Wholesome Harvest Farm at Green City Market West Loop
ART
Second Round of Awards From Artists Run Chicago Fund
Hyde Park Art Center, the South Side nonprofit hub for contemporary art, announced the second phase of Artists Run Chicago Fund, a regranting initiative providing $560,000 for unrestricted COVID relief for Chicago’s artist community. The first phase in March granted awards of $8,000 to each of the fifty independent artist-run spaces that participated in the Art Center’s popular 2020 exhibition, “Artists Run Chicago 2.0 (ARC 2.0).” An additional twenty Chicago artist-run spaces that applied for the second phase will receive grants of $8,000. The Artists Run Chicago Fund initiative is funded by an anonymous donor and is fully administered by Hyde Park Art Center. The second phase of the grant supports experimental artist-led spaces and platforms with a focus on those run by artists who identify as BIPOC, women, queer or with disabilities. Recipients include: alt_ exchange, Anysquared, Axis Lab, Chicago Artist Writers, Concerned Black Image Makers, Cultivator, DFBRL8R | Defibrillator Gallery, DIVINE Art Book, Englewood Arts Collective, Filmfront, GnarWare Workshop, in c/o: Black women, LevelUP IRL, Marimacha Monarca Press, {\}() {\}?‡!(){\} (No Nation), Performance Response Journal, QTVC Live!, SIN CINTA PREVIA, The Weaving Mill, and Produce Model. More details here.
DESIGN
Ground Broken For AIDS Garden Chicago
Wednesday morning is the groundbreaking for the AIDS Garden Chicago, attended by Mayor Lightfoot, Congressman Mike Quigley, Alderman Tom Tunney and Chicago Parks Foundation Executive Director Willa Lang, as well as members of the LGBTQ community. AGC will be the city’s first public park to memorialize the early days of Chicago’s HIV epidemic, and to honor those who fight against the disease today. Slated to open in the fall, the two-and-a-half acre site on Lake Michigan is on the original location of the Belmont Rocks, where the gay community gathered between the 1960s and 1990s. The Garden’s first phase was completed in late 2019 with the installation of its anchor piece, the thirty-foot Keith Haring sculpture, “Self-Portrait.” A spoken-word performance by Chicago Black Queer playwright, poet and activist Osiris Khepera precedes remarks; there will also be brightly colored hard hats to reflect the LGBTQ rainbow flag.
Frank Lloyd Wright Home In Glenview Up For Auction
$1.2 million is the starting bid for a recently identified Wright house in Glenview: “Prior to being listed in 2020, the house was never listed publicly and only transferred ownership once, when it was purchased in 1965 by architect Edward Busche from original owner, John O. Carr. A distinguished architect in his own right, Busche added three additions to the home in 1981 to increase living space, meticulously adhering to Wright’s blueprints and material choices to create seamless transitions between his updates and Wright’s original designs.”
Turning Art Into Haircuts in West Town
For the Sun-Times “Murals & Mosaics,” Lu Calzada visits West Town Klicked Salon on the 400 block of North Ogden. “Artists Won Kim and rawooh collaborated on the mural, which combines realistic portraits with abstract hair designs,” the Sun-Times reports. “Salon owner Magen Sabo had complained to Kim, a friend, that she didn’t like the signs at her then-new business. So they made a deal: Kim would redesign the signs in exchange for some haircuts and hair products. It wasn’t the first time Kim has done something like that. He also has bartered his talents in exchange for drinks, meals, clothing… The faces gracing the walls of the salon aren’t based on any particular person, according to rawooh, who says his style developed from reading anatomy books and comic books. He says he wanted to make the faces seem more realistic to contrast with the fluid and flat-colored hair that Kim painted.”
DINING & DRINKING
Green City Market Reopens In West Loop
Green City Market reopens its West Loop location on Saturday in Mary Bartelme Park. The market, which GCM reports that chef and restaurateur Alice Waters once called “the best sustainable market in the country,” opens at 8am and will run every Saturday through the end of October. New vendors include: Star Farm Chicago, an urban farm established in the Back of the Yards neighborhood that offers fresh seasonal vegetables; Prairie Wolf, offering hand-processed raw dog food treats with ingredients sourced from local farmers; and Kikwetu Kenya Coffee Company, a small family-owned specialty grade coffee company based on the South Side of Chicago that sells local -roasted brewed coffee and whole beans.
FILM & TELEVISION
Never-Distributed George Romero “The Amusement Park” Has Music Box Mini-Run
Prior to its June 8 premiere on Shudder, The Music Box features three shows of George A. Romero’s bold and bleak tale of the horror of elder abuse, the fifty-three minute “The Amusement Park” (1973) on the big screen, on Wednesday, June 2, Thursday, June 3 and Monday, June 7. “An elderly man goes for what he assumes will be an ordinary day at the amusement park, only to find himself in the middle of a hellish nightmare instead.” (The film is a 4K digital restoration, commissioned by the George A. Romero Foundation and carried out by IndieCollect.) Tickets here.
AMC Finds Arclight Properties Attractive
“Given our scale, experience and commitment to innovation and excellence, AMC is being presented with highly attractive theater acquisition opportunities,” AMC CEO Adam Aron said in a statement. “We are in discussions, for example, with multiple landlords of superb theaters formerly operated by Arclight Cinemas and Pacific Theatres. With this [$230.5 million stock sale] agreement with Mudrick Capital, we have raised funds that will allow us to be aggressive in going after the most valuable theatre assets, as well as to make other strategic investments in our business and to pursue deleveraging opportunities.” AMC is in an unusually flush moment: the near-complete exit of China’s Wanda Group, which had held a controlling stake since 2012, and the Reddit-fueled stock frenzy earlier this year that began with GameStop stock and moved on other companies, including AMC.
MEDIA
Univision Ratings Sweep
Robert Feder reports that Chicago’s five 9pm and 10pm weekday English-language newscasts had a three-way tie, “but there’s a bigger story to emerge from Nielsen’s May sweep when you include late-news ratings for the city’s two Spanish-language stations — Univision Chicago WGBO-Channel 66 and Telemundo Chicago WSNS-Channel 44…. they were the only stations in the market to increase their overall viewership year-to-year.”
MUSIC
Chicago: Ready to Dance?
“As DJ C, Chicago producer Jake Trussell has developed a gift for extracting the DNA from an eclectic variety of pop subgenres, then scrambling their nucleotides and recombining them—and his manipulations not only illuminate the hard-to-see strands connecting parallel musical histories but also encourage anyone with at least two brain cells to dance,” writes Leor Galil at the Reader, providing a track as well. Block Club Chicago reports a glimpse of “normalcy” in Chicago’s LGBTQ neighborhood with a return to the dance floor: “About a hundred vaccinated people packed into the crowded dance floor of Scarlet Bar on Halsted Street Saturday to do what they’ve been waiting fifteen months to do: dance with friends,” reports Jake Wittich. “It was only the second weekend since Scarlet started accepting customers — who must be vaccinated — and reopened its dance floor. For many people, it was their first time going clubbing in the fifteen months since the pandemic began. ‘The energy has been amazing. It feels like Pride again,” said AJ Miranda, general manager of Scarlet, a smaller club along the Northalsted strip — formerly called Boystown — known for its dancing.”
Pitchfork Single-Day Passes Available…
… if they’re not sold out by the time you read this. (Three-day ducats are already done.) Here’s the link to buy.
Evanston SPACE Sets Summer Sounds
“Out of Space,” Evanston SPACE’s summer concert series announced its 2021 line-up at Canal Shores (August 5-8) and Temperance Beer Company (September 2-5), with tickets going on sale Friday, June 4 at 10am. Canal Shores kicks off on August 5 with Emmylou Harris and Los Lobos, followed by Patti Smith and her band on the 6th, Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals on the 7th and closing out on August 8 with CAAMP. Temperance Beer Company hosts Out of Space September 2 – 5, with Big Boi and Twista, Drive-By Truckers and JD McPherson, Neko Case with Son Little as well as George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, supported by Liquid Soul. Details here.
STAGE
New Alliance to Sustain American Black Theater Infrastructure
“In an effort to share knowledge, resources and strengthen the infrastructure of the Black theatre landscape in the United States, the country’s independent Black theatre building owners, including Black Ensemble Theater, have forged a new alliance,” The National Association of Black Theatre Building Owners (NABTBO) announces. “NABTBO will share knowledge, resources, increase awareness of the vital importance of African American Theater to the cultural fabric of our country and work together to insure the sustainability and growth of the Black theater national landscape. NABTBO honors, respects, and supports all Black Theater companies, collegiate, storefronts and church theaters across the nation that continue to amplify our voices, and is proud to be a part of this important community.” The members of NABTBO include Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe, Sarasota; The Arena Players, Baltimore; Black Ensemble Theater, Chicago; The Ensemble Theatre, Houston; ETA, Chicago; Hattiloo Theatre, Memphis; and National Black Theatre in New York City. These groups were brought together by director Chuck Smith, who urged them to work together, “and so the leaders of these theaters have committed to being a conduit for creating strategies and building platforms to benefit Black Theater as a holistic community. The companies are increasing their interaction and communication while developing and implementing strategies that will affect positive change resulting in strengthening the Black Theater community on a national level.”
ARTS & CULTURE
No More Ten-Day Quarantine For Visitors From Anywhere in the U.S.
A further move to open up the city to the visitors (and commerce) from the outside world: The Sun-Times reports, “Travelers to Chicago no longer need to quarantine when they arrive in the city, and they won’t need to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test either, officials said Tuesday. That’s because for the first time since the pandemic hit, no U.S. states or territories are considered coronavirus hot spots by the Chicago Department of Public Health as infection rates keep plummeting across the nation.” Chicago Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said during an online Q&A, “That’s because COVID is getting better, not just here in Chicago, but really around the country…This has been predominantly, of course, the result of the vaccine.” The city’s travel order remains in place, the Sun-Times notes, and restrictions would be reinstated if there are resurgences in other states.
Hilton Chicago Reopens June 10
Hilton Chicago, one of Chicago’s largest hotels with 1,544 guest rooms and suites, and which opened in 1927, will reopen to guests and Chicagoans on June 10, after a yearlong suspension of operations. Leading up to the reopening, Hilton Chicago placed a countdown clock to be seen through the windows of the hotel at night. “The reopening of a hotel of this size and capacity requires a heavy operational lift,” the hotel relays. John Wells, general manager, and the entire team had months to prepare—and needed it, “with four miles of carpeting to vacuum, over 37,000 batteries to change, 1,560 guest room mini-fridges to clean, over 96,000 gallons of water to add to the swimming pool, nearly 2500 mattresses to flip.”
North Halsted Neighborhood Name Change Resisted By Some?
“In what some saw as a major concession by Boystown’s largely white, male business leaders, the Northalsted Business Alliance announced last year that it would no longer market the Midwest’s premier LGBTQ neighborhood as Boystown, but instead use the gender-neutral moniker Northalsted,” reports the Trib. “A younger generation of activists concerned about the inclusion of lesbians, people of color, and transgender and nonbinary Chicagoans cheered: Here was a powerful signal that Boystown wasn’t only for the clean-cut gay white men who flock to the North Side enclave’s gleaming gyms and storied bars. But a funny thing happened on the way to the neighborhood’s first Pride Month with a nongendered name. ‘It seems that nothing has changed — not a thing,’ said Devlyn Camp, 29, a podcast producer who co-wrote a 2020 Change.org petition calling for a name change that garnered more than 1,500 signatures. ‘It’s a great disappointment.'”
