Newcity April 2017

BIGHEAT April 2017 / Free CHICAGO’S FOOD 50& DRINK CATHERINE DE ORIO OF “CHECK, PLEASE!”newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 1 3/20/17 8:50 AM

Spaces without drama or surface is an illusion, but so is depthCurated by Ruth Estévez and Wonne Ickx, Aldo Rossi with Gianni Braghieri and Roberto Freno,LIGA — Space for Architecture, February 16–July 1, 2017 Teatrino Scientifico, 198, private collection. © Eredi Aldo Rossi, courtesy Fondazione Aldo Rossi.Featuring work by architects Emilio Ambasz, baukuh, Gerardo Caballero, fala atelier,Marcelo Ferraz, Sam Jacob Studio, Johnston Marklee, Monadnock, Charles Moore,MOS Architects, Norman Kelley, OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen,Cecilia Puga, Aldo Rossi, Taller de Arquitectura Mauricio Rocha + Gabriela Carrillo,Pezo Von Ellrichshausen; and artists Pablo Bronstein, David Hockney, William Leavitt,Silke Otto-Knapp, Gabriel Sierra, Batia Suter; and dramaturg Jorge Palinhos.Graham Foundation, 4 W Burton Place, ChicagoFree Admission to the ExhibitionGallery and Bookshop Hours: Wednesday to Saturday, 11am–6pmwww.grahamfoundation.org

NEWCITY April 2017 F E AT U R E S GLORIOUS AND WASTED The Art of Eternal Youth 11 DON’T MESS WITH TEX-MEX The Case for Border Cuisine 15 FOOD STAR OF THE MOMENT How Law School Prepared Catherine De Orio for TV 20 THE BIG HEAT 50 Why Is Food an Art Form in Chicago? Ask these folks. 24 ~ ARTS & CULTURE ~ ART FILM Social Justice, via the Art World On Screen Acting 43 54 DANCE LIT The Post-Butoh Festival Breaking Hearts with Goes into Battle Kristen Radtke 48 58 DESIGN MUSIC Why A Next-Gen Agency Carl Newman Reflects On The New Pornographers Went to Pilsen 50 61 DINING & DRINKING STAGE Little Levant: What it Means to be a Jew at A Culinary Journey This Moment in History 52 63 EVERYTHING ELSE Dime Stories Future News Life Is Beautiful 9 10 66newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 3 3/20/17 8:50 AM

Editor’s LetterNewcity April 2017 While foodies obsess over the new new thing, most of us tend toward routine. Convenience, comfort and value tend to steer our dining choices. So while I’ve been to many of the best restaurants once, I’ve been to the better-than-average joints in my neighborhood hundreds of times. Lately, I’ve been pretty much living on Mexican food. I spent nearly five weeks in Mexico City where I was supervising the final post-production on our movie, “Signature Move.” While I did my best to explore some of the options around that global dining capital, I was there to work and proximity drove most of my culinary choices. Just like home in Chicago, I found a go-to restaurant in my neighborhood of Coyoacán. Corazón de Maguey is a “dining mezcalería” with outstanding, reasonably priced food centered around Oaxacan cuisine and, of course, a great selection of mezcal. I ended up dining there five times over the course of a month, including my partner Jan’s final meal during her short visit. We went for lunch that day and sat outside on a beautiful seventy- five-degree February afternoon. Caught in the euphoria of “the DF,” Jan was willing to go all-in on Mexican cuisine for this last taste. We ate quesadillas filled with huitlacoche (corn “smut”), tacos de jamaica (hibiscus) and guacamole with chapulines (grasshoppers). Though I’d already consumed a fair bit of Sal de Gusano (salt blended with ground-up worms) on mezcal cocktails, snacking on grasshoppers seemed unlikely, certainly in broad daylight, without the influence of copious amounts of agave. But the tiny little critters added a nice salty crunch to the guac—as long as you did not look them in the eye. Here in Chicago we have a peerless Mexican food scene, led most prolifically by Rick Bayless and his boundless curiosity and creativity. But venture outside of the corridors of culinary obsession to Little Village, the epicenter of Mexican Chicago, and you’ll find more humble establishments preparing delicious dishes that they learned from their parents. Associate publisher Mike Hartnett pointed us toward Los Candiles, a breakfast and lunch place just off 26th Street, where Mikey Lopez and his family turn out amazing machaca con huevo. We ended up filming an important scene in “Signature Move” at the restaurant; a highlight for the cast and crew. Just this past week, “Signature Move” world premiered at SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas. I ended up eating Tex-Mex for another week, as it’s the pervasive cuisine there, along with barbecue. Breakfast tacos are the Austin thing, and we found a food trailer in a strip-mall parking lot near the house we rented called Rosita’s Al Pastor where the breakfast tacos made with, yes, machaca and eggs, were bested only by the al pastor tacos, all made with flour tortillas homemade to order right there in the trailer. I ate there three or four times. BRIAN HIEGGELKE 3/20/17 8:50 AM 4newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 4

JIM DINE 3/13/17 8:51 PM LOOKING AT THE PRESENT O P E NL OI NOGKAIPNRGI L A28T, 2T0H17E P R E S E N T RECENT WORKS BY JIM DINE APRIL 28 – JUNE 10, 2017 RECEPTION FOR THE ARTIST FRIDAY, APRIL 28 6-8 PM With an illustrated catalogue and interview with Jim Dine and Michael Rooks RICHARD GRAY GALLERY R I C H A R D G R A Y G A L L E R Y20442C0WH4I4CEAWSGETOST,CICLALAIRNRROROISLOL60AL6VL1E2NAUVEENUERGG_Dine_NewcityAd.indd 1

CONTRIBUTORS DAVID HAMMOND (“Don’t Mess with ELLIOT REICHERT (“Glorious and On the cover Tex-Mex” and “Big Heat” Editor) is Wasted”) is still young himself, but you Photo: Joe Mazza/Brave Lux Newcity’s dining and drinking editor. might be fooled by his old soul, not to Cover design: Fletcher Martin Though he kept his shirt on this month, mention his already substantial track the magnitude of his heavy lifting in this record, which includes a curatorial stint VOL 32, NO. 1366 issue—three of our four major features— at Northwestern’s Block Museum. suggests it might be a bit sweaty. When he’s not overseeing Newcity’s art PUBLISHERS coverage, an epic task in itself, he’s Brian & Jan Hieggelke pursuing two graduate degrees Associate Publisher Mike Hartnett JOE MAZZA (Photographer, “Big Heat”) is simultaneously at the School of the our lens on our “Leaders of Chicago Art Institute. Underachiever. EDITORIAL Culture” series. Entering Joe’s studio for a Editor Brian Hieggelke photo shoot is an unforgettable experi- Managing Editor Jan Hieggelke ence—his explosive enthusiasm turns the FLETCHER MARTIN (Lead Designer) is Art Editor Elliot Reichert occasion into a participatory perfor- the creative director of a5, a branding Dance Editor Sharon Hoyer mance for everyone involved. Smiles and and digital firm in Chicago. We met Design Editor Ben Schulman earplugs are mandatory. Fletch through our design editor Ben Dining and Drinking Editor Schulman, who’d collaborated with him David Hammond on a series of projects over the years and Film Editor Ray Pride MONICA KASS-ROGERS (Photographer, stole him for ourselves. Lit Editor Toni Nealie “Don’t Mess With Tex-Mex”) is a triple Music Editor Robert Rodi threat: writer, photographer and letter- Theater Editor Kevin Greene press artist. We’ve taken advantage of the Editorial Assistant Taryn Smith first two already. Oh, and she’s also a food Contributing Writers Tony Fitzpatrick, stylist anCdDirneecri-pNeewdCIetvyeBliogpHeeartw-ahd-ic34htshoaunnnidversary-v2.ai 1 3/18/17 11:50 AM Isa Giallorenzo, Aaron Hunt, Alex Huntsberger, like dream jobs to us. Hugh Iglarsh, Chris Miller, Dennis Polkow, Vasia Rigou, Loy Webb, Michael Workman The Chicago Diner ART & DESIGN Senior Designers Kady Dennell, MJ Hieggelke Designers Sean Leary, Jim Maciukenas, Stephanie Plenner, Dan Streeting, Billy Werch MARKETING Marketing Manager Todd Hieggelke meat free since ’83 OPERATIONS General Manager Jan Hieggelke Audit Colin Smith Distribution Nick Bachmann, Adam Desantis, Diana Durkin, Preston Klik,C Quinn Nicholson, Matt RussellM Y ANNIVERSARY One copy of current issue free. Additional copies,CM including back issues up to one year, may be ordered. Copyright 2017, New City Communica-MY tions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.CY Newcity assumes no responsibility to return unsolicited editorial or graphic material. All rightsCMY THANK YOU in letters and unsolicited editorial or graphic K material will be treated as unconditionally assigned for publication and copyright purposes Newcity April 2017 FOR YOUR SUPPORT and subject to comment editorially. Nothing may be reprinted in whole or in part without written 9-year consecutive winner, Chicago Reader, Readers’ Poll permission from the publisher. Visit us in Lakeview, Logan Square, or at veggiediner.com Newcity is published by 6 Newcity Communications, Inc. 47 West Polk, Suite 100-223 Chicago, IL 60605 Visit NewcityNetwork.com for advertising and editorial information. newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 6 3/20/17 8:50 AM

HEAR IT FIRST World premiere works performed by the CSOMay 22 June 15–17 Mälkki, Marsalis & John WilliamsHARRIS THEATER FOR MUSIC AND DANCE NOTE LOCATION Chicago Symphony OrchestraChicago Symphony Orchestra’s Susanna Mälkki conductorMusicNOW: On the Edge of SilenceMusicians from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Branford Marsalis saxophonesSamuel Adams and Elizabeth Ogonek BIZET Symphony in C Mead Composers-in-Residence FAURÉ Pavane for Soprano Saxophone WILLIAMS Escapades for Alto SaxophoneElim Chan conductor from Catch Me If You CanBenjamin Beilman violinžIVKOVIĆ On the Guarding of the Heart MELINDA WAGNER Proceed, MoonOGONEK In Silence [WORLD PREMIERE, MUSICNOW COMMISSION] [WORLD PREMIERE, MUSICNOW COMMISSION] DEBUSSY IbériaELIZABETH OGONEK AND SAMUEL ADAMS SUSANNA MÄLKKI AND BRANFORD MARSALISCSO.ORG • 312-294-3000Artists, prices and programs subject to change.CSO MusicNow CSO MusicNow June 15-17 concertsmedia sponsors: beverage sponsors: are sponsored by:

Centennial BrooksApril 6–8, 2017 / FreeA tribute gathering of scholars, writers, musicians,and fans of Gwendolyn BrooksFeaturing Nora Brooks Blakely, Ishion Hutchinson, Haki Madhubuti,Ed Roberson, Sonia Sanchez, and Evie Shockley, with a performance ofmusic and poetry by Jamila Woods, and the premiere of a commission byNicole Mitchell and the Black Earth Ensemble.Thursday, April 6 / 7–9 pm Friday, April 7 / 9 am–7 pmDuSable Museum of Saturday, April 8 / 9 am–9:30 pmAfrican American History Reva and David Logan Center for the ArtsCentennial Brooks is presented by the University of Chicago in partnership with theDuSable Museum of African American History and the Poetry Foundation, and incollaboration with Our Miss Brooks 100 and Brooks Permissions. arts.uchicago.edu/brooks100 Photo © Howard D. Simmons A multi-day summit hosted by the University of Chicago that brings together a distinguished group of international artists who will propose, examine, and challenge the ways in which creative cultural resistance can broaden our collective understanding of human rights. Artists Lola Arias / Jelili Atiku / Tania Bruguera / Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti of Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency / Carlos Javier Ortiz / Laurie Jo Reynolds Summit / Saturday, April 29, 9:30am–5pm: Artists Presentations / Monday, May 1, 6–9pm: Public Forum graycenter.uchicago.edu/humanrights Free and open to the public Logan Center for the Arts 915 E 60th Street, Chicago Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry Logan Center for the Arts Pozen Family Center for Human Rights

Dime StoriesThe Lenten Horse Dreams of Music(In the Mouth of the Wolf) By Tony Fitzpatrick smoke hash, argue, flirt—I felt like this is the kind of place I’d In Rome, like any big city that like to be old. depends a good deal on tourism, they still have horse-drawn cabs I gave coins to the gypsies, with sturdy draft horses pulling bought a selfie stick (which I them. These horses often stand will never use) from a young twelve-to-fifteen hours a day man from Senegal, and hauling pain-in-the-ass tourists overheard a lot of what people around. I’ve always despised this think of Americans. practice—it’s awful for the horses, who often work in ninety-degree Italians go a little easy on us. heat (at least in Chicago they do). They had an imbecile in A couple of times in Chicago, Berlusconi, so they feel for us these fine animals have dropped and sympathize with us now dead right on Pearson Street. In that we have our own imbecile. Rome it is no different, except they dress the horses in the dressage What was marvelous was of each particular city. What is patently cruel is made to look being unplugged from All pretty. Trump All the Time. The I saw a lovely horse by the Spanish Steps and I tried to twenty-four-hour news cycle imagine what his inner life must be. Rome is a city full of music—with here is merely background his ears muffled, does he hear any of it? Does it soothe him? The noise. In Italy, there is too horses are blinkered so they can only see what is immediately in front of them, a much living and life going on thing that seems punitive and cruel on its face. People try to assure me it is for the to relegate all of one’s horses’ own good and to keep the public safe in case on of these magnificent attention to politics. People animals is spooked. Here is an idea: stop using them to haul fat-ass Americans In Italy, there is too much living pay close attention to the around. Outlaw the practice and just let and life going on to relegate grace notes of being alive. them be horses. all of one’s attention to politics. One of the ways Romans wishThat said, these were about the only each other good luck is the unpleasant thoughts I had while exploring Rome and Florence. People I know often I walked the Porta Portese market with my phrase In Bocca al Lupo, which chastise me for my style of visiting other countries. I don’t take tours. implies the safest place to be is in daughter and wife, and it reminded me of the mouth of the wolf. While it doesn’t I don’t much like the big attractions or nothing so much as an Italian Maxwell“sights.” I like the people—the everyday make sense to me, I’ll roll with it. People neighborhoods where people live their Street with all manner of things for sale lives as Romans or Florentines. I got a say this with a smile, so I took it as an odd ration of shit from some “professional” that felt slightly… warm shall we say? travelers for not going to the Vatican or the bit of goodwill. Sistine Chapel. I don’t need to see where Bicycles (my daughter has bought her the Pope popes. I was interested in the architecture that makes me feel like I’m own bike back from here before), bags, In Florence we went to the Uffizi and I walking around inside of a De Chirico scarves, pashminas, cameras, tools, found myself in a room full of Botticellis, painting. cooking utensils, gloves, belts, videos, including the painting that made me want CDs, cell-phone covers—you name it, it to be an artist when I was little. “Pallas and was there. It was a brisk, no-shit, full-on the Centaur” is the one—in it, a woman embrace of capitalism, Roman-style. I warrior caresses a lock of the terrified found no small amount of stuff for drawing centaur’s hair. It is sensual and at the and collages there. same time virtuous; and I suspect it is My daughter Gaby goes to school here maybe about the burden of mercy. I didn’t expect that seeing it would be as emotion- April 2017 Newcity and she speaks fluent and flawless Italian. al as it was. She showed me the Rome and Florence you don’t read about in books and for the There is something about the raw ether of rest of my life I will be grateful for this. the original that changes one’s gravity as We spent one night with her eating gelato an artist. When a work of art whispers in the Piazza della Madonna dei Monti, something to you over an arc of centuries, watching Italians of all ages sit, drink, to inform you that on that day, you are where you need to be. 9newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 9 3/20/17 8:50 AM

Future News / Article in Newcity, Vol. 33, No. 3, March 28, 2018 By Stephen Eisenman Pruitt Announces Crackdown on Carbon Tax Cheaters EPA Secretary Scott Pruitt announced America Hot” bill, per capita carbon output schools, hospitals and recreational facilities today a set of initiatives to halt carbon-tax increased from twenty to twenty-five tons. of “the dirtiest fuel” available. Another avoidance. “The law demands a daily The placement of umbrellas over solar would ban the planting on federal lands of carbon contribution of twenty-five tons per panels, use of diesel engines to power carbon guzzling trees like oaks and person,” Pruitt reminded reporters at a windmills, and the establishment of new redwoods. And a third measure, concern- news conference at EPA headquarters in LEED building standards (creosote ing methane, provides grocery retailers a Washington. “Too many people are replaced platinum as the highest rating) tax rebate, (which may be passed on to cheating, and some are even reducing were effective in increasing the release of consumers), for the sale of beans, lentils their carbon output. That’s unacceptable. global greenhouse gasses. But since and Brussels sprouts; it is controversial In his campaign, which by the way, he won November, U.S. carbon and methane among owners of tall, elevator buildings. with the greatest vote margin in history, output has fallen precipitously, and is now President Trump pledged to increase at a lower level than when Trump first took But it is not clear that any of these greenhouse gasses, and that’s what he’s office. Oil, gas and coal futures have fallen programs, if fully implemented, will prove gonna do.” in lockstep. effective in halting the recent decline in greenhouse gas emissions. A growing In fact, during the first six months after Among the EPA remedies proposed today underground of young men and women, passage in May 2017 of the “Make was one that mandates the use by convinced that global warming is bad for the planet, have begun to resist. In Chicago, it has become almost a sport for young men to sneak old plastic and paper bags back into supermarkets so that they can be reused. The underground trade in recycled plastic water bottles and aluminum cans is thriving. And a cadre of radical voice coaches have been teaching bicyclists to imitate “put-put” sounds after disabling the gas engines now required on all bicycles.Newcity April 2017 Most significant of all, and especially troubling to the White House and federal regulators is the fact that general con- sumption levels have declined for the fourth quarter in a row. People are simply buying less, using less, and therefore burning less. “We want less!” is the new chant at climate protests around the country, and is the organizing theme of the “Less is More” March on Washington planned for May 1. Pruitt and Trump however, have doubled down on their pledge to increase carbon emission: “The president is in the last stages of drafting an executive order,” Pruitt told reporters, “to give away stuff. Otherwise, we’ll never succeed in making the US hot again.” Photo collage by Stephanie Plenner Photo by Andrea Westmoreland (Creative Commons License 3.0)10newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 10 3/20/17 8:50 AM

Glorious & Wasted “Eternal Youth” is on Display at the Museum of Contemporary ArtBY ELLIOT REICHERT kind of bittersweet mourning mingled The paradox of youth worship is its April 2017 NewcityAn old saying goes, “The remembrance of with bruise-poking pleasure. Modern inherent urge to preserve the effervescent,youth is a sigh.” The audible release of societies have long fetishized youth a lepidopterological inclination to pinsadness, exhaustion and relief as spent through a media machine that largely down the things we love for theirbreath escapes the body, sighs express the exploits the fears and desires of those who very flightiness—to mount a butterflyineffable edges of loss and nostalgia, a believe they have already lost it. under glass. ABOVE: DAWOUD BE Y, “CARRIE I,” 1997 / PHOTO: NATHAN KE AYnewcity_FOB-april-final.indd 11 11 3/20/17 8:50 AM

Newcity April 2017 Art has fulfilled this self-contradictory Among the more contemporary shows put social imagination of youth in the nineties human impulse for millennia, from the on by an institution that too often veers and the early aughts. This, above all, is the strapping marble nudes of Archaic Greek far into the historical side of its mandate— exhibition’s paramount achievement, kouros statues to the Art Nouveau nymphs see contemporary, “belonging to or though it has others. After Helen of Alphonse Mucha’s JOB lithographs, now occurring in the present”—the exhibition Molesworth’s definitive take on the art on permanent display in your nearest nonetheless stems from the distant and visual culture of the eighties in her college dormitory. Our ceaseless fixation beginning of this recent canon. Curator landmark exhibition “This Will Have Been,” on youth is precisely that—a will to fix an Omar Kholeif points to a portfolio of stills which the MCA hosted in 2012, the subject image of our finest moment that will from Larry Clark’s seminal 1995 feature felt firmly explored. And despite the outlive our ever-aging selves entirely. It is film “Kids” as the seed of the show, but the laudable effort of the DePaul Art Museum fitting then that the Museum of Contem- earliest works in the exhibition come from to revise the art-historical record on race porary Art’s foray into this timeless Clark’s infamous “Tulsa” series, photo- and broader spectrum queerness during subject is titled “Eternal Youth,” because it graphed by a twenty-year-old, amphet- the AIDS crisis with its recent exhibition points right to the fraught heart of the amine-addicted Clark in the early 1960s “One day this kid will get larger,” little work matter. The images on display—most of and first published a decade later. The has been done to examine how the them photographs, but some of them black-and-white images of young, shirtless succeeding decades’ visual culture painting and sculpture—reflect forty male bodies aptly foreshadow the queer absorbed and transformed these years of society’s increasingly accelerated lilt of the rest of the show while also AIDS-ravaged notions of fragility, sexuali- fascination with the spirits and bodies of alluding to the looming specter of the ty, desire and play on its favorite vic- young people, from sixties counterculture coming AIDS crisis, the height of which tim-hero, the youthful body. right up to our endlessly Instagrammable this exhibition mercifully passes over to present. picture how its aftermath transformed the LARRY CLARK, “UNTITLED (KIDS),” 1995 / PHOTO: MICHAL RAZ-RUSSO12newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 12 3/20/17 8:50 AM

Beneath the superficial pleasure of chest heaves toward the lens in “On Being “Time isn’t Real” declares a hand-scrawled April 2017 Newcitypeering at young, supple bodies lurks the An Angel, Providence, Rhode Island, text on the surface of a soft pink paintingviewer’s unavoidable complicity in the Spring 1977.” Woodman’s death at age by Paul Heyer near Woodman’s photos. Invery mechanisms of desire that the show twenty-two, a tragedy that ironically this show, chronology is certainly out ofseeks to deconstruct. Near Clark’s early spurred the critical attention that her joint. From the beginning, the first galleryphotographs are an enigmatic trio of work did not receive during her lifetime, shows no signs of a clear path to follow,intimately scaled gelatin silver prints by contorts any pleasure one might derive starting with Eddie Peake’s spray-paint-Francesca Woodman. In seductively from these images toward a sense of and-polished-steel composition “De-gentle greyscale, Woodman’s self-portraits shame perhaps closer to the sentiments of stroyed by Desire,” a new work and recentappear at once playful and sinister, as if the subject who took them, and who took addition to the permanent collection ofshe has all-too-knowingly posed herself in her own life. the MCA. Clark’s suite of stills from “Kids”the easy forms of male desire; her bare leads to a wall of early nineties RobertABOV E: FR ANCE SC A WOO DM AN, “ON BEING AN ANGEL , PROV IDENCE, RHO DE ISL AND, SPRING 1977,” 1977 / PHOTO: NATHAN K E AY 13newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 13 3/20/17 8:50 AM

My heart welled with a strangely familiar emotion—that is, nostalgia for a life that was not my own. Mapplethorpe and Joe Ziolkowski of course, youthful vitality to what could hanging of several portraits, Dawoud Bey’s photographs of muscular men posed in otherwise have been a typical gallery composite, large-scale Polaroid portraits aesthetic, vaguely athletic positions. Next turnover of weary work. of black Chicago youth bristle with to them is the exhibition’s strangest and intimate details and grand pathos. A most subtle gesture, a vitrine of original Two more fresh paintings by Heyer, both of self-portrait of Rashid Johnson, fashioned Calvin Klein magazine advertisements skeletons engaging in Tillmans-style in the appearance of recently resurrected featuring black-and-white photographic makeout sessions and drug-huffing Frederick Douglass—perhaps the spreads of Mark Wahlberg taken by Herb a-la-Clark, please the eye just as well as president saw Johnson’s photograph and Ritts, himself a victim of AIDS around the they drum out the tired admonitions mistook it for a recent headshot?—signals time that he made these modeling shots. against youthful excess. Recent paintings volumes about the lofty aspirations and The whiteness of Wahlberg’s skin and his by former Chicagoan Andrew Holm- terrible treachery inherent in the perfor- briefs transubstantiate all that is fragile quist—“Swimming Meet” (2015) and “The mance of an identity, whether it is the and queer about Mapplethorpe’s and Boys Are in the Bathroom” (2014)—blaze public self or the roles that the weight of Ziolkowski’s models into the very picture joyful, juicy strokes across large canvases, history casts upon us. Last but far from of heteronormative virility. The portraits positing a kind of exuberant, queer least, Nan Goldin’s color snapshots of New of Wahlberg, as he pulls at the seams of his abstraction that feels entirely newfangled. York’s early nineties queer underground briefs or clutches his groin, repeat across Between Heyer and Holmquist, painting ring truer than anything yet seen on a the magazine spreads like the composi- seems urgent again, or at least youthful social media feed, so says this millennial tion of an early Warhol screen print— enough to delight. A series of greyscale critic. think “Eight Elvises” (1963), but with digital photographs by John Neff, last Marky Mark instead. These repetitions exhibited in Chicago at his Renaissance Years ago, I found myself falling in love enhance the sensation of forgetfulness Society exhibition in 2013, were rendered with someone of the generation before that sustains the myth of eternal youth in from linear scanners outfitted with the mine. In our ambling walks through New the feedback loop of popular culture’s lenses and bellows of antique cameras. York City, where she spent her adolescence image machine and the nostalgia that at The resulting grainy, intimate portraits of and some of her university years, she once consumes and feeds it. Forgetting, it friends and lovers are digitally noisy and regaled me with tales of her wayward seems, is not only a curse of the aged but is yet breathtakingly still. Neff’s prints offer youth—dances on bar tops, bathroom also the means of constant renewal for a an uncanny, queered pendant to Wood- bumps in clubs with lax security for pretty Fountain of Youth that must never dry up. man’s self-portraits on view across the young girls, broken hearts and battered room. bodies. In some of her stories, she was as A majority of the works in the show come young as I was upon hearing her tell them, from the museum’s permanent collection, Of course, abutting the new against the and I found myself at once jealous and and several are oft-shown favorites. Jeff relatively old risks the former falling flat protective of her younger self, wishing I Koons’ “Pink Panther” (1988), Felix on its face. A large, aluminum-mounted had met her then and there and not, as it Gonzalez-Torres’ “Untitled (The End)” photograph by Amalia Ulman, a washed- was, years too late. One evening while (1990), and a smattering of photos by out and pixelated mirror selfie of the artist having a drink in an old haunt where she Wolfgang Tillmans, among others, arouse in character as a self-absorbed millennial once quarreled epically with a lover, my a certain nostalgia for the well-trodden art in the midst of a months-long social media heart welled with a strangely familiar history of the late eighties and early performance, proves that—with apologies emotion—that is, nostalgia for a life that nineties, as if Kholeif and curatorial to Frances Stark—Instagram has not yet was not my own. I should have realized assistant Grace Deveney browsed the found its place in the museum. Indeed, then that youth will always appear museum storage looking for some what distinguishes this show from a glorious and wasted in a backward glance. dependable hits to anchor their throwback growing trend in museum exhibitions of Instead, I had to squander a few of my own mixtape. Much more apparent are how contemporary art is its utter lack of precious years before I could contribute to many new and heretofore unseen works spectacular selfie moments—think that eternal chorus of tired sighs. LookingNewcity April 2017 fill the galleries—some acquisitions and Charles Ray at the Art Institute of Chicago back on my youth through the gaze of others lent directly from the artists or or Diana Thater at this institution, both of these artworks, I sense pleasure, exhaus- their galleries. Normally, this kind of which traded heavily in vistas for the vain. tion—and yes, some kind of relief. borrowing appears like art-world Instead, viewers are asked to confront the nepotism, especially if the artists are recent history of youthful portraiture that emergent and stand peerless with the has culminated in our current moment, “Eternal Youth” shows through July 23 at tried-and-true work of established names. probing the deeper history behind the the Museum of Contemporary Art, In this case, however, these works add, yes image of the superficial self. In a salon 220 East Chicago.14newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 14 3/20/17 8:50 AM

WDitohnT’teMx-eMssex TEXICAN MAKES ITS CASE FOR BORDER CUISINE BY DAVID HAMMOND PHOTOS: MONICA KASS ROGERS, MONICAKASSROGERS.COMnewcity_FOB-april-final.indd 15 3/20/17 8:50 AM

uthenticity is a contemporary touchstone of culinary quality. All serious eaters claim to respect it, exclaiming that their favorite restaurants are “authentic,” even if they’re not entirely certain what that high-powered praise even means. Given this general reverence for the authentic, try extolling the joys of Tex-Mex cuisine to a group of self-styled foodies and then brace yourself for a collective eye-roll. Tex-Mex, a fusion of Texan and Mexican, is frequently considered a bastard—not-quite American, not-quite Mexican, a weak reflection of both culinary traditions. Inauthentic. Tex-Mex gets about as much respect as, say, Americanized Chinese food, which may well be unrecognizable to people who grew up in the Chinese traditions that also gave us xiao long bao, Peking duck and stinky tofu. Similarly, Italian-American food is usually covered in about twice as much sauce as you’d find on a native-born platter of pasta, featuring big juicy meatballs you’d be unlikely to find anywhere in The Boot. Both those hybrid food traditions are recognized for what they are: blends of two distinct foodways that yield results that many appreciate, like egg foo young and Italian beef entirely without merit, but this was also “Tex-Mex is commonly described as sandwiches. Tex-Mex, on the other hand, is the woman who literally threw the young ‘Americanized Mexican.’ To a certain not quite there yet. It’s still considered the Rick Bayless out of her car, apparently on degree, that can’t be denied, though I hope love child, the whoreson, the bastard. account of his “brash” and overly eager it can be perceived as unashamedly so,” questions about Mexican food. I like to imagine they were arguing about Tex-Mex she writes. “Both cuisines have a wonder- In “The Tex-Mex Cookbook,” a classic by food, which Bayless, having grown up in ful history. Many staples we see in Texas food writer Robb Walsh, Tex-Mex Oklahoma, knew quite well and would Mexican restaurants were inspired by chow is referred to as “the lovable ugly likely have defended. Kennedy, on the Tex-Mex, one example being combination duckling of American regional cuisines.” other hand, focused on “interior,” rather plates, a Tex-Mex innovation. Basically,Newcity April 2017 Growing up in mid-century Chicago, than border, Mexican cuisine; thusly was nachos, fajitas and the pronounced use of however, we didn’t call it Tex-Mex: we just Tex-Mex cut out of the equation. cumin are not grounded in any one called it “Mexican.” At places like La Still, dispassionately considered, Tex-Mex cuisine, yet they’re essential in the Margarita restaurants (now mostly gone) food seems undeniably a kind of Mexican Tex-Mex repertoire we all know and love. and Pepe’s (some still around), we enjoyed food, just as Americanized Chinese is a As much as Tex-Mex is American, it is also the Tex-Mex classics: enchiladas covered kind of Chinese food, and so on. Food proudly Mexican.” in melted cheese, chimichangas, chili con traditions are not static; they evolve. That’s In many ways, the Tex-Mex tradition and carne, and so on. Those Tex-Mex menu one of the reasons it’s so hard to pin down many of the items on the Texican menu items were pretty much what we consid- what’s “authentic”—it keeps changing. (currently only breakfast and lunch ered the food of Mexico until Diana selections; the places closes at 3pm) are Kennedy’s epochal 1972 “The Cuisines of ENTER TEXICAN quintessentially comfort food: high-carb, Mexico.” This grande dame of south-of- exican opened a little before March not shy about a few calories, a good the-border cooking unceremoniously of this year. This small restaurant on amount of cheese, warm and filling, spiced trashed the combo platters in “so-called with restraint and simple. Very simple. Mexican restaurants” and snarled disdain Larrabee, in the shadow of Groupon’s When you think about your own comfort upon the “overly large platters of mixed headquarters, is very upfront about foods, it’s likely that what comes to mind is messes, smothered with a shrill tomato where they stand, and they stand maybe mac n’ cheese, beef stew, perhaps sauce, sour cream, grated yellow cheese firmly behind Tex-Mex cuisine as a buttery pancakes or other dishes that fit preceded by a dish of mouth-searing sauce viable and worthy food tradition. I this paradigm: carbs, calories, warmth, and greasy deep-fried chips.” asked Chef Kim Dalton (formerly of not too spicy and simple. Much Tex-Mex Ms. Kennedy’s vitriolic appraisal is not Chicago’s Dodo) via email how she defines food fits that model. Its popularity, viewed Tex-Mex food. in that light, is unsurprising.16newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 16 3/20/17 8:50 AM

Eating at a place like Texican that tries toI wanted to find out what Dalton remain true to the spirit of Though many of us have learned,believed to be the prototypical through the scholarly persistenceTex-Mex menu item, if there even Tex-Mex is a way for of people like Bayless, thatis such a thing. Mexican cuisine is not monolith- ic and that Tex-Mex has a place“Chili con carne comes to mind Northerners to get someas the quintessential Tex-Mex idea of what exactly the in the Mexican heritage, in muchdish. Beef and a common topping people are eating in Texas of the rest of the world, suchof yellow cheese is definitely not distinctions are not made:indigenous Mexican except for Tex-Mex is still Mexican.chili peppers,” she says. “It’s oftensaid that there should not be On my last night in Florence,tomatoes. And Texans can get weird about up in Elmhurst not Dallas, so I’m less Italy, a few years ago, I decided to go to abeans in chili just like Chicagoans with sensitive to legumes in my chili. Velveeta, Mexican restaurant; I was hoping for someketchup on hotdogs. Yet there are so many though loathsome, has its place (hopefully weird fusion of Italian and Mexican, but itversions and I think they’re all good in on your nachos, not mine); thankfully, was all pretty solidly Tex-Mex: we hadtheir own way. After experimenting with Dalton chooses to use a decent cheddar on nachos that were just about the same asall kinds of fussy chili cook-off recipes, I her chili, along with a moderate dollop of you’d find at Chili’s.came up with a cleaner and simpler sour cream, a sprinkle of scallions, and a Last year in London, we went to onlyversion of chopped chuck steak in a spiced bag of Fritos on the side. Like many of the Mexican restaurants, which may seemchili ‘gravy,’ beans available upon request. dishes at Texican, the peppery warmth is perverse, but we found it a cool way to seeTo me, that is a prerequisite to any there, but dialed down, which is likely how this distinctly North Americanprototypically Tex-Mex dish.” infuriating to heat-seeking chili heads. To culinary tradition is interpreted inWith Dalton’s Texas Red Chili, the default mollify those capsaicin-addled maniacs, countries that didn’t evolve with Mexicomode seems to be to serve it without there’s some very good red and green sauce right next door. Many times, of course, thebeans, and that’s fine by me, though I grew behind the counter that might help make Mexican food we had in Europe was not things right. It’s a damn good bowl of chili. April 2017 Newcitynewcity_FOB-april-final.indd 17 17 3/20/17 8:50 AM

Tex-Mex is a regional cooking tradition, and as identifiably Oaxacan, Jali- such, deserving of your At Texican, a big bowl of Texas sciense or Yucatecan, but attention and respect. Chili Mac proves to be the rather, you guessed it, “mess” Kennedy warned us Tex-Mex. about, but in the best way: you “It seems,” says Dalton, that get the Texas Red Chili, elbow “Tex-Mex dishes appear on just macaroni, chili con queso and about any menu just about pinto beans. When it was set anywhere so it’s definitely relevant and Mexican restaurants. I think it’s a cuisine before me, I thought, “No way I can eat all liked. [But] it’s a mixed bag of how much everyone likes because it’s humble and it’s this,” but as I started into it, I realized, effort and integrity of ingredients go into going to be delicious and always hits the “Yes, I can eat all of this.” It’s so soft and the cooking. In general, barbecue is looked spot. Nothing much else. But why does easy and comforting. This bowl was not in upon as an art form, and Texas is definitely there have to be more? It may not deserve any sense overly greasy, and it contained respected for that. ‘Americanized’ to be elevated in the pantheons of food, but chunks of meat, so it was chewy and Mexican doesn’t sound so romantic. There a lot of people often crave Tex-Mex and delicious and felt so right on one of this was never any mystery to the taco kits that’s a strong testament in itself.” Chicago winter’s very rare cold days. ThereNewcity April 2017 many of us grew up with: a spice packet Though I wouldn’t presume to argue with is some subtle spicing in there, as well as added to ground beef. Or maybe a trip to Dalton on the topic, I don’t see any reason chili heat, but this hot factor was very Taco Bell, a guilty pleasure. Any monkey why Tex-Mex does not deserve to be controlled, tongue-tingling without can melt a log of Velveeta cheese with a elevated, while the food remains humble becoming overpowering. can of Rotel tomatoes for chili con queso, a and true to its roots. Chicagoans love a hot Eating at a place like Texican that tries to Tex-Mex staple. Yet Texans are fiercely dog and a juicy beef sandwich, and there remain true to the spirit of Tex-Mex is a proud of their cuisine. In a lot of ways, it’s isn’t much more humble food than that, way for Northerners to get some idea of justified because it’s an innovative and yet there’s no doubt that both have what exactly the people are eating in Texas American cuisine that mixes with the old been elevated to legendary status in the and other border states where the world of chilies, beans and corn. Tex-Mex minds of not only locals but the tourists influence of Mexico is still strongly dishes are even found in ‘authentic’ who come to visit our city.18newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 18 3/20/17 8:50 AM

felt—and that shouldn’t be too surprising, chunks, guajillo and tomatillo salsa, finally, a heavy dusting of Tajin, which isas much of this land was part of Mexico topped with pickled red onions, cilantro an intense Mexican chili-salt.” To thisuntil 1845 (San Antonio is both the home and onion and served on a flour tortilla, basic recipe, Dalton swirls in Greek yogurtof the Alamo and a center of Tex-Mex more popular than corn in northern to make a parfait, which is a beautifulcuisine). During Chicago’s Columbian Mexico/southern Texas. As with the chili, example of how a tradition like Tex-Mex is,Exposition of 1893, the Texas exhibit this dish managed the chili heat very well, like all cuisines, always and foreverfeatured chili con carne; soon, according highlighting the other ingredients rather evolving.to Walsh, chili stands and canned chili than overwhelming them. That fact that all cuisines are in a constantsoon started appearing everywhere. Texican is located in the midst of a state of flux calls into question theThough Dalton serves a very good chili, towering phalanx of River North mid-rises legitimacy of claiming that some foods areshe’s working to push the limits of what we and rapidly rising real estate prices. It’s on “authentic” and that other foods areknow of as Tex-Mex. “Everyone knows Larrabee, with lux condos on one side of inauthentic at best, bastards at worst.Tex-Mex dishes like chili, fajitas or nachos the street and, on the other, public When L.A. Times food critic Jonathan Goldbut somehow think of them as Mexican. housing, split, like Tex-Mex cuisine, was in Chicago last year to promote theNot so much is known about King Ranch between two worlds. movie “City of Gold,” I asked him if he everCasserole (baked chicken enchilada The restaurant is now serving a mostly used the word “authentic” when talkinglayers), Texas sheet cake (chocolate) or early morning and early lunch crowd, and about food. Gold said he avoids “authen-chewy pralines. I’m currently experiment- if you’re in the area, it could be your tic,” preferring instead the more generaling with chow chow relish to go with pinto chance to try some unabashedly Tex-Mex term “traditional.” In that sense, Tex-Mexbeans and corn bread which is not favorites as well as, perhaps, some new is a regional cooking tradition, and asparticularly thought of as Texan. I believe ones, like Dalton’s mangonadas. Mangona- such, deserving of your attention andbranching out has to happen gradually.” das are, as described by Newcity writer respect. You can start to pay thatThe King Ranch Casserole looks kind of Robert Gardner, made like this: “You take attention and gain that respect overlike a Mexican lasagna, layers of tortilla, a clear plastic cup—and it must be breakfast or lunch at Texican.chicken and sauce: I defy anyone who sees transparent to reveal the composition ofit not to dig in. The Texas sheet cake orange and red. The cup is coated with Texican, 869 North Larrabee,surprised me; not a fan of cake, I greatly chamoy, a Mexican catsup only sourer, (312)877-5441, texican-chicago.comenjoyed this moist, dense and flat Texas sweeter, redder and way spicier thanfavorite, which cut like fudge, but was not Heinz. Fresh mango is added along with aoverly sugary. few good scoops of mango sorbet; evenProbably my favorite bite at Texican were with a small mangonada, you get a lot ofthe guisado tacos, a beautiful stew of pork mango. More chamoy is swirled in, then more mango, a hard squeeze of lime, and April 2017 Newcitynewcity_FOB-april-final.indd 19 19 3/20/17 8:50 AM

newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 20 3/20/17 8:50 AM

FOOD STAROF THEMOMENT:CATHERINEDE ORIO OF“CHECK, PLEASE!”BY DAVIDHAMMOND CATHERINE DE ORIO is the host of “Check, Please!” the influential WTTW April 2017 Newcity show that features regular people talking about their personal favorite restaurants. She is also the executive director of the Kendall College Trust, providing experiences, culinary and otherwise, to Chicago students. Sometimes, she’s invited to classes and associations to talk about career changes—and she’s seen a few of those changes herself. De Orio’s first career was in art; she worked at the National Gallery in Washington and The Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy, before getting her law degree and passing the bar. She was an attorney for years before giving up all that to pursue a career in food. Culinary Curator has been, and continues to be, her consulting company, specializing in recipe development, corporate presentations and trend research. PHOTOS: JOE MAZZA/BRAVE LUX 21newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 21 3/20/17 8:50 AM

CATHERINE DE ORIO & “CHECK, PLEASE!” CREATOR DAVID MANILOW About five years ago, right before De Orio’s first “Check, Please!” episodes “THERE ARE NO started running, I met her at Johnnie’s Italian beef stand in Elmwood Park, RULES. TASTE down the street from where she used to live with her family. As we were IS SUBJECTIVE. waiting in line for our lunch, De Orio’s dad happened to get in line behind us; YOU CAN’T he was just breaking for lunch, so we all had our Italian beef sandwiches SAY ANYTHING together. For De Orio, early experiences cooking and eating with her family WRONG.” had a big influence on her current career. The influence of family is still very present for her, even as her star has soared, as indicated by this recent conversation. It’s been my experience that She and I cooked together a lot; early on I adults. By that I mean they weren’t asking grandmothers have quite a significant was frustrated because I wanted recipes for kiddie menus and summarily deciding influence upon chefs. I believe that you, and she would say, “no, no, you need to our meal for us. We were able to choose too, had an influential grandmother. learn to taste things and you need to be whatever we wanted. I was always a My Nana Kay was my mentor from an early able to feel the food.” Most of the food my healthy eater. I would order filet mignon age, not just in the kitchen but in life. She Nana made was rustic Italian food, (and always full size, no petite version for was a widow, so needed to be independent. peasant food: a traditional neck-bone me!); it was my favorite. And the waiter She was a savvy investor: she had an gravy, homemade raviolis, braciole and would always look to my dad as if to ask if I investment club with her girlfriends. My involtini. Her gravy was the best! was for real. And my dad always said, “Yep, first financial lessons came from her. She let her have it; she’ll eat it.” And I did, down was intelligent, picked things up very People know you as the person who to the last bite. And my dad would eat all quickly. She understood people and what listens to other people’s restaurant types of raw seafood, pig’s feet, tripe,Newcity April 2017 made them tick; she gave me very good experiences. When you were little, what things that most kids wouldn’t touch—but advice about relationships and my career. restaurant experiences made a big my dad would say, “How do you know you She never really thought I should be a impression on you? don’t like it if you haven’t tried it.” My first lawyer. She knew it wasn’t going to make I come from a large Italian family so much raw clam ended up spit back into my me happy, and she encouraged me to of my food experience was in-home. That napkin, but I tried it. I turned out to be a follow my passion. said, my parents did take my brother and kid who liked things that other kids didn’t: me out to eat fairly often, and what was brussels sprouts, spinach and lima beans. most formative about those experiences is22 that my parents encouraged us to eat likenewcity_FOB-april-final.indd 22 3/20/17 8:50 AM

“SERIOUSWhat kind of law did you practice… RESTAURANTS I’m guessing that you go to eatand why did you decide that law wasnot the profession for you? STRIVE TO at all the places featured on theI was in insurance litigation. Need I say show. Does your notorietymore? But seriously, I had a very specific interfere with the restaurant’sreason for going to law school and my GIVE EVERY- ability to treat you like aplans changed. I was in a career that I regular customer? Do you havedidn’t really want. I found myself spending ONE THE BEST any way of overcoming that?every moment I wasn’t working attending Ruth Reichl-type disguises,cooking classes, reading cookbooks/ maybe?cooking magazines, researching EXPERIENCE.” I should start wearing disguises!restaurants, dining out and throwing How fun would that be? But no, Ilavish dinner parties. At a certain point, it don’t intentionally try to go unnoticed, butjust didn’t make sense for me to stay in a I also make no attempt to be noticedcareer that provided no “nourishment” for So many times in restaurants, a serverme. will come by and ask “How’s everything either. I know that I am very lucky toDo you think your legal training has tasting?” or “How is it?” I’m guessing oftentimes receive special treatment;helped you host “Check, Please!”? however, I never expect it. SeriousAs a litigation attorney, a huge part of the close to one-hundred percent of people restaurants strive to give everyone the bestjob is about listening to people and simply say “oh, fine” or “great” even ifextracting information from them. And I they’re not completely happy with what experience. At the end of the day, I canwas on the plaintiff’s side for most of my they’re eating. have a sublime experience and if theycareer, so there is an element of nurturing You know, the internet has made it so easy aren’t trying to give all the guests a greatand gaining your client’s trust—which is for people to be kind of just… cowards. It’s experience, they aren’t going to last long. Ialso something a host needs with their easy to say “great, great” and then just take love when chefs look at what I’ve orderedguests. If your guests feel comfortable with to Yelp to complain before they’re even out and then send out to me something theyyou, they more readily present their best the door. But that’s the world we live in and are experimenting with, or they see I didn’tselves. When I’m on my preliminary calls it is what it is, but it does seem a bit unfair order something they’re really proud of, sowith guests, I tell them that when they’re that a restaurant might take a hit because they send it to the table to try.on the show, I want them to feel like this is you didn’t give them a chance to make ita dinner party with their friends, and that right. And it’s happened a few times during Is there any way to determine the impactthey should talk to us just as they would to the show, where someone will say they of “Check, Please!”?their friends. They’re not presenting; complained about something and then the There’s no formula that gives metrics onthey’re just talking. And sometimes they restaurant went totally above and beyond the “Check, Please!” impact; however,may not be polite—they might say “this is to make it right, and the guest is like “I’d based on anecdotal evidence from theawful” or “I hate it”—but that’s fine. And go back. I don’t care that I had a bad featured restaurants, there is definitely asometimes they’ll ask “Can I say that?” beneficial “Check, Please!” effect. Manybecause they’re worried they’ll say experience. They showed me that I have told me that they have received threesomething wrong, but on “Check, Please!” mattered.” And my belief is that, even ifthere are no rules. Taste is subjective. You your food is very good, if you don’t treat times or more business after a show airs.can’t say anything wrong. As long as what And then when the show re-airs, they getyou’re saying is honest, it’s fine, because people well, they’re not going to come another big surge in business. It’s the bestthat’s what resonates and that’s what helps back.the viewers. We’re helping them make feeling when you talk to a chef ordecisions about where they should spend restaurant owner and they tell you what atheir money and their time? What do you find challenging about positive impact it had on their business.Do you ever stop people who seem to be being the host on “Check, Please!”?going on about what seems to you an At first it was not being able to have anillegitimate complaint about a opinion. I’m a food writer and food is What does the Kendall College do for therestaurant? something I’m very passionate about, and I future of food in Chicago?Never. If a person has a complaint about a have opinions. Sometimes I just want to We raise scholarships for culinary,place, it’s likely some people in the viewing business and hospitality students. Duringaudience will have a similar complaint, so join in the conversation with my own my tenure, I started a culinary camp forthat opinion deserves to be heard. I don’t thoughts, but I need to remain neutral,stop people, but sometimes I will ask a because if I express an opinion, then the kids in Chicago Public Schools who are afollow-up question, like “Did you give the part of the Chicago Culinary Artsrestaurant a chance to make it right?” A guests might just tend to agree with me,restaurant can’t fix something if they don’t and that’s not what we want. I’m used to it Program. We do a summer program forknow that there’s a problem or something now, but it was definitely a challenge early high-performing students, mostly from theelse that you want. on. Overall, I’m most passionate about West Side and the South Side, who come and stay with us for a week. They stay exploring cooking techniques and the overnight at the Kendall dorms, and they April 2017 Newcity culture surrounding food, and “Check, Please!” allows me to constantly learn and spend the day in the kitchens with our share that knowledge. So the necessary instructors. At night, they do a “cultural excursion.” And some of these kids, neutrality has allowed me to be able to amazingly, have never been in downtown focus on bringing some additional takeaway for our viewers. So what started Chicago. So being exposed to new out as a challenge has been a blessing! experiences, meeting new people, those are the things that spark ambition, a passion to do more. 23newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 23 3/20/17 8:50 AM

Big andHeatBig Heat 2017 is Newcity’s biennial listing of Chicagoans who wieldlargely behind-the-scenes influence. These are not chefs, sommeliers,bartenders and others who serve us what we like to eat and drink.Rather, this year, we’re listing the owners, media personalities—journalists, bloggers and PR people—business leaders, as well asfood-oriented entrepreneurs, including farmers, beer/spirit makersand coffee roasters.To compile our list, we queried leaders in Chicago dining culture,people who’ve been on the list themselves and others in the industry.We based our decisions on those recommendations, while taking intoaccount performance and promise: we considered not only peoplewho’ve had an impact on the world of dining but also those who arepositioned to have an impact in years to come.newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 24 3/20/17 8:50 AM

Chicago’s Foodt:nd Drink Fifty 2017 Some anger is an anticipated reaction to this list. That’s partly because we live in an angry age but also because we have probably left off one or more of your favorites—perhaps even you. Apologies. All lists are unfair, limited by a lack of omniscience and sometimes swayed subjective preference. Our team has simply done our best to call out many major and even some lesser-known names of people we believe are, beyond the kitchen and bar staff, shaping the dining experience in Chicago, making it what it is today and what it will become tomorrow. (David Hammond) Big Heat was written by John Carruthers, Sarah Conway, David Hammond, Rebecca Holland, Lauren Knight, Monica Kass Rogers, Kristine Sherred and Michael Workman. Photos by Joe Mazza / Brave Luxnewcity_FOB-april-final.indd 25 3/20/17 8:50 AM

ROB K ATZ AND KEVIN BOEHM 1 Kevin Boehm and Rob Katz 2 David Manilow and Catherine De Orio CO-OWNERS/CO-FOUNDERS, BOKA RESTAURANT GROUP CREATOR/PRODUCER AND HOST, CHECK, PLEASE!Newcity April 2017 In their first seven years as entrepreneurs (2003-2010), Kevin David Manilow, the creator and producer of “Check, Please!,” Boehm and Rob Katz opened three restaurants under the began the show in 2001 after starting an ad hoc dining club to Boka umbrella. In the past two, they have unleashed four, all get friends eating at places outside their comfort zone. marked by exceptional food, hospitality and design. “The Keeping risk in the crosshairs is an idea that has kept Check, evolution of the company both in infrastructure and intellect Please!—with host Catherine De Orio (see “Food Star of the has allowed us to move faster these days,” says Katz, “and at Moment”)—entertaining and compelling. And it has inspired the same time build better restaurants.” Partnerships with spinoffs in cities across the United States and the world. savvy design firms—the element of restaurants most underes- “We’ve also added our digital interview series, ‘Chat, Please!’ timated by diners, laments Boehm—and chefs has typified a where we showcase the important and creative people that model that begs to be not just admired but imitated. Chefs make our city a world-class food and drink destination,” take ownership “not just in equity but in emotion,” Boehm explains Manilow. “It’s a chance for us to expand past the says, a framework in place when Giuseppe Tentori led Boka to restaurant world and into everything from chocolatiers to its first Michelin star. The group now runs fourteen operations coffee roasters to distillers, food photographers, filmmakers, alongside five-going-on-six chefs, most recently adding Jimmy restaurant designers and much more.” Papadopoulos of Bohemian House fame. Boka has, by develop- ing restaurants with “soul and character that also make financial sense,” squashed any limitation of the restaurant group canon. “I hope,” says Katz, “that we continue to take chances, evolve and push the envelope.”26newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 26 3/20/17 8:50 AM

3 Nick Kokonas NICK KOKONASCEO, TOCKIn early 2015, Nick Kokonas, co-owner of Alinea, Next, TheAviary and Roister, launched Tock, a cloud-based system thatenables diners to reserve seats and helps restaurants elimi-nate no-shows. Tock allows customers, as Kokonas tells us, “tobook chef’s tastings, special events and kitchen tables. Patronsdiscover unique experiences with a few swipes. Transparencyand clarity for both sides is the core value of Tock.” In thecoming year, Kokonas says, “We’ll have over two-hundred newtechnology features we’re adding to both sides of the equation”and “new partnerships will make Tock restaurants visible tomillions more consumers.”4 Rich Melman and Molly, 6 Brendan SodikoffRJ and Jerrod Melman FOUNDER/CEO, HOGSALT HOSPITALITY FOUNDER AND PARTNERS/CHILDREN, LETTUCE ENTERTAINYOU ENTERPRISES For the Melman clan, it’s all about family, trust and lessons Brendan Sodikoff has been creating hits ever since opening his April 2017 Newcity learned from dad, Rich, one of Chicago’s dining titans. For RJ, first restaurant, Gilt Bar, in 2010. As founder and CEO of Molly and Jerrod, being successful comes from thinking small Hogsalt Hospitality, he astounded the Chicago dining to get big—a lesson passed on from Rich who grew a business community with waves of successful concepts, each following empire from the world’s first salad bar at R.J. Grunts to include swiftly on the last. His restaurants cover a lot of ground, from over one-hundred restaurants nationwide. In a city of great Parisian steakhouse to barbeque joint, 1930s-era cocktail bar restaurant groups, RJ, Molly and Jerrod say “friendly Midwest to hole-in-the-wall doughnut shop. And don’t forget that Au competition” is what keeps innovation in Chicago moving Cheval, serving up what is recognized as one of the best forward. Currently the trio is most excited for July’s Windy burgers in the country, is on his résumé too. Yes, Sodikoff has City Smokeout, the annual festival of smoked everything, kept busy, and he’s not done yet. Collaborations with Four along with beer and country music, in a massive parking lot by Corners Tavern Group here in Chicago and a brand-new the river. If they had to choose a favorite Melman spot, it restaurant in New York are no doubt just the beginning of would have to be R.J. Grunts. “It’s where mom met dad. what Brendan has planned.Without R.J.s, we wouldn’t exist” says Jerrold. 7 Steve Dolinsky5 Donald Madia, Eduard Seitan, Terry FOOD REPORTER, HUNGRY HOUND, ABC 7 NEWSAlexander, Peter Garfield and Paul Kahan “There’s going to be a lot of closings. No way can the city OWNERS, ONE OFF HOSPITALITY GROUP support the number of openings occurring now,” warns Dolinsky, who reports on food in the city every Friday and“We try to make sure our staff is happy and having fun first,” Saturday on ABC Channel 7. Still, he believes, “Exotic cocktails says partner/owner Terry Alexander. “Insurance, more paid will continue to show up on menus, since they’re excellent time off, travel/dining stipends, and we’re close to a 401(k) profit centers. More Indian, more Korean and more Thai in package. After figuring out all of those things, we shift our subtle ways—from ingredients like lemongrass, garam masala focus to each and every guest.” The current business focus is or gochujang, to chefs fusing their childhood memories into on getting seafood and veggie-focused Publican Anker, firmly, some more modern interpretations.” Dolinsky is an ardent um, anchored into the Publican portfolio, joining The Publi- observer of the city’s culinary topography: he co-hosts and can, Publican Quality Meats and a new outpost at O’Hare. produces The Feed Podcast every week with chef Rick Bayless,“Anker’s the type of place where you can stop in for drinks, writes for Canada’s Globe and Mail and, as Academy Chair, snacks or full dinner,” says Alexander. Next up? A 2018 promotes Chicago through the Pellegrino listing of the World’s opening for Big Star Wrigleyville. Fifty Best Restaurants.newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 27 27 3/20/17 8:50 AM

GREG MOHR 8 Greg Mohr and Scott Weiner OWNERS, THE FIFTY/50 RESTAURANT GROUP Greg Mohr believes The Fifty/50 Restaurant Group’s success is due to the constant appetite for self-improvement that’s baked into Chicago’s restaurant community. “Whether it’s a new concept or revamping one that’s been open for nine years, we’re constantly looking to better ourselves and find a new way to make an impact on guests,” Mohr explains. “That can be finding something nobody’s ever tasted before, or just raising the bar on service within our restaurants. Many of the restaurateurs around us have the same attitude, and we push each other, and by doing so, help make the neighborhood dining scene.” This powerhouse group is responsible for its namesake bar/restaurant, The Berkshire Room, Homestead on the Roof, Roots Handmade Pizza, The Sixth, Steadfast and West Town Bakery & Diner.Newcity April 2017CODY HUDSON, PETER TOALSON, JON MARTIN AND ROBERT MCADAMS 3/20/17 8:50 AM28newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 28

9 Peter Toalson, Cody Hudson,Jon Martin and Robert McAdams PRINCIPALS, LAND AND SEA DEPT.With politics looming large over all industries this year, Peter Toalson believes that “This is definitely not the time— nor does Land and Sea have any interest in—standing down in the face of authoritarian over-reach, bigotry, lies and general bullshit, so we will conduct our businesses in keeping with our philosophies and principles,” says Toalson.“We will do all we can, in our small corner of the world, to be inclusive, intellectually curious and kind to the many folks [with whom] we’re fortunate enough to engage.” Building on blockbuster successes in both food and beverage (Cherry Circle Room, Longman & Eagle, Parson’s Chicken & Fish, Milk Room and Lost Lake Tiki Bar), Land and Sea Dept. is currently finishing a long-awaited project in Logan Square and, in collaboration with the Field Museum, a pop-up bar in the Chicago Athletic Association.10 Billy Lawless CRAIG GOLDEN AND BRUCE FINKELMANRESTAURATEUR 12 Bruce Finkelman and Craig GoldenChicago is, mercifully, one of those cities where “restaurant OWNERS, 16” ON CENTERgroup” doesn’t necessarily mean a series of diminishingshoutouts on a theme, jockeying to out-bland each other with Dusek’s, Longman & Eagle, Promontory, Revival Food Hall: allcheaper labor and better margins. One example being the names synonymous with Chicago’s vital dining scene, and allhandful of restaurants run by Billy Lawless—Acanto and The the work of Bruce Finkelman and Craig Golden, who continueGage in the Loop, with Coda di Volpe, Beacon Tavern and The to amaze with their ability to start up hugely popular busi-Dawson just North and West. While he admits “service” as the nesses, gaining a big following and a Michelin star along thedifferentiator might sound a bit cliché—“I mean, it’s a good way. Recently, Revival Food Hall has opened as a higher-endconcept for restaurants in general”—Lawless is hyper-focused food court serving the Loop, with 24,000 square feet and localon the people cooking the food and serving guests. He’s powerhouses like Hot Chocolate, The Budlong and Smoque asconcerned about both the talent pool and the issue of health- well as some new chef-driven fast-casual operations.care. “We do offer options for our employees,” he says. “I’dreally be in favor of something we could implement indus-try-wide. It forges great loyalty, but it’s also our civic duty.”11 Phil Vettel 13 Michael Muser April 2017 NewcityFOOD CRITIC, CHICAGO TRIBUNE FOUNDER, JEAN BANCHET AWARDSChicago Tribune’s food critic since 1989, Phil Vettel has always The Jean Banchet Awards for Culinary Excellence recognizebeen proud of Chicago’s food, pronouncing the restaurants culinary talent throughout the Chicago region, somethinghere to be innovative and varied, while remaining consistently founder Michael Muser does not only during the awardscompetitive with the rest of the country. Vettel has said ceremony, but also in his daily life. Though Grace, his restau-Chicago is a city where new food trends can thrive, early on rant, holds three Michelin stars, and he’s been named one ofwith fine-dining Mexican, more recently with Macanese, as the best sommeliers in the country, you’ll often find himwell as a slew of small plate places. Vettel takes chances, enthusiastically promoting other restaurants in print and onchallenging Michelin-star-rating judgements in his column, or radio. He’s discussed how Chicago’s chefs are competitive, yetadding restaurants to his annual Fifty Best. Now, he’s taking come together to boost the city’s food scene as a whole, andhis criticism and credit farther out (at least geographically), about the industry’s generosity when it comes to importantreviewing more and more restaurants in Oak Park, Forest Park causes. Muser also works to make fine dining and wineand Evanston. And he’s always taking the pulse of the local accessible to the average diner. After all, he’s concluded, it’s allrestaurant business, saying “The big change in the coming about “agricultural products. Farming.”year is how the industry will adapt to the unstoppable trend ofbetter wages for back-of-the-house employees.” 29newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 29 3/20/17 8:50 AM

15 John Ross and Phillip Waters OWNERS, B. HOSPITALITY CO. B. Hospitality Co. is recognized for their innovation in farm-to-table and wine stewardship. “Along with my partners,” says Ross, “we helped push the limits of dining—at the Bristol back in 2008—through the use of whole animals and in-house butchering. We had a no-waste mentality. We also had a very diverse beverage program that brought the craft cocktail to a neighborhood joint in addition to an award-winning wine list where all our glass pours were temperature controlled.” That scientific, neighborhood-aware, in-house-sourcing approach became the bedrock foundation for B. Hospitality Co.’s ever-expanding portfolio of restaurants, which now also includes Balena, Cold Storage, Formento’s, Nonna’s and Swift & Sons. 16 Rodrick Markus OWNER, RARE TEA CELLAR ALPANA SINGH “We’re constantly evolving as a company, taking everything from the 150 countries that we import from, and bringing it all 14 Alpana Singh to the chefs, bartenders and managers in Chicago first, before anyone else,” explains Highland Park native Rodrick Markus OWNER, THE BOARDING HOUSE, SEVEN LIONS, TERRA & VINE of his Rare Tea Cellar. In his signature all-black suit (he’s described in Forbes as closely resembling “a nuclear arms Throughout her years in Chicago, Alpana Singh has evolved dealer”), Markus supplies many local heavy-hitters including from Master Sommelier to restaurant critic to restaurateur. Alinea, Wolfgang Puck and Billy Corgan’s Madame ZuZu’s “Wherever I go, I’m an ambassador for brand Chicago. I want Teahouse. “Chicago is the first place where we bring the people to experience the diversity of our food scene and the single-estate varietals or new ingredients… it’s like the culture of our neighborhoods,” she says. This year, that incubator for everything we think is the future, and cool. support for diversity is more important than ever. “You’ll see Whether it’s Okinawan sugars or bourbon-smoked sugars, more activism from the industry, whether stepping up for whatever the category. I like to say we’re junkies first, then immigration and labor laws, or giving to charitable causes. we’re purveyors.” Restaurant owners are thinking of ways we can give back. We’re going to step up to protect our workforce and help any way we can. This is what this city is about.” Singh has been impressed by a new generation of wine drinkers. “This younger audience has a palate that is more well-traveled and adventur- ous, and wine lists around the city are now curated with an eye for diversity.”Newcity April 2017 RODRICK MARKUS30 3/20/17 8:50 AMnewcity_FOB-april-final.indd 30

In Acts All events take place at Weinberg/Newton April 7 – June 10, 2017 Gallery unless noted. In Acts is a group exhibition inspired by Opening Reception: In Acts the summit that will bring international Friday, April 7, 5 – 8 PM artists to the University of Chicago’s campus to ask: What is an Artistic Practice Panel: Human Rights on the South Side of Human Rights? of Chicago Tuesday, April 18, 6 – 8 PM Featuring Lola Arias, Jelili Atiku, Tania Bruguera, Zanele Muholi, Carlos Javier Open House: Open Enagagement – Justice Ortiz, and Laurie Jo Reynolds, In Acts Friday, April 21, 1 – 3 PM provides a setting for artworks by these artists who advance human rights discourse Summit: What is an Artistic Practice and policy through their art. of Human Rights?* Saturday April 29, 9:30 AM – 6:30 PM In Acts is organized in conjunction Monday, May 1, 6 – 8 PM with the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry, the Pozen Family Center for Human Rights, * This event will take place at: and the Logan Center for the Arts. Logan Center for the Arts 915 E 60th Street Chicago, IL 60637 Conversation: Imagining Human Rights Thursday, May 18, 6 – 8 PMWeinberg/Newton Gallery300 W Superior Street, Suite 203Chicago, IL 60654312 529 5090weinbergnewtongallery.comHoursMon – Sat 10 AM – 5 PM Correct Opinions Identity, Values, and Self-expression among Chicago’s Teens March 15—April 29, 2017 Curated by Arts + Public Life’s Teen Arts Council, Correct Opinions is an exhibition of works created by more than 50 teen artists from After School Matters programs across Chicago. Arts Incubator in Washington Park 301 East Garfield Boulevard, Chicago @artsandpubliclife arts.uchicago.edu/artsandpubliclife IMAGE: Dafne Hernandez, Second Thoughts, digital photograph, 2016. Created in “Picture Me,” an After School Matters program.

JOE GR AY, JIM SL AMA , ANN FLOOD, CHERYL MUÑOZ AND CHRIS CHACKONewcity April 2017 17 Melissa Flynn 19 Chris Chacko EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GREEN CITY MARKET FOUNDER/CEO, SPARROW COFFEE ROASTERY One of the nation’s top farmers markets, Lincoln Park’s Green Chris Chacko tries to stay under the radar, though that’s not City Market, in season, attracts up to 13,000 shoppers every so easy these days for the founder of a West Loop coffee week. The 2017 focus is on community, accessibility and operation supplying roasts to some 230 restaurants, including education, and Green City continues to achieve its mission of Grace and Farmhouse. Chacko is an artist who matches each increasing the diversity of high-quality foods, supporting and client’s food or drink program to a unique roast. Sparrow connecting local sustainable family farms to chefs and diners, Coffee quality is built on sourcing beans from organic farmers and teaching Chicago how to use good food. Melissa Flynn, around the world, with a rotating selection of almost one-hun- executive director since January, 2015, says “The communi- dred varieties of single-origin coffees. Next is Naperville, ty-building piece is huge. We want to make sure we’re engag- where Sparrow’s creative founder will open his first cafe in the ing people—giving tours, having the education component upscale Water Street District. and making the foods accessible to everyone.” 20 Matthew Maloney 18 Scott Harris CO-FOUNDER/CEO, GRUBHUB OWNER/CO-FOUNDER, FRANCESCA’S RESTAURANTS With their home office in Chicago, Grubhub processes almost Twenty-five years ago, Scott Harris opened Mia Francesca on 300,000 orders a day in more than 50,000 restaurants in over a Clark, recalling “I loved it and I also was a wreck. It was my thousand U.S. cities. Since the launch of the corporate-order- first place, my dream restaurant, and I was worried all the ing service Seamless in 1999 (which Grubhub merged with in time that it wasn’t going to succeed.” Now, with over thirty 2013 after its own founding in 2004), Grubhub has trans- restaurants—including many Francesca’s, Davanti Enoteca formed how more than eight-million Americans experience and Glazed and Infused locations—Harris says his goal is to restaurants. In 2016, Forbes named Matt Maloney one of the “Make everyone who steps foot in any one of my restaurants, most powerful CEOs under forty, and he continues to develop employees and guests, feel like they’re family.” entrepreneurial ventures with the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago and ChicagoNEXT, a council 32 of business leaders dedicated to growing Chicago’s tech community.newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 32 3/20/17 8:50 AM

Join us for this special preview of what’s ASrptrEinxghiFbliitniogn coming soon in Rogers Park.A glimpse of fantastic new shows, food from local restaurants, the latest cocktails, a look into your own future and more!Piper Hall Mansion Spring Show • April 7 – May 6 PRACTICAL ANGLEThursday A2p01r7il 6 pm - 9 pm Opening Reception Picture Framers 161 E. Erie 27th April 7, 5-8 pm 970 W. Sheridan Rd. Chicago, IL Come meet the artists!Purchase tickets online at: http://sneakpeek2017.bpt.me Located just steps from Michigan Ave. at ErieThe Arts Together throughJoin us on Northwestern University’s June 18Evanston campus, your destinationfor world-class performances and If You Remember,exhibits. For a schedule of events, visit I’ll Remember Art Exhibitionartscircle.northwestern.edu AprilTop image: Marie Watt, Witness (detail), 2015. 3–7Image courtesy of the artist. Photograph byAaron Johanson. Debt and Promise: Puerto Rican Performance in Times of Crisis Guest Artists and Symposium April 21–30 Fuente Ovejuna Spanish Golden Age Drama

ROB LEVITT AND SCOTT HARRIS JANET ISABELLI WILKERSON 21 Rob Levitt 23 Janet Isabelli Wilkerson OWNER, THE BUTCHER & LARDER FOUNDER, ISABELLI MEDIA RELATIONS In 2010, Rob Levitt shut down his acclaimed Mado restaurant She began booking clients at her kitchen table and now she to open The Butcher & Larder. Sourcing from local farmers, he represents the James Beard Foundation. Janet Isabelli made it his mission to provide Chicago with top-quality cuts Wilkerson started Isabelli Media Relations six years ago, and of meat, housemade charcuterie and classes in butchering and her success, she says, hinges on storytelling. “As PR people, we sausage. Now at Local Foods (a wholesale distributor of are in a unique position to work hand-in-hand with reporters Midwest farm foods, launched by Dave Rand, Andrew Lutsey and also see firsthand what chefs and restaurateurs are seeing and Ryan Kimura), Levitt is opening up all sorts of meaty new and making,” she explains. It’s her responsibility to bring avenues. “We have so much more space, which means we can those two sides together to create the story that reaches the work with more farmers, bring in more animals, even esoteric consumer. Creating face-to-face opportunities is always a heritage breeds,” says Levitt, “and I can focus more on the priority, and Janet has embraced the power of video, graphic charcuterie program, and look for more ways to get our ideas design and social media to bring her clients’ stories to life. into people’s heads. Eating local doesn’t have to mean fancy or With an eye on trends (global flavors and vegetarian menus trendy.” are having their moment, she notes) and involvement with iconic events like Chicago Gourmet, Janet and IMR are making an impact on how restaurants communicate with 22 Joe Gray their diners. FOOD EDITOR, CHICAGO TRIBUNE 24 Carmen Rossi, At a time when many newspapers are cutting back on food Chris Bader and Kevin Killerman coverage, the Chicago Tribune is expanding. With team members including Marissa Conrad, Joseph Hernandez and OWNERS, HUBBARD INN, BARN & COMPANY, Nick Kindelsperger, food editor Joe Gray experiments with HEATING & COOLINGNewcity April 2017 new ways to leverage the Tribune’s still formidable journalistic Carmen Rossi is part of the power trio behind Hubbard Inn prowess. “Video,” says Gray, “can tell stories about food in a and Barn & Co. Rossi, along with his old friend Chris Bader way that [still] photography just cannot capture. We’ve launched a new series that showcases the Tribune test kitchen. and industry wiz Kevin Killerman, made 2016 an experimen- ‘We Tried It,’ in which we make and taste recipes trending tal year bringing fresh ideas to food presentation, design and cocktail mixology. Their new concepts are not only for your online” and Snacks of Shame, which invites “chefs to taste test plate, but your Instagram. Rossi and Bader, who honed their and rate examples of their guilty pleasure foods.” skills in the Urbana-college club scene, are only four years into creating new concepts for Chicago, like Hubbard Inn, that have become instant classics. “We only keep getting better,” says Bader.34newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 34 3/20/17 8:50 AM

JEFF AND TONY DREYFUSS LOUISJOHN SLAGEL AND MICHAEL GEBERT25 Jeff and Tony Dreyfuss 27 LouisJohn and Leslie SlagelOWNERS, METROPOLIS COFFEE COMPANY OWNERS, SLAGEL FAMILY FARMSome of the finest coffee in Chicago—and probably the On an 800-acre farm one-hundred miles southwest of Chicago,world—comes from Metropolis, run by father/son team of Jeff LouisJohn Slagel, wife Leslie, and half the Slagel brood of(former Indonesian language professor) and Tony (former thirteen keeps great-great grandfather Slagel’s nine-philosophy student). From these fun guys, you’d expect to get teenth-century dream alive with meat that’s won the hearts ofsome poetry when you ask what coffee means to them. Tony Chicago chefs. Example: Stephanie Izard’s classic woodtells us, “A cup of coffee is bottomless in its ability to draw oven-roasted pig face with a sunny-side egg was a dish born ofpeople together, people from all over the globe, people from a discussion with LouisJohn back in 2010. “She asked me whatevery belief. A cup of coffee is powerful, powerful enough to I needed to sell on the farm, and I said, well, I don’t have muchfuel positive change throughout the world.” Whoa, then fill it of a market for pig heads,” remembers Slagel. Since then, Izardto the rim, my brother. has bought thousands.26 Michael Gebert 28 Tony MageeEDITOR, FOODITOR FOUNDER, LAGUNITAS BREWING COMPANY It’s hard to think of another local writer who has navigated the Before Lagunitas unveiled their Chicago facility in 2014, the April 2017 Newcity ebbs and flows of food media as successfully as Michael California brewery had sold in the Illinois market for about Gebert. He helped found the beloved LTHForum.com during nine years. According to Magee, “things have changed,” in its mid-2000s run, ran Grub Street’s former Chicago branch, Chicago and elsewhere. Up until relatively recently, “a lot of and picked up a James Beard Foundation award for his video the country didn’t have any kind of beer culture.” With the work with the Chicago Reader. Now he’s all-in on Fooditor, briskly maturing market for beer, Magee, a Chicago native, which is both a continuing love letter to Chicago’s food scene turned to the Midwest. What Chicago gained is a huge and a response to what he sees as some worrying trends. brewing facility in the reviving Douglas Park neighborhood“Everybody,” he says, “went to being 24/7 about openings and with a taproom, restaurant, and tours—and donated commu- clickbait—‘The 18 Most Woke AF Ramen Shops,’ ‘12 Fierce nity space that nonprofits can use every week. Cheeseburgers That Remind Us of Beyonce’s ‘Lemonade.’ Someone needs to make a place for longer, in-depth stories, stories about interesting, creative people and food as gateway to culture.”newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 35 35 3/20/17 8:50 AM

PHILLIP WATERS, MELISSA GRAHAM AND JOHN ROSSNewcity April 2017 DANIEL GERZINA36 29 Daniel Gerzinanewcity_FOB-april-final.indd 36 EDITOR, EATER CHICAGO If a restaurant or bar in Chicago opens, closes, burns down, fails inspection or picks up a Michelin star, chances are you’ll hear about it on Eater. Since 2012, Daniel Gerzina has been the man trying to break the city’s restaurant news. A little over five years into the job, he’s passionate about our city’s unique place in the food world, from its position as the top “mid-range ‘fine-casual’ dining” city to home of what he believes are “the best bars in the country.” Coming up in 2017? More on “the travesty that our food trucks are dealing with.” 3/20/17 8:50 AM

30 Jim Slama 33 Greg O’Neill and Ken MillerFOUNDER/PRESIDENT, FAMILYFARMED OWNERS, PASTORAL ENTERPRISESAs one of the earliest supporters of the sustainable locally “We had an inkling our little Broadway shop might strike agrown movement, Jim Slama and FamilyFarmed have been out chord,” says Greg O’Neill, who with Ken Miller now operatesfront of innovation in Chicago’s food sourcing for more than a four brick-and-mortar stores, online retail, a wholesale cheese-decade, creating America’s first conference on the topic. Just to-restaurant business and two cheese- and wine-inspiredtalk, however, was a start but not enough; Slama then restaurants. “We were our own best customers to begin with,”launched a regional financing conference for entrepreneurs he remembers. “We felt a responsibility to shine a light onthat he says has raised “over $30 million in debt and equity these artisan stories.” Education has always been central,financing.” That savvy has led to local food-program deals O’Neill explains. “It’s been amazing to watch how the averagewith McCormick Place and Chicago Public Schools, among Chicago food consumer has evolved in knowledge and appreci-others, and a newly inked agreement to serve as a “strategic ation of artisanal, hand-crafted foods. It’s up to folks like us tophilanthropic partner” for Rick Bayless to help the Frontera shepherd consumers along the arc.”Farmer Foundation expand their reach.31 Melissa Graham 34 Chandra RamEXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PURPLE ASPARAGUS EDITOR, PLATE MAGAZINEWhile chefs and restaurateurs are falling over themselves to “If a chef is doing something interesting, I want to know and please the adventurous eaters and discerning palates of the write about it,” says Chandra Ram of Plate Magazine, an city, Melissa Graham and Purple Asparagus are out there industry must-read. Her mission is bringing Chicago’s creating them. The nonprofit introduces kids to more unfamil- diversity to the world. “I want to help give Chicago chefs and iar fruits and vegetables during programs at Chicago Public drink people a national spotlight, and help connect them with Schools, the Green City Market and standalone events. Kids like-minded cool people around the country.” Even if, as it who start out with a maybe-okay attitude on apples in October turns out, national changes could adversely affect what’s are asking their parents to buy lentils by the end of the school happening in the city. “There are so many changes ahead: new year. “By creating kids who aren’t always turning to junk immigration policies, minimum wage and labor laws are food and are willing to try something new,” says Graham, going to affect in a big way the people who work in bars and“we’re trying to open their minds and create new opportunities restaurants.” for them.”32 35 Seth Zurer, Andre PluessGary Lazarski and Michael GriggsCEO, MIGHTYVINE CO-FOUNDERS, BACONFEST CHICAGO“The typical winter tomato,” “Give me an honest bacon, cured in salt, kissed bysays Gary Lazarski, “is a smoke, stored carefully and sliced and cooked tosorry imitation of the order,” says Seth Zurer. Zurer and his Baconfestsummer version, bred for co-founders used a fledgling trend to throw atraits like firmness and chef-led bacon party with a couple dozen ofshelf life rather than flavor, Chicago’s finest, including Rick Bayless, Paulpicked green, shipped Virant, Chris Pandel, Giuseppe Tentori andthousands of miles, and as Stephanie Izard. Baconfest, which takes place justtasteless as raw tofu.” His as this issue goes to press, is now in its ninth year,MightyVine produces with more than 150 chefs and bacon purveyors.900,000 pounds of “We really wanted the [event’s] voice to be the GARY LAZARSKI voice of an enthusiastic Chicago foodie,” Zurer says, and that attitude is evident in the saucy websitetomatoes a year in a copy and the four-star-bacon-flag branding. Sincefifteen-acre hydroponic 2009, the festival has raised over $360,000 for the Greater April 2017 Newcitygreenhouse eighty miles west of Chicago. MightyVine has Chicago Food Depository.doubled in size over the past fifteen months, deliveringtomatoes at peak freshness/flavor to retail outlets likeWhole Foods Market, Jewel-Osco, Eataly and a number ofChicago restaurants including Monteverde, Il Porcellino andGibsons Steakhouse. 37newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 37 3/20/17 8:50 AM

MELISSA FLYNN, STEVE DOLINSKY AND CHANDRA RAM 36 Matt Matros 38 Louisa Chu and Monica Eng FOUNDER, PROTEIN BAR/ LIMITLESS COFFEE & TEA HOSTS, CHEWING PODCAST We asked Matt Matros how he gauges success: “I measure the Between the buzzworthy spots, the huge events and the hot success of Protein Bar,” he says, “by how many smiles we new chefs, Louisa Chu and Monica Eng are your guides to the deliver. With twenty locations across the country and thirteen untold stories. Chu, a chef and journalist for the Chicago in Chicagoland, we’re able to change the lives of close to 10,000 Tribune, and Eng, food and health reporter for WBEZ, went people each day with our healthy food offerings.” Of course, for independent when their WBEZ podcast “Chewing the Fat” was a guy like Matros, that’s not enough; his other venture, cancelled. Now one year in, they continue to bring firsthand Limitless Coffee & Tea, buys “direct from organic farmers that stories and new perspectives to the dining community. On wet wash the beans at the source; then we air roast them and “Chewing,” Chu and Eng touch on topics that include food brew with only reverse-osmosis water.” The result? Coffee policy to diets to prominent personalities, with a particular that’s “completely free of toxins” and served in about two-hun- focus on overlooked ethnic cuisines, restaurants and chefs. A dred offices—including LinkedIn, Twitter, Uber, WeWork and podcast, says Eng, “allows us to reveal the people behind Pandora—in L.A. and Chicago. Chicago in a more personal way and largely in their own words, to debate and bring more humor, personality and informality 37 Greg Gunthorp to subjects we’d have to tackle differently in our day jobs.” OWNER, GUNTHORP FARMS 39 Sara Gasbarra Farm life is all about doing the right thing in farm and family, FOUNDER, VERDURA says Greg Gunthorp of Gunthorp Farms in Indiana’s north- eastern corner. Gunthorp has stubbornly advocated that a Sara Gasbarra develops, builds and nurtures in-house gardens rural America without sustainable farms isn’t a real America. for clients such as Floriole, Elske and Palmer House. “I get Last year, this hog farmer with deep ties to Chicago’s farm-to- crazy requests,” says Gasbarra. “At first, [the crop list] was plate movement helped rewrite Indiana legislation that was simplified, but now it’s a four-page spreadsheet with fifteen hurting small farm processors. It’s a small contribution he varieties of basil.” The diversity of her portfolio—moreNewcity April 2017 believes that will keep moving farms from generation to gener- importantly, the ability to help chefs grow hard-to-find or ation. Proof of his noble actions may be in the next Gunthorp expensive-to-ship items—is Verdura’s bread and butter. While generation, which has joined him to focus always on pasture, volunteering at Green City Market in the late 2000s and not antibiotics and cages. “You always wish as a parent that subsequently managing their 5000-square-foot educational your kids will return to business with you because you built garden, Sara connected with enough chefs to trust the something that they are proud of to work for,” says the fourth viability of irrigation-supported rooftop gardens in a city with generation pig farmer. Gunthorp Farms sells to more than a five-month growing season. It sounds lofty, literally, but with seventy-five restaurants in Chicago today with quality a little help from Instagram (vegetables are pretty), Verdura’s38 antibiotic-free meat from pasture to package. client list has grown to almost a dozen in under six years.newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 38 3/20/17 8:50 AM

SETH ZURER AND LOUISA CHU AND JOSH DETH MONICA ENG40 Josh Deth 42 Sonat and Robert Birnecker FOUNDER/MANAGING PARTNER, REVOLUTION BREWING OWNERS, KOVAL DISTILLERY Josh Deth, founder of Illinois’ largest independently owned Running the first distillery in Chicago since Prohibition, Sonat brewery, believes he was born to brew. The release of Deth’s and Robert Birnecker are former academics who decided toTar, a bourbon-barrel aged imperial stout, helped him break redirect their formidable intellects toward the production of into the ranks of the top fifty craft-brewing companies in the kosher/organic/artisanal hooch. The two create whiskeys from United States. Bringing beer to the people is the focus of a number of single grains, spirits like vodka and brandy, and everything at Revolution. What was once just a college liqueurs from jasmine, pap paw and other perhaps unlikely experiment to make a drinkable pint has become his life. sources. “I love being in an industry that’s about celebrations,”“There’s a family feeling to everything we do,” he says of his says Sonat, “yet what makes me feel even better is that we’re close-knit crew of about 180 that distribute in six states able to support good causes. Having a business that helps the and counting. community is truly rewarding. I also feel good about being a woman business owner and a mother in the workplace.”41 Cheryl Muñoz 43 Molly Each, Liz Grossman April 2017 Newcity FOUNDER/EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SUGAR BEET SCHOOLHOUSE and Rachel Gillman RischallAfter opening Sugar Beet Food Co-Op in Oak Park, Cheryl FOUNDERS, BETWEEN BITESMuñoz went on to found Sugar Beet Schoolhouse, which shetells us “connects people of all ages with good food. We grow, “We believe in the power of stories to bring people together,”cook, eat and serve good food together through classes and says Molly Each, “and that’s what happens at Between Bites,community events. We keep it simple, positive and fun, and regular gatherings of food industry pros and interested otherspeople keep coming back for more.” Schoolhouse uses a who eat and drink, then listen to stories about food-relatedcommercial kitchen that Muñoz says “is a great incubator for incidents that shaped their lives. Proceeds go to local food-re-start-up food businesses, and I dream of a shared work space lated causes.” It is, according to Rachel Rischall, “a one-of-a-for craftspeople where kids and families can also learn and kind opportunity” to “share a personally meaningful story inbuild a stronger local producer economy.” front of a rapt audience,” providing, as Liz Grossman explains, “an intimate and personal glimpse inside the moments and memories that inspire food writers, chefs and other industry professionals to do what they do every day.”newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 39 39 3/20/17 8:50 AM

44 Sarahlynn Pablo and 47 Jesse Diaz Natalia Roxas-Alvarez PRESIDENT/FOUNDER, DARK MATTER COFFEE FOUNDERS, FILIPINO KITCHEN Jesse Diaz slid into Netflix’s “Easy” series—which also features Newcity staff—as one of our favorite iconic Chicago characters. Through pop-ups and Kultura Festival, Sarahlynn Pablo and Dark Matter Coffee was everywhere throughout Joe Swanberg’s Natalia Roxas-Alvarez educate Chicago about Filipino cuisine, 2016 epic love poem to relationships on Chicago’s North Side. which is, indeed, having a moment. “Our ancestors worked up Today, Diaz continues to lead in Chicago’s coffee scene, priori- to ‘this moment’ since the first Filipino arrived in North tizing direct partnerships with sustainable, fair-trade coffee America in 1587. Filipino Americans have reclaimed our history, from socially responsible farms throughout Guatemala, Mexico including our culinary history. Just within the last five years and El Salvador, where process and dignity is always put before have mainstream media paid prolonged attention to our profit. cuisine.” Their website, Filipino.Kitchen, is a tremendous resource, says Roxas-Alvarez, “for chefs, creatives, academics, 48 Huge Galdones FilAm organizations, and the community to collaborate in contextualizing Filipino food with culture and history.” 45 OWNER/PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHER, GALDONES PHOTOGRAPHY Tremaine Atkinson Chances are very high that if you’ve been to a restaurant opening, you’ve seen a friendly looking bald guy (he’s young; he CO-FOUNDER, shaves) with heavy camera necklaces bouncing on his chest, CH DISTILLERY very focused on capturing the scene and the food. That’s Eugene “Huge” Galdones, an expert at making food look CH Distillery perhaps even better than it tastes. In an age when everybody is navigates fairly a photographer (with a camera in the back pocket), Galdones treacherous waters. offers advice: “Whether you’re using an iPhone or a professional “There’s great pres- camera, pay attention to composition, the visual elements you sure on margins,” want in (and out of) frame: how they live within the shot.” TREMAINE 49 Doug Roth says Tremaine AT K I N S O N FOUNDER, PLAYGROUND HOSPITALITY Atkinson, and “having the ability to compete on price point on both sides— “I didn’t want to be an S.O.B.: Son of the Boss.” But no getting producers and industry—is playing a major role in the next around it: Doug’s dad is Don Roth, legendary restaurateur/ year.” Still, that pressure hasn’t stopped CH from stepping up owner of the Blackhawk, a classic mid-century Chicago their game. “From day one, making spirits that taste great, restaurant. “We’d eat there, just my dad and me, and he’d sit from only the best ingredients and offered at a fair price, has facing the dining room, keeping an eye on things. I’d usually been our goal. Our success speaks for itself as we expand to end up eating alone because he was always jumping up to make Pilsen this spring and open our second production facility. It’s things right for guests.” That laser-focus on the guest continues over 20,000 square feet.” Central to Atkinson’s vision is the at Playground Hospitality, a restaurant consultancy founded unshakeable faith in Chicago as the evolving, devoted with Gale Gand and Dan Smith, built on the old-school craft-spirits capital of the States. customer-service principles embedded in Doug’s DNA.Newcity April 2017 46 Ann Flood 50 Samantha Roby CO-FOUNDER/EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, EDIBLE CHICAGO FOUNDER, CHICAGO FOOD AUTHORITY Part of the James Beard Foundation Award-winning Edible A few years ago, Samantha Roby started taking photos of her Communities network, Edible Chicago is the resource for food, documenting her dinners (and eventually breakfasts, finding and eating good food grown locally. Ann Flood—work- lunches and snacks) on Instagram. Today, the Chicago Food ing with publisher Becky Liscum and consulting partner Brad Authority is her full-time job, earning her food styling and other Haan—has been publishing this magazine since 2008. “Since consultancies, and lots and lots of restaurant invites. Currently we first published,” says Flood, “the local food movement has at 163,000 followers, her Chicago Food Authority Instagram morphed from trendy to sustainable. Most folks continue to feed gives Chicagoans food envy and inspiration, and restau- desire an up-close and personal relationship with their food, rants get a boost whenever Roby posts. The Chicago Food and thanks to the steady expansion of the direct-to-consumer Authority was one of the first, but now one of many, many, connection, Chicagoans of all incomes are now able to pur- many that have joined the instant review trend. chase and consume healthier, fresher foods.” 40newcity_FOB-april-final.indd 40 3/20/17 8:50 AM

La Havana Madrid Photo:rts & Culture JoelMaisonetopens April 20 at Teatro Vista

17th annual Department of Visual Arts BA Thesis Exhibition March 31–April 23, 2017SPRING Opening Reception: March 31, 6-8pmART Friday, April 7 Alex Whitmore Chak Hon Ambrose Iu Juliet EldredSALE Jurrell Lewis Angela Lin Nicholas Jiwoo Hahn 11:00 A.M. – 7:00 P.M. Breanne Johnson Gwen Kouen Seol Gabby Davis Saturday, April 8 Kenneth \"kenny” Zheng 10:00 A.M. – 5:00 P.M. saic.edu/artsale Logan Center Gallery 915 E 60th St TUE-SAT 9am-9pm SUN 11am-9pmTHROUGH JUNE 11, 2017 Ralph Coburn: Random Sequence 16 February - 22 April 2017Guglielmo Plüschow, House of Marcus Lucretius, Pompeii, 7-Panel Participatory Composition c. 1960. Cut paper on paper board, 7 pieces, 8 x 14undated, Collection of the University of Birmingham. inches unframed, Private Collection, New York.Admission is always free. All are welcome.smartmuseum.uchicago.edu 201 East Ontario Street www.artsclubchicago.org Chicago, Illinois 60611 [email protected] 312.787.3997 @artsclubchicago

Zanele Muholi, \"Tumi Nkopane, KwaThema, Jophannesburg,\" 2013. Gelatin silver print /© Zanele Muholi,Art Courtesy of Stevenson Cape Town / Johannesburg and Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York On the cusp of its seventieth anniversary, the Declaration’s thirty articles read like a wishlist from a time of hope long gone. “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status,” declares Article II. Article V proclaims, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” In Article XIV, we read that “Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.” Finally, in light of the current global crisis, Article XXVIII could make one weep: “Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.”The Avant-Garde of In these dire times, to ask “What is an artistic practice APRIL 2017 NewcityHuman Rights of human rights?” is a question so unexpected that it feels strange, almost disingenuous. And yet, this isArtists, a Gallery and a University precisely the inquiry posed by a collaborative teamShow the Way Forward to Social Justice consisting of a downtown art gallery and a handful of University of Chicago organizations. This month,By Elliot J. Reichert Weinberg/Newton Gallery opens “In Acts,” a group exhibition of artists from the world over whose work“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. demands new terms of engagement with art andThey are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards society. With their roots in Argentina, Cuba, Nigeria,one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” Palestine, Puerto Rico, South Africa and Chicago, the gathering of these artists in a single exhibition offers a So states Article I of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human rare and truly global perspective on the issues that Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December threaten the most vulnerable amongst us, and by10, 1948 in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. Never extension, the fabric of humanity itself. The show before had such destruction been wrought on a global scale, culminat- stems from a summit co-organized by a triad of ing in the barbarity of the Holocaust and the total wartime loss of life University of Chicago institutions—the Gray Center forestimated between seventy and eighty-five million worldwide. Although Arts and Inquiry, the Pozen Family Center for Human the 1945 United Nations charter reaffirmed “faith in fundamental human Rights and the Logan Center for the Arts—titled quite rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person,” the War proved bluntly: “What is an Artistic Practice of Human Rights?” that those rights were not adequately enumerated. Hence, the The two-day summit brings together the eight artistsestablishment of the UN Commission on Human Rights, which drafted for presentations, panel discussions and a public the Declaration after two years of research. forum in the spirit of the Gray Center’s mission of uniting arts and scholarly research. “The collaborative nature of the work done at the Gray Center gives artists access to whole new archives and methodology. Artists come to find out that their artistic methodolo- gies can be translated into new ways of working and thinking,” says Zachary Cahill, curator of the Gray Center. Leading up to the event at the end of April, visitors to Weinberg/Newton Gallery will see some of each artist’s work on display and will have a chance to contribute to an audience collaborative project by Nigerian performance artist Jelili Atiku. With the Trump administration rolling back federal protections for transgender individuals upon arrival in the White House, concerned Americans are right to raise wholesale alarm about the imminent threat to LGBTQIA rights at home. Zanele Muholi’s stunning black-and-white portraits of South African lesbians who survive under conditions of extreme marginalization, facing threats of discrimination, sexual assault (sometimes called “corrective rape”), and high rates of HIV infection, remind us that the global warfare against queer bodies comes in many brutal forms. And yet, as her subjects gaze confidently into the camera posed with something between princely dignity and downright swagger, one cannot help but feel the power engendered by such everyday and extraordinary resistance to extreme oppression. These portraits are as 43

ART TOP 5 much object lessons as they are objects of deprived of his nationality nor denied the right beauty. to change his nationality.”)1 David Leggett. Shane Campbell Gallery. The power of images to transform perception Dedicated to analyzing the complexities of this Leggett fills Shane Campbell's massive space with witty and carries through in the work of Carlos Javier ongoing injustice, Decolonizing Architecture Art acerbic collage and painting. Ortiz, a cinematographer and photographic Residency (DAAR) is a collaborative of Sandi2 Ralph Coburn. Arts Club of Chicago. The documentarian whose haunting and elegiac Hilal and Alessandro Petti based in Beit Sahour,Arts Club hosts a major installation of a little-known short films “We All We Got” and “A Thousand Palestine. Established in 2007 with the support abstract master. Midnights” trace the deep roots of American of Israeli architect and scholar Eyal Weizman,3 Arnold Kemp. Iceberg Projects. Rogers Park's segregation through the Great Migration to the DAAR investigates the possibilities for structural preeminent carriage house gallery opens an intimate show present violence in Chicago’s African-Ameri- decolonization of occupied lands, generating of works by this painter, poet and sculptor. can communities. Ortiz, who has shown “We both speculative designs and actual interven-4 Jessie Mott. Hyde Park All We Got” at Weinberg/Newtown when it tions into evacuated military bases, destroyed Art Center. Mott's weird and wonderful creatures take was called David Weinberg Gallery, returns villages, and in-use refugee camps. In “The over the second floor. with a new work fashioned from unused Lawless Line,” DAAR considers the material5 Whistler's Mother. Art Institute of Chicago. footage shot for both films, this time presented implications of cartographic designs, examiningThe artist's famous masterwork returns on loan to the Art on two channels and running longer than the the lines drawn on maps by Israeli and Institute with supporting works and ephemera from the previous shorts. Viewers familiar with Ortiz’s Palestinian representatives during the 1993 collection. work will be grateful for the opportunity to see Oslo Process, which sought to clarify territorial a more experimental side of his practice, yet claims among the two parties. Although less one still steeped in a reverence for his subjects than a millimeter thick when drawn on the scale and a commitment to showing them on their of 1:20,000, the Oslo line measured more than own terms. Ortiz’s meandering, unsteady five meters wide on the ground, designating an camera seems to float listlessly through the ambiguous no-mans-land within dan already Deep South and the South Side, picking up disjointed and contentious territory and sowing disparate threads and weaving them into a more confusion than clarity in the heart of this gut-wrenching narrative of ongoing disposses- historic conflict. While DAAR will not have work sion and steadfast resilience. With Presidential in the exhibition, they and most of the artists will threats to “send in the Feds” to Chicago, the participate in the summit at the University of work of Ortiz reveals the images—both Chicago’s Logan Center for the Arts at the end beautiful and tragic—that we least often of April. The weekend will begin on Friday April imagine when our city makes headlines. 29 with a day of presentations by the artists, followed by a closed session on Saturday for Lola Arias, an Argentinian writer and theater the participants to share their work and ideas director, presents “Veteranos/ Veterans” (2014), with each other. On Sunday, the summit with a five-channel video installation that embellish- conclude with a day of panel conversations es fact with fiction in narrative accounts of five and a public forum open to all. Argentinian veterans of the 1982 Falklands War, a conflict over sovereignty of the Falkland The notion of an artistic practice of human Islands and South Georgia and the South rights might seem like an unaffordable luxury in Sandwich Islands waged between British and the present world order. However, artists Argentine forces. Artists Laurie Jo Reynolds historically have borne the burden of such and Tania Bruguera—well known to Chicago avant-gardism, running ahead of the world as artists and activists for their work on prisons we see it and showing us the future before we and immigration and political oppression, can imagine it for ourselves. Perhaps because respectively—are welcome voices to the they exist in a state of constant precarity—fi- conversation on Human Rights taking place in nancially, politically and socially marginalized the gallery throughout the run of the exhibition. as they often are—artists find themselves too often at the limits of economic and social For students of history, there is a painful irony norms, pressed into practicing a kind of that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights frontierism they do not always wish to pioneer was signed into being in the midst of the 1948 for the rest of us. There is nothing sexy about Palestine War—called the “Nakba” (Catastro- this position, though we romanticize it heavily phe) in Arabic and “Milchemet Ha’Atzmaut” in mainstream culture. I have long suspected a (War of Independence) in Hebrew—in which subconscious, counterintuitive reason for our Jewish European migrants to British Mandate collective fixation on the artist-as-revolutionary: Palestine, some of them displaced by the in many ways, the artist is the resilient atrocities of the Second World War, clashed neoliberal subject par excellence—fractured, with Arab Palestinians and the British occupy- isolated and always on the hustle; consumed ing forces. More than 700,000 Palestinians with making it on the everyday and yet were displaced in this conflict and more than somehow still able to contemplate the nuances four hundred Palestinian villages destroyed, of the superstructures that keep us all down. along with portions of the region’s major cities. The artist is our collective alter ego, living the Sixty-nine years later, Palestinians living in the life we dare not. Now more than ever, it is time Gaza Strip and the Occupied West Bank still that we forget this fantasy and join them. lack the protections of the Declaration’s Article XIII (“Everyone has the right to freedom of “In Acts” shows from April 7 to June 10 at movement and residence within the borders of Weinberg/Newtown Gallery, 300 West Superior. each State. Everyone has the right to leave any “What is an Artistic Practice of Human Rights?” country, including his own, and to return to his takes place on April 29 and May 1 at the country.”) and Article XV (“Everyone has the University of Chicago’s Logan Center for the right to a nationality. No one shall be arbitrarily Arts, 915 East 60th.

Julia Fish Threshold II Deana Lawson Mirror Face APRIL 21–MAY 26, 2017 Sarah McEneaney 118 NORTH PEORIA STREET Christa Donner CHICAGO ILLINOIS 60607 Keiler Roberts WWW.RHOFFM ANGALLERY.COM March 9 to April 13, 2017 www.clevecarneygallery.orgSarah McEneaney, D and P Redux, 2012.Courtesy of Tibor De Nagy Gallery#AiWeiweiMuseum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago APRIL 2017 NewcityApril 13 –– July 2, 2017600 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60605 (312) 663-5554 mocp.org 45

Reviews well can it succeed? (Stephen F. Henry Darger: Author/Artist Eisenman)Ralph Coburn's \"Random Sequence\" shows Intuit through April 22 at the Arts Club of This year the Intuit Gallery is Chicago, 201 East Ontario. celebrating the reclusive Henry Photographing Freetowns Darger (1892-1973) with events and exhibitions meant to shed new Newberry Library light on his art, writing and kinship In 1935, Helen Balfour Morrison with other Outsider artists. Darger (1900/1901-1984), the suburban devoted all his time—when not Chicago wife of a publishing working as a janitor, or attending St. executive, ventured to rural Vincent’s church—to his picture Kentucky. There she photo- making and his novel, the longest graphed the African-American in the English language at more residents of two small freetowns— than 15,000 single-spaced pages. post-Civil War villages of free His production was titanic, his drive blacks—Sugar Hill and Zion Hill. to tell stories ferocious. This On display at the Newberry in the exhibition engagingly pairs Darger’s Hermon Dunlap Smith Gallery are art with his writing. Deftly curated eighty of Morrison’s vintage prints by Outsider Art authority Michael of people living their lives: pictures Bonesteel, the show presents the of work, home and recreation. artist more like an author and less But these rarely seen images are like the scruffy solitaire that much more than just the aesthetic sometimes put penises on his diversion of a member of the renderings of little girls. For the first North Shore cultural elite. They time, viewers can see Darger’s are the faces of the children and imagery alongside of (facsimiles of) grandchildren of former slaves. corresponding pages of text from Morrison was born in Evanston his mega-fantasy, “The Story of the around 1900 and as a teen Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as Henry Darger worked in a photography studio the Realms of the Unreal, of the to help support her family after Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by geometric and, in Kelly’s word, “concrete;” they her mother’s death. Becoming expert at the Child Slave Rebellion.” His strange pictures disdain realism, expression, metaphor and portraiture and darkroom work, she and her are not, as is often thought, simply its transcendence. But what is most remarkable is brother founded a commercial photography illustrations, but rather extend the story or have that Coburn’s multi-section paintings incorpo- gallery in Evanston. After hearing a lecture by intriguing links to it. On display is Darger’s old rate choice: the owner-curator is expected to the landscape architect Jens Jensen and manual typewriter and wafting through the rearrange the parts as she wishes. The idea, having been encouraged to pursue her art by spaces are recorded sounds of typing. Also which has its origins in Dada with Jean Arp and Rockwell Kent, she embarked on a vast series featured is a slideshow that pages through his the Bauhaus with Moholy-Nagy, was that of portraits of “Great Americans.” She did scrapbooks. For visitors unwilling to stand and meaning was not to be fixed by the artist but not record the names of her Kentucky sitters, read, this show may be too much work. But to was the product of the interaction of artwork but the Newberry, aided in part by an elderly understand Darger’s achievement in its entirety, and viewer. That being the case, why not put Zion Hill resident, has admirably attempted this show argues, it is necessary to consider the actual arrangement in the hands of the to identify them. Especially intriguing are the flickering relationship between his quirky latter? And that’s exactly what Coburn did in Morrison’s pictures of African-American youths, pictures and his dizzying text. Several years ago, the most ambitious work of his life, \"Premoni- like the one of a girl with piercing eyes looking Intuit recreated Darger’s actual Lincoln Park tions\" (1962), consisting of thirty-six canvases directly at the viewer. Most of the photographs living room, with its dusty stacks of magazines divided into seven groups, arranged by the here are sun-dappled and almost Pictorialist. and artist’s materials. The room remains today, owner/curator. The result is a colorful daydream She regarded her beloved outdoor light as a directly adjacent to this show. Additionally, a that invites leisurely perusal, like Monet’s “cosmic essence.” Altogether this ambitious concurrent exhibition, “Unreal Realms” (until \"Waterlillies\" in the Musée de l'Orangerie. The exhibition is a revelation. Morrison’s pictures March 26), features even more Darger pieces difference is that Coburn is not interested in are amply supported by the Newberry’s own alongside works by other Outsider masters. It is seasons of the year, times of day, growth, decay, archival materials and a great deal of historical always startling to learn from one’s friends— duration, sky, water or mirroring. That’s a lot to context, ranging from post-Civil War life to even those up on Chicago culture—that they’ve sacrifice. But the longer you look at \"Premoni- Bluegrass horse culture. Also included are never visited Intuit or aren’t familiar with tions,\" the more you see: the canvases are Morrison’s own home movie of her 1935 trip Outsider Art. These shows are the perfect nearly all vertical, composed of three colors, and a slide show of her nearly five-hundred entrée into both. Inarguably, Darger was the with uneven stripes across the middle. Most of Kentucky pictures, which the Newberry has Vincent van Gogh of Outsider Art. Chicago the stripes are white, but two are black, two are helpfully placed online. These days, visitors should recognize him as such, as Intuit so orange, four blue, two rose, one purple and two should find the notion of lovingly photograph- lovingly does. (Mark Pohlad) “Henry Darger: yellow. Most of the arrangements have a ing a long-disenfranchised population of great Author/Artist” shows through May 29 at Intuit, vertical bias—a few even appear cruciform. interest. In reviewing a 1936 exhibit ofNewcity APRIL 2017 756 North Milwaukee. The colors are mostly secondary, but a few Morrison’s, Chicago poet Jessica Nelson Ralph Coburn primaries are evident. The canvas edges are North wrote: “Here as always the character of painted white, making the ensembles flatter the subject emerges triumphant, leaving the The Arts Club of Chicago than they otherwise would be. The arrangement observer somewhat humbler than before, Ralph Coburn is not well known in Chicago—or I saw worked fine; it was both coherent and somewhat less certain of white superiority.” almost anywhere—but deserves to be. Early in animated. My prediction is that so long as the (Mark Pohlad) “Photographing Freetowns: his seventy-year career, he created a series of pictures are not turned sideways, the next African American Kentucky through the Lens paintings that hold their own besides those of installation less than two weeks from now will of Helen Balfour Morrison, 1935-1946” shows his friends, Ellsworth Kelly, Jack Youngerman work just as well. That’s a problem. If a at the Newberry Library through April 15, and Carmen Herrera. They are cool, abstract, particular arrangement can never truly fail, how 60 West Walton.46

EXHIBITIONS RHONA HOFFMAN GALLERYDEPAUL ART MUSEUM 118 N. Peoria Street 312 455 1990935 W. Fullerton Avenue [email protected] / www.rhoffmangallery.com773 325 [email protected] / museums.depaul.edu Tues–Fri 10-5:30, Sat 11-5:30Mon-Tues closed, Wed–Thurs 11-7, Fri 11-5, Sat–Sun 12-5 February 24–April 15 Susan Hefuna: CityscapesJanuary 26–April 2 Four Saints in Three Acts February 24–April 15 Derrick Adams: Tell Me Something GoodJanuary 26–April 2 The Many Faces of Vincent de Paul: April 21–May 26 Julia Fish: Theshold II April 21–May 26 DEANA LAWSON Nineteenth-Century French Romanticism and the SacredJanuary 26–April 2 One day this kids will get largerApril 27–June 18 A Matter of ConscienceApril 27–August 6 Firelei Báez: Vessels of GenealogiesApril 27–August 6 Hu’o’ng Ngo: To Name It is to See ItJune 21–August 6 Stranger ThingsLINDA WARREN PROJECTS THE RENAISSANCE SOCIETY327 N. Aberdeen, Ste. 151 At the University of Chicago312 432 9500 5811 S. Ellis Ave., Cobb Hall, 4th [email protected] / www.lindawarrenprojects.com 773 702 8670 [email protected] / www.renaissancesociety.orgTues–Sat 11-5 or by private appointment Tues–Fri 10-5, Sat–Sun 12-5February 18–April 15 Gallery X & Y – Scott Carter: VelocityFebruary 18–April 15 Gallery O – Chris D. Smith: Strata February 11–April 9 Robert GrosvenorApril 22–June 17 Gallery X & Y – Matthew Woodward: Take Care of Yourself April 22–June 18 Klein/OlsonApril 22–June 17 Tom Torluemke: Sweet and SourLOGAN CENTER EXHIBITIONS RICHARD GRAY GALLERYAt the University of Chicago 875 N. Michigan Avenue, 38th FloorReva and David Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th Street 2044 West Carroll Avenue773 702 2787 312 642 [email protected] / www.arts.uchicago.edu [email protected] / www.richardgraygallery.comTues–Sat 9-9, Sun 11-9, Mon closed Mon–Fri 10-5:30, Sat 11-5April 6–17 The Arts & Social Practice Fellowship: OOMK April 28–June 8 Looking at the Present (Carroll Ave)THE NEUBAUER COLLEGIUM SMART MUSEUM OF ARTFOR CULTURE AND SOCIETY At the University of ChicagoAt the University of Chicago 5550 S. Greenwood Avenue5701 S. Woodlawn Avenue 773 702 0200773 795 2329 [email protected] / [email protected] / www.neubauercollegium.uchicago.edu Tues–Wed 10-5, Thu 10-8, Fri–Sun 10-5Mon–Fri 11-5, Sat–Sun closed Until July 2 Conversations with the Collection: BelongingApril 3–May 13 The Past Sold: Case Studies in the Movement Until July 2 Jessica Stockholder: Rose’s Inclination of Archaeological Objects January 17–June 11 Vostell Concrete, 1969–1973 February 16–June 11 ClassicismsMay 24–June 30 Mark Strand: Collages

Dance Mari Osanai. Photo: Jenn Show Embracing DANCE TOP 5 the Darkness of the Other 1 STOMPING GROUNDS. Chicago Human Rhythm The Post-Butoh Festival Goes into Battle Project. This annual series of free performances at various venues By Sharon Hoyer celebrates a tapestry of cultural traditions in our city. April 3-June 2Newcity APRIL 2017 Butoh, the avant-garde performance form Zalek was awarded a Chicago Dancemakers that arose in mid-twentieth-century Japan, Forum Lab Artist Grant in 2016 and one can 2 Global Visionaries. has gained a growing foothold in Chicago over regularly find butoh artists on the seasonal Joffrey Ballet. A program of the last decade, attracting performers (and calendar at the Dance Center of Columbia works by contemporary masters non-performers) of all stripes to a growing College. Zalek attributes the growing includes a world premiere from the slate of regular workshops and performances. popularity to an increase of performance art ingenious Alexander Ekman. Sara Zalek is one of the driving forces behind and artists in Chicago at large. “Performance April 26-May 7 Chicago’s now-flourishing butoh community, is now happening all the time and it’s hard to and the organizer of “Battles: SS3 Post-Butoh keep up with all that’s going on,” she says. 3 Battles: SS3 Post-Butoh Festival,” running throughout the month of So what is it about an art form that arose as Festival. Butoh Chicago. April at various venues around the city. The response to the Westernization of Japan after Performances, lectures and festival, in its third year, includes by-donation World War II that speaks to a growing workshops take place throughout performances and low-cost workshops by contingency of artists in twenty-first-century the month by local and national and international artists, as well as Chicago? Perhaps it has something to do with international artists. April 5-29 lectures, films and community dinners. the ethos of resistance—to assumptions, to reduction, to categorization—that underpins 4 Beyond the Box at Links Butoh is typically pulled under the umbrella of the form. “Transformation is at the root of a Hall. This performance dance because of its intense physicality… and lot of butoh work,” Zalek says, “whether it’s series created by curatorial the dreamlike abstraction of butoh shows may traditional—if traditional is a thing with resident Rika Lin, challenges the be more digestible to dance than to theater butoh—or if it’s non-, it’s always working on gender boundaries of Japanese audiences. Yet it is most common to find the theme of transformation. There is a clash classical dance. April 21-June 10 theater folks and artists who do not categorize we want to work with and against… we want their work any more narrowly than “perfor- to demonstrate we’re not happy with what’s 5 Spring Series. Giordano mance” at butoh workshops around town and going on and we want to push transformation.” Dance Chicago. Chicago’s on the stage. In an interview years ago, Nicole preeminent jazz dance company LeGette, arguably the first to introduce butoh Clashes are the theme of the SS3 festival (SS presents repertory pieces new to Chicago, corrected me from referring to stands for Spawned Seeds, appropriate for and old at the Harris, including a it as a dance. That said, butoh is gaining the season). Zalek says, “The word battles piece by former River North recognition from Chicago's dance community; keeps coming up for me in all kinds of ways— Dance artistic director Frank Chaves. March 31-April 148

it could be one of those things where you think of something and APRIL 2017 Newcityyou find it everywhere—but I think it’s used a lot in language rightnow. Our social and political climate is that we’re going tofight—I’m against you or you’re against me. I want to reveal what’sunderneath that or expose possible alternative ways to approachadversarial relationships. Instead of being ‘I’m right, listen to me,’how can we be more empathetic to someone else and be opento a deep listening? Part of the theme ‘Battles’ is the idea ofreparations: how do we repair after the battle is over? I have noidea if it’s even possible to have those kind of relationships. I evensee in my own arts community; there are all kinds of clashesbecause support is diminishing and people are fighting for theirpiece. This very individualistic idea, how can we transform it intoa collective idea? How can we support one another even whenwe disagree and rise up together?”Deep-seated, complex problems of society and the humanpsyche are not always best met directly. Butoh is constantlyshifting, forever off-kilter, seeking both new questions and newways to pose questions. As butoh is adopted by artists of differentcultures, backgrounds and experiences, it becomes increasinglyplastic and difficult to define. And therein lies the magic and thepossibility. “The fact that it’s a non-codified dance, it chooses tobe enigmatic, it chooses to defy description… it’s very squirmyand I love that,” Zalek says. “I love things that constantly moveaway from answers and toward more questions. There’s acontradiction at the root that is very rich. I have a beginner's-mindphilosophy; as soon as I think I know something I ask, ‘what do Istill not know about this? How can I approach this as a beginner?’An inner devil’s advocate to always challenge what the truth is.”The mode of constant questioning becomes a method forcultivating compassion. “It goes back to the shadow self,” Zalekcontinues. “The need to always look inside and embrace theshadow. There’s an idea that within all of us there’s the dark sideand the light side and in our cultural history we’re told the dark isbad, the light is good. So why does the dark always have to bebad? Why can’t we see the dark as our whole humanness? Andthe darkness of the other as something we can embrace andlearn from, as a source of common ground. And then maybe wecan see the good in our adversary and embrace their light too. Ifwe can love that internal contradiction in ourselves perhaps wecan learn to love it—or at least respect it—in someone else.”The SS3 festival battles, featuring visiting artists Mari Osanai fromJapan, Ken Mai from Finland and Paul Michael Henry fromScotland, alongside local and national performers, take placeover three weekends at No Nation Gallery in Wicker Park, TheLearning Machine in Bridgeport and the Japanese Culture Centerin Lakeview. The visiting artists will each host a weekend ofworkshops at the Japanese Culture Center and High ConceptLabs in Pilsen. A series of community dinners is in the works, withdates and details to be posted on the Butoh Chicago website asthey develop. All are encouraged to attend and participate in theworkshops. Zalek talks with excitement about a new student toher regular Sunday classes who had been wanting to learn butohfor years, but felt she wasn't enough in touch with her physicalbody. Then one day she decided she was over whatever worriesshe had and showed up. In our interview, it was the story of thisnew student that sparks Zalek to remark, \"there's a sense butohhas a place in the overall community.\"Performances at No Nation Gallery, 1452 North Milwaukee, April 8at 8pm; at The Learning Machine, 3145 South Morgan, April 15 at8pm; at the Japanese Culture Center, 1016 West Belmont, April29 at 7pm. Suggested donation. For info on workshops and moreevents, visit butohchicago.wordpress.com. 49

Design Gertrude Can't Stop A Next-Gen Agency Finds Its Creative Heart in Pilsen By Vasia Rigou A twenty-foot-high shipping container, painted bright red on the we’re not a bank, we’re a creative agency. So I moved into a building side of Pilsen's Lacuna Artists Lofts building, marks the main entrance where if I wanna take a wall down I can. We went from having to the offices of the creative agency Gertrude. Step inside and you're constraints to having zero constraints—which is great.” met with Gertrude's industrial-meets-mid-century-modern aesthetic. Housed in the same space—and using that same vibrant color palette With a background in fine arts, Knapp also understands the importance with a touch of distinct steampunk style—are the agency’s separate of using creative space, physical and otherwise. “When you walk in design and digital-branding division, OZ MFG. Co., and their newly here, we’re walking into our portfolio. Every single piece has to do with launched experiential, branded architecture and environmental design how we transform a space into an idea: the materials, the lights, the component, RAYE. details, it’s all about our philosophy, it’s what Gertrude feels like,” she says. “We’re a multidisciplinary shop focused on innovation,” she adds, As an agency constantly evolving, Gertrude disrupts, invents and explaining the importance of being open-minded to even the most perhaps foremost, evolves. Its high-end clientele includes global outrageous creative ideas. At Gertrude this is kind of the norm. companies such as Absolut Vodka, Adidas, Coca-Cola, Diageo, Disney and Google, to name a few. Whereas other agencies would RAYE, their latest adventure, branches into new creative territory for the have settled for such an esteemed roster, Gertrude is not your regular agency. RAYE envisions brand as place. What does this really mean? creative agency: founder and chief creative officer Otis D. Gibson Think a retired 1967 CTA train car transformed into a 1920s-inspired and president Heather Knapp wouldn’t let it be. club car, an original 1928 Ford Model A used to launch a 142-year-old bourbon brand and a repurposed shipping container turned speakeasy. “There are lots of different agencies, and lots of agencies are doing the same thing,” Gibson says. “I started Gertrude in the West Loop twelve “When we first moved here, there was this train sitting out in the parking years ago. Then we moved to River North but we felt pretty much like lot. It was completely abandoned, all graffitied up and people would fish out of water over there. It was a little too quiet in terms of creative hang out in there at night,\" Gibson says. \"The thing was a mess but INewcity APRIL 2017 inspiration,” he smiles. “We chose Pilsen because it has an amazing knew we could make something really cool out of it. This was around emerging edge and creatively, we wanted to be in a place where our the time we were working with Studebaker whiskey, coming up with the employees can be inspired every day,” he says, explaining that they first strategy and the marketing plan, and I couldn’t get this train out of my discovered the company’s current home visiting a friend’s artist studio. head.” Next thing he knows, he's pitching his client on the idea of transforming the vacant train car into a reimagined 1920s whiskey club “I remember when I was in River North I wanted to paint a very small wall car for the launch of their Prohibition-inspired, ready-mixed cocktails. red, which is our signature color. I had four meetings with the landlord about these eight-by-ten walls that we were going to paint back white To Gibson, architecture and branding go hand in hand. “It’s where our when we left, only to be denied the privilege to paint the fucking wall worlds collide,” he says. \"Branding isn’t necessarily slapping your logo red,” he says. “This made me feel so restricted because, you know, on everything but it’s really about what a consumer feels.”50