Nick Cave won his legal battle with Kinderhook, New York, over his “Truth Be Told” installation.
From Artforum: “The ruling came after receipt of a petition, signed by more than 3,300 people, demanding that the work be allowed to stay, and just over a week after a three-and-a-half-hour Zoom hearing on the topic attended by 180 people, during which the work was passionately defended by museum directors, villagers and children.”
This Gent is in
Document‘s Aron Gent has joined the board of directors of the Society for Contemporary Art at the Art Institute of Chicago and the board of directors of the New Art Dealers Alliance.
His bio: “Born in 1985, Aron Gent is an artist, gallerist, and professional printmaker residing in Chicago. He received a degree from Columbia College Chicago and has been a lecturer and educator at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, the Hyde Park Art Center and Columbia College Chicago. Gent is the founder of the print studio and commercial gallery DOCUMENT and a founding board member for Chicago-based organization ACRE since 2010.”
“As any kid with a crayon knows, the human eye is attuned to finding faces. Two dots will fix the seen for the seer, and vice versa; we are constantly seeking to pin other consciousnesses down, catching in our headlights the thoughts of others at our shared twin fulcrums of empathy. That ubiquitous 1975 smiling yellow disc proves it. But in art, it’s up to the artist’s skill and sensitivity whether the sensation of life or the sentiment of ‘have a nice day’ is the result. So it’s to Houdon’s credit that at that moment in front of ‘Madame His,’ the chasm of the centuries sprang together, and I felt, if just for a moment, like I was uncannily and most genuinely in the presence of someone two hundred years dead.”
White’s wrong with this help-wanted
Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields has stumbled into a real mess after posting a job listing for someone to help maintain its “traditional, core, white art audience.” The director and chief executive, Charles L. Venable, apologized and told the New York Times:
“I deeply regret that the choice of language clearly has not worked out to mirror our overall intention of building our core art audience by welcoming more people in the door,” he said. “We were trying to be transparent about the fact that anybody who is going to apply for this job really needs to be committed to D.E.I. efforts in all parts of the museum.”
DINING & DRINKING
Dead Plants? How romantic.
The Press Room has transformed itself into the “speakeasy experience,” Dead Plants.
From the press release: “Dead Plants is now open for a candlelight dinner and cocktails by reservation only every Thursday through Sunday from 6pm to close. Unlike most concepts around the city, guests can only make a reservation by texting 872.240.2317 and enter through a secret entrance that is only given once your reservation has been made. Making it the ultimate exclusivity experience. The Dead Plants name stems from how the restaurant was boarded up during the indoor dining shutdown, leaving the plants inside unable to get sunlight. When the team returned to prepare for the first night of service, they noticed all of the plants were dead.”
The death of writer Harry Mark Petrakis last week meant automatic consideration for the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame and its board quickly affirmed his selection. He’ll be inducted on September 19.
Love that book
Naperville-based Sourcebooks has launched the Discover New Romance Award. Valentine’s Day might be over, but authors have till February 28 to enter.
MEDIA
TMI at ‘TTW
Robert Feder reports that PBS affiliate WTTW/Channel 11 has placed its news director Hugo Balta on leave for over-sharing on social media, including tweets in support of liberal candidates, which undermined the station’s impartiality. But also, as Feder reports, “Among posts mentioned were a video of Balta doing bare-chested push-ups and another of him dancing in his boxer shorts, a la Tom Cruise in ‘Risky Business.’ (Both have been taken down.)”
MUSIC
Noname says no thanks to Fred Hampton film
The new film about the murder of Chicago Black Panther leader Fred Hampton by the police, “Judas & the Black Messiah,” has a Chicago-heavy soundtrack, including Polo G, Lil Durk, G Herbo, Smino, Saba, BJ The Chicago Kid, and Bump J. But Noname was offered a slot and passed.
From the Sun-Times: ” ‘what’s crazy is they asked. i was supposed to be on the song with saba and smi but after seeing the movie i decided to pass,’ she tweeted. In a deleted tweet, she says the film lacked context regarding Hampton’s politics. ‘I hope people actually go study Fred Hampton’s analysis on U.S. imperialism and fascism beyond just seeing a movie,’ she wrote. ‘Most of his politics were stripped from that film.’ “
STAGE
Changing the audience
Second City’s new executive producer Jon Carr talks diversification with Chicago magazine. “People get confused about the idea of universal: ‘I’ve got to make something that works for everyone.’ I think it’s actually the opposite,” he says.
New hires
Bobbi Masters has joined Stage Left as its new literary manager.
From the press release: “As a director, Bobbi’s work has been seen regionally at theaters such as Kitchen Dog Theatre (where she served as artistic associate) to Off-Off Broadway at Theatre for the New City. Bobbi previously served as Resident Director at Coffee Black Productions and an Artistic Associate at Milk Can Theatre. She currently teaches at City Colleges of Chicago.”
Tiffany Fulson has been hired for the newly created full-time position of Artistic Producer of Innovative Partnerships at Timeline Theatre.
From the press release: “Fulson joined TimeLine’s part-time staff in 2016 as a Teaching Artist, after completing two teaching practicums with the Living History team through the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Teaching Artist Program. The following year, she became Education Assistant—helping to manage, develop, and strategize Living History at TimeLine. In 2018 she took on the challenge of launching and leading TimeLine’s first summer program for youth, TimeLine South. Based in Bronzeville, the program planted the initial seeds of artistic community programming.”
The longest-serving board member of the Auditorium Theatre, Edward Weil, has died. He was the great-grandson of one of the building’s architects, Dankmar Adler, of the famed Adler & Sullivan.
Editor's Letter: February 2021 Taking as our premise "Mirror to the Future," we tasked our writers with looking to the past to help us understand where we are today and where we might go from here.
Today in the Culture: February 1, 2021 DESIGN Silver sounds Hyde Park's The Silver Room is expanding into media with the launch of podcast "Randomly Selected" and a weekly radio station, "Soundrotation." The podcast, hosted by Mario Smith, launches today with an interview with chef Erick Williams of Virtue. The radio station is hosted by Duane Powell, and is a reincarnation of his weekly gig at Funky…
Today in the Culture: February 8, 2021 ART Going to Kansas City Chicago's Zhou Brothers are launching a second Zhou B Art Center, this one a $20 million redevelopment of the historic Attucks School in Kansas City, Kansas. Forty-three artist studios and seven gallery and event spaces are planned for the center, which is scheduled to open in the fall of 2022. FILM Make more movies The…
