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Newcity Chicago March 2018

Published by Newcity, 2018-03-06 14:17:14

Description: Newcity's March issue includes our annual look at the city's vibrant design and architecture worlds, Design 50: Who Shapes Chicago. We also look at the practice of Ann Lui of Future Firm, who's part of the curatorial team representing the United States in the U.S. Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. Ray Pride tells the story of Kartemquin's making of their new series, "America To Me."

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March 2018+ Designer of the Moment

Brendan FernandesThe Master and FormImage: Study for The Master and Form, 2017, Graham Foundation, Installation in collaboration with Norman KelleyChicago. Dancer: Leah Upchurch, Collage: Norman Kelley Performances featuring dancers from the Joffrey Academy of Dance January 25–March 10, 2018 Opening reception and performance: January 25, 6–8 p.m. Graham Foundation Madlener House, 4 W Burton Place, Chicago www.grahamfoundation.org

March 2018contents arts & cultureLife After Hate ArtChristian Picciolini’s journey Naomi Beckwith on Howardena Pindellfrom white supremacist 38to its fiercest foe8 Dance Cloud Gate founder’s finaleEight Days, And 52 Years, 44of WondersA visit to the house of DesignKartemquin Films A conversation with the other10 Venice Architecture Biennale curator 46Designer of the MomentAnn Lui conjures the future Dining & Drinkingof architecture Losing at Restaurant Roulette16 48Design 50 FilmWhich Chicago makers are Losing Russia in “Loveless”making a difference right now 5019 Lit Barrie Jean Borich and her MARCH 2018 Newcity “Apocalypse, Darling” 52 Music The politics of appropriation in the blues 54 Stage Designing for the devil in “Faust” 56 Life Is Beautiful Drivers miseducation 58 3

Newcity MARCH 2018 I am writing this in mid-February, a day after seeing Like the moviegoing business, newspapers, especially “Black Panther” in the theater on its record-breaking alt-weeklies like the Chicago Reader, have suffered a long- opening weekend, and the day after news broke that the term decline that’s led to a narrative of impending extinc- Chicago Reader had fired its executive editor, Mark tion. In Los Angeles, locals were despondent over the state Konkol, only ten days after he’d been installed. Two of affairs, after the shutdown of LAist, the sale of LA seemingly unrelated events converging like this resonat- Weekly to secretive buyers who fired its editorial staff, and ed for me not only in connecting the two industries in the long-running decline of the once-majestic Los Ange- which I’ve cast my fate, but in the way they reflect on les Times under, ironically, Chicago ownership. I was two businesses that have been given up for dead accord- there the week that the surprise sale of the Times by tronc ing to prevailing sentiment. to a local billionaire happened, which was greeted with a mix of trepidation about the buyer’s intent and a “Ding- In the trade press, the narrative around seeing movies in dong the witch is dead” narrative emanating from the theaters in the era of Netflix has been one of terminal newsroom about Michael Ferro and his Chicago boys decline. But the explosive growth of MoviePass, combined (which is what the Reader, coincidentally, tweeted with with the blockbuster success of a movie like “Black Pan- the news of Konkol’s firing). ther,” in the once-dead month of February, no less, skew- ers that narrative: moviegoing is not dead, but instead in The contemporary relevance of the New York Times and need of new ideas and better, more relevant offerings. the Washington Post give a larger frame to the idea that Turns out we like to go to the movies after all! I was experiencing firsthand: the newspaper is absolute- ly vital to the health of our democracy. I spent much of the month between this issue and the last in Los Angeles, where our movie “Signature Move” had It just needs new ideas and better, more relevant offerings. its L. A. premiere and, coincidentally, the leading art fair in that market was taking place. Each morning, I walked While in L.A. I was also actively involved in putting to a newsstand near my West Hollywood Airbnb and together the Design 50 list for this issue. One group picked up a copy of the Los Angeles Times. The daily of designers you won’t see represented in that feature newspaper was my way of connecting to the city as a are the designers of this publication, as it is our practice whole, rather than just the particular neighborhoods and not to include ourselves in our lists. But they are the niches I was spending my time in: West Hollywood and best, and you can see who they are on this issue’s Con- the film and art industries. This perspective on a new tributors section. city reminded me that when you’ve lived in a city as long as I’ve lived in Chicago, it’s easy to take for granted how brian hieggelke much of our understanding of our place is shaped by traditional media sources.4

February 25–May 13Lead support is generously provided by Debra and Leon Black. Major support is provided by the Fred Eychaner Fund, The Chauncey and Marion D. McCormick Family Foundation, andThe MacLean Foundation. Additional funding is contributed by Jianming Lv, Terry and William Carey, Honghong Chen, Giuseppe Eskenazi and Daniel Eskenazi, Winnie and Michael Feng,Virginia B. Sonnenschein and the Sonnenschein Exhibition Endowment Fund for Asian and Ancient Art, Robert Tsao and Vivian Chen, and Charles H. Mottier and Philip J. Vidal.Annual support for Art Institute exhibitions is provided by the Exhibitions Trust.Corporate Exhibition Sponsor Official Airline of the Art Institute of ChicagoBell (nao), first half of the Zhou dynasty (about 10th–7th century BC). China, probably Hunan province. Lucy Maud Buckingham Collection.

Contributors VASIA RIGOU (“Designer of the ON THE COVER Moment,” editor, “Design 50”) is Photo: Nathan Keay TONI NEALIE (“Life After Hate”) Newcity’s Design Editor and the newest Cover Design: Dan Streeting is a native of New Zealand who edits member of Newcity’s editorial team. Newcity’s Lit section. An acclaimed A native of Greece, Vasia spent the Vol. 33, No. 1377 essayist, her collection “The Miles month of January touring Africa and Between Me” was published in 2016. other parts abroad, adding to her PUBLISHERS unique global perspective on our city. Brian & Jan Hieggelke RAY PRIDE (“Eight Days, And 52 Years, Associate Publisher Mike Hartnett of Wonders”) is Newcity’s Film Editor NATHAN KEAY (Photos, “Designer who’s been covering the rising fortunes of the Moment” and “Design 50”) is a EDITORIAL of Kartemquin and its collaborators for Chicago-based photographer with an Editor Brian Hieggelke more than twenty-five years. affinity of subjects both animate Managing Editor Jan Hieggelke and inanimate. Art Editor Elliot Reichert Dance Editor Sharon Hoyer FLETCHER MARTIN, DAN STREETING Design Editor Vasia Rigou and BILLY WERCH are the designers Dining and Drinking Editor who made this issue of Newcity. Fletcher, David Hammond our lead designer, is the creative director Film Editor Ray Pride and partner in the branding and digital Lit Editor Toni Nealie firm a5. Dan is a designer, illustrator and Music Editor Robert Rodi educator based in the Chicago area but Theater Editor Kevin Greene originally from Detroit. Billy is a Chicago Contributing Writers Isa Giallorenzo, designer with one leg in publishing and Aaron Hunt, Alex Huntsberger, Hugh Iglarsh, one in the music business. Chris Miller, Dennis Polkow, Loy Webb, Michael Workman “RICK BARTOW: Things You Know ART & DESIGN But Cannot Explain” Senior Designers MJ Hieggelke, Fletcher MartinNewcity MARCH 2018 A major retrospective of one of the Designers Jim Maciukenas, Stephanie Plenner, nation’s most prominent contemporary Dan Streeting, Billy Werch Native American artists presented by the Schingoethe Center of Aurora University. MARKETING Marketing Manager Todd Hieggelke EXHIBIT DATES: January 23–April 13, 2018 OPERATIONS Schingoethe Center | 1315 Prairie St., Aurora Smithsonian A liate General Manager Jan Hieggelke Distribution Nick Bachmann, Panel Discussion: “Transformation: The Narrative Adam Desantis, Preston Klik, in Rick Bartow’s Art” | April 4, 2018 | 7 p.m. Quinn Nicholson, Matt Russell Organized by the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (JSMA) One copy of current issue free. Additional copies, at the University of Oregon. including back issues up to one year, may be ordered. Copyright 2018, 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. Monday–Friday 10 a.m.–4 p.m. | Tuesday until 7 p.m. For more information, visit aurora.edu/museum. SchingoetheCenterAU | (630) 844-78436

“thrilled and surprised and moved me...” — The New York Times Layla and MajnunLayla and Majnun, Lincoln Center, 2017. Photo by Beowulf Sheehan.Mark Morris Dance Group March 16 / 7:30PMSilk Road Ensemble March 17 / 2:00PM March 17 / 7:30PMfeaturing Alim Qasimov & Fargana Qasimova 312.334.7777 | HarrisTheaterChicago.org MARCH 2018 Newcity 205 East Randolph Drive Abby McCormick O’Neil John and Caroline Ballantine and D. Carroll JoynesEngagement Presenting Sponsor Engagement Lead Sponsor Presenting Partner Additional Support Season Sponsor 7

Photo: Peter Tsai become broken. Their own anger, frustration, low self-esteem, trauma, shame or feelings of marginalization thrust them into the open arms of recruiters who are very keen at spotting kids with vulnerabilities.” Recruiters seek them in online gaming forums and mental-illness support groups online. “This is terrifying to me and something that people should be aware of. They are actively stalking our most vulnerable young people.” Picciolini believes we are failing our children. “We need to do a better job making sure they never get to the point of feeling unsupported or marginalized. We also need to tackle bullying, unaffordable education, lack of jobs after graduation, lack of opportunity to pursue success and happiness, bring equity to our unjust institutions and systems, and stop feeding your kids chicken nuggets and hot dogs. Instead take them to ethnic restaurants like Indian, Japanese, African, Latin and so on. Perhaps if they grow up unafraid of ‘different’ foods, they may be more tolerant of ‘different’ cultures and people. Just a thought.” DLEAIfAFteTErH Picciolini’s  own feeling of not belonging, despite having a loving family, enabled a Picciolini Discusses “White American Youth: recruiter to enlist him when he was fourteen. My Descent into America’s Most Violent Hate Movement— He was an early member of the first neo-Nazi skinhead group in America, Chicago Area and How I Got Out” Skinheads (CASH), founded on the South- west Side of Chicago. His memoir, first By Toni Nealie published as “Romantic Violence” (and reviewed by Newcity in 2016), tells his storyNewcity MARCH 2018 The extremist hate movement is alive in Chicago was the headquarters of the of being recruited, leading, then escaping Chicago. We may not see old-style skin- National Socialist Party of America (spun off from a life of hate. He became director of the heads marching, but many of the same from the American Nazi party) in the 1970s, Northern Hammerskins, which spanned the groups continue to operate. Christian notorious for the Skokie march and northern states and included several hundred Picciolini, anti-hate activist and author of Marquette Park rallies. “The KKK has long members, the largest chapter within the “White American Youth” says most people had chapters here and throughout the Hammerskin Nation. It came to national don’t acknowledge that our cities are sites of Chicagoland area and the World Church of attention again in 2012 when Wade Michael “horrific, modern-day white supremacist terror the Creator was headquartered here for Page, a Northern Hammerskin, killed six attacks and killings.” some time,” he says. “One of its members, Sikhs in a Wisconsin temple. Picciolini did not Benjamin Smith, went on a killing spree in know the killer, but says Page would have Once an extremist, Picciolini now works to 1999 that killed Northwestern [former men’s known of him. He describes the Hammer- build a global extremist prevention network. basketball] coach Ricky Byrdsong and skins as the most violent and deadly hate He was on Newcity’s 2017 Lit 50 list, spoke Indiana student Won-Joon Yoon.” group in America and perhaps even in at last year’s Printers Row Lit Fest, has Europe. “They still exist, and though they are appeared on “60 Minutes,” at Denver’s 2017 Unlike their highly visible predecessors, not as powerful as they once were, the TedXMileHigh, and appears on national and younger millennials aim to blend in, a strategy members now are more violent.” international platforms. Although he receives designed to normalize hate group ideologies. almost daily death threats, trolling and Young people join extremist groups and gangs He says many Klan groups exist in the wider cyberattacks, Picciolini says domestic because they lack opportunity, feel marginal- Chicago area. The city recently had a extremism is getting enough attention that ized and lonely, Picciolini says. “Their search high-profile hate crime and Picciolini is ordinary Americans are mobilizing against it. for identity, community and purpose has counseling this person, through mandate by Cook County courts. “Chicago is littered with remnants of traditional hate groups which have now mainly adopted staunch pro- Trump, ‘Make America Great Again’ personas, while still promoting neo-Nazi ideologies and ‘pro-white’ agendas via more undercover means. Art Jones is a perfect example. Notice the toned-down America First rhetoric, then the Holocaust denial link on his ‘Art Jones for Congress’ website.” Unsurprised by the magnitude of today’s hate, Picciolini finds it heartbreaking. “I’ve watched this ramp up for thirty years. Not just on the far right, but also with Islamist8

As WAR, LACK OF OPPORTUNITY, now twenty-five and twenty-three. He is immensely proud of them, after purposefully raising them to be compassionate and open. He did not hide his past from them and thinks honest communication helped.OPPRESSION, WEAK LEADERSHIP Struggling against domestic terrorism can be an overwhelming task. “While most folksand XENOPHOBIA GROWS, have only been talking about this since theso does DESPERATION and Charleston tragedy and then again afterEXTREMISM.” Charlottesville, it’s something I have been warning about for almost twenty years. For the first sixteen years, it felt as though no one was listening. It’s a shame that it takes multiple tragedies to get people’s attention, and sometimes that doesn’t even help.” extremism. As war, lack of opportunity, The internet has become the new extremist We can’t ignore it any longer, he says. “White MARCH 2018 Newcity oppression, weak leadership and xenophobia playground, taking over from music as the terrorism exists, it has for 250 years in grows, so does desperation and extremism.” primary propaganda tool. In the movement America and unless we recognize it as He predicts that far-right groups and Islamist from the late eighties to the late ninenties, terrorism, we’ll never get the resources or extremists will join forces. “While they might music provided a way to focus anger and attention we need to combat. Still much work not like each other much, their common incite violence, a powerful recruiting tool, and to do.” enemies are ‘Jews.’ They both operate on a social networking marvel. “Music and the same set of conspiracy theories and, concerts would bring the kids out, allow them He has helped more than one-hundred dare I say, fake news. It’s just a matter of time to become indoctrinated into an ideology by individuals disengage from hate groups and in my opinion. In 1991 or 1992, I was invited offering identity, community and purpose to hateful ideologies over the years, but he says by Qaddafi to visit Libya for an infusion of those who had none and desperately the flow of requests for help is overwhelming funds to ‘fight the Jews’ in America. I struggled to find them,” Picciolinis ays. “The and seems to be steadily increasing. “I deal declined and am glad I did. Turned out to be ideology was the tie that bound us and gave with it, perhaps because I lived it, contributed a Canadian Intelligence sting operation.” He us license to be angry.” to it and feel a responsibility to use my unique predicts a rise in fear rhetoric and violent insight, experience and the tools I have to nationalism emerging as climate change Today, music is more important in Europe combat it. I planted many seeds of hate thirty worsens. Declining water supplies in the than in the United States and Canada where years ago and I am still pulling out the weeds. Middle East and Africa will create a monu- the main recruitment tools are memes, white I will continue to do so until I can’t any longer. mental refugee crisis. supremacist forums, podcasts and YouTube Not only is it my mission, but it is my channels. Social media allows disinformation responsibility.” President Obama awarded a large grant to to spread rapidly and is used to organize Life After Hate, a group Picciolini was quickly, as well as provide safe spaces for Driven by the idea that any extremist that he previously associated with, but the current followers to gather. “It’s the virtual equivalent can’t get to in time could become the next administration rescinded the grant. He says of our face-to-face meetings. I am seeing a tragic headline, Picciolini is heartened that his it was disappointing because it was the only new trend of electronic and EDM white power message is now reaching large audiences, organization helping people escape from music starting to spread in the United States. both supportive and dissenting. white supremacist groups. “It became The old music of my time is still influential and “It means that my message is getting to the obvious to us that there was an agenda at now thought of as the ‘classics’ by the new people who need it. I am working with play. People we knew closely in the movement.” individuals all over the world who are now government alluded to foul play, but would disengaging after hearing my story. Other never go on record. We were never given a Regarding recent speaking invitations extend- people are reporting to me that they are reason why the grant was pulled. It tells me ed to extremists, Picciolini challenges the using my methods of compassion and that they are not taking the threat of white elasticity of “free speech.” “Extremists have empathy (see my TEDx video for my pothole supremacist extremism seriously and it will be learned to toe the line and not step over it, theory) and it is working. The response to my innocent American lives that will pay for that making their hate speech arguably fall under book and my work has been utterly lack of focus in the long run.” free speech. In my opinion, when speech overwhelmingly positive.” demeans others specifically because of race, Picciolini is dismayed that the President of creed, color, gender, religion or sex, or incites In his memoir, Picciolini wrote that before he the United States has normalized racist violence, it is no longer free speech. An became an activist, he was “suffering under extremism, including by characterizing the opinion is one thing, a verbal attack based on the weight of my past.” He vows to be Charlottesville protestors as “nice people.” prejudice or denial of facts (i.e. ‘The “cautiously vulnerable.” Being forthcoming“People call these messages dog whistles that Holocaust didn’t happen’) is hate speech.” about his past isn’t easy when talking about are coded messages to white supremacists. the people he has physically hurt. “I knowTo me, they are bullhorns. While the divisive In Picciolini’s experience, white supremacists that I will be making amends for that for the rhetoric may be more palatable or coded to target progressive or “liberal” areas to protest rest of my life and I accept that. Any pain that appeal to and indoctrinate unsuspecting or speak at, such as Charlottesville, Berkeley I feel is minuscule to the pain I have caused Americans today, it is based in the same and Skokie, in order to provoke opposers. others. It is part of my atonement.” hateful ideologies and rhetoric we spewed They aim to elicit hateful and sometimes thirty years ago. It’s racist, xenophobic, violent responses from good people, then Christian Picciolini will discuss and sign isolationalist/separatist, and to white use it to promote a “victim narrative.” The “White American Youth: My Descent into supremacists, tantamount to a stamped letter activist’s two sons, who were aged three and America’s Most Violent Hate Movement—and of approval and a wink.” one when he left the movement in 1995, are How I Got Out” on March 14, 7pm at The Book Cellar, 4736-38 North Lincoln, (773)293-2665 9

LESLIE SIMMER, DAVID E. SIMPSON, ALANNA SCHMELTER, STEVE JAMESNewcity MARCH 201810

EIGHT DAYS, AND YEARS, OF WONDERSTHE HOUSE OF KARTEMQUIN AND THE MAKING OF AMERICANS BY RAY PRIDE A week or so earlier, the STARZ network closed Sundance with a U.S. PHOTOS BY RAY PRIDE announced from Sundance that it had Documentary Competition Jury Award“We’re not going to give up real bought the ten-hour series (originally for Breakthrough Filmmaking forestate for luxurious creditsequences,” Steve James tells his plotted as four-to-six segments) from “Minding the Gap.”cutting crew in a compact editingroom at Kartemquin Films’ Kartemquin’s co-producer Participantheadquarters early on a Februarymorning as they review the state of Media, covering a year at Oak Park and It was a good week. Right now, 10am onepisode seven of “America To Me,”slated for broadcast later in 2018. River Forest High School, for a reported a North Side side street, five of us look(The title is drawn from LangstonHughes’ poem, “Let America Be $5 million. Over the first weekend of toward a flatscreen monitor with aAmerica Again”: Sundance, “Minding the Gap,” a brilliant, frozen shot of doors about to open withO, yes,I say it plain, dreamily fluid, memorably sorrowful a cascade of students, white, black,America never was America to me,And yet I swear this oath— longitudinal skateboarder doc shot in Latino, Asian. Economy and density areAmerica will be!) Rockford by debut feature director Bing goals as the team works to fashion each Liu (also a story director and episode into a one-hour format. James cinematographer on “America To Me”) watches co-editor Alanna Schmelter at debuted, and then on Monday night, the the desk from a rolling office chair, while briskly-paced first three hours of the editors Leslie Simmer (“The series played to universal acclaim as Homestretch,” “Raising Bertie”) and well. Early-early Tuesday morning, two David E. Simpson (“Life Itself,” “Maya hours before the debut of episodes four Angelou: And Still I Rise”) are draped and five in Park City, Steve James’ onto a love-seat-sized couch. Associate decades-long Oscar nomination editor Rubin Daniels, Jr. will show up drought, since the highly visible success later, as will technical supervisor Ryan of “Hoop Dreams” in 1994, was broken Gleeson. (The shoot worked with a as “Abacus: Small Enough To Jail” similar team/relay process, with landed in the final five, and segment producers assigned to Kartemquin’s half-hour “Edith + Eddie” different characters.) The floor is clear was nominated as well. Kartemquin but for an errant black dry-erase marker MARCH 2018 Newcity 11

The morning sun is strong and winter- bright. Two yellow plastic film cores, which once held 16mm film, dangle from the celling fan as pulls. Simpson and Simmer slouch on a couch. Schmelter sits in front of three screens and multiple keyboards. Slim silver laptops rest in laps, a longhand-filled yellow legal pad in Simmer’s. Observing a few hours of give-and-take on this patch of “America To Me” is gratifying, the edit team moves along, moves on, with pointed observations but no ill will: the episode, and three more, and fine cuts of all ten, must move on. In a week, James will attend the annual Oscar nominees luncheon, along with ALANNA SCHMELTER AND STEVE JAMES the Sung family from his film, as well as a barrage of screenings and Q and As. A delivery date for “America To Me” is to be determined, but at the very least, the ten episodes won’t have the luxury of longitudinal lingering lavished on a sGauennosdidnsewigroshinnta,atttonhtdoaewifrgeehneaadoltrbsetkao.icltlkaisketoin fortune: “You will attend a party where production like “Hoop Dreams” or “The strange customs prevail.” Interrupters.” Oscar, ironically, is fucking up Steve James’ life. He’ll be editing bits A staff of fifteen treads clean but of “America To Me” on the plane on the weathered wooden floors with way and in his hotel room between intermittent occasional rugs. events. (Be careful of what you never Memorabilia and awards are quiet décor, wished for.)Newcity MARCH 2018 and eraser. Behind James’ head, only melting into the rooms’ hushed, steady On another day, around an enormous the sun reflects a blank whiteboard: activity. Sixteen rooms, two bathrooms, wooden meeting table on the ground goals have yet to be made, let alone met. and a notoriously scary basement, floor, other Kartemquin collaborators embracing about thirty desks or gather: James, artistic director and A raft of goals accomplished, however, workspaces. That includes five edit Kartemquin co-founder Gordon Quinn, lay behind that marvelous week, as well rooms, with three more desks that can Mark Mitten (who co-produced “Abacus” as the months of work ahead. A stirring be used for editing and post-production with Julie Goldman), executive director 2017 included a theatrical release and management, and a couple more Betsy Steinberg, Bing Liu and his PBS debut for “Raising Bertie,” from a spaces beyond that for color correction producer, Diane Moy Quon, and director female director, and a mixed-race and working with analogue media and of communications and distribution Tim producer who was a former KTQ intern, archival materials. Horsburgh, all at least for the moment both first-timers; “All the Queen’s impervious to the flu flurries. (The Horses,” released in theaters, from a Brutal flu has quieted the place in the seventy-five-year-old Quinn intends to first-time black female director and week after the burst of victories. There’s show “‘63 Boycott” the next day in graduate of the group’s Diverse Voices hardly a hum of activity, some Boston.) “This is where we have our in Docs program; the female-helmed fingerstrokes on keyboards, director of meetings, but I don’t think we’ve ever “Edith+Eddie”; and the completion of communications and distribution Tim had this many people at a meeting. Kartemquin co-founder Gordon Quinn’s Horsburgh on the phone monitoring a Everyone all at once,” Horsburgh says. decades-in-the-works “‘63 Boycott,” component of the publicity for the newly with two female first-time filmmakers as nominated “Abacus.” “We were all at Sundance together,” his producers, one African-American, James says. “All these people plus… I one a former intern, and slated for PBS Up the stairway to the second floor, a mean, how many tickets did we need in 2018. disused bulletin board greets visitors, [for showings of ‘Minding the Gap’]?” now flanked by fresh one-sheet posters Horsburgh asks Quon. “Fifty-five? I The base of operations might be located for “Edith+Eddie” and “Abacus.” Ursula wound up with almost seventy, it’s in Roscoe Village or “West Lakeview”; Le Guin died a few days before, and crazy,” she says. Quinn says, smiling, no one knows for sure. Kartemquin has taped to the French doors leading to “Travel with the tribe. It’s best.” been rooted here since 1975, certainly today’s editing room is another of the before any eager young realtor was scattered handwritten notes around the We talk for a couple of hours about born. The bold red street-level entry place, almost as if the house posts minutiae of the operation, the post- door has a recently taped cookie reminders to itself: “Resistance and production of “America To Me,” the change often begin in art.” distribution hopes for “Minding the Gap”12

and the Oscar double play, but woven Hbueat ryowuhdaotne’vtewryabnotdtyhastatyos, “There’s one scene in ‘Abacus,’ I keptare. “It’s time, too,” Horsburgh says.“But Steve edited right up until its into every response and reflection are saying to Steve, take it out,” Mitten says. echoes of the goals of social “One of the things with Bing’s film that Toronto premiere, the absolute latest. engagement and nonfiction artistry take you away from your “He left it in! I think he left it in just to irk contained in fifty-two years and struck me since I saw the rough cut And right after it premiered, edited sixty-five productions, with eleven more visionofwhereyou’regoing. Kme!Forhim,itdidmatter,it’sascene officially in development or production. around the time he submitted it to some more,” Horsburgh says.The observation that most directors say Sundance, it was the spending of that films aren’t finished, they’re released, gets a knowing laugh around the table. extra time... You had a rough cut “Which is his classic m.o.!” Quinn says.“Bing’s film was very much a longitudinal study,” Steinberg says. “I don’t know eighteen months ago? You could have “There’s four or five different versions of that he set out for it to be, but it was. It had a good, healthy, lengthy edit. That’s been like, ‘I’ll spend a couple more ‘Hoop Dreams,’ after it played at one of our most exciting challenges, frankly. How to move and keep pace months on this and I’m done,’ but you Sundance. There’s just a constant— with what’s going on with shorter pieces of media and media that’s so spent this extra time to become braver because you see stuff! An audience also topical it needs to be turned around quickly while also honoring the and braver. It’s what makes this such a reshapes what you think ought to important principle of not racing through something, massaging it, good film. And the collaborations over happen. Making it better. Ultimately.” having the right story, the vital nuances that something needs. Letting it unfold time, with Diane, his producer, his editor, in its own time.” two or three years into the project, but “While staying true to artistic vision,”“What you see in ‘Minding the Gap’ is one of our core values,” Quinn says. still taking it to another level. How can Mitten adds. “You can always get“When Bing had the original concept of traveling around the country and Kartemquin give people a base, a home, feedback from the audience, but you talking to all these skateboarders about their relationship with their some standing? We’re a launchpad. But have to trust your gut with regards to fathers it was like, immediately, okay, there’s something here. He doesn’t what you want to say and how quite know what it is, we don’t quite know what it is, but we see the talent, DAVID E. SIMPSON you want to express it. Even if we see that potential and we will stick it’s provocative and the with it. We have gotten involved in many, many projects where other people took audience doesn’t agree, you still a pass, or projects that went away with another studio and then came back here want to provide a point of view.” after a couple of years because it still hadn’t happened. The key is, it’s in your “That is another core value gut, you sense there’s something around here,” Quinn says. “It’s happening here, he’s in it for the long one of the things I say to people haul. We knew right from the start Bing going into—I’m sure that Bing wasn’t going to get bored with this and heard it at some point—going walk away. It just took him a while to into a feedback session, the real find the story and the through line and skill is to understand what to then get to the finish line. The other take in and what to ignore. Hear thing that’s important is that we’re in what everybody says, but you the Midwest here, we’re in Chicago. So don’t want that to take you Bing is making a film in Rockford, he’s away from your vision of where not commuting from L.A. He’s in the you’re going.” community where he’s making the film. He’s committed. The diversity we look near the very end, where an older white for, it’s not gender and race, it’s also diversity of location, that we’re part of man is carrying chairs into the the country.” Bing’s done all the work. I dread to think celebration at the bank. I said, do weAnd socioeconomic concerns, political elements, are automatically implicit how many rough cuts he made over the really need that? And he said, it shows when you’re specific about where you course of four years. Bing took our diversity, it shows humanity, it’s beyond model and took it on the road. We do a just being a Chinese-American bank. lot of feedback screenings and editorial Yeah, I said, but we could cut it and have consulting with Gordon. Bing got really a few extra seconds. But to him? It was brave and showed the film to a lot of part of the fabric and the tapestry.” people in 2017, and not like he was swayed unduly by feedback, but it “Which is the nature,” Quinn says. sweetened the film.” “There’s an edit in ‘Hoop Dreams’ that I actually teach with, and Steve and I “You run out of eyes at a certain point, could have an argument even today. I too,” Liu says. “By the time 2017 came laid out why, but it was his choice.” around, it was like, ahh, I’ve already MARCH 2018 Newcity seen that. Is anyone going to come to “At the end of the day, you trust your another Kartemquin screening?” director,” Mitten says. “As a producer, we’re here to facilitate, and if he says he “Your joke about films are never finished, wants it in, and we debate it, if he thinks only released, the ultimate practitioner it stays in, it stays in.” of that is Steve James!” Quinn says with a sly smile. “’Abacus’ is probably one of While Quinn describes a “dialectical his few films that did get finished in a working process” with James and other timely manner!” 13

directors, Liu says of working as a filmmakers, they’re like, ‘I’ve gotta tell Three or four years ago with ‘Life Itself,’ segment director and cinematographer both sides.’ Yes, but you have to know as soon as they passed the Ls, I said to on “America To Me,” “I was surprised by where you stand. And ‘Abacus’ is a my wife, we’re not nominated. ‘No, it’s how hands-off he was. Even the first wonderful example of a film where we over.’ I was planning not to wake up for time we met, it was like, ‘Ahhh! Steve know where we stand. There’s never it this year, just look at my phone when I James is here to help me!’ and we went any ambiguity. We stand with that woke up, then I’d know. But I was up, out for coffee, we talked about what it family.” and I went ahead and watched. It was was like growing up, just got to know announced, I didn’t do like a big shout each other. We didn’t talk about work. “That doesn’t let them off the hook,” or anything, Judy gave me a kiss, then And then at the very end, he was like, James interjects. she said, okay, I’m going back to bed. this series is not about capturing Then my phone started blowing up, and everything, you’re not going to get “That doesn’t let them off the hook, and I talked to [my team] on the phone, and everything, but I just want you to tell the we went to enormous lengths to get the it was great. After a little time to reflect story of what it’s like to be a high school other side included, but it means that on it, I thought about just how lucky and student in this year. We did exactly that. you understand where you’re standing. privileged I do feel to have had this long I found out later, though, he was using You also build relationships with a of a career—so far!” James raps the [location sound recordist] Zak Piper to character, building trust. It extends into table, “—and to have had such great spy on me! Zak was like, early on, Steve the editing and into what’s going to be opportunities over the years to get to was asking me, how’s Bing doing? in the film. We show our films to our know amazing people. Many of them Steve’s basement was the hub of really inspirational, frankly. Some more activity, that’s where we kept the characters before we release them, difficult, but still, nonetheless, thankful cameras and the gear, three blocks before they’re done, when we can still for. I don’t know. It did feel like this away from the high school. I’d go make a change. We tell people, look, if was—whether people voted for me just there six o’clock in the morning, get there’s something you can’t live with, for the merits of the film, or voted for the camera for my shoot. We kept in you’re going to be listened to. We’re me, hopefully for the merits of the film contact with our three students [we basically saying, if we can’t convince and something more—it did feel like a were following] just to find out what you it needs to be in the film, we’ll take it nomination that was for all the films, in they’re doing, and figured out early out. The point being, the whole process a way, taking nothing away from the on, this guy’s going to be spoken is one that’s built on a kind of trust, film itself or the Sung family, for me it word, that’s a major arc, this guy’s a rather than the kind of interview where felt more like it was for Arthur and filmmaker, we’ll capture that, this you let the character hang themselves.” William [from ‘Hoop Dreams’] and guy’s just a cute freshman who’s Carroll Pickett [“At the Death House trying to find his way. But I’d go Door”] and Ameena [Matthews, from there at six in the morning to prep the ‘The Interrupters’], on and on.” camera, Steve comes down in his pajamas, and he’s like, ‘What’s up!’ And The group gets back to everyday stuff, I can tell he just wants to get into it. We these banter-bickering co-workers and would screen footage once or twice a colleagues in an everyday struggle to month, but he’s really good at building a carve out heart-wrenching, swoon- team, letting everybody give input. graced art, yes, about American justice, Doing ‘Minding the Gap’ at the same about humanity, about socioeconomic time, it was crazy. That was the year that forces at play, but also voluptuous yet things got really heavy for one of the measured cinema: this is consistently characters, they ran away, out of town, transformative nonfiction at its finest. and I was going to Denver in the middle... Other people had to capture James is wry about Kartemquin’s dual In their work, there is hope. Christmas break stuff [for ‘America’]. It was a wild time.” Oscar nominations. “That kind of fucked “There are a lot of films about the up my whole thing, I’ve gotten a lot of And there are also deadlines. financial meltdown,” Quinn says, returning to the subject of their Oscar- love from being snubbed, I’m not sure nominated feature. “’Abacus’ could have become one of those films, but in fact, I’m gonna like it. When we finished it’s a film about a family. That’s important to us. People don’t represent ‘Abacus,’ I could not have predicted this problems, people are complicated, contradictory, funny, they are full-blown would happen. I love the film, and I human beings and if you tell that story you’ve also incorporated that social remember Mark was, early on, bullish on “America To Me” is scheduled to debut issue into it. I use ‘Abacus’ now when people ask me about objectivity and this. I was like, ‘Y’know, if we get to the on STARZ in fall 2018. Distribution is telling both sides and blah-blah-blah. This comes up, I’m dealing with shortlist [of fifteen films] that would be a pending for “Minding the Gap.”Newcity MARCH 2018 real accomplishment, and we’d be “Edith+Eddie” is playing as part of the happy. One-hundred-seventy films Oscars shorts compilations in theaters qualified this year, the most ever, and if across the country. “Abacus: Small we make the shortlist, we’re good. I’m Enough To Jail” premiered on fine, man. Down to the last few days Frontline in September 2017 after a [before the mid-Sundance nominee theatrical run. The ninetieth Oscars announcement], I did start to feel... the are Sunday night, March 4. thing about our title is, if we are the first name announced, we are not nominated.14

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Newcity MARCH 2018 Designer of the Moment 2018 ann lui has a busy year ahead of her. The award-winning architect, assistant professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and founding part- ner—along with Craig Reschke—of Future Firm, a home- grown architecture and design research office focused on how creativity and innovation can radically transform our lived experiences, makes sure she stays curious. To Lui, this means rethinking and reshaping urban land- scapes through architectural projects or experimenting with curatorial work including site-specific installations at The Night Gallery, the company’s storefront, which doubles as a space to exhibit architectural projections during the nighttime. What’s next? Lui will serve as co-curator—along with Mimi Zeiger and Niall Atkinson— for “Dimensions of Citizenship,” the exhibition that will represent the United States in the U.S. Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale later this year, bringing together architects, artists, designers and educators who try to push creative, social and political boundaries in order to reveal what it means to be a citizen today. As the meaning of citizenship in contemporary society becomes more blurred, this should be quite an undertaking—one worth looking forward to. Lui explains why. By Vasia Rigou • Photos by Nathan Keay16

Lately, you—with Future Firm—have consideration as you move from the- chaotic, multiplicitous, agonistic ecol- MARCH 2018 Newcitybeen interested in exploring the archi- ory to practice? ogy of understandings that comprisestectural implications of night, raising what it means to belong.questions such as: “What occurs, It’s always been important to us that We have commissioned works fromflickers, transpires, is built or des- Future Firm is a building practice. seven diverse practices—diverse, nottroyed, in the hours of darkness? Who Craig and I both love working on build- just in a traditional sense, but in termsdo you break the law with? What ings, but for us, the bigger consider- of their methodologies, disciplines,wakes at twilight? Can night be an ations and contexts—which I think and sites of interest. I’m excited thatallegory for entering into the subcon- you’re calling “theory” here— are al-scious and uncanny territories of the ways already embedded in archi- the work will show incredibly broadbuilt environment and lived experi- tectural practice. Even in the most ways that architecture can be involvedence?” What inspired you to pursue seemingly mundane or boring task in questions about belonging: fromthis and where has this journey taken of capital-A architectural practice, issues of environmental citizenship, toyou creatively and productively? say, drawing a wall section detail, the violence of discrimination and there’s politics, economy, ecology. what happens in the fugitive spacesAt Future Firm, with my partner Craig of exclusion and expulsion, to reckon-Reschke, we’ve always said we would We’re finishing construction on ings with resurgent nationalism.never be specialists. We opened our the renovation of a century-old Amanda Williams and Kate Orff, forown practice because we wanted to Chicago brick building into studios example, have totally different practic-work on the diverse and bizarre things and a gallery for an artist. If you es—Kate works with oysters and in-that interest us across scales, times, look at the wall section of that frastructure at the scale of a shoreline,disciplines. Nonetheless, despite our building—we can read the con- Amanda with both paint and brick asbest efforts to avoid signature styles cerns of climate change in the well as participation/engagement onor methodologies, common threads thickened insulation, the relation- Chicago’s South Side. But both de-emerge. We started thinking about the ship with the neighboring church signers profoundly challenge us tonight with our project The Night Gal- in the dotted property line, the complicate our understanding of thelery, which is a pop-up exhibition city’s collective and inherited fears communities and ecologies we’re partspace in our storefront window. We of fire and risk in the idiosyncratic of, responsible for, complicit in.show architectural projections six Chicago Building Code. By making The exhibition will present citizenshipmonths a year, from sunset to sunrise. these broader questions visible in as a tangle of rights and responsibili-The Night Gallery brings together a lot the daily grind of traditional archi- ties both produced by and producingof our interests: architecture that’s tectural work, we hope to revalue the built environment—the border wallconstructed based on parameters of practice as a site for radical explo- is both the worst and most obvioustime rather than materials; messy ration of questions that matter,gatherings in public space; responsive pointing to the existing discourse andor live-time drawing techniques. Craig agency embedded in the architectur-is working now on nocturnal land- al discipline.scapes—what happens in solar panelgrids after the sun sets? As part of the newly announced cu- ratorial team—alongside Niall Atkin-Night has become an allegory for son of the University of Chicago andmany of the important themes in our independent critic Mimi Zeiger—forprojects: from the ways Chicagoans “Dimensions of Citizenship,” the exhi-break building and municipal codes in bition that will represent the Unitedthe privacy of their garages, in our States in the U.S. Pavilion at the 2018project Rebel Garages; to the ways Venice Architecture Biennale, in whatthat night can conceal desires that are ways do you intend to turn architec-considered queer or deviant, in our ture into an active agent of socialproject for Valentine’s Day in Times change—a medium to facilitate com-Square; or maybe our general sense mon understanding of what it meansof living in the twilight of ecological to be a citizen today?catastrophe paired with ominoustransformations in geopolitics. Also: in What it means to be a citizen today,general, what isn’t better in the dark? and what architecture’s role is within that conversation, are complicatedYou work at the intersections of land- questions. We are not aiming on cre-scape territory and curatorial exper- ating a common understanding, butiments. Crafting your creative vision, actually the opposite: the curatorialwhat parameters do you take into project asks that we recognize the 17

Newcity MARCH 2018 example of this. It’s easy to find “in as Studio Gang), are Chicago-based, and that there’s a citizenship to insti- common,” as you said, a rhetoric of inevitably bringing the city into the tutional support which often can go inside-outside, self-other: it’s import- spotlight. What do you think Chicago— unrecognized but is important if Chi- ant that architecture be involved in one of the most diverse cities in the cago is going to continue to lead these complicating these binaries. country—and the United States at kinds of conversations. large, have to contribute to the timely Complicating the relationship be- global dialogue of citizenship? As the meaning of citizenship in con- tween individuals and the state, es- temporary society becomes more pecially in tense political climates, We are a diverse city, but also a pain- blurred — containing legal, political issues of citizenship arise, providing fully segregated one, in which many and social dimensions, while simulta- the perfect backdrop for artists and invisible systems—including real es- neously being an emotional experi- creatives to challenge and critique tate, architectural practice, planning— ence that extends a sense of commu- policy and politics through their prac- have contributed to inequality and nity identity, place and belonging at tice. Why is now the right moment in exclusion. On the other hand, like you local, national and global levels—you time to have this conversation? said, it’s a city where many people are have the opportunity to work with an doing important work against the acclaimed team of architects, land- In the end, I think the question of citi- grain of these bigger systems—espe- scape architects, artists, designers zenship is ancient, as well as urgent. cially in the fields of art and design. It’s and thinkers to bring this project to We’ve all been asking ourselves what a city where you can see clearly the life. What are you hoping the viewers it means to come together by law and critical role of aesthetic and spatial will take away from this exhibition? by choice for millennia—and what the practices in catalyzing change, or roles of walls, bridges and rivers play, making legible the complexities of I hope they take away the idea that as well as pipelines, satellites or dark lived experience. architecture—understood as engage- fiber. So while this moment can feel ment with the built environment like a gut-punch with every hideous It’s been very meaningful to me to through research, drawing, dreaming— revelation or tweet, with “Dimensions work on this project from a home has agency in the conversations that of Citizenship,” we (the curatorial at the School of the Art Institute of matter to us as citizens. If “Dimensions team) are hoping to ask that the dis- Chicago. “Citizenship,” understood of Citizenship” can show that the dis- cipline serve to help situate these through the lens of the citizen artist or cipline can act as a space of congre- questions both within a long history citizen designer, has been an issue gation, a boxing ring, a sci-fi novel for as well as in possible futures. Archi- that the school has taken up enthusi- what it means to belong, or be includ- tecture and design, broadly writ, have astically as a site for experimentation ed or excluded, or be in the end more the unique ability to project transfor- and exploration. I’ve been very cogni- than the sum of our parts—that will be mative new futures. zant of the legacy of Dread Scott’s successful for me. work in 1989, “What Is the Proper Way Mimi Zeiger and I have been very in- to Display a US Flag?” which was de- As an educator you always have to spired by the discourses of Afrofutur- nounced by Congress as well as push your students out of their cre- ism: what are the potential new worlds George H. W. Bush. SAIC has always ative comfort zone. What kinds of that can be dreamed of and drawn, been a place where these hard and boundaries do you feel you’re push- when we break with the conditions, uncomfortable conversations can take ing bringing Future Firm into Chica- structures both visible and invisible, place; and while I’m sure it’s not al- go’s constantly growing creative and we’ve been taking for granted? Andres ways comfortable for the school, it’s a entrepreneurial community? L. Hernandez shared with us Samuel place which, ultimately, productively R. Delaney’s claim for the “Necessity leaned into that uncomfortableness. The boundary when, at the end of the of Tomorrows,” and it’s become core “Dimensions of Citizenship” has re- night, it might just be nice to go home for us. We find this need for design to ceived profound support from the in- and crash—but instead when someone act as resistance, and to avoid knee- stitution. This includes the work of asks, you rally and go do that next jerk responses which often are inward Paul Coffey, dean of community en- thing: get another drink, break onto a looking, to be an important provocation. gagement, who has made the behind- roof somewhere, have a conversation the-scenes support for this project with a stranger who will tell you some- The institutions that have been ap- into a creative and critical endeavor; thing that reminds you that most of the pointed as co-commissioners of the as well as discursive and curatorial things you think you know are probably 2018 U.S. Pavilion—the School of the mentorship from Mary Jane Jacob, wrong, jump into the lake—the bound- Art Institute of Chicago and the Uni- Zoë Ryan, and of course Jonathan Sol- ary across which things or people have versity of Chicago—as well as several omon, whose transformative vision for the opportunity to surprise you. In curatorial team members (yourself, the department has always been at teaching, curating, practice, I’m always and associate curator, Iker Gil), advi- the heart of these dialogues. I don’t trying to learn how to design space for sors, and participants (Amanda Wil- mean to name-check, only to point out the unexpected things I haven’t de- liams and Andres L. Hernandez, as well that collaboration occurs across scales, signed to, in fact, occur.18

MARCH 2018 Newcity 19

It defines and shapes us. It’s at our core, from North of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University to South, and from Lake Michigan to the West Side, of Chicago—as well as several curatorial team mem- and it’s boiling-hot running through our veins de- bers, advisors, and participants are Chicago-based, feating even the fiercest temperatures that make the inevitably bringing the city into the world’s spot- coldest winter nights almost unbearably long. light once more. Collaboration. As we become an increasingly global city, in a digital era that makes it easier, faster and less expensive to Like a shared urban workspace, ours is a city of com- launch new businesses, creative initiatives and pas- munication and collaboration that brings together sion projects, Chicago still holds on to the old-school extraordinary artists, designers, makers and entre- values—communication, respect and hard work—that preneurs to help one another grow their creative define a collaborative community. vision and their revenues, scale their businesses and enhance their levels of success, as they elevate the While there’s still a lot of work to be done, here’s city’s art, design and culture scene. Newcity’s annual Design 50 list of those who contin- uously strive to create a stronger and healthier design From one-person startups, to internationally known, ecosystem. Hint: They’re all incredibly inspiring. high-end design firms, there’s so much creative (Vasia Rigou) energy flowing through our city, and it comes in all shapes and sizes—bold fashion and jewelry designers take over the industry, design entrepreneurs thrive in the business world, architects transform our lived experiences, social media influencers bring the city to the forefront, artists, educators and curators help bring creative visions to life.Newcity MARCH 2018 But the Chicago effect extends well beyond the city’s The 2018 Design 50 was written by F. Philip Barash, limits. One such example of global influence, is the Nick Cecchi, Isa Giallorenzo, Vasia Rigou, city’s strong presence in the upcoming exhibition, Michael Workman and Thaddeus Zarse. Dimensions of Citizenship, that will represent the United States in the U.S. Pavilion at the 2018 Venice All photos by Nathan Keay Architecture Biennale: The institutions that have on location at the Chicago Design Museum. been appointed as co-commissioners—the School20

1 • Helmut Jahn 4 amanda williams Artist and Owner, Amanda Williams Studio Taking over galleries, museums and public spaces around the city with can’t-look-away art, Amanda Williams, part of the design team of the U.S. Pavil- ion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, weaves the personal, the social and the political in surprising ways. “It will sound clichéd, but this city inspires me. It’s so thick and layered1 streetwear into the high-fashion spotlight, 4 • Amanda Williams MARCH 2018 Newcity has a wide range of interests—and theyhelmut jahn inform one another in creating new hybrid and rich with problems and potential,” she forms. It comes as no surprise that his says. “The commitment that artists, design-Architect and Founder, JAHN creative endeavors will be showcased in ers, performers and administrators exhibit,2017 was a downer for Helmut Jahn. It a cross-media retrospective that spans whether they’re receiving recognition orseems everyone wants to tear down his fashion, design, music and architecture at not, is motivational. I want to say I was partsignature building in Chicago, a touch- the Museum of Contemporary Art in June of a time that was really making thingsstone of the postmodern movement, the 2019. But until then, keep an eye on him— better.” As for herself? “I try to make workThompson Center. He also had to over- Abloh’s too forward-thinking, too visionary that connects the dots between the incom-come an internal rupture at his firm as it and just too innovative to sit still. prehensible to the very plausible; Interven-tries to find a path to age as gracefully as tions that allow people to re-see andits eponymous seventy-eight-year-old 3 reassess the places and things in their livesfounder. And yet, he has another major that are overlooked and undervalued.”building rising in Chicago—a striking jeanne gangtower on South Michigan Avenue. Theforthcoming 1000M is a triumphal home- Architect and Founding Principal,coming for Jahn, following his tentative Studio Gangreturn to Chicago in 2012 with State Street Little could be written that hasn’t alreadyVillage at IIT. While Jahn has kept his office been said about Jeanne Gang. Admirershumming by exporting his brand of Chi- of the recently appointed professor in thecago-inflected Teutonic precision around practice of architecture at Harvard have athe world (and especially to his homeland), fresh opportunity to watch the assemblythere is nothing that compares to having of her Studio Gang architects’ design ofa major building rise in your hometown, their space-age Vista, a building thatand he seems to know it. screams its readiness for the Internet of Things. Prominently known for ways in2 which design can improve the ways through which we might best live together,virgil abloh it would be an added innovation, of course, were the new property to provide rentals,Founder, Off-White and not just ownership options. Still. It’s aVirgil Abloh is a creative force of nature. triumph, and Gang remains a leading lightChicago’s own designer, artist, DJ and in the lineage of Zaha Hadid and her bold,founder of Milan-based fashion label, Off- transformation-seeking ideals.White, known for bringing vintage and 21

5 vision but always pays attention to detail. viewed more charitably, oracular—for who “Oddly, or not, problems and things that can trace a straight line through commer- nick cave should be better and have been neglected cial bookstores, gallery installations, social [inspire me]. Seeing opportunities and events, real estate, and racial justice that Designer and Fashion Chair, connecting the dots on how those can be mark his winding path? But distance School of the Art Institute of Chicago solved is always motivating.” affords a clearer view of the contours of Between sculpture, installation, perfor- an ecosystem that Gates’ Rebuild Foun- mance, video, designed objects and fash- 7 dation has cultivated—an ecosystem in ion, Nick Cave’s work moves across media which one project accrues to another’s in fascinating ways. The artist and dancer, theaster gates value and in which the ordinary indignities who also spearheads the graduate pro- of lost things, decrepit buildings or forgot- gram of the fashion department at SAIC, Founder and Executive Director, ten places return to grace through the provides a framework for exploring social Rebuild Foundation sustained lift of a creative, if occasionally and cultural issues. In his case, that It may be said of Theaster Gates, as it has doctrinaire, optimism of Gates’ advocacy. includes bright-colored human-like crea- been said of certain figures throughout If he is indeed a designer, he has designed, tures straight out of a surreal fairytale. Part history: he is his own greatest creation. in his likeness, a way of designing. The wearable sculptures, part performance Consider a production typical of Gates’ only thing more striking than Gates’ ambi- extravaganza, part fashion and social mode: it might involve a set of physical tion is that it succeeds. statement, his most famous works—his structures, financed by a consortium, built signature, wildly popular Soundsuits that by a loose coalition of craftspeople, sup- 8 are now more than two decades old—fea- ported by national philanthropy, filled with ture feathers and fur, beads, sequins and an archive of vinyl records or books, ani- rick valicenti, found materials that even include human mated by symposia and casual hangs, and john pobojewski hair. Alongside sound, the colorful and christened by, say, a choral performance. and bud rodecker whimsical costumes come to life disguis- Gates’ genre, other than a relentless ing the wearer’s identity, hence eliminating generic ambivalence, is what has been Graphic Designers and Partners, social bias—an homage to individuality termed ethical redevelopment, which sup- Thirst beyond gender, class or race. poses that citymaking is a function neither As partners in communication design prac- of building form nor of real estate transac- tice Thirst, Rick Valicenti, John Pobojewski 6 tions but primarily of goodwill, applied and Bud Rodecker see their task as recov- creatively and generously. At close range, ering artifacts of the lived environment. scott wilson Gates’ projects can seem erratic—or, 9 • John Vinci Founder and Chief Creative Officer, MINIMAL From concept, design, innovation, to product development and branding,Newcity MARCH 2018 6 • Scott Wilson Scott Wilson has one goal: to help entrepreneurs and early-stage compa- nies reach their potential to make meaningful impact in the world. Named one of America’s most influential designers by Fast Company, the former Nike global creative director has a big22

8 • Bud Rodecker, Rick Valicenti, John Pobojewski“Every designed artifact we produce sets ing the area’s most striking new private States in the U.S. Pavilion at the 2018 Venice MARCH 2018 Newcity out to transcend the service it was com- residences. The 2017 release of “John Architecture Biennale, she will bring missioned to deliver,” says Valicenti. “In Vinci: Life and Landmarks,” provided a together architects, landscape architects, our studio, we reward ourselves with a sprawling, deep and intimate retrospective artists, designers and thinkers, who try to license to explore the edges of vision and of his work, and all Chicago architecture push creative and sociopolitical boundaries imagination. We work to produce compelling and design aficionados should read imme- in order to reveal what it means to be a keepsake artifacts and experiences grounded diately. Vinci’s life is intertwined with Chi- citizen today. As the meaning of citizenship in a meticulous time-honored craft while cago’s urban fabric through architectural in contemporary society becomes more vibrating with today’s current.” Today’s cur- work on many of the city’s best buildings blurred, this should be quite an undertak- rent includes an eye firmly fixed on the future, as well as personal relationships with ing—one worth looking forward to. as the autonomous devices of the “internet many of the architects, engineers, pho- of things” produces new challenges. “Tomor- tographers and landscape architects 10 • Ann Lui row, graphic designers will be called on to that made the city what it is. navigate the new technologies and leverage the new innovations around sound-activated 10 interfaces, autonomous transit and machine intelligence. The next renaissance calls on ann lui the graphic designer to responsibly lead with even more cool strategic vision and compel- Architect and Founding Partner, ling mindfulness.” Future Firm A founding partner of Future Firm, a 9 Chicago-based architecture office “interested in the intersections betweenjohn vinci landscape territories and curatorial experiments,” and focused on how cre-Architect and Founding Partner, ativity and innovation can radically Vinci Hamp Architects transform our lived experience, architectJohn Vinci has got to be the most authen- and assistant professor at the School of tically Chicago architect practicing today. the Art Institute of Chicago, Ann Lui, hasA graduate of IIT, he has worked on pre- a busy year ahead. Serving as co-cura- serving some of Chicago’s most beloved tor for Dimensions of Citizenship, the historical buildings, but also on construct- exhibition that will represent the United 23

11 iker gil Architect, Urban Designer and Director, MAS Studio Few entrants on this list show up on both the Newcity Design 50 “thinkers” (odd years) and “makers” (even years) rosters. Iker Gil is the exception. A juggernaut in the Chicago architecture and design com- munity, Iker doggedly pursues big ideas in architecture through his writing, cura- torial and academic engagements. One of a team of curators selected to assemble the U. S. Pavilion at the coming Venice Biennale, we look forward to seeing what Iker brings to this politically charged moment for big exhibitions. 37 • Thomas Kelley 12 • Sung JangNewcity MARCH 2018 11 • Iker Gil craft-centric. It makes you question Forest mansion—part of a charity benefit the activities of design, art and craft,” showcase—demonstrates the uncanny 12 says Jang, who sees the field of contradictions that form Mann’s vocabu- design expanding exponentially into lary: a first look reveals a sun-drenched sung jang adjacent fields. “Designers now room, clad in light fabrics, anchored by make products, services, do busi- potted plants, and enlivened with a pas- Designer, Sung Jang Laboratory nesses, start social movements, toral painting. But a second will uncover An assistant professor and director of make art, make movies etcetera. a counterpunctual theme: a ceiling fixture undergraduate studies of UIC’s Industrial Over the recent years, we have of sharp metal spikes suspended on a Design program in the School of Design, learned that the way that designers heavy chain over a tableaux of bunny stat- Sung Jang demonstrates a wide reach, think and approach problems are uettes—coated in black—unaware of the whether producing the MOBI whales quite useful in many areas.” looming danger above. It’s a perfect visual installation for EXPO Chicago or working gag: a room made for light is lighter still with brands like Louis Vuitton. “My con- 13 with a moment of darkness concealed at tribution to the field would be in that there its heart. are not that many who work in the bound- kara mann ary, sharing borders with, say, the art 14 world, in a way that is not necessarily Founder and Creative Director, Kara Mann cody hudson Once the brooding doyenne of goth-inspired dungeon chic, Mann Designer and Founder, Struggle Inc. has long since emerged into the light Cody Hudson is an artist, but he’s also a of interior-design celebrity. But her darker designer and the man behind Struggle edge shows in collections that are under- Inc.—a company created to feature his girded by industrial steel, heavy stone and commercial design work spanning a range the kind of leather that seduces as effec- of clients including Nike, Warby Parker, tively in a castle’s grand salon as in the Converse, Slash snowboards and Longman dangerous reaches of its dungeon. Mann’s & Eagle. “I would be making work whether eponymous studio has, to its credit, cap- people saw it or not,” he says. “It’s a big tured a hospitality zeitgeist, with hotel part of my daily life so I don’t know any interiors across the United States that different. I’m inspired by everything around manage to feel both titillatingly intimate me: music, books, art, my family, friends, and yet comfortable enough not to spook animals, being outside, having time to besuited business guests. In Chicago, breathe, traveling. Whatever is around me Mann’s most confident work can be tends to work itself into the work, and being glimpsed through the hedges of exclusive away from the studio is always the best suburban estates. A solarium in a Lake way to get me to want to get back to it.”24

15carol ross barneyArchitect, Founder andPresident, Ross Barney ArchitectsMany of the entrants on this list haverecently won well-deserved accolades,but none was more deserved or bet-ter-timed than AIA Chicago’s LifetimeAchievement Award for Carol RossBarney. The public image of her firm,both in Chicago and beyond, has beenimmeasurably enhanced with theopening of Chicago’s Riverwalk. Herlifetime achievement award, though,should spur further investigation intopast projects, current preoccupations,and what is on the boards in her studio.If history, and a lifetime of achievement,are any indication, her preoccupationsand playful ideas today will becomeChicago’s tomorrow. 14 • Cody Hudson 16 • Alberto Vélez and traditional offerings that dominated 17 • Jason MARCH 2018 Newcity her showrooms. One-hundred-and- Pickleman16 fifteen densely doodled sketchbooks later (Vélez keeps a precise catalog), live, or a more desirable place to visit, isalberto velez the in-house collection accounts for what drives me professionally,” he says. “I most of the Holly Hunt floor space. love walking around town and seeing myDesign Studio Director, Holly Hunt People who work with Vélez note both work on the sides of buses, on tote bags,Holly Hunt, the interior furnishings empire— his prolific inventiveness as well as a on magazine racks, on t-shirts and on bill-and its adventurous, ambidextrous name- vast repertoire of references. He boards. I sometimes see my work in thesake—is blessed with a sure eye, that organ recently introduced a collection of out- gutter and in garbage cans, too—an occu-being of utmost importance in seeking the door furniture that takes its cues from pational hazard!” For Pickleman, it’s import-perfect line, pattern or feeling that will in a Danish strain of midcentury design ant to be inspired constantly, and nothingturn find its way onto the palettes of inte- that relishes curvaceous, zoophilicrior designers. But perhaps Hunt’s most warmth. Using soft radiuses and sub-important find isn’t a beautiful object: it’s tle tapers that recall sloping hillsides,another pair of eyes that belongs to design Vélez drew a collection whose linesdirector Alberto Vélez. Vélez joined Holly encourage a recumbent posture andHunt in 2010 to imagine a stricter and more whose transparency invites contem-modern complement to the lush, textured plation of the landscape beyond. 17 jason pickleman Designer and Founder, The JNL; Owner, Lawrence & Clark What do EXPO Chicago, Millennium Park, iconic taco vendor Big Star, DryHop Brew- ers and Steppenwolf Theatre have in com- mon? The answer is the JNL, creating graphic design under the direction of designer, artist and gallerist Jason Pickle- man. “I love Chicago, and anything I can do to polish the veneer of this city and make it a more attractive and inspiring place to 25

18 • Brandon Breaux 19 38 • Dan Sullivan matthew hoffman Creator, You Are Beautiful You are beautiful. Matthew Hoffman should know. The artist, designer and cre- ator of the iconic slogan that appears on stickers, public-scale installations and apparel around the city managed to turn three simple words into a powerful mes- sage, one that’s been shared more than three million times. “I always get excited about pushing things further, and pushing myself out of my comfort zone,” he says. “This summer, after working out of my garage for many years, we’re moving into a building and opening a permanent YAB headquarters. My hope is that it will give us a place to develop our ideas, and also act as a public space for collaboration, as we work toward whatever crazy thing is next. I can’t wait.” fuels his inspiration like Chicago’s creative Chicago’s brightest stars, Chance The 20 community—the visual art scene, its music Rapper. Between visual art and hip-hop venues, the dance and performance com- culture, the artist and designer’s mixed-me- jason m. peterson munities. “I go out virtually every night after dia work spans painting, sculpture, video, work to see or hear something.” digital illustration and print. But his vision Photographer and Chairman moves beyond that: ”Sharing and crafting and Chief Creative Officer, Havas 18 my perspective on matters of our lives, our Jason Peterson used to design hardcore planet and our eternities inspires me to punk-rock record covers and show flyers. brandon breaux continue to make art,” he says. “The type Fast forward to today, and the photographer, of impact I’m talking about is addressing social media influencer and advertising Artist and Designer issues for which I’m passionate about find- executive is now working with some of the for Chance the Rapper ing solutions: arts education, mental health biggest brands by day, and cultivating an You may not have heard of Brandon Breaux awareness and economic development in enormous Instagram network by night with but you’ve likely seen his creative work in underserved communities are just a few.” 1.1 million followers and growing. How he the form of mixtape cover art for one of did it? “Be humble and be your own harsh- 19 • Matthew Hoffman est critic,” he says. “Being a creative is much like being a pro athlete. Pro athletes need to work out everyday to be the absolute best. Creatives need to do the same—make stuff regularly—so their creative mind is always ready for game day.”Newcity MARCH 2018 21 john ronan Architect and Founding Principal, John Ronan Architects John Ronan embodies the id and the ego of the master architect that figures like Mies, Alfred Caldwell and Myron Goldsmith etched deeply into the psyche of both the city of Chicago and the Illinois Institute of Technology, where Ronan has taught since 1992. The singular designer behind his eponymous firm’s oeuvre, Ronan has pur- sued perfection in detail and space through many public and private projects, including the acclaimed Poetry Foundation and the Gary Comer Youth Center. His preference for quiet yet meaningful spaces con- structed through classic modernist ele-26

and produced. Though he 23 keeps up an active prac- dawn hancock and will miller tice as a designer and Partners, Firebelly Design artist working on projects Firebelly founder Dawn Hancock, working with partner Will Miller, sees the mission of such as this one, his big- the design studio as essentially social, with a long track record to back it up. “One of gest contribution to the the things I love so much about the work we do is that it feels integrated into our city.” city’s cultural life is the For their team, that means developing sys- tems they’ve been perfecting as part of museum where he’s pro- their design research process over the years. “We’re pushing ourselves to create duced a resource—avail- more experiential brands than ever before. Not just brands that touch all the different able free daily for the channels, but by building systems that flex and evolve with the users and client team. general public—to learn 22 • Tanner the history and present Woodford state of design. “Design is embedded categori- cally in every aspect of Chicagoans’ lives, and has been historically. Burnham’s 1909 ‘Plan of 21 • John Ronan Chicago’ or the 1893 World’s Columbian Expo- sition are often her- alded as the genesis of Chicago design,”ments of proportion, procession and pur- Woodford says. “But I take a more holis-poseful use of materials and details has tic approach, believing that neitherled to some of the city’s best buildings. would have been possible without a foundation that recognized the impor-22 tance of design and paved the way fortanner woodford visionaries to make a statement.” Woodford also envisions the museumExecutive Director and Founder, as growing into a resource for workingChicago Design Museum designers, and hopes the museum’s“What’s Worth Preserving?” a personal work to foster it can have positive socio-project from Chicago Design Museum political effects: “We are at an apex,founder and executive director Tanner with post-truth politics overshadowingWoodford, provides sixty handwritten progress and productivity. Simultane-answers to the perennial question in the ously, as citizens and designers, we areform of a book he designed, kickstarted more connected now than ever.”23 • Will Miller And as we build these brand systems, we MARCH 2018 Newcity are also challenging ourselves with much more engaging digital experiences.” 24 todd heiser Co-Creative Director and Principal, Gensler At Gensler, Todd Heiser’s diet is predictably omnivorous: a leading interior architect, he has worked on neon-hued incubators for millennial hipsterpreneurs as well as spaces intended for unironic adulting. But the proj- ect that makes Heiser an elder among his tribe is the new headquarters of the Inter- 27

25 • Andres L. Hernandez as to retain focus on the floor-to-ceiling envision and create spaces that make Miesian windows and his waffle-like ceiling Chicago a better place for all of its resi- form—after all, no one will argue with mod- dents,” he says. “The refreshing inventive- ernism’s master. This pure vessel is then ness and creative activism of youth and filled in by exceedingly small things: inti- everyday citizens challenges my under- mate, idiosyncratic, patinated with personal standing of what our world could be, and use. Yet the combination is surprising not I am forever motivated by, inspired and in how it mediates between the grand and grateful for that.” the trivial, nor in how slyly it deflects professional nitpickers, but, ultimately, 26 • Meghan Lorenz in how friendly it can feel: not as a report to a learned society but a con- versation among new friends. 25 andres l. hernandezNewcity MARCH 2018 24 • Todd Heiser Artist and Exhibitor, 2018 Venice Biennale national Interior Design Association (IIDA), Part of the team for Dimensions of which recently moved from the Merchan- Citizenship, the exhibition that will dise Mart to a building with a Mies pedigree. represent the United States in the U.S. To design for another designer is one thing; Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architec- to design for 15,000 of them is quite another. ture Biennale, artist, designer, educa- The space, overlooking Michigan Avenue tor and co-founder of Revival Arts and the Chicago River, offers a lesson in Collective, a network of citizen activ- organizational micropolitics via a lesson in ists to bring change in community the use of scale. Heiser’s big gestures are re-development through art and cul- subtractive: all obstacles are removed so ture, Andres L. Hernandez stays busy. “In addition to making more imagina- tive, inspiring and thoughtful work, I hope to collaborate with others to28

it. “As I get older, my curiosity about every- thing has accelerated and keeps me mov- ing.” she says. “I also have a young daughter—she keeps my eyes and my mind open wide, excited and balanced.” Inter- ested in creating opportunities for people to experience and shape the city—she calls Chicago “a wonderful mess of beautiful ideas, people, art, design and culture”— Wolfson strives to make greatness happen. 29 dee clements Founder and Creative Director, Studio Herron Between art, craft and design, Studio Her- ron is a weaving studio and textile brand which blends traditional craft methodolo- gies with modern aesthetic sensibilities. 29 • Dee Clements 28 • Alisa Wolfson 26 only get you so far,” says fashion designer Dee Clements—part artist, part designer, MARCH 2018 Newcity Maria Pinto, who launched her latest line, part entrepreneur—is the woman behindmeghan lorenz M2057, with Kickstarter. After an over- it. “I view textiles as an ever-changing and whelming response to her crowdsourcing flexible way to examine the emotional sideJewelry Designer, Cities in Dust campaign, Pinto opened an M2057 Style of products, ask questions that investigate One of the most recognizable names in Studio in the West Loop in 2015, and has ideas of well-being,” she says. “We are local jewelry design, Meghan Lorenz is gathered victories ever since: A celebra- living in a time when so many of the goods selling wholesale nationally and interna- tion of her twenty-fifth career anniversary we buy for ourselves, our families and our tionally, as well as in such high-profile with a retrospective at Chicago’s City Gal- homes are commodified to a point that local spots as the MCA gift shop. She has lery at the historic Water Tower; a capsule they reduce the well-being of a human or recently started working with gold, and to collection inspired by the work of architect an agricultural structure,” she adds, hop- incorporate fine jewelry in her arsenal. Her Jeanne Gang on the occasion of the 2015 ing that in some small way, her work will first hit? The “dagger cuff” bracelet. Her Architecture Biennial, recently acquired by make a big difference. latest work is a bit more playful: featuring the Chicago History Museum; an honorary large brass daisies and an array of stones, doctorate from her alma mater, the School it was inspired by “the moment when the of the Art Institute of Chicago; pop-ups1990s imitated the 1960s,” says the designer. across the country… the list goes on.“The daisy collection is me revisiting my younger, bright-eyed self.” 28 27 alisa wolfsonmaria pinto Executive Vice President Head of Design, Leo Burnett Fashion Designer and Founder, A lot has changed since 2008, when Alisa Maria Pinto Wolfson first joined Leo Burnett as a free-“I have, of course, been tremendously for- lancer. Now head of the worldwide agen- tunate to have very visible women like the cy’s in-house design department, she has First Lady Michelle Obama and Oprah learned a lot along the way but keeps at Winfrey wear my collection, but that can 29

32 margot harrington 30 • Max Temkin, Graphic Designer, Pitch Design Union Working from her humble live/work HQ in Lauren Gallagher, Humboldt Park, Margot Harrington’s Pitch Design Union consistently punches above Sarah Gardner its weight class, whether producing the layout and design for Proximity magazine 30 or being tapped by Studio Gang Architects for the layout of the exhibition catalog for max temkin, their 2012 solo, “Building: Inside Studio lauren gallagher Gang Architects” at SAIC. “I try to merge and sarah gardner visual design, technology, contemporary art and social activism together,” says Har- Co-Founder (Temkin) and Lead rington, who strives to continuously Designers (Gallagher and Gardner), expand the inclusiveness at the foundation Cards Against Humanity of her practice. “I want to see people con- Beginning as a Kickstarter project and tinuing to listen to underserved commu- triggering contagious laughter ever since, nities while working to grow accessibility Cards Against Humanity is a self-pro- and inclusion. Diversity has been such a claimed “party game for horrible people.” buzzword for the last couple years, people But the people behind the game are not are coming to the realization that it can’t horrible at all. Instead, co-founder Max just be about the talk and there’s gotta be Temkin and lead designers Lauren Galla- real action in order for change to happen.” gher and Sarah Gardner are hard-working and inspiring creators. “Designing for “Opportunities will never be handed to you 33 comedy isn’t a very common career path, unless you ask for them. People will only so that unknown territory and constant recognize your talent if you make them.” norman teague exploration keeps me motivated,” says Gallagher. “There’s usually like a year of Furniture Designer and Owner, Plank planning and iteration backing up our An unabashed optimist in the power of stunts and jokes. And it’s really thrilling to design to improve public life, Norman get to share that with people,” adds Tem- Teague fashions objects that shape our kin. As for Gardner’s words, they pretty perceptions of public life in Chicago. much sum up the philosophy of the game Whether Teague is interrogating the inter- itself. “Be your own advocate,” she says, section of art, design and fashion or col- 31 31 • Ania JaworskaNewcity MARCH 2018 ania jaworska Architect and Educator, University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Architecture Ania Jaworska, clinical assistant professor at UIC’s School of Architecture, is best known for producing furniture both sim- plified and overstated in the extreme, included in several exhibitions at Volume Gallery. Her work may well result in intentionally cartoonish exag- geration as sleek, plastic-pol- ished style, but she has worked to expand her range across a variety of institutions and prac- tices, ranging from her solo show at MCA in 2015 to to more recently designing a bookstore for the Graham Foundation.30

laborating with compatriots on urban 33 • Norman Teague,and cultural issues, he is constantly 35 • Petra Bachmaierlooking for a point of entry to get into & Sean Galleroyour head and share his world with you. 34paola aguirreUrban Designer and Founder,BorderlessPaola Aguirre started Borderless Stu-dio in 2016 as an extension of herself-initiated research under the mon-iker Borderless Workshop. Aguirre hasboldly led this design consultancy toexamine urban issues at a human level,enriching the planning and design ofcommunities through an ecologicaland sociological perspective. Aguirresupplements and extends her profes- has transformed notions of public monu- 36 ment with their light art. “We hope to develop a collaborative connection both nick butcher and creatively and technically with people from nadine nakanishi different backgrounds and talents,” Bach- maier and Gallero explain. “We love it when Graphic Designers and Partners, problems or even concepts are solved Sonnenzimmer together through feedback and input from “Disciplines easily cross-pollinate in Chi- various individuals all with distinct per- cago,” say partners Nick Butcher and spectives. This local support and collabo- Nadine Nakanishi and principals of the ration not only propels our studio in celebrated Sonnenzimmer design studio. Chicago but also creates a path toward a “We’ve always viewed our ‘design’ work as global engagement.” part of our larger artistic practice and that32 • Margot Harrington 34 • Paola Aguirresional practice into academia with teach- MARCH 2018 Newcitying appointments at SAIC and a recentlyconcluded stint at Washington University.Aguirre is not solely an academic, withprojects in the works from Brownsville,Texas to Kansas City, St. Louis and Chicago.35petra bachmaierand sean galleroPartners, LuftwerkWorking backwards, as Petra Bachmaierhas often described it, from dematerializa-tion to a new interest in art as object, theduo she forms with partner Sean Gallero 31

36 • Nick Butcher that many recent graduates of design and & Nadine Nakanishi arts programs are increasingly familiar with 3D CAD modeling and CNC technologies. These powerful tools, now accessible to young designers and fabricators, should help push design to new places.” 39 scott english and victor laporte Founders, Scott & Victor “Scott & Victor became official in 2007 as a company of two, and we’ve kept it that way. Emphatically. It’s not that we dislike other people; we just like to do everything our- selves,” say the company’s founders. “Some-Newcity MARCH 2018 notion seems rooted here historically. its public and in doing so, suffers from a 39 • Scott English Whether through the experiments grafted lack of imagination. In the coming years, onto the city at the New Bauhaus or more Chicago’s design industry will need to & Victor LaPorte homegrown efforts through loose collec- invest in ideas that are not only attendant tives like the Hairy Who,” says Butcher. to its local audience, but also anticipatory times we collaborate with other people who “Merging art, publishing and design in Chi- of broader, even future, publics. That, cou- have special skills or talent.” They’re talking cago is nothing new. We feel connected pled with a growing economy, should about Mike McQuade who created the to that past,” they say adding, “In 2018, the afford architects, and others, opportunities packaging for all-natural ingredients protein battle is very different—static content ver- to build with their intellect and not their bar, RXBar, with them. “He is one of the sus motion. Though publication design bottom line.” most gifted graphic designers in the coun- and exhibitions are still our bread and but- try,” they add. “He’s a company of one.” Their ter, we feel the alluring pull of the moving 38 redesign of the RXBar packaging is credited image and I’m sure we’re not the only ones.” with much of that Chicago company’s over- dan sullivan night success. (They were sold last year for 37 600 million dollars just five years after their Furniture Designer, founding.) After years of global advertising thomas kelley Navillus Woodworks agency experience, English and LaPorte Dan Sullivan’s Navillus Woodworks has are convinced that smaller groups of con- Architect and Co-Founder, served as the fabricator for a number of centrated talent generate bigger and better Norman Kelley the prominent artist Edra Soto’s Rejas thinking. “We used to work at one of the Thomas Kelley sees a critical role for Chi- (she’s his wife and frequent collaborator), biggest agencies, helping big brands cago: “I would hope that our work, along as well as for world-class installations for become bigger,” they say. “Now we’re the with the work of other architects, artists, projects including the Chicago Architec- smallest of small agencies helping small graphic designers, musicians, dancers, ture Biennial and the MCA, including Sul- brands become known.” chefs, activists and fabricators, casts light livan’s own Dock 6 Collective, which rolls on Chicago’s renewed sense of cosmopol- out a massive, cutting-edge showcase of itanism. For too long, Chicago has been a design work annually. “Our highest profile city of singular figures across singular dis- design-build commission to date, done in ciplines: Jeanne Gang is our architect, collaboration with several of my colleagues Theaster Gates is our artist. Of course, at Dock 6 Collective, Blue Star Properties these figures are brilliant, but in addition and HBRA Architects, has been Revival to being celebrated they should serve as Food Hall,” says Sullivan. “Much of the reminders that Chicago is a broad scene, unifying character of the design employed evolving fast in ways that favor intellect, repeated CNC carved patterns and unique inclusivity, and most of all, diversity,” he finishes,” he says. “My hope is that there says. “Too often, design is simply pre- is a movement to begin teaching the trades scribed to meet the needs, or concerns, of in primary education again. I have noticed32

42 peter and sharon exley Co-Founders, Architecture Is Fun More than anyone in Chicago, Peter and Sharon Exley show that not only can good architecture be made while wearing shiny pants, it should be made while wearing shiny pants. The recent accolades—AIA Chicago’s 2017 Firm of the Year—and a slew of finished projects demonstrate that their unconventional approach to practice is paying off. Beyond this, Sharon and Peter are educators, selfless resources, and friends to architects across the city and beyond.40 40 • Pete Oyler 43pete oyler & Nora Mattingly renata grawand nora mattingly design, Shea Couleé was born. Since then, Graphic Designer and Founder, Object Designers, Assembly Design as one of Chicago’s hardest-working drag The Normal StudioThey’ve been covered in a wide array of queens, the ingenious performer, social Working with partner Jeremiah Chiu under magazines, including Forbes magazine’s media influencer and RuPaul’s Drag Race the umbrella of Plural, the team worked“30 Under 30 for Art & Design.” Assembly’s contender has explored creative paths with clients including WBEZ’s Curious City Pete Oyler and Nora Mattingly are unfet- between performance and filmmaking, and the University of Chicago’s Arts + tered by traditional notions that designers such as “Lipstick City,” a short film she Public Life, among other gallery and visual might work under a signature style or wrote, co-produced, directed and starred art clients. Today, under the flag of The material instead of creating works with a in, and her latest venture, Couleé-D, a Normal Studio, former Plural partner nod toward subtle and subversive utility visual EP in collaboration with VAM Studio. Renata Graw thinks of her work as “pretty that tasks you to expand your idea of func- normal, but I believe sometimes normal is tion. Assembly represents a “coming 42 • Peter & Sharon Exley important.” Rooted in a desire for design together” for them, not just of their own to become more available, and for its users distinct skills and backgrounds, but of to consider the social possibilities of the materials, both traditional and experimen- discipline, she sees similar shifts in its tal, and of like-minded collaborators. As relative newcomers to the city, Assembly is using the expansive opportunities offered by Chicago as it works to create a new line of offerings.41 MARCH 2018 Newcityshea couleeFashion Designer and Filmmaker,Miss Shea CouleéJaren Merrell attended Columbia Collegeto study costume design. “Drawing inspi-ration from theatrical productions like ‘Aida’and supermodels of the nineties like NaomiCampbell,” and immersing himself in thecontemporary dance world combining histwo passions: performance and fashion 33

44 • Jessica Charlesworth & Tim Parsons 45 • Cheryl Towler Weese future of the field. “Design is both a reflec- 45 Chicago’s prestigious institutions that tion of the present and a desire to create have taken notice, as clients from around something new. I see a democratization cheryl towler weese the country import Studio Blue’s unique of design, we all have access to the same abilities to translate an institution’s needs tools, so designers should focus on ideas Design Director and Founder, into visual language. Studio Blue’s founder that move culture and society forward.” Studio Blue and director of design Cheryl Towler Studio Blue’s civic-minded practice has Weese’s dissemination of ideas and men- 44 come to shape the public’s perception of torship don’t stop at the studio: she’s also innumerable museums, universities and an associate professor and director of tim parsons non-profits. Recently, this included the graduate studies in graphic design at UIC. and jessica Chicago Public Art Plan, which proposes charlesworth a new vision for public art. But it’s not just 46 Object Designers and Partners, christen carter Parsons & Charlesworth That Tim Parsons and Jessica Charlesworth Founder and President, connected their lives and their practices Busy Beaver Button Co. with an ampersand is a reflection of a dry Begun as a one-woman operation in variety of social commentary that, in their Christen Carter’s college apartment more native England, used to be called droll. The than twenty years ago, the Busy Beaver designers, who were featured in a solo exhi- bition at the Chicago Cultural Center that 46 • Christen Carter opened at the end of 2016,  teach at theNewcity MARCH 2018 School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where that kind of post-irony—literate, a little arch—informs broader curricular con- cerns of cultural relevance, the environment, decay. It isn’t gallows humor but it comes close in oddly gleeful objects designed to greet an imaginary apocalypse. Or consider the heaviness—physical and metaphori- cal—of an object that was an audience favorite at the CHGO DSGN exhibition: an archetypal patio grill sealed up with a mar- ble top, a symbol of suburban banality upcycled into existential absurdity.34

Button Co. stays busy. The custom button 47 • Anna Brown, business and its now-twenty-five-plus Andrea Reynders employees brings together artists, & Gillion Carrara designers and makers, and creates mil- lions of buttons annually in collaboration with bands and record labels, breweries, museums, small businesses, and creative individuals. Carter, still a maker at heart, believes in the power of collaboration.“One of the things I love about Chicago is how people seem willing to help each other out,” she says. “Collectively, we share information and resources as well as collaborate with one another and just inspire.” As for her own source of inspi- ration? “People together working to make positive differences and beatboxing,” she says.47andrea reynders,gillion carrara,anna brown Partners, we are MATERIAL Individually, they are remarkable profes- sionals in their field: fashion designerAnna Brown is a stellar alum from the Chicago Fashion Incubator at Macy’s;Andrea Reynders is the design director at the Incubator and professor emeritus 48 • Fred Sasaki of the School of the Art Institute of Chi- cago’s Fashion Department; metalsmith Gillion Carrara is the founding director of MARCH 2018 Newcity the school’s Fashion Resource Center and faculty member. United by mutual admiration and commitment to an artis- anal approach to clothing and accessory design, they created we are MATERIAL in 2017, a design collective which endeav- ors to create gatherings that address aspects of the design practice, such as ideation, collection design and material sourcing. “Our intent is to connect design- ers and artisans who manufacture locally with current and new supporters to rekin- dle the designer-patron relationship in a more meaningful way,” says Brown. 48 fred sasaki Artistic Director, Poetry As the artistic director of 105-year-old Poetry magazine, Sasaki has formulated a fresh visual identity for the publication, such as introducing the likes of now-Par- is-based cartoonist Laura Park to the cov- eted cover spot. Known throughout the 35

Chicago scene as a “connector,” he sees 49 • Emily Winter design as one small element within his & Matti Sloman repertoire: “I’m a design midwife. A lot of my work is spent nurturing art and human relationships, and I’m particularly inter- ested in crowning Chicago art and litera- ture,” Sasaki says. “My role is to support, care for and advise. I help create many distinct things like books and magazines, live events and parties, festivals, exhibi- tions, educational classes, product mar- keting and startup non-profit organizations. Every project demands that vital decisions be made, and my hope is to help without making it about myself.” 49 emily winter and matti sloman Artists and Founders, The Weaving Mill After getting MFAs in textiles at Rhode Island School of Design, Emily Winter and Matti Sloman wanted a space to continue to experiment with the medium. In the summer of 2015, they moved into an exist- ing textile shop in West Town, previously run by Envision Unlimited, a nonprofit organization catering to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Besides offering an open studio and handweaving classes to Envision clients, the pair also run an annual artist residency program, col- laborate on projects with visiting art- ists, create limited runs of textile objects, and design and produce textiles for companies such as Reju- venation, Unison, Rebecca Atwood and Ace Hotel.Newcity MARCH 2018 50 50 • Allison Newmeyer & Stewart Hicks stewart hicks and allison newmeyer Co-Founders, Design with Company Among the many recent accomplish- ments of Stewart Hicks and Allison Newmeyer, their work exploring the Chicago Steel Frame building tech- nology for the 2017 Chicago Architec- ture Biennial stands out. Their assault on traditional architecture with social media as battleground has abated, although they continue explorations through their teaching work at Uni- versity of Illinois Chicago as well as curatorial work.36

Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan, dancer HUANG Mei-ya performs “Formosa”Presented by the Dance Center at Columbia College at the Harris Theater. March 2 and 3rts & CultureLIUChen-hsiang

ArtNewcity MARCH 2018The Body As Work ART TOP 5 Howardena Pindell, “Night Flight,” 2015–16/ Garth Greenan GalleryAn Interview with Naomi Beckwith on Howardena Pindell 1 Howardena Pindell. Edra Soto, Installation view of \"Open 24 Hours\" at the MCA Commons, Winter 2017-18 Museum of Contemporary By Elliot J. Reichert Art. Pindell's first major survey takes a long look at a lifetime How big of a milestone is this exhibition in two distinct oeuvres. My argument and of experimentation and the context of Howardena Pindell’s Valerie’s argument is that it’s the work of one ceiling-shattering in painting career? artist, and you’ll see this formal play happening and politics. This is the first large survey of Pindell work in on both sides of the 1979 divide. You’ll see a the world. She’s had some monographic shows, whole set of concerns and even subject 2 Mounira Al Solh. but it’s been a while, not since the nineties. And matters show up pre- and post-seventy-nine Art Institute of Chicago. even then, most of those shows dealt with a that people hadn’t been paying attention to. Al Solh's ongoing drawing and particular aspect of her practice or a particular embroidery series focuses on series of works. This show is also a way for me On one hand, you are emphasizing this her conversations with Syrians and my co-curator Valerie Cassel Oliver to moment as a kind of rupture, but on the and others displaced by the connect two branches of her work that have other, you are trying to bridge the gap that ongoing Syrian Civil War. been basically kept separate in her critical has been keeping them separate in art reception. history. 3 Clare Rosean. Zg Gallery. Absolutely, and the way that Val and I talked Between playful and eerie, Does this divide have to do with her about the show early on was actually more like Rosean's paintings and accident? a spiral. Instead of thinking about this as a drawings will delight those of a Exactly, it corresponds to pre- and post-1979. linear trajectory through time that only moves in certain sensibility. The work changes in 1979, and I’ll go into why one direction, we really are imagining this type in a moment. I’ve found that there are two of practice as one that moves forward and 4 Rupert Glimm. Firecat different critical receptions to these bodies of around at the same time, spiraling in and out. Projects. New works by work. There are those who are infatuated with In fact, the last work, at least on the checklist, Grauel feature shag rugs and the work before 1979, which is mostly abstract. is exactly that, a spiral that formally takes up wooden sculptures on the What is most apparent in those works are all the same experiments that she was doing in theme of the \"public school.\" the experiments that she’s doing with material, the early seventies. shape and form as a way of pushing painting 5 Roni Packer. Chicago forward. After 1979, you have the introduction What happened in 1979? Artists Coalition. Packer of found images, the figure and politics into the A couple things happened that are important pushes the limits between work, and it has an entirely different reception. for her. Up until 1979, she is active with a painting and sculpture with There are those who are quite celebratory of a women’s artist group very much advocating for things that sit between both. woman who is making the personal political. feminist work. She’s doing work against racism, But these two conversations seem never to especially in museum practices. She’s also a speak to each other. The challenge has always curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New been how to make these projects, these two York for twelve years, the first black woman to eras, look like the work of one artist, and not hold a position in the department of Prints and38

Illustrated Manuscripts. In 1979, there is a show backseat on the passenger side, where the “Let’s Make America Great Again.” We’ll havedowntown at the Artists Space gallery, which isan independent, alternative space… other car makes impact, and Pindell sustains a images that will give you a walk-through of massive head injury. She’s in the hospital, she 1979 in a social and political way on the outsideI know the show that you are referring to… cracks her skull. She has amnesia, and to this of a structure, and on the inside is Howardena’sI won’t say it, but clearly, the title of the show day she has slight vertigo. With this near-death story of that year.was just a provocation by someone whowanted attention, and race was the bait by experience, she realizes that she needs to That reinforces the spiral metaphor, as well.which he could raise enough stink to makehimself infamous and get press. Howardena reassess her life and gure out what it is she Exactly. She has always been an activist,joins these ad hoc committees to protest theexhibition. needs to accomplish with her art. From that throughout her life. Her parents were activists.There was a lot of energy around that moment on, the work takes on more of a But it’s not until 1979 that the politics comedebate, which was very controversial.Exactly, and because she is working with these political urgency, and it also becomes agroups to protest this art institution, she nds mnemonic tool by which she starts reconstitut- inside the work. So it’s as if these branches ofher colleagues at MoMA calling her an agent of her life collide in a way that is not just about acensorship. As there are now, there were big ing her life and memories. She goes throughdebates then about this ultimate freedom of this archive of memories to make work and of personal issue, the world is also forcing thisspeech versus respect for the multiplicity of course at this moment she is realizing that the upon her.communities. Those two things were rubbingup against each other in 1979 just as they are personal is political. Her memories, her reconsti-now. Things became so uncomfortable for her tution of self also becomes a reconstitution of a Different artists have different ideas aboutat MoMA that she decides to leave. Mind you, it how their work is displayed and interpret-was already complicated for her to be an artist political self. ed, especially when you are consideringat MoMA, trying to do this work for artists whoare also thinking of her as a bit of a double In terms of the politics of this new chapter politics, not just historical politics butagent because she’s working for an institution. of work, how overt is that? contemporary politics, to a certain extent. The show is geographically laid out in that way. How has your relationship with Pindell, asAfter MoMA, she gets a job at SUNY Stony We have this super symmetrical building here, well as with your co-curator Valerie CasselBrook, and she’s still there to this day. That fall, Oliver, been working out?she’s in a car with Donald Kuspit, who pulled and super symmetrical galleries. One side isher into this job, and they have a sideswipe It’s kind of incredible. Howardena is so thrilledcollision with a nun driving something massive, pre-1979, and we state that clearly in thelike a Cadillac. They’re in a VW bug, she’s in the introduction, and then we have, in the Lake Gal- to see a survey that she’s been relatively hands-off. She’s been informed of everything, lery between the two halves, the year 1979 represented. Even though this is such a break but she’s not trying to guide the conversation in for her, I didn’t want the audience to walk away any way. Again, she was curator for twelve thinking that this was just Howardena’s issue— years, so she understands the relations her head injury, her politicizing moment. I also between objects and curatorial practice, and wanted to give people the sense that, in 1979, she understands even better than some artists that you have to leave space for interpretation. there was a sense of political urgency in the world as well. A lot of it will look familiar from today’s view. We’re having problems with Iran, it I always consider myself playing a long-term game in art history. I’m putting something on is the year of their revolution. This is the the table that I imagine should be part of a ascendancy of Reagan, whose slogan was MARCH 2018 Newcity 39

conversation that will extend well beyond the life This project is not just a way to reintroduce the notion of what our cultural heritage is. We areof the artists I work within the contemporary deeply invested in art, which is the anchor forfield and well beyond my life. In 2017, my joke world to Howardena, it’s also an homage to awas, “Who’s the hottest artist this year? woman who is in many ways our predecessor. the work that we do. At the same time, weLeonardo Da Vinci.” He’s been gone for She is known as an artist but not as a curator. realize that there is now this fluidity in thesefive-hundred years! This is the ambition I have As black women, we had to acknowledge the cultural conversations between things like artfor a project like this. This is a statement about and music and fashion and design. What weHowardena that should spark other conversa- way in which she opened doors for us andtions. And, it was really important to work with are doing at the MCA is balancing out thoseValerie on this. She’s someone, like me, who is made certain positions possible and certaincommitted to working with women and artists kinds of presentations.of color. Valerie also is someone who has a imaginings possible for us as a career. One ofgreat fluency in thinking about abstraction.Often, when we talk about abstract work, we her best friends at the time was Lowery Stokes In terms of how we start a conversation aboutthink it’s work without meaning or withoutcontent. Valerie is deeply invested in talking Sims, the first black woman curator at theabout how meaning can be ascribed to that Metropolitan Museum. We had Lowery write the the contemporary in general and specificallywhich doesn’t have an image or a figure. first essay in the book as a way to give homage with Howardena, we like to say—and by we, I to this history. We wanted these voices that are mean the wonderful consensus we have as aPindell’s work is super-exciting [also] because contemporaries of a moment speaking about it curatorial team—that we don’t think of theit’s so much about process. When you look at contemporary as a moment in time, we think ofPindell’s work, you see her hand. You see the today, and with young voices in there too,action of the artist. To see the action is to see it as a perspective. For me, the contemporarythe artist. Which means you have to think about scholars who are working on their PhDs now.a black woman’s body being activated. perspective on Howardena is to say thatAnd that seems to be where the politics Curatorially, at a museum of contemporary pre-1979 and post-1979 are deeply intertwinedenter even in the space of abstraction. art, how do you balance the past and the in her work. Howardena is not in one moment aThis is the only thing I want to talk about with present? You had Haruki Murakami on the modernist and another moment a post-mod-abstract work! But there’s also something else walls recently, and now you’re presenting a ernist. What looks like that on the surface startsthat is really important that I think is key for Val show that in some ways is very historical. to reveal itself as moving back and forth at theand I working on this, and that is, when we talk How do you think about the contempora- same time. I like to point out that she graduatedabout the history of art we do talk about the neity of the practice of rewriting art from Yale with an MFA in painting the same yearpeople who write the history—the art historians,the curators. In the long history of Western art, history? the MCA was founded. You have a museum ofyou don’t see a lot of black women speaking. You are asking a two-part question—one about contemporary art burgeoning—a lot of them, all the MOCAs are being born at this same time— the methodology of the MCA, and the other about how we begin to define the contempo- just as she’s coming out of school. Her rary both in general but vis-a-vis Howardena in education was modernist, but she comes out of particular. To answer the first question, the MCA school and realizes that there has to be a new way of working. So she, in my mind, is a real is committed to thinking about the ways in which the contemporary means multiple things bridge figure between the modern and the to multiple people. You probably noticed that, at contemporary. some point in college curricula, art history was “Howardena Pindell: What Remains To Be Seen” joined by visual studies. The MCA is very much shows through May 20 at the Museum of trying to work within the spirit of this expanded Modern Art, 220 East Chicago.Newcity MARCH 2018 Mike Cloud January 26 — Antony Gormley, after an idea by Gabriel Mitchell, Infinite Cube, 2014. Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, Gift of Antony Gormley and W. J. T. Mitchell, 2014.63. THE MYTHThrough April 22, 2018 Logan Center Gallery • Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts • 915 E 60th St Chicago IL 60637 arts.uchicago.edu/logan/gallery OF EDUCATION March 1140

Judy LedgerwoodFar From The Tree APRIL 6–MAY 19, 2018 NEW ADDRESS 1711 WEST CHICAGO AVENUE CHICAGO ILLINOIS 60607 WW W. R HOF F MAN G A L L E RY.C O Mthe needle, the haystack, the threadAboubakar Fofana, Maria Lai, Britta Marakatt-Labba,and Lala Meredith-Vula15 March - 19 May 2018Lala Meredith-Vula, From the series ‘Haystacks (1989- ), Greme, Kosova, 11 November 2016, MARCH 2018 NewcityNo. 3, Giclée print from digital photograph201 East Ontario Street www.artsclubchicago.orgChicago, Illinois 60611 [email protected] @artsclubchicago 41

EXHIBITIONSANDREW BAE GALLERY DEPAUL ART MUSEUM300 W. Superior Street At DePaul University312 335 8601 935 W. Fullerton [email protected] / www.andrewbaegallery.com 773 325 7506Tues-Sat 10-6 [email protected] / museums.depaul.eduMarch 6–April 28 Works on Paper: Kwang Jean Park, Mon–Tues closed, Wed–Thurs 11-7, Fri–Sun 11-5 January 11–March 25 Barbara Jones-Hogu: Resist, Relate, Noda Tetsuya, and Jungjin Lee Unite 1968-1975BLOCK MUSEUM OF ART January 11–March 25 Jose Guerrero, Presente: A MemorialAt Northwestern University Print Portfolio40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston, IL January 11–March 25 Rock, Paper, Image: Lithographs by847 291 [email protected] / www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu Clinton Adams and June Wayne from the Belverd andTues, Sat–Sun 10-5, Wed–Fri 10-8, Mon closed Marian Needles CollectionThrough June 24 Experiments in Form: Sam Gilliam, Alan Shields, LINDA WARREN PROJECTS Frank StellaThrough April 22 Paint the Eyes Softer: Mummy Portraits 327 N. Aberdeen, Ste. 151 312 432 9500 from Roman Egypt [email protected] / www.lindawarrenprojects.comThrough March 11 William Blake and The Age of Aquarius Tues–Sat 11-5 or by private appointment Through March 3 Gallery Y - Eric Finzi: Various ContrivancesCARL HAMMER GALLERY Through March 3 Gallery X & O - Philip J. Capuano:740 N. Wells Street Ceramic Perspective312 266 8512 March 10–April 21 Gallery Y - Kim Piotrowski: Now That The [email protected] / www.carlhammergallery.comTues–Fri 11-6, Sat 11-5 Has FallenMarch 2–May 5 Mary Lou Zelazny - VIVARIUM: New Paintings March 10–April 21 Gallery X - Heather Marshall: Memories That Are Not Mine March 10–April 21 Gallery O - Nina Rizzo: Le Lavage LOGAN CENTER EXHIBITIONS At the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts 915 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637 773 702 2787 [email protected] / www.arts.uchicago.edu Tues–Sat 9-9, Sun 11-9, Mon closed Through March 11 Mike Cloud: The Myth of Education

MONIQUE MELOCHE GALLERY RHONA HOFFMAN GALLERY2154 W. Division Street New Location Opens April 6:773 252 0299 1711 W. Chicago [email protected] / www.moniquemeloche.com 312 455 1990Tues–Sat 11-6 [email protected] / www.rhoffmangallery.comMarch 3–April 28 Sheree Hovsepian: The Altogether Tues–Fri 10-5:30, Sat 11-5:30March 3–April 28 On the wall: Jessica Vaughn April 6–May 19 Judy Ledgerwood: Far From The TreeTHE MUSEUM OF RICHARD GRAY GALLERYCONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY Richard Gray Gallery, Hancock: 875 N. Michigan Avenue, 38th FloorAt Columbia College Chicago Mon–Fri 10-5:30, Sat 11-5600 S. Michigan Avenue Gray Warehouse: 2044 W. Carroll Avenue312 663 5554 Wed–Sat By appointment [email protected] / www.mocp.org 312 642 8877Mon–Wed 10-5, Thurs 10-8, Fri–Sat 10-5, Sun 12-5 [email protected] / www.richardgraygallery.comThrough April 1 Traversing the Past: Adam Golfer, December 2017–March 2018 Gallery Selections Diana Matar, Hrvoje Slovenc (Richard Gray Gallery, Hancock)THE NEUBAUER COLLEGIUM SCHINGOETHE CENTERFOR CULTURE AND SOCIETY of Aurora UniversityAt the University of Chicago 1315 Prairie Street, Aurora, IL5701 South Woodlawn Avenue 630 844 7843773 795 2329 [email protected] / www.aurora.edu/[email protected] / www.neubauercollegium.uchicago.edu Mon 10-4, Tues 10-7, Wed–Fri 10-4Mon–Fri 10-5 Through April 5 RICK BARTOW: Things You Know ButMarch 29–June 3 Cecilia Vicuña: PALABRArmas Cannot ExplainTHE RENAISSANCE SOCIETY SMART MUSEUM OF ARTAt the University of Chicago5811 S. Ellis Ave., Cobb Hall, 4th Floor At the University of Chicago773 702 8670 5550 S. Greenwood [email protected] / www.renaissancesociety.org 773 702 0200Tues–Fri 10-5, Sat–Sun 12-5 [email protected] / www.smartmuseum.uchicago.eduThrough April 8 Unthought Environments Tues–Wed 10-5, Thurs 10-8, Fri–Sun 10-5 Through April 22 The History of Perception Through Spring Emmanuel Pratt: Radical [Re]Constructions

Dance DANCE TOP 5Newcity MARCH 2018The Power of Words 1 Cloud Gate Dance Theatre Cloud Gate Theatre of Taiwan in Formosa. / Photo: LIU Chen-hsiang.Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan Returns with a of Taiwan. Dance Center of Final Work by its Founder Columbia College. New work from choreographer Lin Hwai-min and By Sharon Hoyer his Cloud Gate Dance Theatre. March 2 & 3 In 1970, a student at the University of reasons: one, because I grew up in the sixties Iowa’s Writers Workshop who was visiting and we were taught that young people can 2 Chicago Danztheatre from Taiwan decided to take up, as his make a difference in the world and two, I Ensemble. Ebenezer required minor, modern dance. He loved the thought I was a layman and could pass the Lutheran Church. CDE's \"Women movie “The Red Shoes” as a child, but never company on to the real dancers in a few years.” in Response\" series uses theater, had the opportunity to take a dance class as Forty- ve years later, Cloud Gate Dance dance, music and visual art to modern dance basically didn’t exist in Taiwan Theatre of Taiwan tours the globe, performs uplift the voices of women and at the time. After nishing his MFA in 1972, he regularly for crowds of more than 20,000. Lin give the stage to individual stories. returned home to teach creative writing and by has been awarded, along with numerous March 9-17 1973, had founded the rst professional fellowships and honorary doctorates from six contemporary dance company in the universities, the First Rank Order of Brilliant 3 Hubbard Street Dance. Chinese-speaking world. “I didn’t intend to Star with Special Grand Cordon, Taiwan’s Auditorium Theatre. The become a dancer—I was twenty-three, too highest honor. He is considered a cultural company pays tribute to resident old,” Lin Hwai-min (now seventy-one) says via ambassador for the nation. choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo phone from Taiwan. “But people invited me to in a program featuring some of his teach and I found students were very Those who have had the good fortune to see now-rarely-seen early works, as enthusiastic and wanted to perform. So as Cloud Gate can attest to the accolades, part of the fortieth anniversary young and stupid as I was, I created Cloud having witnessed dancers who move with an season. March 23 & 24 Gate Dance Theatre, without any professional impossibly subtle, inwardly generated uidity experience. I started the company for two and power, on stages transformed into vast, 4 Layla and Majnun. Harris Theater. Mark Morris and the Silk Road Ensemble team up with Azerbaijani mugham singers Alim and Fargana Qasimov to share the traditional Islamic tale through song, visual art and dance. March 16 & 17 5 Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo. Auditorium Theatre. On their rst visit to Chicago, the national ballet of Monaco brings a rendition of \"Sleeping Beauty\" by artistic director Jean-Christophe Maillot that adds a psychoanalytic bend to the classicism of Marius Petipa's ballet. March 3 & 444

timeless landscapes. Cloud Gate performanc- to become can-can dancers or something.” visitors in the opening season said they felt ites are as much meditations as they are theater was about them. Visitors from New York said,productions. In 2014, the company brought The company returns to the Harris March 2 ‘That’s what we are after Trump took over.’ The“Songs of the Wanderers” to Chicago, gradually and 3, bringing “Formosa,” a commission for British said, ‘That is Europe after Brexit.’ They the opening of the new Cloud Gate Theater identify with the work.”covering the Auditorium Theatre stage with building in Taipei. The piece is as inspired bygolden rice that fell in a stream from the Mr. Lin recently announced his retirement, nature as it is by the power of language.heavens, descending on the head of a scheduled two years from now. “Formosa” isBuddha-like figure who stood in motionless “Because it’s a big event, I thought to do something about Taiwan.” Mr. Lin says. “I expected to be his final work for the company,meditation while human dramas played out started collecting writings—poems, essays— at least as artistic director. “I want to keep thisaround him. 2011 brought “Water Stains on energy going. Because we now have athe Wall, inspired by a conversation between about the life of the island. The visual landscape of the work is made up only of building and many young choreographers, mytwo Chinese calligraphers from the Tang Chinese characters in typeface that become retirement won’t be so drastic. I don’t wantDynasty to the Harris Theater. Cloud Gate Cloud Gate to be like Merce Cunningham ordancers train in calligraphy, tai chi, qi gong and broken to form the mountains, rivers, cities and villages of the island. We draw a graphic Trisha Brown,” he says, referring to companiesmeditation as well as ballet and modern that exclusively perform the work of a single,technique. I asked Lin if he had a background landscape. Words communicate, words document, words get blurred through time, founding choreographer. “Those cases alertedin those disciplines when he started the and also history can be rewritten or wiped out.” me. I would like to see the young peoplecompany. “Not really.” He says, “I tried them directing the company, to use their youngerand I learned something—qi gong, martial arts, At one moment in the show, the characters become a massive block and drop “like an voice to communicate with the youngeralso ancient opera movements. I thoughtabout what is ‘ours’ in how we view the body. earthquake or a landslide. Some critics from audience. I thought it would be nice if IBecause there’s no professional dance Europe came to the premiere and saw in this announce it and then have two years of moment a nuclear bomb. Words have power transitional period. My works will be in thetradition in Taiwan, we looked towardtraditional techniques that have been built on and words can kill. At the beginning there is a Cloud Gate repertoire and they can repeat it sense of community, in the middle there is when they need it. I think 'Formosa' will be myour body types and aesthetic sentiments.Because it was the seventies, we didn’t have conflict, gang-fighting. There is a kind of last full-length work. Unless the new directorexposure to what was going on outside. I got holocaust when the block of words drop. Then invites me to make one.\" He pauses and says, words become stars. When I reflect on the laughing, \"But they’d better hurry! I’m gettingmy first VHS in the mid-eighties, so I didn’tknow much about the West. All you could do island, like many places in the world nowa- old!”he closing of the exhibition on March 10.was search around yourself; you go to days, the island comes with tidal wave,museums, read, study ancient disciplines. We earthquake and internal strife, but we don’t At the Harris Theater, 205 East Randolph,were so isolated at the time.\" Lin reflects. give up. We look toward the starry sky. (312)334-7777, Friday, March 2 and Saturday,\"Looking back, I feel we were fortunate that Because we’re using Chinese characters I March 3 at 7:30pm. $22-$65, $10 students.way; otherwise we might have been locked up thought foreigners might not understand it, but Tickets at colum.edu/dancecenterpresents. February 13-July 10, 2018 A monthly dance workshop series • Second Tuesdays • 6:30-8:00pm February 13: Kizomba Embodying Diaspora is a workshop series MARCH 2018 Newcity March 13: Rumba that centers on Afro-diasporic movement April 10: Orisha traditions, led by Artist-in-Residence Arif May 8: Rueda de Casino Smith and guests. June 12: Bomba July 10: Eskista Smith’s residency prioritizes embodiment and co-presence as strategies for exploring Arts Incubator linkages between various coordinates in 301 E Garfield Blvd the Black Atlantic. Chicago, IL 60637 Free and open to the public. All skill levels are welcome. Please wear comfortable clothes. For more information, please contact Nikki Patin at [email protected]. 45APL-Embodying-NewCity-Feb2018-HalfPgAd.indd 1 1/18/18 4:06 PM

DesignNewcity MARCH 2018 Citizen Watchers DESIGN TOP 5 Still from Afronauts(2014), Frances Bodomo. /Photo: Frances Bodomo. Part of \"Dimensions of Citizenship\" at the U.S. Pavilion at the 2018 Venice ArchitectureCo-curator Niall Atkinson discusses the U.S. Venice 1 HEY! PLAY! Games in Biennale Film and Video Works, Transit Screening Lounge.Architecture Biennale Entry Modern Culture. Chicago Design Museum. Bring out the By Philip Berger gamer in you and visit the interactive exhibition that provides Niall Atkinson agrees that it’s hard to Chicago Architecture Biennial has made in its an insight into the $100 billion imagine a theme more pointedly topical than two iterations to date, the Venice Biennale is a gaming industry—its past, present this year’s official U.S. entry in the Sixteenth far more established, formalized affair, held in a and future. Through March 10 Mostra di Architettura di Venezia (2018 Venice permanent fairground location—the Giardini Architecture Biennale): “Dimensions of della Biennale, which has hosted the Venice 2 Handmade Market Citizenship.” According to its mission statement, Art Biennale since 1895. (The architecture Chicago. Empty Bottle. With the exhibition  presents “works by architects, edition began in 1980). Many nations have the motto “sustainable crafterness,” landscape architects, designers, artists and dedicated pavilions for their biennial exhibits; this monthly event brings together thinkers who are responding to today’s shifting the U.S. pavilion—a classically inspired some of the funkiest designers, modes of citizenship, and putting forth visions structure that Atkinson describes as “Monticel- artists and makers, in one of the of future ways of belonging.” As one of the lo Lite”—was built in 1930 to the designs of funkiest places in town. March 10 exhibit’s co-curators, Atkinson notes that it is Delano & Aldrich. probably not what you would expect when you 3 Chicago Tattoo Arts realize that the theme for the exhibit is chosen What is less known about the U.S. entry is that Convention. Donald E. by officials at the U.S. State Department. the selection process for the U.S. exhibit is Stephens Convention Center, rigorous and layered. Artists and curators Rosemont. Philadelphia-based It’s worth remembering that at the time a develop project proposals to submit to the Villain Arts presents three days group from the School of the Art Institute of National Endowment for the Arts.  A panel of extravagant live shows by Chicago approached Atkinson about within NEA examines the proposals and circus sideshow and burlesque partnering on the project, in the summer and selects a “short list” of projects which it performers, and tattoo contests fall of 2016, everyone’s political assumptions presents with its recommendations to the by celebrity tattoo artists. were—naively, heartbreakingly—optimistic ultimate decider—the State Department. March 23-25 about the next presidential administration’s receptivity to new and challenging ideas. Paul Coffey, the SAIC’s vice provost and dean 4 Macy’s Flower Show. Which is why it’s surprising that, while the of community engagement, explains that “we Macy’s State  Street. What application process began in the fall of 2016 applied under Obama and were approved better way to pretend spring has under the Obama umbrella, the State under Trump.” He reports that State had a sprung than by immersing Department announced its decision in August number of technical, logistical questions, but yourself in Macy’s annual floral 2017—well into the current regime. While very little about its content. The department wonderland? March 25-April 8 Chicago is justifiably proud of the impact the approved the project “with basically no drama.” 5 BYOB Paint Your Pet. SIT Social: A Dog Lounge . Spend an afternoon at pet-care space by day, pet-friendly event space by night (think dog birthday parties), Sit Social: A Dog Lounge, sipping your drink of choice while painting your pet from a photo. March 1646

Although the issues of citizenship have long + Renfro and Studio Gang, but also leading Britain—was key to its elevated position. Ofbeen politically charged, a year-and-a-half ago, urbanists SCAPE, and emerging voices like course that position changed over time, andthe curators could not possibly have predicted Chicago’s Amanda Williams and Andres L. quite radically in the mid-nineteenth centurythe current environment of uncertainty, instability, Hernandez—will create the individual when the independent city-state was folded intocon ict and rancor toward the subject. environments. a uni ed Italy.Atkinson, associate professor in the department Atkinson is particularly enthused about the Contemporary Venice, says Atkinson, “is still aof art history at the University of Chicago and project’s “Transit Screening Lounge,” which multiethnic polyglot of a culture, but itsone of the co-curators of \"Dimensions of will present lm and video offerings that condition today is sort of an inversion of itsCitizenship,\" is spending this academic year on “provide more ambiguous readings of one-time globalism,” says Atkinson, adding,sabbatical as a fellow at The Harvard Center for contemporary citizenship, involving blurred \"Venice today no longer plays a leading role inItalian Renaissance Studies in Florence— just boundaries, gray areas and alternative global affairs, so it has developed an antagonis-down the road, so to speak. from Venice. His histories” to complement the more speci c tic, but also ambivalent relationship with thecollaborators—SAIC professors Ann Liu and work presented in the “scale” installations. But Biennale—which represents a mode of international pluralism and economics thatIker Gil, and the Los Angeles-based critic and he’s probably most committed to the exhibition’s “Citizen Ship,” which will provide locally don’t necessarily bene t the city'swriter Mimi Zieger remain in North America. interaction with the community of Venice itself. inhabitants.” The city’s physical deterioration isAtkinson says the differing time zones make emblematic of its political and economic woes,planning challenging, but he reports work is As he points out, he is an art historian, not a he says, and what it desperately needs—infra-proceeding apace. design guru, so he wasn’t hugely involved in structure improvements—aren’t the kind of\"Dimensions of Citizenship,\" says Atkinson, aims choosing the exhibit designers or overseeing the bene t that comes with the cultural focus of anto “examine the role of architecture in terms of exhibit installation. What he does bring to the event like the Biennale.citizenship—the spatialization of citizenship, of table is a re ned perspective on urbanism and If all of this seems an odd concentration for acommunities and of belonging.” By citizenship, on Venice speci cally. The \"Citizen Ship\" willwe’re talking something more than just a legal explore what it means to be a citizen of Venice scholar whose focus is the Italian Renaissance, today. Atkinson is well positioned to mastermind it makes sense in the context of UChicago’sconstruct, but a sense of interconnection that drive for relevance in the eld of urban studiesprovides bene ts but also entails responsibilities this aspect of the project; his specialization in Italian Renaissance art makes him particularly and urbanism. He gleefully grandstands for theand action. attuned to Venice’s place in history and how it university’s interdisciplinary UChicago Urban program, which describes its mission asComposed of seven distinct environments, re ects what “globalism” has meant over the “helping to harness the potential of urbanization.”each element of the exhibit will represent one course of civilization.of the seven “scales” of citizenship, which Atkinson is particularly interested in investigating The program, he offers, addresses the challengeAtkinson describes as ranging from thesmallest unit—the individual—and increasing in current-day Venetian attitudes on urbanism and of ”making an impact on urban form andsize, to groups, regions and nations through, globalism. In the pre-modern era—from roughly condition—the future of cities—at a school that the Renaissance to the Enlightenment—the doesn’t teach architecture.” Certainly the workultimately, the cosmos. city-state of Venice was one of the world’s great that comes out of “Dimensions of Citizenship” powers: politically, culturally and conceptually. Its should offer direction for abundant discourse onA distinguished group of American design the topic.talent—among them starchitects Diller Sco dio strength as a maritime force—as in Spain and MARCH 2018 Newcity 47

D&iDnirningking El Gallo de Oro, empty except for one diner. DINING & DRINKING Me./Photo: David Hammond TOP 5RestaurantRoulette 1 Girl Scout Cookie and Beer Pairing. Theater on El Gallo de Oro the Lake. Barley’s Angels has Chef Cleetus Friedman creating By David Hammond one-bite wonders, made with Thin Mints and other tastes, Sitting in the parking lot outside El Gallo One unbreakable rule of this game is that the paired with some beautiful de Oro in Worth, Illinois—a restaurant I’d never player (me) must commit to going into the fated brews. ($40) March 5-6 visited—I thought I’d better check some restaurant, as determined by the game’s rules. reviews, see what people were saying. 2 Stimulus Social Club/ Walking in, I noticed a handwritten sign on the Turning Point. Ronero. It did not look promising. Two of the first three door announcing that El Gallo de Oro is open Just $20 for food and drink, Yelp reviews gave the place one star: until 5am every morning, appealing to guys with all proceeds going to getting off the night shift, or more likely guys Turning Point, a local nonprofit “Wish I could give this hell hole zero stars. It continuing a nonstop Lost Weekend. dedicated to providing mental smelled like a wet dog in there and it is quite health support to low-income possible the meat was Labrador. Terrible” What I Ate: my first chimichanga individuals throughout the El Gallo de Oro was not an unfriendly restau- Chicago area. March 7 “Absolutely terrible customer service. Refused rant: the nice lady who took my order seemed to comp a meal when my friend found hair in to smile with pity upon me. I may have looked a 3 Good Food EXPO. it. Made sure to tell him twice that they little sad: all alone on Saturday night, dining solo UIC Forum. This fair and WERENT going to comp the meal and he in a place that staff probably knew was, itself, symposium has been going was responsible for it.” maybe a little sad. strong for fourteen years, supporting small farmers and Not promising at all. My order was something I’d never had before: spreading the word about the a chimichanga. best in local food, with Chicago So why would I even consider going into this chefs including Rick Bayless small Mexican restaurant, on a dreary stretch of Chimichangas have been, for me, pretty much and Sarah Grueneberg. south Harlem, with negative reviews like that off scope. Then, a little over a decade ago, I March 23-24 and a dining room that looked like it could fit watched Summer Wheatley deliver her fifty but was completely empty? campaign speech in “Napoleon Dynamite”: 4 Wine 101. ENO Wine Room. Learn about wine,Newcity MARCH 2018 How I Got There: a game called “Restau- “I would be a great class president because I impress your date, win friends rant Roulette” promise to put two new pop machines in the and influence people (especially I went into El Gallo de Oro because I was cafeteria, and I’m also gonna get a glitter those under the influence). playing Restaurant Roulette, a game I invented Bonne Bell dispenser for all the girls’ March 25 to get me to new places I’d never otherwise try. bathrooms. Oh, we’re gonna get new I pick a street, a side of that street, and then cheerleading uniforms. Anyway, I think I’d be 5 Uncork the Archives. travel along it based on the date. I randomly a great class president, so, uh... who wants Intercontinental Chicago. selected the right side of Harlem, and It was to eat ‘chimini-changas’ next year? Not me.” History, wine, live music. You January 27, so I would eat dinner at the couldn’t ask for more—or, if twenty-seventh place on the right side of Summer’s perhaps intentional mispronunciation you did, it would be just greedy. Harlem going south. of “chimichangas” started me thinking about ($48) March 2848

this food, one of those Tex-Mex dishes that these teachings were also in uenced by What I Learnedmay be the least respected of a generally psychotropic ora harvested from the Mexican Restaurant Roulette has revealed interestingdisrespected culinary tradition (which I have desert, speci cally Jimson weed, peyote and places to me, and even if the place itself isdefended in the past). Traditional Native magic mushrooms. not that great, there’s usually something toAmerican cooks in what is now Mexico and the learn.Southwestern United States didn’t have vats of I’m putting my money on the Yaqui origin story,hot oil, so chimichangas had to wait for the as it would re ect the kind mindset that might The impulse of every food writer is todeep fryer to be invented. give rise to the chimichanga, perhaps the “discover” some unknown restaurant and ultimate munchie. I had to try the chimichanga, proclaim to the world that it serves the bestThe chimichanga—in the unlikely event that you, choosing it over many other Mexican and damn cevapcici, pho or beef Stroganofftoo, have never had one—is a fried burrito. One Tex-Mex standards, like the enchiladas, autas, around. Though the chimichanga at El Gallolegend has it that the chimichanga was and so on, all looking very, um, standard. de Oro was, to the best of my recollection,invented at the over ninety-year-old El Charro the only chimichanga I’ve ever had, Irestaurant in Tucson. Story goes that a cook The chimichanga turned out to be a thick baton sincerely doubt it was the best chimichangawas making a burrito, accidentally dropped it in made of a large our tortilla, fried only lightly around.oil, and uttered a familiar curse using the brown (golden but not crackly), lled with a mixMexican-Spanish profanity, “chingar” (to fuck). of peas, carrots, ground beef and lettuce. The Though it’s not a food held in high regard byThen this cook stopped, bethought herself, lettuce was the biggest mistake: a few shreds many, how long could it be before a high-endmuttered something akin to “chimichanga,” ate can be ne on a taco, but when subjected to restaurant does their fancy-pants take on thisit, liked it, and put it on the menu. heat, as they were in this chimichanga, they humble chow, just as has been done with become wet green shreds that don’t add to the moon pies, Chicago hot dogs, and otherOr maybe the founder of Macayo’s Mexican overall composition. simple and lling popular foods? Blue Agavekitchen in Arizona and Nevada came upon the Tequila Bar and Restaurant allegedly has anchimichanga in the mid-forties while he was I chowed down the chimichanga. It was awesome chimichanga, but we’re waiting forexperimenting with foods in his kitchen—at easy to eat; everything except the fried shell Grant Achatz or Curtis Duffy to put on theleast that’s what he claims. was very, very soft, needing almost no menu a Beef Wellington Chimichanga or chewing, just swallowing, perfect for someone Truf e-Potato Chimichanga.A folklorist at the University of Arizona believes whacked out on Jimson weed. I had no suchthe chimichanga was developed by the Yaqui, preparation, though I was very hungry (it was El Gallo de Oro is what it is: a service stationan indigenous people whose wisdom was a long drive). for food, like a lling station for gas: youpassed on to Carlos Castaneda, author of come in expecting no more than the basics,trippy mystical adventure-cum-philosophy There was nothing to drink except soda, which I you ll up, you go on your way. My chimi-books like “The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui don’t consume, and water, which was my changa was not the most handsome handfulWay Of Knowledge” and “A Separate Reality.” choice. If they served liquor, I would have opted of food, but just before dawn on a SundayPurportedly derived from ancient Toltec wisdom, for a bottle of Jack Daniels, no ice, no glass. morning, it could be manna from heaven.164 North State Street • Between Lake & Randolph Experience more of Chicago’s 250 theatres! Half-Price Theatre Tickets 61 Chicago premieres, HotTix.orgCHECK OUT THE NEW HOT TIX WEBSITE: MARCH 2018 Newcity 28 nations. + IN-PERSON DOWNTOWN LOCATIONS MARCH 9 - APRIL 5 Facebook “f ” Logo CMYK / .eps Facebook “f ” Logo CMYK / .eps BUY TICKETS NOW at #HOTTIXw w w. s i s k e l f i l m c e n t e r. o r g /c e u f f 49

Film FILM TOP 5 No “Loveless” Lost 1 Chicago European Union Film Festival. Siskel. The Disappearing Russia Euro arthouse movie lives! The Siskel’s EU fest turns twenty- By Ray Pride one, with over sixty feature films representing the (currently)Newcity MARCH 2018 Andrey Zvyagintsev has aspired In “Loveless,” a gleaming, remorseless twenty-eight EU member nations. obstinately throughout his filmmaking masterpiece that I’ve watched with ghoulish career to become a chronicler of the sick joy three times, Zvyagintsev presents a March 9-April 5 soul of post-Soviet Russia, but more recent Russia as emblematic of a selfish, specifically, of the gnawing flaws of his fallen world, where voices, stilled, catch 2 Loveless. Music Box. too-human characters caught in sometimes on the wind, and children, lost, never In a gleaming, remorseless majestic but more often cloacal surround- return. Oleg Negin and Zvyagintsev’s terse masterpiece, Andrey Zvyagintsev ings. You may know 2003’s “The Return,” screenplay bites and bites back: “You presents a recent Russia as and also “Elena” (2011) and more recently, expect to fuck everything up and I’ll clean emblematic of a selfish, fallen “Leviathan” (2015), the first of his films up after you?” is the most modest of plaint. world, where voices, stilled, catch released under Russia’s draconian laws on the wind, and children, lost, against controversy and “offense” on Zhenya and Boris are anxious to divorce, never return. Opens March 2 stages and in cinemas. Lengthy and melo- tethered only by the nice apartment they’re dramatic, it’s a bluntly parsed, pungent, desperate to sell. Both are already telling 3 Foxtrot. Landmark bitter, brackish parable of the kleptocracy new lies to fresh fucks, ready to start new Century. Samuel Maoz’s of Putin and his circles. Still, in each of his lives, tell more new lies, and discard the masterful story of the effects on a tragic, seething films, Zvyagintsev can’t obstacle of their neglected twelve-year-old family after the loss of a son is make a trash heap or a shoddy modern son Alyosha. The plangent dialogue is hauntingly precise and relentless. apartment or even the plainest face into surpassed by the child’s flat gaze upon anything less than a gorgeous luster-fuck. a flat, gray, all-but-done city, face round, Opens March 16 4 Way of a Gaucho. Chicago Film Society at NEIU. 35mm Technicolor Jacques Tourneur set on rapturous locations with Rory Calhoun, Richard Boone and the made-for-color Gene Tierney. Cinema for the eyes. March 7 5 Happy End. Music Box. It’s Michael Haneke’s indiscreet, harm-of-the- bourgeoisie apocalypse, we just live in it. March 9-1550


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