I keep remembering that this time of suffering is also many people’s first spring. They’re seeing startling greens wave at them from the trees, and purples bright as toys pushing up plush from the dirt. Some are learning to walk on stubbled grass and feeling its tickling insistence while the grass feels that seeped flattening as the inevitable revelation of what has been and will be again. They hear the chips and chirrups of birds and do not miss the noise of traffic, school buzzers, children squealing on the playgrounds. They do not know those slides and swings are not always wrapped in these yellow ribbons snapping at the wind. Everything’s new and simply true, like the wrinkled gray branches that pulse to bud then blossom with stars thin as tissue. They will not remember this as a time of darkening. It will just be a story people tell sometimes. How the losses and hollows of what could not be stopped made the flowers seem brighter that spring, more necessary in their beauty.
Today in the Culture: March 25, 2021 | Bronzeville up | Greektown down | Signs of summer ART Is Glencoe the new gallery district? Alan Koppel is opening a satellite gallery, Alan Koppel Gallery-North, at 342 Park Avenue in Glencoe with "Diane Arbus: A Secret about a Secret," April 1 - May 8. DESIGN Build Back Bronzeville Better The Tribune looks at the federal legislation introduced last month to make Bronzeville a National Heritage Area, and "pump…
Editor's Letter: December 2020 We're committed to championing Chicago design, and this issue bears testament to that commitment.
This Week in the Culture: December 23, 2020 ART Aspect/Ratio Projects Gains Gainer Twin Cities-based artist Cameron Gainer has signed with Aspect/Ratio Projects for representation. According to the gallery, "Gainer is an artist, advocate for artists, the Executive Editor of The Third Rail, on the Board of Directors of Second Shift Studio Space and the Artistic Director of co." "Gainer is a visual artist making work in a…
This Week in the Culture: December 18, 2020 DESIGN The Reed rises soon In a rare burst of good—or at least normal—news, plans for The Reed, the condo building in the Southbank along the Chicago River, were unveiled. “There is always migration to the suburbs, but we’re very bullish on the urban downtown market,” the developer told the Tribune. “People love and thrive on the nightlife and the…
This Week in the Culture: December 16, 2020 Catherine Edelman Gallery is closing One of the Chicago's art world's stalwarts for thirty-three years, Catherine Edelman announced she's closing her physical space at 1637 West Chicago effective January 1, in response to the "unsustainable reality" brought on by the pandemic. A national force in photography, Edelman hosted 245 exhibitions featuring more than 200 artists in spaces ranging from River…
