pulled into the present, addressing SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity archival silences. Born in Hong Kong, Ngô grew up as a refugee in the South. This year, the hundredth anniversary of the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment, she is contributing to the Renaissance Society’s “Nine Lives,” part of the Feminist Art Coalition, a platform showcasing feminism-inspired projects at museums across the country this fall. For “Nine Lives,” Ngô will revisit an archive of women who were part of the anti-colonial movement in Vietnam. She often works between France and Viet- nam and says, “Chicago is a place that didn’t give its full story to me when I first moved here. I had to take the time to learn it. The more I’ve learned it, the more I feel attached to it, and it’s resonated in ways that really surprise me.” FORT Y-T W O R ASHAYL A MARIE BROWN According to \"undisciplinary\" art- ist-scholar Rashayla Marie Brown, “choosing to be an artist is an exer- cise in what your priorities are.” Brown’s priorities are made clear (with much vulnerability), through installation design, photography, performance, writing, criticism, video art and film directing. Brown’s work and words have been featured in publications including Artforum, Chicago magazine, Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art, Pros- pect.4 New Orleans and the cover of the Reader. This past year Brown released “The Court of Public Opin- ion,” a performance and film project that addresses ethics and financial exploitation—an area Brown has expressed much concern, from her criticism of the art world to Black women’s ownership of their ideas. Brown has been thinking more deeply about reaching audiences beyond the art world. The most natural turn in her practice is dedi- cating more time to filmmaking; she recently wrapped part two of “Real- ity Is Not Good Enough,” a project she feels has identified where her real and immediate support sys- tems are. “Reality Isn’t Good Enough” is anticipated to show at film festivals, with a public release in 2021. 4 5. D E V I N T. M AY S 51
46. JEN DELOS REYES 43. YVETTE MAYORGA FORT Y-THR EE F O R T Y-F O U R his collages will adorn Hyde Park Art Center's kitchen as part of the upcoming exhibition, YVETTE THOMAS \"Artists Run Chicago 2.0.\" M AYO R G A KONG Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 Yvette Mayorga’s work tells “untold stories Kim's Corner Food owner Thomas Kong F O R T Y-F I V E with frosting through a feminist perspective.” makes collages of simple shapes and vibrant Her vibrantly textured fiber-based work compositions. Inspired by the mindful nature DEVIN T. focuses on the layered immigrant experience of making, the artist has repurposed the M AY S in the United States, and the violence that store's leftover packaging to create thou- comes with it, one of the most pressing social sands of paper works, covering the store's Basketballs, Newport cigarette boxes, long issues of the day. This has deepened her walls and shelves. Kong and friend and col- swaths of plastic sheeting, Craigslist ads. As commitment to “rewrite Art History.” Her work laborator Dan Miller transformed the store's Devin T. Mays says, “Things are always mate- into 2021 will traverse art spaces from New storage room in 2015 into The Back Room, rializing when everything is material.” The York to North Carolina, California and Spain. which is now a repository for Kong's works University of Chicago graduate, whose prac- The DePaul Art Museum recently added and an exhibition space as well as home to tice includes performance and highly con- her piece, ”A Vase of the Century 1 (After Cen- The Back Room 2018 residency series. Kong's ceptual visual art, considers his work a tury Vase c. 1876),” into their permanent col- collages overtook the \"Economic Shop\" cor- shared encounter between himself and the lection; Mayorga was also a 2010 Artadia ner store for the Counterpublic 2019 triennial viewer. A 2020 Driehaus Museum Emerging award finalist. in St. Louis. In coordination with 062 Gallery, Artist Fellow, Mays has been delving into the moving image. His ongoing, evolving project 52
48. LATHAM ZEARFOSS 47. R H O N D A W H E AT L E Y “All Things are True” is made up of cellphone ference Open Engagement (which is on ness-expanding visual artwork and work- SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity footage and documentation of past perfor- pause to assess the needs of the field). In shops. Since 2015, Wheatley’s exploratory mances. Another project in the works, “The the time away Reyes has explored other workshops, which incorporate journaling, Day I Met The Sun,” joins text and video in endeavors, like long-term care, her role as tarot readings and group oracle perfor- a visual poem, drawing from the 1970s TV an arts educator invested in “radical peda- mances, have taken place in spaces includ- show “Soul!” gogy, social justice and liberation,” and ing Gallery 400 and 6018North and through her residency at the National Museum of Creative Capital. Wheatley’s 2017 Hyde Park F O R T Y-S I X Public Housing, where she will spearhead Art Center solo exhibition included collaged two major projects before the election, one sculptures, the elements of which, including JEN DELOS with their Civic Love Campaign and ”Artists radios, barnacles and telephones, invited REYES in Presidents.” viewers to connect with the past, resolve trauma and come to terms with death. Jen Delos Reyes has lived many lives since F O R T Y-S E V E N Wheatley is deliberate in the selection of her her days in Winnipeg as an organizer, zine transcendental objects—no item in a sculp- maker and band member. She focuses her RHONDA ture is without deep meaning and intention. practice on finding art in the everyday and W H E AT L E Y Wheatley will soon take part in a hybrid virtual public engagement. She builds on her role as and in-person Loghaven Artist Residency in associate director of the School of Art and Rhonda Wheatley leads people on meta- Knoxville, where she intends to leverage her Art History at University of Illinois-Chicago, physical journeys in pursuit of health and musical experience to create meditative, as well as founder of the socially driven con- radical self-acceptance through conscious- 53
50. CHERYL POPE 49. RODRIGO LARA mind-altering sound pieces. Wheatley’s work and the assistant director for the non-profit while “Polyrhythm & Paradiddle” presents a of self-exploration and nurturing is as neces- Open Engagement, which supports socially “literal and complex twisting of classical por- sary as ever. engaged art. traiture in sculpture.” F O R T Y-E I G H T F O R T Y-N I N E FIFTY L ATHAM RODRIGO CHERYL ZEARFOSS LARA POPE Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 Making a priority of work outside the studio, Based between Chicago and his native Mex- Multidisciplinary artist Cheryl Pope took an Latham Zearfoss' art practice elevates iden- ico, Rodrigo Lara is motivated by the pro- intimate turn in her work in her 2019 solo tity formation and place-making for those on cess of becoming, mining personal memo- exhibition at Monique Meloche. For the art- the margins. As an organizer for anti-racist ries and materials to create work. Trained in ist’s fourth solo show with the gallery, Pope collective Make Yourself Useful, they recently sculpture and ceramics, Lara works across created “paintings” using unspun wool nee- were part of a workshop series on direct disciplines, incorporating sound or drawing dle-punched into a fabric support, depicting action for white accomplices in response to to create complex installations. Following a romantic scenes of biracial lovers. It might uprisings. As cultural liaison for the Chicago 2019 solo show at Test Site Projects in Las seem like a stark departure from previous Park District, they are working with local art- Vegas and the group exhibition “Cross Cur- projects, which were more overtly focused on ists on the Cultural Asset Mapping Project rents,” shown at the Smart Museum and social concerns, yet the Chicago-born artist (C.A.M.P.), an initiative to chart cultural Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales makes it clear that love and desire aren’t free spaces and uplift community storytellers in in Havana, he is slated to have a solo exhi- of societal complexity. Pope is continuing this neighborhoods on the South and West Side. bition at Governors State University’s Visual series, “expanding into some of the complex- Zearfoss says that \"the designation of cultural Arts Gallery. Lara is at work on two projects: ities that emerge from vulnerability and inti- space, what gets uplifted as relevant, should “Ephemeral Memorials” takes on the ephem- macy.” She will also take part in the MCA be determined collectively.\" Zearfoss is also eral nature of tombs in Mexican cemeteries, pandemic-themed show “The Long Dream,” a Chicago Artists Coalition 2020 Bolt resident which families rent for a fixed amount of time, opening in November. 54
“Windows to the World” at Justice Hotel at 6018North Curators from the Justice Hotel at 6018North asked eleven artists to create street-viewable artworks to spark dialogue with the community about justice. AJ McClenon created T-shirts memorializing the death of the United States, Mashaun Hendricks hung banners on the fence which ask who benefits from the criminal justice system. In response to COVID-19, the exhibition will be progressively installed throughout the fall. Arts & Culture“Selfless”byAudraS.Jacot
Newcity SEPTEMBER Victoria Woodhull, Belva Ann Lockwood, Abigail Scott Duniway, Laura Clay, Cora Wilson Stewart, Gracie Allen, Anna Milburn, Ellen Linea Jensen, Mary Kennery, Agnes Waters, Margaret Chase Smith, Fay T. Carpenter Swain, Charlene Mitchell, Shirley Chisholm, Linda Jenness, Evelyn Reed, Bella Savitzky Abzug, Patsy Takamoto Mink, Margaret Wright, Barbara Jordan, Ellen McCormack, Deirdre Griswold, Koryne Kaneski Horbal, Maureen Smith, Alice Tripp, Gavrielle Holmes, Sonia Johnson, Martha Kirkland, Tonie Nathan, Mary Ruwart, Wynonia Burke, Lenora Fulani, Willa Kenoyer, Mamie Moore, Patricia Schroeder, Georgiana Doerschuck, Helen Halyard, Caroline Killeen, Gloria La Riva, Isabell Masters, Tennie Rogers, Susan Gail Ducey, Elvena Lloyd-Duffie, Marsha Feinland, Dr. Heather Anne Harder, Mary Cal Hollis, Jo Jorgensen, Mary “France” Letulle, Monica Moorehead, Diane Beall Templin, Cathy Gordon Brown, Angel Joy Chavis Rocker, Elizabeth Dole, Dorian Yeager, Katherine Bateman, Joanne Bier Beeman, Sheila Bilyeu, Carol Moseley Braun, Jeanne Chebib, Mildred T. Glover, Millie Howard, Carol A. Miller, Lorna Salzman, Florence Walker, Elaine Brown, Hillary Clinton, Nan Garrett, Cynthia McKinney, Christine Smith, Kat Swift, Roseanne Barr, Peta Lindsay, Jill Stein, Michele Bachmann, Khadijah Jacob-Fambro, Carly Fiorina, Alyson Kennedy, Lynn S. Kahn, Cherie Deville, Souraya Faas, Tulsi Gabbard, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Kim Ruff, Elizabeth Warren, Marianne Williamson Installation by Kathryn Andrews ON VIEW SEPT 7 — DEC 20 Image courtesy of Kathryn Andrews Anthem September 11–December 19 Bethany Collins, Jaclyn Conley, Eve L. Ewing, Mike Gibisser, Naima Green, Ellen Rothenberg, Sanaz Sohrabi ANTHEM.WEINBERGNEWTONGALLERY.COM 56
Art understand the breach between the world and me... I drew great joy from the study, from the struggle... the struggle has ruptured and remade me several times over... The changes have awarded me a rapture that comes only when you no longer can be lied to. Sasha Phyars Burgess/BLESSED, AUSTIN, CHICAGO, 2018 “I hold that quote so close to my heart because I'm not gaining knowledge for the sake of having it. It’s so that when people lie to me, I know it,” Phyars-Burgess says. Following Coates, the lie is the Dream. That prosperity, care and health are afforded to every Chicago- an is the Dream. What determined histories and dreams have in common is that they both exist within abstraction, rupture and fragmentation. This realization, as much as erased facts and figures coming to light through study, folds into the territory of no longer accepting the lie. To Be Determined I hesitate to give a compressed version of how the city of Chicago's mayors, alderpeople and On Sasha Phyars-Burgess and the Work of Abstraction officials, as well as capitalists, made it so that people living in Austin have not and will not By Stephanie Koch attain the Dream. The modes of spatial production that made the Dream only available Locate 41.8949° N, 87.7654° W and you can art liberate, investigate, interrogate, to a few did so by abstracting relations and SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity are positioned on the far West Side of present new possibilities, offer a reflection of lived experiences. The fragmentation of space, Chicago in the neighborhood of South Austin. society, create a visual identity?” But you can of Austin’s neighborhood, can be observed in You are on the corner of Chicago and Central take the time to study and learn of the multiple countless examples of the slicing of space into Avenues, to be precise. I know of those relations that come together to form this discrete parcels à la redlining and blockbusting. coordinates and of that place because of concrete reality in Austin. These spatial fragments, these blocks where Sasha Phyars-Burgess’ project: \"UNTITLED Black people live and work, went through AND YET TO BE DETERMINED, 41.8949° N, I will say that when you get the history, you processes of legislation that allowed their entry 87.7654° W (AUSTIN).\" Austin, the site of her cannot deny it—there is an unabashedly racist, into cycles of capital accumulation circulated photographic study, is a community area that predatory and coordinated effort between real between real estate developers, investors, has historically been disregarded by the city of estate agents, banks, developers, employers, business people and officials. These legal and Chicago within their strategic plans for government officials and police departments economic expressions of spatial fragmentation investment and social services. Within her that go deep into the past. Coupled with lack are then reinforced by how disciplines—dare I project, one can see a duality of photogra- of care and acknowledgment by the mayor, include artistic practice?—carve up space phy's work. In a space between art and city council and other community stakeholders, according to their pursuit. So again I will say, in documentary, indeterminacy and precision, the abandonment of the people who live in a society so deeply constituted by abstractions, Phyars-Burgess undertakes figuring the Austin and the neglect of their infrastructure adding another condensed narrative of violence, community of Austin and the continues more or less unmitigated. trauma and divestment might not be helpful. people who live there. The last time Phyars-Burgess and I discussed Within abstract space, the Black body is This is the part when I present the current her work, she brought Ta-Nehisi Coates’ divided into particular uses and values attached condition of Austin—vacant lots and “Between the World and Me” to the to them, so that there is a parallel between the foreclosures, food deserts, school closures, a conversation: ways that “space is … carved up” and how the fourteen-percent unemployment rate, gun body is “cut into pieces.” This process is not violence—before I pose a version of the I have spent much of my studies searching happenstance, one misguided policy after question, “How did we get here? And how for the right question by which I might fully another, but is strategically pursued by a combined force of political institutions and capitalist agenda. This spatial abstraction creates a rift of familiarity between the center and the periphery, between the city and Austin. The process of abstracting space, transforming a person or place into data sets, figures of speech and bylines, makes for ethical ease and efficient work when pulling resources from the South and Far West Sides 57
ONE before turning around and funneling community ing more capital into Austin (although, yes and RECOMMENDATION services and development funding into the yes). The question is how do you live in a Black Lakefront, North Side and West Loop. body? After the Black body has reached such a McArthur Binion point of abstraction, you could lose your body “DNA:Work and the Under: Phyars-Burgess came to Chicago two years just by being you, by living. And as much as Conscious Drawings” Gray ago by way of her 2018 Diane Dammeyer one might interrogate and challenge the iterative Warehouse. Look closely at the Fellowship for the Photographic Arts and Social violence on Black bodies and their communities, eight paintings on view from Issues sponsored by Columbia College that question is unanswerable. Binion’s “DNA:Work” series, and Chicago and Heartland Alliance. The latter has you might come across James many social programs. The fellowship brought How does one apply the tools and practice of art Baldwin’s old phone number or her into proximity of two: READI (Rapid to the study of an unanswerable question? snippets of the artist’s childhood Employment and Development Initiative) and Photography has an empirical value to capture a home. While the minimalist Mae Suites. READI is a program which focuses scene, hold it so that one might look at a fleeting oil-stick paintings might appear on engaging those that Heartland Alliance finds moment, again and again, to find something as simple grids from afar, a to be most affected by gun violence, young unseen and offer a conclusive end. But for closer view reveals details from men, through a combination of transitional jobs, Phyars-Burgess, photography does not hold Binion’s personal phone book, cognitive behavioral therapy and follow-up historical truths and the work, through all of her birth certificate and photographs coaching. Mae Suites is studio housing in study of people living in Austin, does not add of his childhood home. Binion’s Austin and Phyars-Burgess’ work there was black-and-white clarity or defined contours and work has long used intimate made possible by support provided by Sharon edges. “I feel like I'm trying to explain something details to create deeply emotive Tenard, Mae Suites' case manager. that is unexplainable, which is like what it is to be abstractions. These drawings Black and alive,” Phyars-Burgess says. “I am are similarly powerful, featuring Another group of Heartland Alliance programs aware that even in my desire to explain, I'm marks made by both hands includes five child detention centers for failing all the time because it's unexplainable. To simultaneously, an impressive unaccompanied immigrant minors under be a double negative, a double negative all the contract from the U.S. Department of Health time—Black and alive—to be in constant feat of labor and concentration. and Human Services’ Office of Refugee abstraction is to be unexplainable, is to be Resettlement in cooperation with U.S. unreadable. It is to be unintelligible.” Opens September 10 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The space here cannot hold both Austin and Nonetheless, to dismiss abstract space and 58 the psychological trauma alleged against these reorient wholly toward lived experience would Heartland Alliance facilities. But it is important be an overcorrection. The mechanics of to note the relation. Although the Heartland photography, particularly the visual language Alliance can do great work in one community of black-and-white photography lends itself area (READI, Mae Suites), in other areas they to the idea that it delivers clear truths. But for reinscribe the obfuscating, violent work that Phyars-Burgess’ project it is just as much created these spaces of neglect in the first about holding a space of beauty as it is docu- place. That is the system and processes by menting people living. “Sometimes someone which the Heartland Alliance houses unaccom- just does something and I'm like, damn, that panied children, the regulation and compres- really knocked me out,\" she says. \"I want to sion of testimony and biometric data accord- photograph that, like a walk down the street ing to the terms created by ICE, is no different in a certain way. They lean a certain way. than the processes which led to Austin’s They, you know, scratch their head above current conditions. their eye. Anything.” As a beneficiary of Heartland Alliance's The people living in Austin are not included in support and working alongside their other the canon of beauty. But they look at you, you programs, Phyars-Burgess has questioned her look at them and they are beautiful. When position and complicity within the overarching looking at Phyars-Burgess’ images, it is in the beauty of their bodies, their gestures that a structure. The answer is still unclear. But the question lives alongside Phyars-Burgess’ work moment of absorption occurs. One’s attention is brought wholly to a point and that engage- which focuses on those living in spite of an ongoing slow crisis (which has escalated in the ment produces a space in a way that canonical midst of the pandemic). Her image-making is a notions of beauty cannot. This project does not document the truths or lies of Austin’s history study of living in abstracted space: \"I'm and current state. Rather, they hold a moment fractured, there's a fracture in the thing that for one to look at and look at again. we do, being in these bodies. My skin has made me blank, but my skin has also made me visible. I feel like that sounds like madness, This moment of absorption is the spatial but I've been trying to understand this thing. abstraction that Phyars-Burgess produces within her work. It is a moment in which to Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 What's it like to be an abstraction, to be suspend the fragments of space and the self— fractured constantly, to be in six different places at once, to be virtual and in reality and yours, mine, ours—so one can see the many behind, and perhaps that is the experience of fractures and relations that feel intangible and being a human being. But I think that there is inexplicably linked, the nodes and connections something particular about being Black, that that make it so being Black and alive is a asks of you to be in multiple places at once.\" double negative. And in that abstracted space of suspension, one is allowed a moment to look The question for study here is not quite how do deeply, not to fully comprehend and answer, but we create a more equitable system that ensures “to question what I see, then to question what I safety and well-being for all; the answer is not see after that, because the questions matter as as concrete as defunding police and contribut- much, perhaps more than, the answers.\"
Upkeep October 16 - March 20 Elliott Jerome Brown, Jr., Lenka Clayton, Sara Cwynar Bronwyn Katz, Chancellor Maxwell, Lily van der Stokker Providing Sfreke,yaAcceRssiTble, creative Lily van der Stokker, Pulling out Hairs from the Drain, 2015. Acrylic on wood panel. 42.52 x 49.61 in. Courtesy of the artist and kaufmann repetto, Milan / New York programs for youth since 2001! In response to an unprecedented 312.787.3997 @artsclubchicago mental health and educational crisis [email protected] for our youngest and most vulnerable, SkyART expanded its Project Impact 40 acres program to provide FREE one-on-one 50 sculptures and group art therapy sessions facilitated 90 minutes by our growing roster of therapists to FROM CHICAGO youth throughout Chicago. viSrWteupaoltnfe’utmnydobruaeijsroeir2n4suutsphfpooartrtI6in:3g 0tAhpiRsmTnefoeordnead Barbara Hepworth, Sea Form (Atlantic), 1964 SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity and necessary program? Courtesy of Bowness, Hepworth Estate. Photo: Claire Ruzicka. The event will be hosted on our website lyndensculpturegarden.org at skyart.org/i-heart-art 2145 W Brown Deer Rd, Milwaukee, WI 53217 59
EXHIBITIONS THE ARTS CLUB OF CHICAGO GRAHAM FOUNDATION 201 East Ontario Street 4 W. Burton Place 312 787 3997 312 787 4071 [email protected] / www.artsclubchicago.org [email protected] / www.grahamfoundation.org Tues–Fri 10-6, Sat 11-3 (subject to change due to COVID-19) Visit our website and follow us on social media @grahamfoundation Viewing available online @artsclubchicago or www.artsclubchicago.org Artist-in-residence: Anna Martine Whitehead, FORCE! Through September 26 Jennie C. Jones: Constant Structure June–September Garden Project | Marissa Lee Benedict, an opera in three acts David Rueter, Daniel de Paula: Repose GRAY THE BLOCK MUSEUM OF ART Richard Gray Gallery, Hancock: 875 N. Michigan Avenue, 38th Floor Mon–Fri 10-5:30, Sat by appointment (subject to change due to COVID-19) At Northwestern University 40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston, IL Gray Warehouse, 2044 W. Carroll Avenue 847 491 4000 Mon–Fri by appointment [email protected] / www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu Join us as we #MuseumFromHome on social at @nublockmuseum 312 642 8877 and https://bit.ly/TheBlockFromHome [email protected] / www.richardgraygallery.com September 10–October 31 McArthur Binion: DNA:Work and the CARL HAMMER GALLERY Under:Conscious Drawings (Gray Warehouse) 740 N. Wells Street 312 266 8512 KAVI GUPTA GALLERY [email protected] / www.carlhammergallery.com Tues–Sat 11-5:30 (subject to change due to COVID-19) Kavi Gupta | Washington Blvd., 835 W. Washington Boulevard September 12–November 28 Sincerely . . . an exhibition of works Tues–Fri 10-6, Sat 11-5 (subject to change due to COVID-19) by H.C. Westermann and Ray Johnson Kavi Gupta | Elizabeth St., 219 N. Elizabeth Street Thurs–Fri 10-6, Sat 11-5 (subject to change due to COVID-19) DEPAUL ART MUSEUM 312 432 0708 At DePaul University [email protected] / www.kavigupta.com 935 W. Fullerton Avenue Visit online at https://website-kavigupta.artlogic.net/ 773 325 7506 Through September 12 Beverly Fishman: Studies on Relief [email protected] / artmuseum.depaul.edu September 10–December 26 Deborah Kass: Solo Exhibition September 7–December 20 DPAM Window Installation by Kathryn (Kavi Gupta | Washington Blvd.) Andrews: Victoria Woodhull, Belva Ann Lockwood, Abigail Scott Duniway, Laura Clay, LOGAN CENTER EXHIBITIONS Cora Wilson Stewart, Gracie Allen, Anna Millburn, Ellen Linea Jensen, Mary Kennery, Agnes Waters, Margaret Chase Smith, Fay T. Carpenter Swain, Charlene Mitchell, Shirley At the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts Chisholm, Linda Jenness, Evelyn Reed, Bella Savitzky Abzug, Patsy Takamoto Mink, 915 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637 Margaret Wright, Barbara Jordan, Ellen McCormack, Deirdre Griswold, Koryne Kaneski 773 702 2787 Horbal, Maureen Smith, Alice Tripp, Gavrielle Holmes, Sonia Johnson, Martha Kirland, [email protected] / arts.uchicago.edu/logan/gallery Tonie Nathan, Mary Ruwart, Wynonia Burke, Lenora Fulani, Willa Kenoyer, Mamie Tues–Sat 9-9, Sun 11-9, Mon closed Moore, Patricia Schroeder, Georgiana Doerschuck, Helen Halyard, Caroline Killeen, (subject to change due to COVID-19) Gloria La Riva, Isabell Masters, Tennie Rogers, Susan Gaii Ducey, Elvena Lloyd-Duffie, Please contact gallery for more information. Marsha Feinland, Dr. Heather Anne Harder, Mary Cal Hollis, Jo Jorgensen, Mary “France” Letulle, Monica Moorehead, Diane Beall Templin, Cathy Gordon Brown, Angel Joy Chavis Rocker, Elizabeth Dole, Dorian Yeager, Katherine Bateman, Joanne Bier Beeman, Sheila Bilyeu, Carol Moseley Braun, Jeanne Chebib, Mildred T. Glover, Millie Howard, Carol A. Miller, Lorna Salzman, Florence Walker, Elaine Brown, Hillary Clinton, Nan Garrett, Cynthia McKinney, Mary Ruwart, Christine Smith, Kat Swift, Roseanne Barr, Peta Lindsay, Jill Stein, Michele Bachmann, Khadijah Jacob-Fambro, Carly Fiorina, Alyson Kennedy, Lynn S. Kahn, Cherie Deville, Souraya Faas, Tulsi Gabbard, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Kim Ruff, Elizabeth Warren, Marianne Williamson
MONIQUE MELOCHE GALLERY THE RENAISSANCE SOCIETY 451 N. Paulina Street At the University of Chicago 312 243 2129 5811 S. Ellis Ave., Cobb Hall, 4th Floor [email protected] / www.moniquemeloche.com 773 702 8670 Open by appointment [email protected] / www.renaissancesociety.org September 12–October 31 Jake Troyli: Don’t Forget to Pack a Lunch! Tues–Wed, Fri 10-5, Thurs 10-8, Sat–Sun 12-5 (subject to change due to COVID-19) MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY Please contact The Renaissance Society for more information. PHOTOGRAPHY RHONA HOFFMAN GALLERY At Columbia College Chicago 600 S. Michigan Avenue 1711 W. Chicago Avenue 312 663 5554 312 455 1990 [email protected] / www.mocp.org [email protected] / www.rhoffmangallery.com Tues–Wed 10-5, Thurs 10-8, Fri–Sat 10-5 Tues–Fri 11-5 (subject to change due to COVID-19) Please schedule an appointment through Tock: July 7–September 19 Temporal: Puerto Rican Resistance exploretock.com/rhonahoffmangallery October 1–December 23 What Does Democracy Look Like? or by emailing [email protected]. Subject to change. Please visit mocp.org for up-to-date information September 11–October 31 Spencer Finch: looking around, and to reserve a free ticket. gazing intently, beholding THE NEUBAUER COLLEGIUM SMART MUSEUM OF ART FOR CULTURE AND SOCIETY At the University of Chicago At the University of Chicago 5550 S. Greenwood Avenue 5701 South Woodlawn Avenue 773 702 0200 773 795 2329 [email protected] / www.smartmuseum.uchicago.edu [email protected] / neubauercollegium.uchicago.edu Gallery closed until further notice. Fall 2020 Take Care Through December 21 Apsáalooke Women and Warriors Fall 2020 Claudia Wieser: Generations Please contact the Smart for updates on hours and dates. POETRY FOUNDATION WRIGHTWOOD 659 61 W. Superior Street 659 W. Wrightwood Avenue 312 787 7070 773 437 6601 [email protected] / www.poetryfoundation.org [email protected] / wrightwood659.org Check poetryfoundation.org/visit for updates on our Thurs–Sat by reservation only. $15 tickets only available online. current exhibition and hours. September 9–December 12 Balkrishna Doshi: Architecture for the People ZHOU B ART CENTER 1029 W. 35th Street 773 523 0200 [email protected] / www.zhoubartcenter.com Mon–Sat 10-3 August 7–November Centerline 2020 (open by appointment)
Design Space Jam DESIGN TOP 5 Bridging Creativity, Innovation and Community 1 Balkrishna Doshi: with BRNDHAUS PL-ZEN Architecture for the People. Wrightwood 659. Sixty years of By Vasia Rigou receive the Pritzker Prize. Opening Creativity and community collaboration Absolut vodka, Adidas, Coca-Cola, Diageo, September 9 have always been in the forefront for Otis D. Disney and Google, and a global presence— Gibson and Heather Knapp. “Five years ago, 2 A Space Problem: GERTRUDE relocated its headquarters to York, too—GERTRUDE was off to the next Organized by David Salkin. Pilsen to better align the agency’s foundation Elmhurst Art Museum. Mid-century in fostering a culture of creativity, global creative and entrepreneurial community. Enter furnishings and design objects innovation and brand development with what BRNDHAUS PL-ZEN. alongside work by local artists and we view as one of Chicago’s most dynamic, architects. Through November 15 creative and inspiring communities vital for the Bauhaus movement and German art school city’s creative future,” says Gibson, GER- 3 Side by Side. Barnsworth Gallery, Farnsworth House. Newcity together with Knapp, the company’s president, the newly renovated 35,000-square-foot, A photography exhibition bringing leads its design and digital-branding division, seven-city-lot property turned into a hub two iconic houses together: the OZ MFG. and branded architecture and dedicated to the development, consumer Farnsworth House by Mies van der environmental design component, RAYE. With co-creation, incubation and activation of Rohe and the Glass House by Philip a clientele that includes companies such as brands. Or as Gibson describes it: an Johnson. Opening September 13 4 Bauhaus Chicago: Design in the City. Art Institute of Chicago. Contemplate the Bauhaus in the light of the German school’s centenary. Through Fall 2020 5 CAC@Home: CAC LIVE. Chicago Architecture Center. Rediscover Chicago with virtual tours that highlight the city’s rich architectural histories. Through September 2020 62
innovation brand factory. “The two-year-long filmed there last year), customizable brand broadcasting service for virtual-cast meetings development is a transformational one that rooms, gallery and event spaces, even a and events. Then he can focus on what he brings a new façade, energy and opportunity garden. Served throughout the BRNDHAUS does best: guiding, shaping and activating to the twenty-year-vacant property located at PL-ZEN cafés and bars? Their signature coffee brands to their potential. 1727 West 21st Street; the heart of Chicago’s (HAUSBLEND Kaffee), beer (HAUSBREW Pilsner) and cocktails (HAUSMIX Cocktails). “As innovators and entrepreneurs we dynamic Pilsen neighborhood,” he says. have an ability to see the positive side of There, creative leaders, thinkers and doers “GERTRUDE is creating a concept with the big changes—even difficult changes,” says come together. Operating under the GER- agency’s own mark of design craftsmanship, Gibson, who had to adapt and evolve, imagination and branding that will see closer following the measures enforced by the TRUDE creative umbrella and with the collaboration between our clients, consumers, pandemic. “The idea for the BRNDHAUS company’s year-long expertise in the and a wide array of disciplines across the PL-ZEN came about at an opportune time marketing realm, BRNDHAUS PL-ZEN is a Chicago creative community within a modern, when we were ready to push GERTRUDE one-stop destination for bringing a brand to life—from planning and strategy, to consumer premium, mercurial working environment that forward to the next level. After two very perfectly aligns with Pilsen’s reputation as a intense years of realizing the vision, we have testing and co-creation, to branding, to forward-looking hub for the city’s creativity and a brand-new curve ball in navigating a whole communications, to creating and activating new set of challenges with COVID-19. But culture,” says Gibson. brand experiences. But that’s not all. The with that, again, we see opportunity—to mid-century-modern-inspired space features Gibson remains mindful of today’s ever-shift- adapt, to lead new thinking in the way brands rental opportunities for creative business professionals—arts, advertising, architecture ing business realities. First order of business: and people work, interact and engage with to create a socially distanced, globally each other.” When asked about what’s and design, fashion, film and photography, media—with private offices, remote workspace connected space, as he calls it. Think social coming up, Gibson is sure about one thing: memberships, pop-ups, showrooms, film and distancing, sanitation stations, mandatory “The future is equally scary, uncertain, photo production studios (\"Chicago P.D.\" face coverings, as well as a live social media unpredictable and extremely exciting.\" SSPPEENNCCEERR FFIINNCCHH SSepeptetmembebrer111–1O–Octcotboebrer313,1,20202020 apsáalooke BY APPOINTMENT ONLY SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity Women and Warriors Mar 12–Dec 21 63
&DrDininkiinngg Debbie Gold, Amy Morton. Photo: Huge Galdones DINING & DRINKING TOP 5 Strategies for Staying Afloat 1 Pizza Tours. All over the city. Think Chicago is all about deep Amy Morton Positions Her Restaurants to Survive the Pandemic dish? What are you, a tourist? No shame in that, but if you want to learn By David Hammond about the immense range of pizzas in Chicago, book a seat on Steve Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 Amy Morton opened Aurora’s Stolp Island like spring of 2021. But of course, nobody Dolinsky’s pizza tours. Saturdays and Social on the last day of November of last year, knows. That’s one of the tragedies of the Sundays just down Galena Boulevard from the Copley theater business. We are so lucky for the and Paramount Theatres and near the lobbying that the restaurant community has 2 Taste of India. All over the city. Riverfront Playhouse. The idea was a been getting, but there hasn’t been a lot of James Beard Foundation grant restaurant that would provide the first half of conversation about what should be done to recipient Jasmine Sheth expands our the traditional dinner-and-a-show date. A few support the performing arts.\" understanding of Indian cuisine with months later, everything changed. thali (think bento boxes) of regional Morton’s Patty Squared in Northwestern Indian food, a different region every Morton is looking ahead to reopening. \"We will University’s food court closed in the spring week, delivered. Order Wednesdays, reopen Stolp Island Social six weeks before when students went home. Northwestern receive Saturdays the theaters reopen, which right now is looking plans to have students on campus, so 3 Sunday Dinner Club. Chicago-based service allows pickup of dinners using locally sourced ingredients. Pickup Saturday 4 Secret Beer Tours. Get a group of friends together to sample the finest craft beers of Chicago, the largest craft beer city in the United States. By arrangement 5 Sidewalk Food Tours. Tour that gives historical perspective on neighborhoods like Wicker Park and River North, stops for local snacks and beverages at highly regarded places. By arrangement 64
Morton says that she's “guessing we’ll be certainly can make people feel at home and do it a try. It’s here to stay. Curbside and delivery, as well as the pantry, will continue even after opening middle to the end of September, everything we can to make sure they’re the pandemic.\" perhaps even the beginning of October. We’ll comfortable and safe.\" have a pared-down menu. We’re still working How about back-of-the-house operations? Even if guests follow all the rules, how do you on that one.” \"We have become more careful about who we keep the doors open, with appropriate social Morton, part of the family that started the let in the restaurants and kitchen. Our distancing and reduced dining-room guests, Morton’s Steakhouse empire, still has two backdoor was always open. Now, our policy and still stay profitable? \"We used to be open restaurants in operation, The Barn Steakhouse for vendors coming in has tightened up. Going seven or six days a week. Now, we’re open forward, even after the pandemic is over, we only five days a week. We’re going to start and Found Kitchen, both in Evanston. will keep in place the protocol of documenting doing an all-day dining concept, which will be We asked if any of the precautions that Morton everyone who comes in the back door.\" more casual. All our juices will be available, a has put into place will remain after the virus. grab-and-go but with seated service, more like \"There have been so many lessons in this. No Like other restaurants in Chicago, Morton a French café, with coffees and beautiful teas, industry has been as focused on sanitation as started a pantry service to supplement and then five or six items: savory pastries, a the restaurant industry, and it’s never been as scaled-down restaurant operations, but she’s salad, a couple of sandwiches. also testing new concepts. \"The pantry— important as it is now. Post-COVID-19, we won’t be taking temperatures, and I don’t feel which I love!—started out as a way of helping \"People will be able to bring their laptops in we will need to require masks, but we will have our farmers with produce and meat they during the morning or afternoon, and there are to go out of our way to communicate with needed to get rid of. Now people don’t want many people working from their homes, and that is a trend that I think will continue after the guests about what will make them more to go to a lot of different places to pick up comfortable dining with us. And that communi- essentials—like milk and eggs, but also toilet pandemic. People will never office the same paper, tampons and paper towels. Of course, way again: many will shift to home offices, and cation can take place as the reservation is we have beautiful produce and meats, and our people are still looking for a place to go being made or when they confirm. chef, Debbie Gold, has made cookie dough, in without committing to an entire meal.\" \"We need to remain conscious and thoughtful a roll, and people can take it home and slice it. What does Morton see for the industry going about people’s concerns about being packed \"We’ve started a juice bar—a Three Sister forward? \"We can’t scale up until the timing is in and turning tables quickly. People have idiosyncrasies, and we can’t change a dining Juice—at Found. We’d always wanted to do right. I don’t think anything will change much one, and it seemed like the right time to give without a vaccine.\" room around for individual guests, but we SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity 65
Film As for today’s movies, the amount of effort that’s required to “up-res“ each time technolo- Prints Charming gy advances or digital media decays, the likelihood of survival diminishes. Digital formats Chicago Film Archives Finds A Lost Silent lack the stability of a nearly one-hundred-year- old nitrate artifact. But digital preservation, as By Ray Pride Morrison and film curator Dave Kehr of the Museum of Modern Art, pointed out, is a Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 ”That was a great story.” the news of the 1923 Universal release, “The whole other blessing. First Degree,” right away. “I posted a link to Bill Morrison, maker of magnificent movie the article on my Facebook page that No future cine-spelunker is likely to find a deliria from century-old footage, such as morning and it was ‘liked’ nearly a hundred legible hard drive as a digital equivalent to a “Decasia” and “Dawson City: Frozen Time,” times and shared twenty-five times from that mismarked can in a Czech asylum or a was one of the former Chicagoans knee- page alone. So I guess people were ready to long-buried Yukon swimming pool or a deep in film archives that I checked in with hear some good news of this nature. God complete print of “Metropolis” in a Buenos after the news release that the Chicago Film knows we’re all sick of bad news.” Aires archive or a bequest, as happened here, Archives had found “The First Degree,” a within in a batch of prints from a Peoria film wholly lost five-reel 1923 Universal rural My first thought, as always with increasingly services company. Buried within sixty-one melodrama by Edward Sedgwick, whose rare discoveries like this, was how modern, reels of 16mm film and fifty-eight reels of work includes Buster Keaton’s 1928 “The digitally native movies—that would be almost 35mm. Among the miscellany: a live perfor- Cameraman” (as well as ten features in 1923 everything made, especially independent and mance of a country-and-western swing band, alone, including eight Hoot Gibson Westerns). low-budget films—are endangered and future sponsored films including one promoting Morrison got the news in a roundabout way, generations will never experience this kind of eating meat, an industrial film for a Sears, after the fashion of his hypnotic films, partly excitement (or raised eyebrow). A 2013 study Roebuck line of varnish, U.S. government films because of baseball. by the Library of Congress states that to promote better farming techniques, not to seventy-five percent of feature films made in overlook “a small number of soft-core erotic “I think I caught it earlier than most,” Morrison this country between 1912 and 1929 are shorts mainly showing scantily clad women tells me, crediting the White Sox. “When denoted as “lost,” with only fourteen percent dancing.” The Chicago Film Archive’s director Michael Phillips posted his article in the extant in the form of complete 35mm copies. of film transfer operations Olivia Babler Chicago Tribune because, as a longtime That survey notes that Universal destroyed its identified the five, tinted nitrate reels of “The Chicago sports fan, I habitually check the Trib silent film negatives in 1948, leaving the First Degree” as unique while selecting films to upon getting up in the morning.” He spread studio with the poorest survival rate. be inspected, scanned and digitized on their Kinetta Archival Film Scanner. 66 Morrison’s interest in the aleatory character of silent images, distressed and detourned, building upon their intrinsic magic, suggested his ears would perk up, much like the unlikely cache he mined in “Dawson City,” and would provide at least a modest rush. “The rush I experienced with the discovery of an unlikely cache of films as was uncovered in Dawson City in 1978? I was twelve years old that summer, living in Chicago, and probably didn’t hear about that discovery for another ten years. Every frame I ‘found’ of the Dawson City collection had previously been salvaged and optically restored by professional archivists. A logbook compiled by librarians served as my road map. And while not everything or everyone had been identified or contextualized, their work made the work of future researchers like myself possible.” Legwork and technology blazed a path. “I think what this story has in common with some of the ‘discoveries’ I made in the Dawson collection is that both archives had recently installed a hi-res digital scanner. I
started working with the Dawson collection in preserved and hardly any survive. We might FILM TOP 5 2013. I was maybe getting through twenty wish that this were one of the Universal titles a day looking at reference 35mm prints programmers directed by John Ford, like 1 I’m Thinking Of Ending Things. ‘The Girl In Number 29,’ a 1920 feature also N The Gatineau, Quebec. Library and Archives starring Frank Mayo that isn't known to exist. most Charlie Kaufman of titles this Canada installed a scanner in January 2014, Only two other of Mayo's thirty-four silent week, even if an adaptation: the features appear to survive, so at the very death-adjacent mordant comedy and loaded onto 12TB drives, and therefore least it will give us more of a sense of the writer-director works with the access at high speed a great volume of bestseller by Iain Reid and the visual material that had seldom been watched.” star of the 1920s.” styling of cinematographer Lukasz Zal (“Ida,” “Cold War”). The present discovery was just waiting. “I'm not sure where you are going with your “Nancy Watrous [has said] CFA got their 2 Kajillionaire. Opens Friday, scanner installed after a grant came through new technologies are coming on line all the September 18. Piercing in 2016,” Morrison relates, “and that CFA time. For restorations, though, digital whimsitician Miranda July returns simply hadn’t gotten to ‘The First Degree.’” technology has been a blessing. We can now get excellent results from badly damaged about a family of female bank Ample, virtuous technology awaits those with material, in ways that would have been robbers, featuring Evan Rachel resources? “Say what you will about the unthinkable with photochemical techniques.” Wood as “Old Dolio.” instability of digital media as a preservation platform, it is an incredible tool for accessing Plus, the romance of the unearthed artistic 3 Thirty-Sixth Chicago Latino and disseminating ancient images, and artifact. “These surprise discoveries are Film Festival. September indeed, for spreading stories of their always exciting, mostly because they hardly 18-27. While the group has been discovery. I think the lesson here is that there featuring work that’s played at CLFF is a wealth of material hiding in plain sight in made in the archives, where many preserved our archives and libraries. We are now able to premiere event arrives this month in safely access and view reels that were scholars. A good example of that was ‘Lime virtual form: “Arts are crucial to our previously unviewable or would damage the Kiln Club Field Day,’ a 1913 feature with an lives,” founder Pepe Vargas says. began his career at the Reader, says that “so found as unedited rushes in the Museum of 4 Greenland. Opens Friday, Modern Art's Biograph collection, and September 25. A comet races ‘The First Degree’ may not be a masterpiece— reassembled by my colleagues Ron Magliozzi to destroy earth. Gerard Butler must but let's wait and see!—though it will still be of and Peter Williamson.” save us all. Or not. The “countdown bread-and-butter ‘programmer’ from the to global apocalypse approaches Still, Morrison concedes the joy of discovery. zero” as “I swear I’m gonna get mah “There is an undeniable great romantic thrill in family into that bunker!” each year to keep theaters supplied in mines and in wrecked ships, which you can 5 Tenet. Opens Friday, Newcity between what they called their \"Jewel\" and see in my recent short, ‘Sunken Films.’” But September 4. Fresh off even \"Super-Jewel\" productions, with bigger he cautions that “the lion’s share are probably roadshow debut engagements in budgets and bigger stars, like ‘Foolish Wives’ in collections that have simply yet to be Russia and countries that claim lower or ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame.’” viral loads within their populace, give them the tools and resources to do so.” Christopher Nolan’s quarter-billion- Studios considered their output ephemeral. dollar mindscratcher about time Updates on the work of Chicago Film “inversion” is scheduled, and may important at the time, not many were (or may not) play at drive-ins and reduced-capacity moviehouses in selected cities outside of pandemic hotspots over Labor Day weekend. 67
Lit Photo: John Balbach Opening Into The World An Interview with Rachel Swearingen By Tara Betts Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 Rachel Swearingen’s debut short story One of the things that I found compelling woman who lives down the hall. By the end collection “How to Walk on Water” is a about the collection was how there was of the story, Edith is in full control. slim collection of nine stories that approaches always at least one woman who directed its characters with a matter-of-fact sensibility. the action and outcome of each story, Indeed. The title story of your collection Swearingen had been publishing a string of even if she wasn’t the central character. centers on Nolan, an adult son who can’t essays and stories for various publications like Can you talk a bit about that? seem to get his life together or wrap his Vice, Kenyon Review, AGNI and elsewhere, mind around his mother Sigrid surviving after completing her Ph.D. at Western It’s so interesting that you noticed this, Tara, a violent sexual assault in his infancy. Michigan University. In 2018, she won the because I didn’t see this myself until after I How did you start developing the contrast New American Press Award for this collection put the collection together. I started writing between the two characters? and one of her stories appeared in the “Best the book about a decade ago when I was American Short Stories of 2018” edited by wrestling with the realization that too often That story was one of the more difficult stories Roxane Gay and Heidi Pitlor. Swearingen, women and girls, and especially older women, I’ve ever written. It came to me when I was a professor at the School of the Art Institute, are invisible to others. I’m fascinated by teaching and many of my students were took some time to talk with Newcity about the women who don’t follow the rules and who turning in stories that glorified serial killers. characters in her short stories, their struggles, are subversive in some way, even if it’s quietly. I made a rule that semester that if anyone writing in Chicago and other cities, some of This comes forward the most in “Edith Under wanted to write such a story, they had to tell it her influential writers, survivors and the visual the Streetlight,” where Sandra, the protagonist from a different perspective, from an unexpect- artist Louise Bourgeois. underestimates and even uses Edith, an older ed angle. My students argued with these rules, 68
Live at The Book Cellar COLLABORATIVE | PRENUPTIAL W.J.T. Mitchell Local Author Night FAMILY | DIVORCE | MEDIATION “Mental Traveler: A Father, featuring August Norman Strategic support, creative guidance, a Son, and a Journey “Sins of the Mother” and through Schizophrenia” Lara Ehrlich “Animal Wife” effective leadership: these are the qualities in conversation with September 23 at 7pm CST Rachel DeWoskin we offer our clients as they work September 10, 7pm CST Arvin Ahmadi PHONE through their challenges. Jotham Burrello “How It All Blew Up” AND VIDEO September 24, 7pm CST CONSULTATIONS “Spindle City” AVA I L A B L E . in conversation with Storytime with Patricia Ann McNair September 12, 6pm CST Miss Nili, the Storybook Mom! Tori Eldridge Celebrating the release “The Ninja’s Blade” of the picture book in conversation with “Moo-Moo, I Love You” Tracy Clark by Tom Lichtenheld September 16, 7pm CST September 25, 11am CST CALL CHICAGO & EVANSTON Go to our website for virtual event details, TODAY. book clubs and more! 847-733-0933 | [email protected] Your Independent Book Store in Lincoln Square! BrigitteBell.com | BrigitteSchmidtBellPC 4736-38 N. Lincoln Avenue, Chicago 773.293.2665 • bookcellarinc.com newcity JUNE 2019 33 VISIONS FOR THE NEXT CITY WHO REALLY BOOKS IN CHICAGO + EVE EWING feb cover+FOB.indd 1 1/20/19 4:50 PM DTHIBSEECNCOEIVTATYETHRHE SURFACE NEWCITY WHAT’S GOING ON ARTISTS, POETS AND WRITERS RESPOND TO MAY 2020 RACIAL INJUSTICE AND POLICE BRUTALITY JULY 2020 WHAT’S GOING ON December 2018 TORONZO CANNON Subscribe at Newcity.com/subscribe
of course, so I decided to write my own story, and literature. One thing that is different about writing here is that I’m more cognizant of what told from the perspective of the victim, now I don’t know and don’t understand about older. It was important to me that she was a survivor, and that she had found a way to get Chicago. I’m more aware of the depth and vibrancy of the city and its many cultures and on with her life. So many women I know are like her in some way, tough, survivors, but not neighborhoods. I’ve been reading more fully healed either. So, this is how Sigrid came Chicago writers, and am stunned by how to be, but I was too close to her, and I couldn’t much the city has to offer. fully grasp her experience, not having gone through it myself. So, I invented her son, and A few of the women in these stories lead this is when things got interesting. I was able stifled lives of creativity that they express in unexpected ways. If that was intention- to give Nolan my inability to fully understand al or it just emerged as you wrote, could her trauma, and also the difficulty of having been witness to that violence. Nolan allowed you talk about that recurrent idea? me to explore some territory I had been This is so true. The women in my stories are circling around for years, being both part of often trying to liberate and mother themselves, a culture of violence and a survivor. to give themselves permission. Some of this is Could you talk about some of the writers intentional, but much of it emerged as I was who informed your process while you placing the stories next to each other. My were writing these stories? original idea for the collection was to base each story on a work of art or a film. “Felina,” I have been writing for so long, and reading the oldest story in the collection and probably even longer, that I’m not sure I can do justice the strangest, was inspired by a series of installations by Louise Bourgeois, called to this question. While I was writing many of “Cells”—these cage-like domestic spaces, filled these stories I was in a Ph.D. program at with memorabilia and hanging figures. They LIT TOP 5 Western Michigan University and immersed in American literature. I’ve been studying the seemed feminine and somehow oppressive 1 Margot Livesey and Gish to me, although I think Bourgeois saw them Jen. Women and Children short story for much longer and have read First. Novelists Margot Livesey differently. She was an incredible and prolific and Gish Jen in virtual discussion most of the usual suspects. I go back and of Livesey’s new book, “The Boy artist, but also overlooked for much of her life. in the Field.” September 2, 7pm forth between writing realistic and more Her influence is in that story, but it radiates into 2 Kathleen Rooney. The Book fantastical stories. “How to Walk on Water” Stall. Rooney reads from her many of the other stories too. latest novel “Cher Ami and Major is more realistic, and now that I have some Whittlesey” for a virtual event. distance I can see influences from some of I love Bourgeois’ work! Especially the September 10, 6:30pm my teachers from that time—Jaimy Gordon, spiders. It was a clever turn to start with 3 Mike Puican. Poetry Foundation and Guild Stuart Dybek, Kellie Wells, Robert Eversz. Complex. Local poet Mike For pleasure, I was reading almost everything “Felina” where a woman introduces herself Puican virtually launches his to a man and concluding the collection debut poetry collection “Central written by Louise Erdrich, Kathryn Davis, with “Advice for the Haunted” which Air.” September 17, 7pm Don DeLillo, Edward P. Jones, to name just 4 Claudia Rankine. Chicago a few, as well as stacks of poetry collections. focuses on a couple saying goodbye Humanities Festival. Rankine to the ghost who inhabited their new reads from and discusses her Two of the stories were inspired by a line in apartment. Would you talk a bit about new book “Just Us: An American Conversation.” September 24, 7pm a Mary Ruefle poem. how you decided on ordering the stories 5 Juan Felipe Herrera. You wrote most of the book while you in between and in general? American Writers Museum. The former U.S. poet laureate were in Michigan, and some of the writing I rearranged the book so many times, and reads from his new collection is set in Chicago. If it’s different writing “Every Day We Get More Illegal.” here in Chicago, can you describe how? I worried it was too risky to put “Felina” first. People tend to have strong reactions to September 30, 11am When I was writing many of these stories, that story. Once I had some distance on the 70 I lived in Kalamazoo and often rode the collection, I realized that the two stories were commuter train to Chicago to get away, to in conversation with each other, and they spend the day at the Art Institute, get some helped to contain the others. Felina is such good coffee, take in the energy of the city, and a pure artist, and couldn’t care less about the then head back. I did the same when I was an marketplace or how her work is perceived undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin by the larger world. At least this is the way in Madison. I still remember the first time I got Arthur, the protagonist and someone who is lost taking the El, how unfamiliar and huge the obsessed with the value of things, sees her. city felt. Even though I’ve lived in other cities, We never get her actual point of view though. “Advice for the Haunted” is told through a and there are several others in the book, woman narrator who is also thinking about Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 Chicago is usually what I imagine when I try the value of things, but she is beginning to to write an urban story. What’s funny is that understand that the world is much larger I started the last story in the collection, than her, that its histories extend beyond her. “Advice for the Haunted,” which takes place I wanted the book to end with an opening downtown and in Lincoln Park, at a writer’s residency on the East Coast. I think I set it in out into the larger world. Chicago partly out of anger because I was tired of hearing jokes made of the Midwest. Swearingen will be in conversation with Then, a few years later, I moved here and Kate Wisel for a virtual book launch at finished it from a small, rundown apartment The Book Cellar on October 5 at 7pm. next to the Rockwell stop on the Brown line. I’ve been here almost six years now, but six “How to Walk on Water” by Rachel Swearingen, years is nothing for a city this rich in culture New American Press, 182 pages
Music ONeldwTWowonrl,d A Chicago Institution Adapts to a Pandemic By Robert Rodi The middle of September marks six [Armitage], which we did; and once we The result was the school transferring much SEPTEMBER 2020 Newcity months since Chicago’s COVID-19 lockdown, decided we were going to keep it, work with of its curriculum to the web. Many students so it’s a good time to take stock of the city’s the board to get to a plan where we could were initially dubious. “They didn’t want to go music community. Old Town School of Folk refurbish that building, so that it would be up online. The Old Town experience was one- Music offers arguably the best microcosmic to the standards of Lincoln Square. So we on-one, very personal, a community thing.” view of that community’s health in that it’s one did that. We turned around finances, we went Newcomb credits the professionalism of the of our principal performance venues as well from like a $700,000 loss to a slight surplus, teachers for the move’s success. “They were as one of our most acclaimed educational and the first two months of 2020, we were able to maintain that sense of community in facilities. Whether you’re a concertgoer or a trending ahead of plan in every part of the that first half-session that we had online; and student—or for that matter a performer or business. The music store was growing by the time we got to the second session, a teacher—you can take the barometer of like crazy, we’d taken on a partnership with the word-of-mouth was so positive on it— the times from OTS. Columbia College to do an Old Town School in we really hadn’t done much marketing at that the South Loop at 1312 South Michigan, and point—that fully five percent of the students I spoke with the school’s CEO Jim Newcomb, it was really feeling like the momentum was we were teaching in session three were from who has a long history with the institution. great. Things were going in the right direction. out of the Chicago area. This current session “I first became engaged with Old Town when And then COVID. And so that has been hugely that we’re in now, it’s thirteen percent.” The I was in my early twenties, and I would go to disruptive to every part of the organization.” new session also, tellingly, includes students the music store to buy strings,” he says. from well beyond the Chicago area—including, “And then as I moved into the corporate world On March 13, the school announced it was Newcomb says, students as far afield as and traveled more, I occasionally made it over shutting down. “We thought it would take London and Rome. to Old Town; I’d take an occasional workshop, two weeks,” Newcomb says with a laugh. and I took my kids to Wiggleworms. And I What followed was, in his words, “kind of “It’s weirdly intimate—the whole online experi- later became a pretty regular concertgoer, miraculous… A bunch of teachers who were ence,” he says. “There are problems with it, for and then eventually a board member and a online-savvy, even before the school was sure; latency is an issue if you’re trying to play student again. I love everything about the ready to figure out how we were going to together with other people, and there’s just community that is Old Town.” do it, started teaching their individual classes no cure for it at the moment. But the benefit online, started running their private lessons is some people, you see them sitting in their Newcomb was appointed CEO in February online. And they let us know that they were basement with their little collection of guitars, 2019. “I had three big jobs to do initially: doing it and how they were doing it, and or in their office—some people sit in their one was reexamine the decision around 909 which platforms they were using.” bedroom or in their living room; one person 71
MUSIC TOP 5 Zoom guitar class / Photo: Cristina Mercader Outstanding new album releases by stellar always sits in their kitchen, ’cause that’s where much out there.” Troy Hansbrough, the Chicago artists, available now. they think they sound the best. And you see school’s concerts and events director, began their family walking around or their cat walking talking to other venues across the country 1 The Mekons. Exquisite. over the keyboard. And it helps me—I’m about what sort of equipment and tech The post-punk pioneers pulled actually fairly introverted; so for me, I find they used, with the aim of bringing it into a pandemic surprise, dropping an that it’s freeing, in a weird way to be online. Maurer Hall. album on Juneteenth, recorded Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 and produced remotely by members “I get emails from students all the time saying “We’ve done [livestreams] from a faculty from across the globe. It’s a it’s their lifeline. ‘I would’ve gone crazy member’s house; that was a fundraiser,” surprisingly sturdy and often during the crisis without this.’ And other Newcomb says. “We did another one with beautiful piece of work. students saying, ‘Promise me, whatever you the Kennedy Center, which was from Maurer do, when you guys go back to in-person, Hall, and we did two others from Maurer Hall, 2 Bethany Thomas. you’ll still have a place for people like me.’” one with the ACM [Access Contemporary BT/She/Her. The singer- And in fact Newcomb plans to continue Music] and one with one of our teachers, songwriter has collaborated with online classes after the crisis has ended Michael J. Miles. And each time we do it, nearly everyone in town and planted and on-location instruction can resume. we get better.” The implication is that live- her flag in any genre you can name streamed concerts will remain on the school’s and probably some you can’t. Now While all of this was unfolding, OTS experi- agenda, even as it opens up to live on-site she’s letting that sonic howitzer of a enced similar tumult in its capacity as a performances this month. voice rip on her solo debut. performance venue. “I think we had one of the last concerts in the city,” Newcomb says; The school has also devoted considerable 3 Half Gringa. Force to Reckon. “The Tallest Man On Earth (March 11, Maurer attention to the needs of its faculty and staff, Singer-songwriter Isabel Hall). I happened to be there, it was a beautiful many of whom are working musicians who Olive’s second album as Half Gringa night; but among everyone in the room, there have suffered a dramatic loss of income in the continues her exploration of her was a growing sense that this was going to shutdown; a financial assistance fund raised bicultural heritage with a bravura be it for a while. And concerts is how I spend almost $75,000. But that’s just scratching the blend of indie-folk incisiveness and my free time—whenever I have it. I love live surface. “Old Town is one of the very, very few Latinx pop sheen. music.” The ensuing weeks found the school places that provides some segment of its working to exhaustion to reschedule more teachers’ health insurance,” Newcomb says. 4 Safehold. Boyish. The than 200 shows. “And another thing we didn’t expect is our emo-pop-rapper boasts that insurance broker and our HR director have his debut album was “recorded in When it became apparent that the live-music had to go to the insurance companies every a basement in Chicago,” but its hiatus was going to be longer than anyone month to make sure we can keep people on raggedy charm, wit and infectious anticipated, Newcomb and the board shifted the rolls who aren’t able to work. melodies are nothing anyone should their focus to providing shows any way they apologize for. can. “We’re in this mode of trying to figure “There’s just a lot to be done,” he says. “And out how to get good at live-streaming. The not all of it is easy. [laughs] It’s pretty withering- 5 Black Moon Book. Black critical thing for Old Town has always been ly complex. But at the same time—walking Moon Book. The new solo how good Maurer Hall sounds. I don’t think into the building, west or east or at Armitage release from Luck of Eden Hall there’s a comparable venue in the city in terms or even the South Loop—is nourishing. co-founder and Thin Cherries of sound quality. And the problem we’ve had Whatever problems arise, I know that if we member Mark Lofgren is a beguiling is that we never thought about streaming continue on the path that we were starting to collection of bedroom-pop gems, before—we just didn’t think we could make spell out, that three to five years, even with sung with Lennonesque sensitivity. the investment, we didn’t think that people this setback, the Old Town School will be in would necessarily want it, there’s already so a vastly better place than it was before.” 72
Stage Interrogating Kamilah Rashied the System /Photo: Zakkiyyah Najeebah An Interview with Kamilah Rashied about Making Room for Marginalized Voices By Hayley Osborn Black Lives Matter, as a foundation and movement, has been around since 2013. But its resurgence demon- strates that it is a campaign that has been active much longer. Marginalized communi- ties and individuals are calling for their stories to be heard but in many ways, theater has failed to give these voices the significance they deserve. Newcity spoke with theater creator and administrator Kamilah Rashied about the ways theater in Chicago fulfills the promises of Black Lives Matter and the ways it could drastically improve. Is Chicago theater expansive or is that an aspect that needs work? It’s both. Chicago has a tight-knit community but the large theaters still have mostly white leadership. The union houses, which have the most resources and a larger platform on which to decide what kind of stories are valuable, have mostly white production staff, casting and writers. The idea that we can say that we’re expansive and not call that out would be shortsighted. At the same time, there is a thriving storefront and independent strand of theater making. There is this psychology for artists here, that not everybody needs to love their stuff or to be into it or get it. They’re making the thing that feels creatively exciting. It’s important for any cultural industry that you have people who are pushing the boundaries around what is “good” and what is “allowed.”
Newcity SEPTEMBER 2020 ONE What I love about Chicago is that there looks like to me is a Black, Latinx, indigenous RECOMMENDATION are so many industrious artists here who or Asian company that wants to draw from are interested in making the work that they stories in cultural heritage or have an ethnic Links Hall 96 Hours want to make. That, in itself, is expansive. dynamic that creates a multicultural space. Inspiration thrives within constraints, There are many in Chicago that want to create and in case physical distancing and So Chicago has theaters where people a variety of stories that actually reflect the city streaming-only shows weren’t are making the work that they want to we live in, the country that we live in. My desire restrictive enough, Links Hall throws make but it doesn’t always necessarily is for those organizations to receive the same performance art in the pressure offer the resources of these other places? amount of support from critics, foundations, cooker this month by pairing teams corporations and philanthropists. The table of three interdisciplinary artists with Across the board, I find the pay in Chicago for is not only not level because mostly white a technician, a prompt, a list of theater professionals embarrassing. We can institutions have had the best resources. required ingredients and four days do better. It’s part of the reason why a lot of We need to interrogate the system as a whole. to produce an original piece. really great talent has to move on. They’re in a situation where they know their work is worth What can theater makers do to promote It’s a competitive cooking show more and they have to go somewhere else in this awareness? approach to performance that order to be compensated. The double-edged should prove a welcome flare of sword of the ingenuity of artists in Chicago is There’s a lot of great theater in Chicago, creative fire amidst interminable that people here do things for artistry. I haven’t even in the face of socioeconomic, racial gray of lockdown fatigue. Teams felt that culture when I’ve been in New York and class-based inequity. There’s still a lot of will be announced September 1. or L.A. There, it’s about getting to the next exciting, interesting work being made. I will say thing that’s going to elevate you in your career. this, the White American Theater “We See You” Pop-up Performance Festival, That is, in my estimation, a lot of what those is a good place to start. The demands that Links Hall. Streaming September 12, markets perpetuate. And that’s fair, people they just shared are a beginning, they’re not Team A at 1pm, Team B at 3pm should want to be able to make a living from the be-all, end-all. It’s about beginning to and Team C at 5pm. All three teams their art. But because Chicago doesn’t have look at all the different ways that we need to stream September 13 at 5pm. that same energy, it creates this collaborative, unlearn and interrogate how bias works in our $12 per team, $30 for all three. innovative ecosystem around people making system of making art. People, whether they’re Tickets at eventbrite.com. their own work. people of color or not, should know that the 74 system is designed to perpetuate a certain Does Chicago theater do a good job of kind of bias. At every stage of creation, affirming marginalized communities? we should be interrogating ourselves to see what is fair. Is this process equitable? That question for me is a little bit convoluted Am I [affecting] this process with my uncon- because when we say “Chicago theater” we scious bias? This is the best work that might mean the League of Chicago Theatres every individual can and should be doing, and we all know that’s not all that Chicago not just the theater business, but being a theater is. I struggle with any definition that decent human. makes the union houses and the commercial houses monolithic. Or more important than It’s not enough to be not racist, you the smaller, independent, nonprofit companies. must be anti-racist, but there are some Are marginalized people represented in who are unwilling to put in the work. Chicago theater? Absolutely, because we exist. We exist and we make work. So the question When we talk about privilege, what we’re is whether or not people with the most agency talking about is the willful ignorance to any are committed to a culture that includes other human condition other than your own. marginalized people. And that remains to And that privilege can extend to people in be seen. The disproportion, as I mentioned a lot of different ways when we talk about before, is still pervasive. Chicago theater sees marginalization broadly. But what I learned marginalized people because we are part of is, how to be thinking about different, lived the community and we don’t wait for anyone experiences from mine. Privileges that I have else to make work that we feel represents our that they might not. It’s about a practice of just story. At the same time, when we’re talking wanting a freer world and just working every about “Chicago Theater” and whether or not day to create it. And knowing that, [affects] it embraces marginalized people, what we’re big or small matters to someone. This is an really talking about is whether or not union important time for us all to evaluate the kind houses meet the challenge of creating a more of people we want to be in the world. For me equitable workforce. what keeps me optimistic is just the realization that there’s also a paradigm shift that’s What would you like for the future of possible at this moment: an urgent call for Chicago theater? us to understand how everything is intercon- nected and that we have to do our part. More than historically white institutions that That is an important realization. have white leadership and white boards that serve mostly white audiences. To be Kamilah Rashied is the Director of Education honest I’m very disinterested in it. The idea for Court Theatre, the professional theatre of inclusion means that we finally get invited of the University of Chicago. She is also to that party. That is a very paternal and a performance artist, writer, educator, colonialist way of looking at it. What equity producer and arts administrator.
2020 Celebrating Chicago’s creative economy with a new kind of AUGUST 29-SEPTEMBER 19 local film showcase for a year like no other. THREE WAYS Virtual Film Festival TO SAFELY Outdoor, Limited-Capacity Screenings* ENJOY: Drive-In Movie Events* MORE INFORMATION: www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/onscreen *Outdoor and Drive-In screenings will be held in accordance with current City of Chicago health and safety guidelines, and are contingent on the city remaining in Phase IV of the city’s reopening plan. City of Chicago | Lori E. Lightfoot, Mayor This program is presented as part of the Chicago Park District’s Night Out in Chicago Park District | Board of Commissioners | Michael P. Kelly, General Superintendent & CEO the Parks. Arts programming in neighborhoods across the city advances the goals of the Chicago Park District and the Chicago Cultural Plan. Learn more at: www.nightoutintheparks.com For more information about your Chicago Park District, visit www.chicagoparkdistrict.com or call 312.742.7529 or 312.747.2001 (TTY).
CLOSING SOON: NEXT UP: VISIT VIRTUALLY DURO OLOWU: THE LONG DREAM Discover exhibition SEEING CHICAGO Opening November 7, content, online programs, See this immersive experience recent and more in our digital experience for the works by more than 70 community space. senses before it closes local artists responding Explore mcachicago.org/ on September 27. to the current Chicago CommonsOnline. moment. #MCAMadeYouLook MUSEUM OF mcachicago.org/look CONTEMPORARY ART CHICAGO
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