excited to launch Most operators are strictly following public good way to engage guests, and in some the IRA Educational Foundation Employee health guidelines—and self-policing is a must. cases, even allow friends from coast-to- coast to participate in an activity together. above: Sam Toia /Photo: Monica Kass Rogers next page: Last year at Chicago Gourmet /Photo: Neil John Burger 18

Personally, I have not been to any restau- er Hop, which we’re calling “Can’t Stop the CHICAGO GOURMET SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity rants where I’ve felt unsafe. We know, how- Hop.” It will allow fans to try burgers at their ever, there are bad actors out there. favorite spots throughout the city, by din- e annual get-together in Millennium ing in, carrying out or ordering delivery, Park is out of the question, so the city’s How about the responsibilities and voting online to crown the champ. premier gathering of food and beverage of diners? What are best enthusiasts goes online with virtual and practices for customers dining As in years past, we will also feature an interactive demos and discussions that in a restaurant today? online auction, with proceeds benefitting enable guests to get in on the action our future hospitality industry leaders via while at home. Diners need to be wearing a mask, the Illinois Restaurant Association Educa- maintaining proper social distance, keep- tional Foundation. New this year—and in BOBBY’S BIKE HIKE ing their party to the size outlined by local response to a critical need in the industry— regulations, arriving on time for their res- we are launching the Illinois Restaurant A tour that’s ideal for visitors to the ervations and not staying beyond a restau- Association Educational Foundation Em- city who want to sample the triumvirate rant’s allocated length of seating. ployee Relief Fund. The first local relief of Chicago food favorites—Italian beef, fund established in Chicago for restaurant deep dish, Chicago dogs—and get What is your response to the workers, this fund will provide direct finan- in socially distanced exercise while prescribed twenty-five-percent cial relief to employees who have lost their tooling around the city on bikes. occupancy for restaurants? jobs and fallen on di icult times because of the coronavirus pandemic. BEERFEST With sales down eighty percent across ON THE BEACH the board since March, making the num- In your piece with Bob Sirott on bers work to keep their business open is WGN last June, you stressed the On September 25, one of Chicago’s few really everyone’s top concern. However, importance of attracting visitors festivals that haven’t been canceled will restaurateurs fully recognize that public from neighboring states. Has any be at the Shore Club on North Avenue health and safety come first. This is where action been taken to encourage Beach: drink beer, breathe fresh air, the shift in models comes into play as more visitors to Chicago? keep your distance from other humans, restaurants reevaluate how they operate a good time. to maintain sustainable revenue. For some, I serve on the executive committee of the economics of partially reopening just Choose Chicago, and we’ve been working — David Hammond don’t work. hard to promote tourism, working with press and influencers to showcase restau- 19 We’ve been attending Chicago rants, hotels and other attractions that are Gourmet since it started, and unique to our great city. Area hotels are we were sorry to hear it was also getting creative, o ering staycation canceled for 2020. What packages for those living in Chicago and distance-celebrations do you neighboring suburbs, and even day passes have planned for this year? for someone who may be looking to get away for even a few hours. In-person, intimate events for fifty or fewer will take place at restaurants and What do you have to say to venues throughout the city. Our virtual se- restaurateurs who are looking ries will feature celebrity chefs, and guests forward, warily, to 2021? can join for the demo only, or they can order cooking and meal kits that allow We’re all excited to begin welcoming them to cook along and share in a meal for customers back in a safe and smart way. four. We have a variation on the Hamburg- And as always, let’s look out for each other. We’re in this together.

MANUAL C I N E M A’ S CANDYMAN DREAM FALL ARTS PREVIEW Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 by Ray Pride istry, an arrival that took a decade of dili- er and lead puppeteer, Julia Miller; puppets gence, not entirely in the dark, but built in and sets designed by Lizi Breit and Drew Dir; T he widest release so far this year that the warmth of community and collaboration. and puppet fabrication and lead puppeteers I know of a sharp, sterling short film (The group’s artistic impulses and instincts Drew Dir, Lizi Breit and Sarah Fornace.) traveling under color of another art began to coalesce at University Theatre at form—with 2.8 million views by late August— the University of Chicago.) Fornace related that the group had “Fran- dropped on June 17 via filmmaker Nia kenstein” on their mind for a while, as direc- DaCosta’s Twitter account, a trailer for her While we haven’t spoken for this article tor Drew Dir admires James Whale’s 1931 film, “Candyman,” told in shadow puppetry as the embargo stands, I interviewed group film, as well as being a “big fan” of Universal of jagged relief, mussed by a score like members Drew Dir, Sarah Fornace, in 2018 haunted, broken childrens’ tunes. The visual for their Court Theatre world premiere of style should be familiar to Chicago theater- their “Frankenstein,” a mega-meta produc- goers who have witnessed a decade of am- tion that allowed audiences to witness silent bitious and idiosyncratic work by the ensem- movie-style effects both as beautiful finished ble called Manual Cinema. images within a layered narrative, mimicking “’Candyman,’ DaCosta wrote on Twitter by the nesting-doll structure of Mary Shelley’s introduction, “at the intersection of white vi- novel and her life, but also in the making as olence and black pain, is about unwilling technicians worked their craft on the stage martyrs. The people they were, the symbols beneath the dream as it was dreamt. (Partial we turn them into, the monsters we are told credits for their work with “Candyman” in- they must have been.” The pedigree of the clude puppetry designed and produced by Jordan Peele production comes with its own Manual Cinema; director for Manual Cinema expectations, from the incisiveness of work and storyboard artist, Drew Dir; line produc- he’s directed (“Get Out,” “Us”) as well as co-produced under the Monkeypaw Produc- tions banner (HBO’s “Lovecraft Country”) as well as taking on the gentrification of the Cabrini-Green real estate ten years after the demolition of the project. While Manual Cinema—the Chicago- based performance collective, design studio and film and video production company founded by Drew Dir, Sarah Fornace, Ben Kauffman, Julia Miller and Kyle Vegter—can’t squeak a peep about their work until the Uni- versal release sees daylight—scheduled for October 16—the work, weirdly, wordless, worries up a world all its own. (There is also a story-driven trailer that visits the new film and revisits imagery introduced in the 1992 original by Bernard Rose.) It’s the sort of Chicago story you like to hear—a burst of assured, quietly bravura art- 20

monster movies. (Fittingly, “Candyman” is movie theater closer together and make CITY SO REAL a Universal release.) “I grew up watching the experience of cinema as intimate and them over and over,” Dir told me, “so it’s personable as a campfire story.” NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CHANNEL like a film adaptation that I know really well and really love. So the idea of being able Which is where we arrive at the coming Steve James’ elegant, often- to work with the cinematic heritage of attractions for “Candyman”: the campfire astonishing five-hour mosaic of Frankenstein in our own theatrical medium story, shadows and shorthand, sound and events leading up to the mayoral sounded like oh, yeah, I would like to spend portent. “One of our other artistic directors, election, with an hour shot across a couple of years living in that.” Julia Miller, got everyone together the first pandemic summer, arrives in a time to do a short shadow puppet piece,” richer edition than its Sundance While creating their own style onstage, Dir said of the group’s post-teenage ori- premiere and festival showings. their thoughts also encompassed other gins. “All of us had little to no experience forms of “cinema,” as well as philosophy. with putting together something like that. (October) I mentioned the parable of Plato’s cave, and So the first couple of years of working in Dir concurred. “Totally. I think that story of the medium were a lot just about discov- CANDYMAN Plato’s Cave also describes a movie theater, ery.” They were inventing a style, a form, how early cinema was. For us, these stories but weren’t sure what they were doing at Nia DaCosta (“Captain Marvel 2”) are very much like campfire stories, espe- first. “Few people had done this kind of directs the Jordan Peele-produced cially the experience of shadow puppet work before, so we spent a lot of time just revisit of the 1992 metaphor-dense, stories, but drawing that and the modern learning what kind of stories you could tell, shock-rich chiller: expect the what kind of images you could make, sim- buzz of an otherworldly twenty- left: Frame from “Candyman” trailer ply how to use it as a medium.” Dir said first-century Chicago that can’t that Manual Cinema is still figuring it out let go of the dense, dank past. top: Founder-co-artistic directors all the time, “experimenting with what this of Manual Cinema (clockwise, from top left) medium can do.” (Opens Friday, October 16) Kyle Vegter, Sarah Fornace, Ben Kau man, Julia Miller, Drew Dir /Photo: Maren Celest, Read about the ten years of Manual 56TH CHICAGO Cinema at manualcinema.com. I N T E R N AT I O N A L provided for tenth anniversary. FILM FESTIVAL VIRTUAL INDUSTRY DAYS e venerable industry event convenes to suggest a world of production and distribution in the new world, including a master class with veteran producer and production executive Ted Hope, late of Amazon Studios. (October 12-18) — Ray Pride SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity 21

NIGHTS FALL ARTS IN PREVIEW WHITE COTTON: JUSTIN HAY WARD, STRIPPED- DOWN AND SOLO Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 by Robert Rodi covered. In 2017, James Parker in The Atlan- Satin” are almost as familiar—and iconic—as tic, while not mentioning the Moody Blues “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Hayward wrote I n January 1966 the teenage Justin Hay- specifically, labeled prog rock “the whitest “Nights” when he was just nineteen, and he ward released his first single, “London Is music ever”—and in the current climate, provided the vocals as well. It’s an uncanny Behind Me,” with the B-side “Day Must that’s a burn. performance; the way his voice ascends on Come.” The tunes are bouncy and engaging, the bridge to that cosmic cry of “Oh, how I the kind of skiffle-on-hyperdrive stuff that The Moody Blues soldiered on through love you” has a thrillingly ageless quality. You had propelled the Beatles to international the derision—and there’s a lot of it to soldier might be listening to someone twice or three fame. But even as Hayward’s debut made its through. My copy of “The Rough Guide to times Hayward’s tender age—or to some sal- tentative foray onto the charts, the Fab Four Rock” (third edition) doesn’t even have an low-cheeked immortal, trudging across cen- were ripping a hole in the fabric of space-time entry for the band. (The Monkees get one; turies like sand dunes. with “Revolver”—an album that rendered as do Sky Saxon, Jawbox and Cockney skiffle as culturally irrelevant as polka. Rebel.) When the Moody Blues were induct- The Moody Blues are still together and ed into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in occasionally tour, although they haven’t re- Later that same year, Hayward—sensing December 2017, Hayward was ecstatic. leased an album since 2003. Meanwhile, which way the wind was blowing—joined a “This induction is validating the music our through all the tumult of the band’s rise, fall band himself. The Moody Blues, while not fans really, really love,” he said. “I’m so and search for a comeback, Hayward has as influential as the Beatles, did manage to pleased for all of them.” Your heart almost diligently continued the solo career he pioneer a new genre, fusing orchestral breaks for the guy: imagine being so beat kicked off that January in 1966. And unlike sound with ambitious, expansive composi- down that you view the Rock & Roll Hall of other artists who maintain both band and tions. Progressive rock—or, as better known, Fame as validation. solo careers (Phil Collins of Genesis, for in- prog rock—dominated for a while, but fell out stance), Hayward has kept his solo identity of favor in the eighties and never really re- Still, for an entire generation or two, the distinct from the Moody Blues—trading the music of the Moody Blues is indelibly fused band’s sumptuousness and grandiosity for to our DNA, and songs like “Nights In White 22

a leaner, intimate sound; a singer-songwriter vibe. And he built SHAMARR mixes an intoxicating brew ALLEN & THE of honky-tonk, swing and a following; during the seventies and eighties, his albums, while UNDERDAWGS Latin into its repertoire (‘like a gumbo,” says never chart-toppers, routinely placed in the top one-hundred. EVANSTON SPACE keyboardist Jared Hall). Whatever the cause, their Hayward brings his solo acoustic show to City Winery ( e progenitors of fleetness, vivacity, wit and self-described “hip-rock,” sheer musicality make for an West Randolph) for two nights this fall, November and . The Allen & the ‘Dawgs aren’t exhilarating night of music. letting that label define tour comes, as tours often do, on the heels of a new release. them. Beyond fusing (October 15) hip-hop and rock ’n’ roll, Earlier this year Hayward dropped what is billed as an EP, but they rope in a little jazz WAV V E S or Latin, or anything else is really a digital single; the only thing distinguishing it from as the spirit moves them. SCHUBAS Allen, a trumpeter, is a “London Is Behind Me” / “Day Must Come,” is that with “One high-profile sideman and Given that we’ve all touring musician who’s collectively missed an Summer Day” / “My Juliette,” we’re not sure which is the B-side. shared the stage with a entire summer, there might dizzying roster of A-listers. be a therapeutic reason It’s interesting to listen to these new songs with the debut But as a frontman he comes to see guitarist Nathan into his own; he’s an electric Williams’ pop-punk outfit tunes from in mind. “One Summer Day” begins with a presence, taking ownership when it hits town to of the stage like a panther, celebrate the tenth liquid guitar ri , a sonic universe away from the jangly, metal- working the crowd with anniversary of its cult-hit his charisma and energy, album, “King of the Beach.” lic chords of “London Is Behind Me;” and the sense of youthful wailing tunes and busting SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity rhymes. e band he’s ere’s enough stoner irony promise and adventure in the latter tune is balanced by the gathered to back him is, and garage-band noise as you’d expect, top-flight. beneath the shiny, sun- seasoned maturity of the newer lyrics: “Maybe it’s just time for soaked surface to make (October 7) us feel both restored and revenged for the viral VELVET CAR AVAN blight of 2020. Wavves hasn’t dropped an album THALIA HALL since 2017, so its set is pretty much guaranteed Like many combination to be a nostalgia fest. genres, gypsy jazz flourishes And yeah, given what on the margins of the we’ve all been through, music scene—attracting anything prior to 2019 just enough enthusiastic now definitely qualifies followers to keep going, as nostalgia. but never quite enough to push through to the (November 5) mainstream. e first virtuosi to become a — Robert Rodi household name was Django us to treat each other well,” Hayward sings. “I hope it’s not just Reinhardt, and that was a loooong time ago. But fantasy / Maybe time will tell.” So even now, he hasn’t lost the Velvet Caravan pushes ever closer to the cultural front forward-looking attitude he had as an eager teen. burner; possibly because the Savannah-based quintet Another thing he hasn’t lost is that unmistakable voice. It’s a supple, gorgeously evocative instrument that seems not to have been touched by time… even five-and-a-half de- cades’ worth. 23

WITH EXPERIMENTAL S P I R I T, THE DANCE CENTER OF COLUMBIA COLLEGE REINVENTS THE FALL SEASON Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 by Sharon Hoyer One of our strengths is that our platform FALL ARTS connects national and international artists U nder normal circumstances, the Dance with Chicago community members, so we’re PREVIEW Center of Columbia College curates a wanting to take a moment to spotlight Chi- series of performances September cago artists to our national and internation- the commission differently. Kierah just grad- through June that bring the best small and al friends. uated from our program in May and she’s mid-sized companies from Chicago, the such a bright emerging artist with an amaz- United States and abroad to their 270-seat It sounds like you’re seeing an ing trajectory ahead of her. I’m curious to see black-box theater in the South Loop. But this opportunity to reach out to how someone just coming into the field is is no normal year. And in the midst of a pan- more students of different going to interpret this new way of thinking. demic that has suspended live indoor theater, backgrounds interested in exploring We are giving the artists a fee that they will the Dance Center has retooled their fall 2020 dance from their homes. How apply to one project they’re working on. season to focus on residencies for local art- are you reaching people and ists, an expanded virtual education program, making these classes available? What do you hope audiences and a handful of live-streamed and filmed will experience with the online performances. Ellen Chenoweth, director of We’re calling it a dance buffet, a virtual version of these performances? the Dance Presenting Series at Columbia feast. Our buffet is sitting alongside our reg- College, talks about how she and the entire ular curriculum, but you don’t need to regis- Both with the performances and classes, Dance Center faculty and staff reimagined ter to take these classes. You can just take the sense of connection that comes with art the Fall season, looking for abundance in lean a single West African class with Idy Ciss or and performance. How can we be active so- times, as well as the power of small changes. a single ballet class with Paige Cunningham. cial connectors, decreasing isolation and These are teachers who usually teach at the loneliness? Thinking about Nejla’s project in How did you think about creating Dance Center. It’s like a sampler pack. We’re particular, her piece is emblematic of art’s ca- a Fall 2020 season amidst so in the process of building a website that will pacity to heal. There’s so much grief and fear much uncertainty? launch September 1. right now and I feel like art helps us process things that are as necessary now as before. One of the starting places was thinking Tell me about the residencies about what things are possible in this mo- you’ve created this year. You mention in the press release ment. What are the strengths and advantag- seeing new possibilities being es? We’re in the unusual position of being We’re doing two production residencies available. What are the new embedded within a dance department. One in partnership with Chicago Dancemakers possibilities you see? of our advantages is that we have so many Forum and Performance Response Journal. incredible educators in our midst. We can still These artists will have space and support teach classes online, and online classes have personnel at the Dance Center. Nejla Yatkin been popular in quarantine. We have a lot of will shoot a dance film in our theater and instructors teaching master classes, and we we’ll release it over the fall. Jumaane Taylor have community members teaching who will perform a piece that we’ll livestream don’t normally teach at the Dance Center. from the Dance Center. Nejla Yatkin in \"The Other Witch.\" We also have virtual residencies—a term /Photo: Enki Andrews. that’s sprung up since the pandemic. We have awarded these residencies to three Chicago artists: Sara Zalek, Jenn Freeman and Kierah King. Each of them is interpreting 24

It’s such a moment of ques- of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion] INTERNATIONAL VOICES SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity tioning what we’re doing and Raquel Monroe put that on the PROJECT how we’re doing it and how we’re table, saying let’s think about working to dismantle racism. plenty, instead of thinking about For the past decade, Chicago theaters have teamed How things we’re doing on the what’s not available. It’s scary to with consulates, universities and other cultural surface that seem small could be put out programming so di erent partners to connect our city with contemporary important. Just as one tiny exam- from what we usually do, but it theater from around the globe, presenting readings ple: in the past, we’d have a few also feels more in the spirit of the of new plays by international playwrights. Season employees at the Dance Center field and the artists we’re working eleven of the project continues, moving online with who are part-time devoted to the with to give things a try. I hope free live-streamed play readings by writers from presenting series, and then we people can embrace that experi- Spain, Ukraine, Serbia, Germany, Romania, Finland, have a lot of faculty and sta who mental spirit. Egypt and Canada. Each reading is followed by a are less hands-on but are still part Q&A with members of the production. of the community. The protests The Dance Center of and the conversations around eq- Columbia College will premiere (September 2–October 21) uity right now have me thinking Nejla Yatkin’s “The Other Witch” about who’s at the table when October at pm and Jumaane L I TA N Y we’re talking about programming. For the first time, we had a meet- Taylor’s “Ugly Flavors and PO’CHOP|JENN FREEMAN ing on Zoom that included every- The Jazz Hoofing Quartet” one on sta . I can’t remember a live-streamed November at Performance artist Po’Chop (aka Jenn Freeman) time when we had sta and fac- pm. All performance content has worked across mediums for a long time, ulty at the table together dream- accessible with donations of upending tired out notions of eroticism, gender ing about what programming or more. All-access classes with and race on burlesque stages and delighting could look like. donation of or more, single subscribers to e Brown Pages newsletter through classes available. Registration the written word and visual art. is fall, with That’s where the spirit of abun- and tickets at dance.colum.edu. support from Rebuild Foundation and Chicago dance comes from too. [Director Dancemakers Forum, Po’Chop brings her practice to video, creating five dance shorts that probe ideas of Blackness, queer identity, spirituality, grace, rage and healing. e completed films will screen together in early 2021. (September 21, 2020-January 14, 2021) 5TH ANNUAL PEACEBOOK FESTIVAL COLLABORACTION Chicago’s annual festival of short performances on the subject of peace has never felt more relevant or more urgent. Traditionally, the festival tours the neighborhoods and includes a post-show “Crucial Conversation” with audiences, moderated by the company’s executive director Dr. Marcus Robinson. In response to the current climate, short, live- streamed videos will be grouped around themes of resilience and perspectives on peace. (October 2-3) — Sharon Hoyer 25

26 Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020

ARTIST OF THE MOMENT Has the pandemic changed material, what kind of history does that SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity art-making for you? How have material have, what presence does it by .................... K E R R Y C A R D O Z A you been experiencing lockdown? have, what meaning does it have, how photo by................. N A T H A N K E A Y can it be changed or altered? I’m con- In a broader way, it has had me step stantly thinking about those things. It WHAT DOES IT MEAN back and think about my values and the comes from Roberto Bedoya’s writing TO BE FREE? core of my practice, but also the core of that deals with the spatial imaginary and my being. As a mother to a very small the ways that people on a hyperlocal Is it about being able to come child, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking level are quite ingenious in the way they and go as you please, or to feel about how women, mothers are not sup- re-create a space. When I talk about like spaces were made with you ported within the institutions that I work spatial justice, I’m not only talking about in mind? Does it relate to your in and with, and recognizing firsthand a physical location, I’m also talking senses, being able to choose the inequity of that experience. Luckily, about the kind of power a space has and what you see, smell, taste, hear? I have been able to connect with other the way artists can subvert, interfere, in- For the better part of a decade, women in arts and culture and that has terrogate that power. That’s what those Maria Gaspar has explored the been a godsend. The recent uprisings artists were doing that taught me at the social constructions of space and protests, the anti-Blackness, the very beginning. That is especially critical and the complicated interplay state violence that has been part of our now as we’re thinking about memorials between body, place and power. culture since the beginning of coloniza- and the taking down of these racist Con- Through sound art, video, instal- tion in the U.S., having witnessed one federate monuments and inserting im- lation, performance and commu- of the largest protests in Chicago, along ages that are representative of people nity projects—often related to with understanding the impact this pan- that have worked toward justice. It’s rel- Cook County Jail—Gaspar asks demic, along with state violence has evant for everybody to think about be- us to interrogate our relationship [had an impact on] mostly Black and cause it’s about how space creates a to power, while at the same time brown communities, is on my mind ev- certain kind of behavior and affects the inviting us to envision a more eryday. Being an artist and a mother way we move through something and just world. Newcity speaks with working in this process of abolition, it the way we feel. Do we feel like we be- the artist about working within has confronted me with some really long? Or do we feel like we don’t be- institutions, the radical possibil- large questions about my role as an art- long? To me, those are decisions that ities of art-making and what is ist and as a person right now in Chicago are being made by state powers. Those needed in this national moment but also beyond Chicago. It’s a crisis are very intentional. We need to look of crisis. and a profound moment that gives us critically at what those are and tear an opportunity for radical change. I’m them apart. looking to align myself along that trajec- tory. That is where I have to be. You’ve done a lot of work around Cook County Jail. “Radioactive” Can you talk about the concept of was your first project inside the spatial justice—how you define it? jail. What’s the transition like from making work outside the jail to going My first art education, growing up on inside and working with detainees? the West Side of Chicago, was spending time with muralists. They were usually “Radioactive” was the first time I was for- local artists who were not invited by mu- mally going into the jail to develop a seums to exhibit, but were beloved in work. That was a one-year series of their community. These are the same workshops. Prior to that, I presented a people that were gracious enough to let project in New Haven, Connecticut with me into their studios, to let me help out an organization called Artspace. That on a mural. They were very gracious and took a couple of years, to get that one generous to me. I was maybe thirteen, off the ground. But eventually I worked fourteen years old. My understanding with detainees inside the New Haven about art was grounded in this idea Correctional Center. That was, in com- around do-it-yourself, around a kind of parison, a much smaller jail. The max urgency, around responding to a site, a they may have had was 600 people, building, a wall—in a way that felt rele- whereas Cook County Jail, in 2012, there vant to the people around that space. were around 13,000 people, and now They were often creating images unseen there’s half or a little less than half. Even in media. My understanding of art is with that decrease in population, it’s still rooted in these notions of creating our significant. I’ve been thinking a lot about own monuments or memorials, im- some of the ensemble members, the age-making that counters what popular participants in “Radioactive” go by the media was telling us about ourselves. “Radioactive Ensemble.” One of the en- That was foundational. Almost thirty semble members is locked up in prison years later, that continues to be a large right now. We correspond through letter part of how I think about working in a writing. One of the things he mentioned particular neighborhood or city. What to me a couple weeks ago—a very nice, does it mean to work with a particular friendly letter, just catching up—he was 27

Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 like, “It also smelled really good.” I was think- them accountable? When I think about Cook If institutions don’t respond in a way that is ing, wow, I didn’t put any scent on that letter. County Jail and navigating that power struc- genuine and that is really doing the hard work I didn’t spray anything. To think about a stark ture, it’s not really any different than the that goes along with making radical change, difference between a home smell let’s say, power structures that exist in other institu- then I don’t see how these places can con- and the smell of a prison, was really profound. tions I work in. There are systems in place tinue speaking this language around being He appreciated that. I sent him another letter and one learns to move through them. Some contemporary or radical or dedicated to so- and purposefully put a scent on it. It really got people are more willing than others to move cial justice. It will be totally meaningless. I re- me thinking about our senses: touch, taste, through them. I am willing to do it, however, ally connect with those young people be- smell. Our connection to our senses is what I’m also not willing to do it at certain times. I cause I was that brown kid going from La makes us feel human. I’m thinking about have had to draw some lines for the benefit Villita to my free art program in River North, Doug and his experience and the way that of the project. If the integrity of the work is commuting, taking two trains, probably a bus, scent offered him something special. I’m so being compromised then there is really no coming home late. That was very meaningful concerned about what’s going on in prisons reason to do it. That does not give it justice to me, to have that independence and to feel and jails across the country with COVID. For and that’ll just be wrong. So I like the way Pa- supported, but I know that that was mean- example, last I heard almost 2,000 people trisse put those questions out into the world ingful to that arts organization too, to have had COVID in San Quentin. Conditions have because I think all of us should be asking our- me there. It’s about this mutuality. When always been disparate in places like this and selves that. Especially as a Latinx artist, a things are totally off-balance, and one is tak- now we are seeing the repercussions of that first-generation person, I’m the first one to go ing more than giving, then we have a problem. in greater ways, which should be concerning to college in my family. My mom was a teach- I don’t know the answers exactly. My hope is for all of us because we’re all living on this er’s aide at a public school in Chicago. It was that people in leadership will understand earth and we should take care of each other. hard. So I ask myself, how do I teach within what they need to do to create spaces where my private art school? What do I teach? How people feel like they belong. Especially when I’m interested in hearing about am I connecting to my students? we look at the city of Chicago and who lives the process of working within the here. My mom should feel welcomed at any institution of the jail itself. In the I’m interested in this phrase I heard Fred of these art institutions, but she doesn’t. “Radioactive” video, there’s a clip Moten and Stefano Harney use at a Zoom where you’re going over the logistics talk the other day: radical complicity. There’s You’ve spoken about how art-making of the presentation and it seems tense. complicity and then there’s radical complici- can induce liberatory acts. You focus on How do you navigate that? ty. The way that I see my work at the Sheriff’s collective projects in communities that department or any other institution is that I historically have had less arts access— It is not an easy process. It is very difficult. It have to see an opportunity for a kind of rad- how does art fit into a larger goal of can be very painful. When I do any kind of icality. There has to be an opportunity to rad- liberation or creating a more just world? community-based work, I recognize quickly icalize something in some way, criticize some- that the stakes are really high, which is differ- thing, interrogate something, if that is not The experience of making art or seeing art ent from making a discrete art object. Yes, present then it is just complicity and I do not has transformative power because it gets to maybe I’m taking a risk in my studio but it is have to do that project. I feel evermore con- the gut and heart of something. Maybe you not the same kind of risk I might take when nected to that idea and I’m working hard to cannot put words to it, but the feeling is trans- I’m working with a group of people, especial- better understand it and better apply it to my formative. I’ve seen that in different capacities, ly a group of people that are marginalized. life and my artwork. like working with families on my block or with From the very get-go that has to be estab- youth or teaching at the Art Institute or at lished. Then there’s mistakes that happen. I What do you think art institutions Cook County Jail, I see how it transforms have had to cut myself some slack and give or institutions like SAIC should be someone or a group of people. I experience myself the space to evolve as an artist doing doing in the fight for racial justice, it through working with others, through mak- this work. One can feel a lot of pressure in which many have pledged support for? ing installations. We are living in a moment different ways. I’ve had to work on keeping Some groups, like the Teen Creative where there’s so much confinement and re- some perspective on that. It has to do with Agency at the MCA, have asked these striction that I think art allows for an open- grounding, again, what are my values? What’s institutions for specific actions. How ness, an opportunity to reimagine yourself, to important to me? can artists or educators working reimagine a society, to rehearse. Augusto within institutions make an impact? Boal says something like, theater is not the Last night I was watching a really nice con- revolution but it’s the rehearsal for revolution. versation with Patrisse Cullors from Black First, I want to say that artists and educators I love that quote because it’s so true. You can Lives Matter, one of the founders, who is a have been doing the work, not all, of course, work out ideas through art-making. Or think performance artist. She does lots of other art but at least the ones I know. Chicago is fierce, about how that can be applied in your social but performance art is what she came into between artists and artist-educators, they are life, your political life. Somebody said this to as a young artist, and Black Lives Matter some of the most radical people I know. Of me the other day, artists are like first respond- came out of that work. She really put some course there’s work to be done there, abso- ers, which I love because we are bearing wit- language to some of what I’ve been feeling lutely. I am waiting for these institutions to ness to what’s happening and then we’re lately in regards to institutions, whether it’s really walk the walk. The thing with TCA is translating it to objects or experiences or Cook County Jail or another museum in Chi- amazing. These young Chicago kids, Black music. That then allows for others to see their cago or beyond, she’s asking artists: what are and brown young people, are courageous and story in that experience and that is a way we you willing to negotiate and what are you will- so bold to demand of this institution racial can connect as humans. That is a way we can ing to compromise? How are you being bold equity, divesting from police. If contemporary go beyond the capitalistic, patriarchal, ho- and courageous, especially in this moment? museums want to join in on that movement, mophobic society we’re confronted with. And What are we asking institutions for? Institu- they need to fulfill those demands. These that’s liberation! I shouldn’t say that’s libera- tions ask us for our work, for our time, they young people are the ones leading the way tion, necessarily, it’s more like, that is working want to pick our brains—how are we holding right now. They are the pulse, the heartbeat. toward it. 28

Melanie Teresa Bohrer (MFA 2016), Untitled (Memorial), 2016 EXAMINE BELIEFS. RADICALLY RETHINK THEM. SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO GRADUATE PROGRAMS Learn more about SAIC’s interdisciplinary curriculum and explore graduate study at the nation’s most influential art and design school. Apply Now saic.edu SAIC GRADUATE ADMISSIONS | 312.629.6100 | saic.edu/gr | [email protected]

Clockwise from upper left: by Rosy Petri, RAM Introduces: Carol Eckert, Ep 5 with Bruce W. Pepich, by Katie White, by Kathleen Dustin Experience America’s Largest Contemporary Craft Collection at Home Engage with Racine Art Museum virtually on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and ramart.org Explore From the Heart: RAM Virtual Community Art Show Through October 4, 2020 Watch RAM Introduces, a continuing series of bite-sized videos, honoring the talent of women artists whose works are in RAM’s collection Make art with inspiration from over 35 Free RAM Online Art Activities Racine Art Museum 441 Main Street Racine, Wisconsin 262.638.8300 ramart.org

SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity 31

CHICAGO’S ARTISTS’ ARTISTS ART 50 2020Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 IT’S ALWAYS DAUNTING to come up with the was written by KERRY CARDOZA top fifty artists’ artists in Chicago, a city flush with with AMANDA DEE, CIER A MCKISSICK, creatives and makers dedicated not only to their ZAKKIYYAH NAJEEBAH, AMANDA craft, but to the sustainability and strength of the ROACH, ALISA SWINDELL art community as a whole. Thus it should come as and HOLLY WARREN no surprise that so many artists on this year’s list are All photos by NATHAN KEAY with also teachers and educators, or devotees to social photo assistance from JOE CR AWFORD practice, or curating or activism. At a time when Shot on location at the Columbia College folks around the world are calling on art institutions Chicago Student Center. to do better, to practice radical inclusivity, to listen Sincere thanks to Meg Duguid and Kari Sommers. hard and educate themselves, to center the voices and experiences of those too often marginalized by 32 race, gender, age, sexuality or ability, this list is a testament to the multiplicity of people making art in our city. There is no singular narrative of Chicago art, nor should there be. — KERRY CARDOZA

ONE value, spatial politics and the histories of ors and collages look like stills from a psyche- SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity redlining. She hopes her work encourages delic cartoon that might break into motion at AMANDA the general public to investigate for them- any moment, although that might be the sheer WILLIAMS selves how to make spaces “to feel free, and volume of life contained by canvas or paper. be free.” At the moment, the color that Wil- There are bears, there are fish, there are giant Amanda Williams transforms materials in liams is most excited by is Black: Black as a ladies, as well as small ones crawling over order to question how people move through signifier of Black cultural practices. Her inau- others. At seventy-nine, Nilsson recently space based on gender, race, class, culture, gural solo exhibition this fall at Rhona Hoff- exhibited her most extensive solo show yet, geography and history. Best known for her man Gallery will showcase new multimedia featuring her largest piece to date, “Gleefully public art project, “Color(ed) Theory” (2014- works in a range of hues initiated by her pop- Askew,” at seven feet high. Now in social iso- 2015), she has since taken on major commis- ularized Instagram series, “What Black Is This, lation, she has spent so much time in her attic sions, such as “Thrival Geographies (In My You Say?” studio that she’s run out of canvases. Mind I See a Line)” for Dimensions of Citizen- ship at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale TWO THREE and “Our Destiny, Our Democracy,” a forth- coming public monument to Shirley Chisholm, GLADYS McARTHUR in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. Since 2015 Wil- NILSSON BINION liams has demonstrated, through color and form, how a vacant, soon-to-be-demolished A part of the historic Hairy Who collective, Long a member of art’s vanguard, McArthur home, painted in Flamin’ Red Hots, can spark made up of School of the Art Institute gradu- Binion is finally getting the recognition he local and international conversations on ates who exhibited provocative, colorful work deserves. The visionary minimalist painter, at Hyde Park Arts Center in the sixties, Gladys now in his seventies, is represented by Richard 1. AMANDA WILLIAMS Nilsson’s work continues their tradition of Gray Gallery, which mounted a stunning solo transgression with joie de vivre. Her watercol- exhibition at Gray Warehouse this September. 33

4. FAHEEM MAJEED 5. CANDIDA ALVAREZ Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 On view are pieces from his \"DNA:Work\" ing, architecture and site-specific public featured paintings inspired by her connection series, oil stick paintings that appear as simple engagement. The project became a literal to Puerto Rico following her father’s death grids from afar, but are pasted with personal floating museum in 2017 when it traveled up and Hurricane Maria. As an artist-teacher, effects, and drawings from his “Under:Con- the Chicago River, featuring a ten-foot-high Alvarez says she is “always in touch with so scious” series, labor-intensive works featuring bust of Haitian figure Jean Baptiste Point du many voices, so many conversations, so many marks made simultaneously by both hands. Sable, the first known non-Indigenous settler perspectives,” which echoes her process. Binion had solo presentations at Lehmann of Chicago. In collaboration with the South She is in conversation with her surroundings, Maupin locations in Seoul, New York and Side Community Art Center and the Hyde too: the resulting memories, ideas and refer- Hong Kong last year, as well as at Massimo Park Art Center, Majeed will use a $50,000 ences are mapped by way of color, shape or De Carlo in London and Hong Kong. The for- Joyce Foundation award to present a body of figure, for someone else to join the conversa- mer Columbia College professor also has a charcoal rubbings, made using the architec- tion when they’re ready. Of this precarious forthcoming solo exhibition at the Museo tural designs and textures of the South Side moment, she says \"it's time to feel raw. It's Novecento in Florence, Italy. Community Art Center, where he was exec- time for reinvention.” utive director and curator from 2005-2011. FOUR These works are anticipated to be revealed SIX in the spring of 2021. FAHEEM BRENDAN MAJEED FIVE FERNANDES Faheem Majeed’s practice can best be CANDIDA Brendan Fernandes is a master at seamlessly understood as “a collage of underappreciated A LVA R E Z melding countless parts—body, sculpture, things together, that are large and grand,” a movement, textile, rope, chain, sound—into metaphor for the underused knowledge of At the start of this year, Candida Alvarez pub- flawless productions exploring vulnerability, people. Majeed’s socially engaged art prac- lished “Candida Alvarez: Here: A Visual strength, control and labor. Since moving to tice is deeply rooted in creating environments Reader,” an art book documenting her 2017 Chicago in 2016, Fernandes’ work has been that encourage viewers to leverage their own retrospective at the Chicago Cultural Center featured at Chicago institutions, including the power, as he believes that it’s ultimately peo- that places her four-decade career as a MCA and the DePaul Art Museum. A variation ple that are monuments. Majeed’s collective painter into deeper context. The book was of his 2018 Graham Foundation installa- project, “Floating Museum,” creates new released concurrently with her first solo gal- tion,“The Master and Form,” in which ballet models through artmaking, community build- lery exhibition in Chicago, “Estoy Bien,” which dancers pushed the limits of their exertion 34

against sculpture—when not performing live, SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity audio recordings were played to highlight the absence of working bodies—was in the 2019 Whitney Biennial. So much of Fernandes’ work is about liveness, gathering in social spaces and collaboration as acts of protest. Pieces like “Ballet Kink,” in which dancers are forced to find new ways to move while bound by rope, signal that bodies can adapt, protest and progress together in moments like this. At work on a new piece exploring protest and protection through dance, primal voice and the use of Masai fabric as part of the São Paulo Museum of Art exhibition “Histories of Dance,” Fernandes will push the boundaries of what’s possible in a virtual space with a Zoom performance hosted by the Art Gallery of Ontario. SEVEN EDRA SOTO Edra Soto’s ongoing “24 Hours” project, in which she collects and glorifies discarded liquor bottles, and her GRAFT series, inspired by the iron rejas screens in her native Puerto Rico, have heavily influenced the trajectory of her art career and public interventions. These bottles and iron-wrought kaleido- scopic and geometric formations have graced her home in Garfield Park (where she also co-directs The Franklin, a backyard artist-run project space); the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; the Blue Line Western Station; the Chicago Cultural Center and, most recently, Millennium Park, where her first public art commission “Screenhouse,” will be on view for two years. This year also allowed her to imagine and expand the project to new heights with the support of the MacArthur Foundation in cultural exchanges in Cuba, Brazil and Puerto Rico, and an upcoming residency at Manhattan’s Abrons Arts Center, where she will create a public art project. Her work will also grace the cover of Poetry mag- azine and the permanent collection of the DePaul Art Museum. EIGHT MARIA GASPAR As an artist long concerned with spatial jus- tice, Maria Gaspar’s work is primed for this moment. We’re more attuned than ever to the safety and accessibility of public and private spaces, from prisons to art museums to the streets. For the recently tenured SAIC pro- fessor’s 2018 project “Radioactive,” detain- ee-made audio and visuals were broadcast onto the wall of Cook County Jail. In addition to a 2021 exhibition at Wofford College, her 6. BRENDAN FERNANDES 35

11. RIVA LEHRER 7. E D R A S O T O Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 work will be displayed at MoMA PS1, in con- Capital of Culture 2020 (postponed to 2021). ings can possess” during time under quaran- junction with the new book, “Marking Time: The group performed an iteration of this proj- tine by creating abstract portrait paintings of Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration.” Read ect earlier this year at the Art Institute of Chi- marriage scenes and personal heroes The the Artist of the Moment interview for more cago, and have been contemplating the newly tenured associate professor in North- insight on Gaspar’s work. future of live performance in their newsletter, western University's Department of Art, The- opening with “The Heightened Impossibiliza- ory and Practice will present a solo exhibition NINE tion of Performance.” this fall at Frieze London’s virtual fair, will participate in the Museum of Contemporary LIN TEN Art Chicago’s ”The Long Dream” exhibition HIXSON + and at the top of 2021, as well as sharing a M AT T H E W MIKE duo show with Sam Jablon at the Landing GOULISH CLOUD Gallery in Los Angeles. You can’t overstate the influence Lin Hixson Mike Cloud’s paintings are layered in symbol- ELEVEN and Matthew Goulish have on the perfor- ism and meaning, which can be hard to grasp mance world. The oeuvre of Goat Island, the if you look only at the surface level of his “Star RIVA pair’s renowned experimental performance of David” paintings, which not only reference LEHRER group, was the subject of an ambitious retro- the complexities of the history of Nazi Ger- spective last year at the Chicago Cultural many and the identification of Jews during Riva Lehrer’s studio practice and writing Center, which included nine commissioned World War II, but also theories related to come together in October when her memoir, performances from international artists and “deathliness,” abstraction, color and shape. “Golem Girl,” is published by Penguin Random teams. Their current group, “Every house a Combining text, imagery and mark-making, House and an exhibition of her paintings door,” is at work on the large-scale perfor- Cloud interrogates politics and his place opens at Zolla/Lieberman Gallery (which mance “Aquarium,” a commission from the within the political system. Lately Cloud recently started representing her). Lehrer was Croatian National Theatre, for the European has explored “the spark of life and hope paint- introduced in 1997 to a collective of fellow 36

12. BETHANY COLLINS 9. MATTHEW GOULISH & LIN HIXSON disabled artists who were also activists. Find- Salem, Massachusetts. Or her work recasting “The Gross Clinic” by Thomas Eakins. This SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity ing this community changed the direction of “The Odyssey,” a diptych of which she’ll exhibit year, Schutter became the first American to her work, and she is now best known for her this fall at Renaissance Society, based on the receive the Berliner Kunstpreis from the portraits of other disabled people that visu- translation by Emily Wilson, the first woman Akademie der Künste, following prestigious alize their diverse bodies while focusing on to translate the text into English. In Collins’ winners including Blinky Palermo and Isa the complexity and individuality of her sub- work, most of which is drawing-based, the Genzken. This October, Schutter begins a life- jects’ lives. texts are often obscured or erased, some- time appointment as chaired professor in the times with the artist’s own saliva, making it Institut für Kunst im Kontext at the Universität TWELVE clear how readily language can be manipu- der Künste, Berlin, the largest art school in lated. The 2019 Artadia awardee will take her Europe, although he will stay on at the Univer- BETHANY work further in a 2021 solo exhibition at the sity of Chicago as a visiting professor. COLLINS Frist Art Museum, with a new hymnal work based on “The Star Spangled Banner.” FOURTEEN Words form the basis of our society. We use them to make laws, to set the historical record. THIRTEEN KAMAU The media use them to document and inter- PAT T O N pret the world around us. Bethany Collins is DAVID skeptical of the authoritative nature of text, of SCHUTTER Brooklyn-bred artist Kamau Patton came to word as law. “It’s always a reflection of who Chicago to make music, and was inspired by we are in any given moment, so it’s constantly David Schutter has had a busy few years. In the community of artists and the ways the in flux,” she says. Take “America: A Hymnal,” addition to participating in Documenta 14 and city and artists preserved history. His archival originally a book published by Candor Arts a solo exhibition at Rhona Hoffman, the practice is a core component of his work, and Patron, containing one-hundred versions painter won a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship which deals with photography, audio and the of “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” on view this for fine arts. He is at work on a project stem- manipulation of media to highlight the com- summer at the Peabody Essex Museum in ming from that fellowship, on the painting plexities of sound, color and light. This year 37

18. ASSAF EVRON 21. LAURIE JO REYNOLDS Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 the interdisciplinary artist and School of the FIFTEEN America, and Olson is “coaxing out some of Art Institute of Chicago instructor was the the particular, problematic parts of his history, recipient of the  $100,000 Creative Capital B. INGRID his ideologies and his actions” into new Award for “Tel,” a name coined by archeology, OLSON site-specific sculptural installations. Chica- that is a combination of performance, study goans can catch Olson’s work this fall as part and contemplation of how memory has been Whether layering photographs with found of Chicago Manual Style’s portion of the “Four altered under the influence of cyberspace, objects or other materials, or creating sculp- Flags” international project and at the MCA’s telematics and transmission technologies. tures in dialogue with their surrounding archi- “Just Connect.” Patton is in “research mode,” and seeking tecture and the bodily form, each of Ingrid ways to strategize within the political and Olson’s pieces ask the viewer to question how SIXTEEN ecological environment. He is at work on an they experience and relate to space. The archival project at Experimental Sound Stu- SAIC alum is currently at work on concurrent MARGOT dio, where he is engaging with audio archives 2021 exhibitions for the Carpenter Center for BERGMAN from the Sun Ra/El Saturn Collection, the the Visual Arts at Harvard University, “History Malachi Ritscher Collection, and the Links Mother” and “Little Sister,” part of the Femi- For over sixty years, Margot Bergman has Hall Collection, and will invite other artists to nist Art Coalition project, which will coincide been creating and exhibiting work, primarily work with him. with her first monograph. The Carpenter Cen- painting. Last year, the octogenarian had solo ter is Le Corbusier's only building in North exhibitions at Susanne Vielmetter in Los 38

Take your talents beyond the studio Anthony Macias/Sancte Antoni ’20 and change the conversation about contemporary and modern visual culture. Columbia’s graduate and undergraduate programs in Art and Art History ready students for lifelong careers by immersing them in socially engaged fields of study and through mentorship from industry leaders. Learn more at colum.edu/apply On View August 8–November 22 On view at both MOWA | West Bend and MOWA | DTN (located at Saint Kate–The Arts Hotel in downtown Milwaukee) wisconsinart.org/comics Generously supported by

17. C L A I R E P E N T E C O S T 23. CAROLINE KENT Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 Angeles, Switzerland’s Museum Langmatt tive Deep Time Chicago collaborated with Artist Fellowship awardee is at work on “Car- and Germany’s Museum Folkwang. Long forty artists on field stations along the Mis- pet Space,” in collaboration with Dan Handel, interested in the absurd, many of Bergman’s sissippi River in order to make the “landscape on the phenomenology of carpets in hospi- recent paintings are distorted portraits of legible as a critical zone of habitation and tality areas, which will be displayed in 2021 women, often depicted with extra facial fea- long-term human-environment interaction.” at the Canadian Center for Architecture in tures. For a 2019 solo exhibition at Anton Kern They are organizing a traveling exhibition on Montreal. For Manifest magazine, he’s work- Gallery, Bergman also showed photographs: the project. ing on a project investigating polychromy— unnerving close-ups of dolls and masks. all-over color—in classical architecture. EIGHTEEN SEVENTEEN NINETEEN ASSAF CLAIRE EVRON ARNOLD PENTECOST KEMP Although trained as a photographer, Assaf Despite the ways in which the pandemic and Evron’s work transcends the field, incorpo- In addition to his role as graduate dean and the Movement for Black Lives have exposed rating architecture, sculpture and installation professor of painting and drawing at SAIC, longstanding issues with capitalism, global with a critical engagement of history and Arnold Kemp maintains an active multidisci- food chains and the environment, Claire Pen- image-making. An ongoing collage project plinary art practice, with three solo exhibi- tecost sees a silver lining. “I’ve waited most allows him to install large-scale photographic tions opening on the West Coast this winter. of my life to see a significant change in atti- interventions on Mies van der Rohe buildings “False Hydras,” opening at L.A.’s JOAN gallery tudes about environmental issues, and for around Chicago. During EXPO 2019, Evron in January, will be Kemp’s largest solo exhi- a long time I have believed that our relations displayed “Collage for the Esplanade Apart- bition to date, and refers to an urban myth with the more than human world will improve ments” on the iconic Lakeshore Drive build- dreamed up by another Arnold Kemp (no when we address social justice issues,” ing, featuring a mountain view from the Nahal relation). It will feature a collection of books she says. The SAIC professor is at work with Me’arot Nature Reserve UNESCO World by another unrelated Arnold Kemp as well as her partner Brian Holmes on renovating a Heritage site. A forthcoming iteration of the works crafted from objects made by the art- new community space they’re calling “Water- collage project will take place at IIT’s Crown ist’s grandfather. “The absence of these other shed Art and Ecology.” Last year, her collec- Hall. The 2020 Illinois Arts Council Agency Arnold Kemps is meant to haunt this show and 40

is a metaphor for missing black SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity bodies,” Kemp says. At Portland’s Fourteen30 Contemporary, Kemp will show ceramic objects and drawings stemming from his alu- minum-foil masks. He also has work on view in Nia DaCosta’s forthcoming “Candyman.” TWENTY TONY LEWIS Tony Lewis employs graphite to spectacular ends. With colored pencil on paper, the material gives a worked-over quality to his otherwise vibrant and exacting drawings. With screws and rub- ber bands, the material comes to life, forming its own bold visual vocabulary. For his 2019 solo exhibition at Blum & Poe’s L.A. location, the SAIC alum mined the historic 1965 debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley, an event the artist con- tinues to revisit. It was also the subject of his 2020 solo exhibi- tion “The Dangers (As Far As I Can See),” at Massimo de Carlo in Italy. An exhibition scheduled at Blum & Poe New York has been postponed. T W E N T Y-O N E LAURIE JO REYNOLDS A policy advocate and artist, Laurie Jo Reynolds has long worked to shed light on the fail- ings of our criminal justice sys- tem. Perhaps best known for her work with the group Tamms Year Ten, which successfully shut- tered Illinois’ Tamms Correc- tional Center, Reynolds is now focused on the housing crisis caused by public conviction reg- istries and residency restric- tions. The UIC professor is cur- rently working in coordination with the Chicago 400, a group of people with past convictions who are experiencing homeless- ness and subsequently have to register weekly at Chicago Police Headquarters, to organize for policy change. An exhibition with the Chicago 400 opened at The 24. EBONY G. PATTERSON 41

25. FOLAYEMI WILSON 22. PHYLLIS BRAMSON Drawing Center in January and will move to she created a set of paintings, on view on her have her first solo exhibition in November at Trinity Christian College. A recipient of a website, that reference romantic and sexual L.A.’s Kohn Gallery, where she gained repre- 2018 Art for Justice Fund award, Reynolds tropes, art history and Eastern mythologies. sentation earlier this year. The show will also co-leads the ongoing project “Photo She has a 2021 solo exhibition at the Lubeznik include large-scale paintings, all sporting Requests from Solitary,” which was featured Center and is continuing her role as an advi- Kent’s signature black background, referenc- in the New Yorker last summer. sor to MFA students at SAIC. ing coded language and boundless space. Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 T W ENT Y-T W O T W ENT Y-THR EE T W E N T Y-F O U R PHYLLIS CAROLINE EBONY G. BRAMSON KENT PAT T E R S O N Over the course of a five-decade career, This 2020 Newcity Breakout Artist is operat- Ebony G. Patterson lives in Chicago and her Bramson has pushed figurative painting to ing at full capacity. Following solo exhibitions hometown of Kingston, Jamaica. This dual its limit with her vibrant, over-the-top this year at Hawthorn Contemporary and the existence gives her the distance she needs fever-dreamscapes. A 2019 solo exhibition at TCNJ Art Gallery, Kent opens a new solo to create seductive, Eden-esque works that Zolla/Lieberman Gallery and her curation of endeavor in September at Chicago’s Tiger immerse viewers in color and pattern, but the widely praised group exhibition “What Strikes Asteroid. Titled “Victoria/Veronica,” also within questions about history, memory, Came After: Figurative Painting in Chicago the artist will show drawings, paintings and geographies and gender. She builds lush 1978-1998” demonstrate that Bramson hasn’t objects that explore an autofictional narrative wonderscapes through video, assemblage slowed down one bit. During the pandemic, of twin sisters. The 2019 Artadia awardee will and other media that feel fantastical yet invit- 42

28. MIKA HORIBUCHI 19. ARNOLD KEMP ing. Her most recent exhibition, at Duke Uni- world of healing. Her community-centric son” from a New York Times article, and SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity versity’s Nasher Museum of Art, the culmina- work has been possible in Chicago, where magnifies and layers it hundreds of times, tion of a multi-venue tour, was put on pause she started blkHaUS studios with Norman demonstrating how language fails to express but can be explored online. Patterson has Teague in 2016 to use design as an agent of the grief of the murder of Black men. Valen- upcoming exhibitions across the United change to uplift marginalized communities. tine’s works often convey maddening data States and Europe, including solo shows at Now she has migrated her studio to her back- in intense and compelling ways. “Literacy the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis yard and has been working with writing. As Test: Rorschach” uses iron gall ink to present and Kunsthal Aarhus in Denmark. young Black designers organize in the strug- the form of the gerrymandered electoral gle for racial justice, work she has already districts in North Carolina. She’s at work on T W E N T Y-F I V E done in the past, she is ruminating on the a research project sponsored by the Graham value of writing her stories on “piercing the Foundation, “The Exhibit of American FOL AYEMI wall” to be a maker. “I’m re-evaluating what I Negroes, Revisited,” that considers W.E.B. WILSON have to contribute and the ways I can put that Du Bois’ drawing series visualizing data into the world.” about Black life in 1900 in relation to con- After a two-decade career in two-dimen- temporary data. Expect to see this work at sional design and art direction, Folayemi (Fo) T W E N T Y-S I X Columbia College’s Glass Curtain Gallery. Wilson turned to 3D, studied furniture design She also uses text to inform us about over- and art history, and began making new forms JINA looked histories. Her book “Ticket to the and spaces. Her 2019 “Dark Matter” exhibi- VALENTINE Unknown” draws on work and writing from tion at Hyde Park Art Center expanded the the Art Brut movement, and through Black setting of Southern vernacular architecture Teacher-mother-activist-artist Jina Valen- Lunch Table, a movement she co-founded to new realms, not only centering the hypo- tine’s work spans a compelling spectrum, that fosters discussions around cultural his- thetical occupants, likely Black Americans, often questioning the fallacies of text. “Expli- tory and social justice, she hosts Wikipedia but presenting a possibility of a celestial cation de texte” takes the phrase “shot my 43

2 7. N AT E Y O U N G 26. JINA VALENTINE Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 edit-a-thons to create more histories about Museum’s “A Tale of Today” initiative to build of the Art Institute, in 2013, Horibuchi co- Black artists. Her work is a necessary new works to fit into the interiors and archi- founded 4th Ward Project Space, a noncom- expression of the knowledge we need. tectural design of the building, which will also mercial artist-run exhibition space in Hyde explore his grandfather’s migration story and Park. While her joint Richard H. Driehaus T W E N T Y-S E V E N will be on view when the museum reopens. Museum show with fellow Chicago artist In exploring his grandfather's narrative, Nate Young, slated for earlier this year, does N AT E Young also plans to ride a horse along the not have a date, she has been working on YOUNG same migration path. smaller and smaller drawings, which seem to shrink as time skips forward—although her Nate Young’s work investigates the “frame- T W E N T Y-E I G H T small works still take ample time, her practice works and structures that exist to inform is one of patience: “It comes from a fun place belief or make belief possible,” according to MIKA for me, joy from the craft of it.” the announcement for his recent exhibition, HORIBUCHI “The Transcendence of Time” at Monique T W E N T Y-N I N E Meloche, which used aesthetic tropes from Mika Horibuchi’s paintings are forgivable vio- religious imagery to communicate ideologies lations of our expectations: watercolors made SAM of form, memory, belief and identity. Young from oils, curtains that cannot be drawn. “The KIRK sees himself as “a conceptualist, very invested point isn’t to trick the viewer, necessarily,” she in craft”; he has used materials such as wood, says, “but to reveal the tricks that are happen- Sam Kirk has left her mark all over with her horse bone, graphite and dirt to explore his ing.” She uses trompe l’oeil as a conceptual murals depicting strong and powerful women, own family history, memory, states of fugitiv- framework to set her hyperrealistic works in communities of color and LGBTQIA people in ity and “collapsing time.” Young presents the contexts that seem slightly off, puncturing the her signature multicolored line work and por- work as a parallel to his grandfather's migra- artifice of the art world by first showing she traits. Her socially driven practice is rooted in tion from North Carolina to Philadelphia. He is one of its most fastidious students. Within her identity as a biracial, queer woman, and was recently commissioned by the Driehaus a year of receiving her BFA from the School her advocacy work which has gained her noto- 44

30. DEBORAH STRATMAN 31. SANTIAGO X riety. She created a public installation in 2019 erations search for alternatives to the power Those mediums take the form of arcade SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity in Times Square for World Pride, and a mural structures in which they are complicit. Strat- games, streetwear, the earth. In Chicago, X in Casablanca, where she was the first woman man continues to find solace in Studs Terkel learned of Cahokia, the Indigenous mound and American to participate in the street fes- interviews, a selection of which she has civilization that was the largest city north of tival, CASAMOUJA. Her work has evolved to “ curated for the MCA’s “Chicago Works: Deb- Mexico in the thirteenth century. A citizen of new and uncharted territory,” including work- orah Stratman.” At the center of this exhibition the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana (Koasati) ing with new media like stained glass, which lies Stratman’s 2016 film “The Illinois Para- and Indigenous Chamoru from the Island of she took up during her 2019 residency at the bles,” a documentary on Illinois in eleven Guam U.S.A (Hacha'Maori), X revived the Chicago Art Department, and presented in a chapters, or parables, which show histories Koasati practice of mound-building, con- solo exhibition, ”The Alchemy of Us,” and will of settlement and removal, breakthroughs structing two effigy mounds as part of the show at DePaul Art Musuem’s forthcoming and resistance, and our relationship to the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial—the first LatinXAmerican exhibition. She is collaborat- land marked by these forces. In what is a time such works have been constructed by ing with writer Rosie Thor on illustrations for twelfth chapter of sorts, “Feeling Tone” rec- Indigenous peoples in North America since her first full-color children’s book, “The Mean- reates Terkel’s WFMT radio booth. She the founding of the country. X is fundraising ing of Pride,” and filmmaker Michelle Collins, advises tuning in online to “get a bead on his to erect a monument for a new future, “The on an animated short. feel for the times.” Coiled Serpent” mound in Horner Park, in the hope of unveiling it this year. THIRTY T H I R T Y-O N E THIRT Y-T W O DEBORAH SANTIAGO S T R AT M A N X NICOLE MARROQUIN Deborah Stratman investigates our connec- Art is a response to an idea, and although tions in societal systems through film and Santiago X might not classify what he does Nicole Marroquin’s research-based practice other media as well as public installations. as art, he responds to the complexities of aims to elevate the voices of women and Her most recent film, “Vever (for Barbara),” living in the United States as an Indigenous young people in the fight for social justice. pays tribute to the late Barbara Hammer, the person by creating. After leaving a career in The SAIC professor has focused in recent pioneering queer feminist filmmaker, in an architecture, coming to Zhigaagoong (Chi- years on the Chicago Public School student examination of how filmmakers across gen- cago) was “a catalyst in choosing the medium.” uprisings between 1967-1974; some of that 45

32. NICOLE MARROQUIN 29. SAM KIRK 34. ELIZA MYRIE Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 work was featured in the recent National In her 2019 solo show “Profiles in Lead- Museum of Mexican Art exhibition “40 Años: ership // Drawings without words” at La Esperanza.” She is also fundraising for a Western Exhibitions, she made a suc- project, “Raising an Invisible Monument,” an cessful turn into abstraction, with her augmented-reality app curriculum that aims “textless drawings.” Sokolow feels she’s to teach Benito Juarez Community Academy giving herself space right now to make High School students about their school’s “compelling drawings that don’t involve history. Marroquin, who works across print- words.” “You tell people that you’re work- making, sculpture and ceramics, was recently ing really hard on things these days” is named a member of Justseeds, a cooperative Sokolow’s massive five-panel, twenty- of twenty-nine socially engaged radical art- five-foot-long artwork, currently on dis- ists. play at Scottsdale Museum of Contem- porary Art. Made in 2010, the work is a THIRT Y-THR EE surprisingly stark commentary on themes relating to sheltering in place DEB and isolation in limited surroundings, SOKOLOW which have become all too relatable. Deb Sokolow, who believes “everything is in T H I R T Y-F O U R question,” has always been ahead of the curve, confronting the idiosyncrasies of peo- ELIZA ple in power, and the structures and organi- MYRIE zations that possess power. In the spaces of her drawings, which typically involve text The dynamics of power, representation, elements of play, humor, architectural sche- her Jamaican upbringing, concern and matics and color, Sokolow finds power in inheritance are at the core of Eliza Myrie’s blurring the lines between fact and fiction. work, which has vastly evolved since her 46

36. JENNY KENDLER SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity 3 7. J U D I T H G E I C H M A N 2011-2012 Arts + Public Life residency, where she collected discarded pennies for her proj- ect “Well.” The 2020 Artadia awardee, known for working with small objects, prints and text, has been exploring large-scale sculpture and performance. “Ring” investigates dominance and submission in objects and humans, and explores the limitations of both. Her 2019 “ garden/ruinate” show at The Arts Club of Chicago, where she constructed a gate inspired by the landscape of Jamaica, cri- tiqued literal and figurative notions of security and access when thinking of the politics of the space she was activating. Myrie, who is also the co-founder of the Black Artists Retreat, describes her work as a “con- tinuum” and a “work in progress,” which she is excited to further explore as she pre- pares for Chicago Manual Style’s ”Four Flags” project, work on her ongoing project ”Sand- walls,” inspired by her father’s stone masonry and a 2021 exhibition at Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. 47

ART 50 Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 These folks are so T H I R T Y-F I V E a limited-edition vinyl mix for Aram Han well-established and foundational Sifuentes' Official Unofficial Voting Station, SADIE which reimagines voting for all who legally to the art world of Chicago WOODS can’t vote. She also continues radio residen- that they are always near cies at Lumpen and Vocalo. Sadie Wood’s sonic explorations run deeper the top of the list. than her role as a DJ. Her sound and sculp- T H I R T Y-S I X tural projects were exhibited at Heaven Gal- ALBERTO AGUILAR lery, as a part of The Petty Biennial, which JENNY DAWOUD BEY she co-founded with La Keisha Leek. Her KENDLER NICK CAVE solo exhibition “Coyaba” (2019) at Connect JULIA FISH Gallery showcased wooden music boxes, Jenny Kendler has mastered the art of lever- original scores and visual representations of aging elements from the nonhuman natural TONY FITZPATRICK movement, memory and family history. Her world—be it amber, kudzu or a whale’s ear L ATOYA RUBY FR AZIER recent work has engaged public space, radio bone—into pieces that draw us to examine and social media. “It Was a Rebellion Mixtape” the nuances of our surroundings. Kendler’s DIANNA FRID combines music from the civil rights era and work is as pervasive as nature itself. Her proj- THEASTER GATES speeches to explore “the public expression ect “1000 Flags/1000 Waters,” in which blue of Black rage.” She has participated in the flags are dispatched to communities advo- RICHARD HUNT South Side Home Movie Project, and most cating for clean water, was featured in the BARBARA KASTEN recently the MCA’s In Progress series, to pre- MCA’s exhibition “Water After All.” A selection JUDY LEDGERWOOD miere her sonic work, ”Catch These Ancestral of sculptures on threatened bird species will Hands.” Her residency at THE cre.ae.tive JOSÉ LERMA ROOM in South Shore will allow time for 35. SADIE WOODS LOU MALLOZZI upcoming projects, such as “Party As Protest,” IÑIGO MANGLANO-OVALLE KERRY JAMES MARSHALL JIM NUTT WILLIAM J. O'BRIEN DAN PETERMAN WILLIAM POPE.L MICHAEL RAKOWITZ RICHARD REZAC CARLOS ROLÓN DIANE SIMPSON JESSICA STOCKHOLDER TONY TASSET TEMPORARY SERVICES JAN TICHY CHRIS WARE ANNE WILSON KARL WIRSUM 48

39. AYANAH MOOR 41. HUONG NGÔ be shown at Vienna’s Dom Museum, and nections between the social and the environ- remains as excited as ever by her practice. SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity “Music for Elephants,” a score played on an mental in support of a unifying movement “The dance between yes and no, what stays ivory-keyed piano that counts the number of toward justice. or goes, what’s lost, and found, makes paint- elephants poached for their tusks, will be ing feel immediate, vital, alive, and in the featured in the Smithsonian National T H I R T Y-S E V E N moment of right now,” she says. A longtime Museum of Natural History. Her first solo professor of painting and drawing at SAIC, exhibition opens at the MSU Broad Museum JUDITH Geichman will have a 2021 solo exhibition at in January 2021 and includes a piece that GEICHMAN Regards, where she is represented. highlights how the structure of venomous sea snail’s shell directly contradicts the theory of Judith Geichman doesn’t merely put brush to T H I R T Y-E I G H T intelligent design. As an activist, Kendler canvas; she molds her paintings into being, takes her works to the streets through move- using found objects to scrape and mold gor- ALICE ments like Extinction Rebellion, where she geous, expressive abstractions. Now in her TIPPIT incorporates communal art activities into seventies, Geichman has exhibited widely in environmentalist nonviolent direct actions. In Chicago (Artemisia Gallery, Julius Caesar Alice Tippit likes to pare down her paintings, this moment where the call for social justice Gallery, Chicago Cultural Center) and beyond leaving only a spare amount of visual infor- is high, she is pushing to articulate the con- (NADA Miami, Mahan Gallery in Columbus, mation for the viewer to parse. An oversized Ohio, the Evanston Art Center). The artist pair of lips, a disembodied limb stretching 49

40. NORMAN LONG 42. RASHAYLA MARIE BROWN Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 across the canvas. Her solo exhibition at aesthetics. “I let the idea, the questions, lead listening garden this year at the Jeffery Manor Patron this summer was named for a type of the form,” she says. The SAIC professor has Branch library’s Reading Garden. For several sea snail known to camouflage itself to blend work on view in a group exhibition at Geor- years, he has recorded the sound and fol- in with its atmosphere, as Tippit likes to think gia’s Zuckerman Museum of Art and is cre- lowed the revitalization of Big Marsh Park, of language, which shifts meaning over time. ating a public artwork this September on the capturing what resilience sounds like. “Afri- Her interest in text was also visible in her 2019 DePaul Art Museum billboards at the Fuller- can Americans in these communities where solo exhibition “Still Life With Volcano,” at ton El station. disinvestment takes place experience and L.A.’s Grice Bench, which was inspired by the witness this disconnection to our environ- economical lines of Emily Dickinson. Tippit FORTY ment, economy, sense of self and place,” he looks forward to a solo exhibition at Nicelle says. “With soundwalks we are brought back Beauchene Gallery’s new location in October. NORMAN to our bodies, our time and our space.” Long LONG is at work on a live sound piece inspired by T H I R T Y-N I N E the work of Afro-Cuban artist Belkis Ayón and Sound artist Norman Long uses his work to will perform virtually at the High Zero festival AYA N A H connect people with their community, history, in September. MOOR culture and ecology. Originally a sculptor, Long trained in landscape architecture at F O R T Y-O N E For her upcoming solo exhibition at the Cleve Cornell; he likes to bring the context of land- Carney Museum of Art, Ayanah Moor is revis- scape into his projects, whether leading a HUONG iting painting, which the artist hasn’t worked soundwalk, making field recordings or creat- NGÔ in since the nineties. Moor’s conceptual work ing a sound map. Recent work has explored incorporates multiple disciplines, often cri- sites that are subject to disinvestment, “From the outside many times over,” interdis- tiquing contemporary pop culture and media, although the natural world continues to ciplinary artist Hương Ngô examines history and is situated within the tradition of Black regenerate. Long installed a neighborhood and stories in search of what needs to be 50