“Tarik Echols: Open,” the Illinois artist’s first solo exhibition, opens at Intuit with free admission and extended hours on Friday, December 9, accompanied by the first of three supporting exhibitions in partnership with the art studios Creative Growth Art Center, Project Onward and Arts of Life. The exhibition “presents drawings made by the artist between 2011 and 2020. Echols builds upon patterns of repeated words, letters and symbols to create drawings rich with color and visual movement. Jennifer Mannebach, Echols’ former arts facilitator at Little City, notes the words ‘open,’ ‘home’ and ‘mother’ are ‘a few of his favorite words,’ as the artist repeats these in many drawings. Though Echols primarily creates with crayons and watercolors, he occasionally collages found materials into his art. For more than fifteen years, Echols has participated in day programs run by Little City, a nonprofit organization in Palatine that serves children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities through residential programs, employment services, horticultural programs and art-making at the Center for the Arts.” More here.
Deciphering “Exact Dutch Yellow”
“‘Exact Dutch Yellow’ illuminates, quite literally, the poetry of naming color, of defining and fixing it in place, while simultaneously highlighting the profound difficulty if not outright impossibility of doing so,” writes Marin R. Sullivan at MAS Context of the Chicago Cultural Center exhibition. “Beyond the presence of pure powdered pigments, airbrushed panels of botanical dyes, and multihued paintings, it is the application and manipulation of light that makes color physically manifest in the exhibition. Color is, after all, an effect of light, a connection first proven by Newton in the 1660s when he passed a beam of light through a prism, establishing that clear white light was composed of seven visible colors also known as the ROYGBIV colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet). Throughout ‘Exact Dutch Yellow,’ light is used to demonstrate the capricious physics of color, amplifying, distorting, and throwing into high contrast a seemingly endless range of changing, visible hues… To stand in front of, or rather within, these works is to experience the phenomenon of color both optically and physically but with an awareness that whatever you experience will be unique and ineffable.”
Miami University Art Museum Renamed For Donors
The 24,000-square-foot teaching museum in Oxford, Ohio, the Miami University Art Museum has been renamed the Richard and Carole Cocks Art Museum after a “transformational” gift from longtime donor Richard Cocks in honor of his late wife, Carole. “The total amount of the gift is being kept private, but it is the largest outright gift in the museum’s more than forty-year history,” the museum relays. “We are incredibly grateful to Richard and Carole for their tremendous support of the art museum throughout the years,” Miami University president Gregory Crawford says in a release. “Their generosity will enable us to provide more dynamic programming and exciting new art exhibits and enhance our visitor experience.” This gift “will help fund programmatic renovations and contribute to future expansions of the museum, which was founded in 1978. The museum houses five galleries of rotating and ongoing exhibitions and a growing permanent collection of more than 17,500 artworks from around the world.”
DESIGN
Betty Blum, Ninety-One, Interviewer For Art Institute Oral History Of Architects
Betty Blum, a volunteer at the Art Institute of Chicago, was instrumental in “the museum’s Chicago Architects Oral History Project, conducting and transcribing more than sixty interviews with notable architects,” reports Bob Goldsborough at the Trib. “In 1983, the Art Institute’s Department of Architecture launched its Chicago Architects Oral History Project, and Blum was one of the first to [interview] architects who… shaped the Chicago area’s physical environment dating back to the 1920s… Over two decades beginning in 1986, Blum interviewed architects including John Vinci, Bertrand Goldberg, Stanley Tigerman, Paul Schweikher, Walter Netsch, Bruce Graham, Brigitte Peterhans and Y.C. Wong. She also flew to Japan to interview Tadao Ando… Blum also oversaw and trained others who conducted architect interviews as part of the project.”
Use Of Illinois Farmland For Renewable Energy Solar Panels Questioned
“What should be grown on central Illinois’ prime farmland, seeds or solar panels?” writes David Blanchette at the Illinois Times. “That’s the quandary facing central Illinois and other areas of the nation that grow the majority of the country’s crops. A new solar energy installation, labeled the Double Black Diamond Solar project, is now being built and takes up more than 4,000 acres of land in Sangamon and Morgan Counties. That land, until now, has been used to grow corn and soybeans,” Blanchette writes in the extended report. “Solar advocates say we need the alternative energy source and there’s enough land to go around for everybody. But an increasing number of people are asking why solar developers are seeking prime farmland instead of siting their developments on land that isn’t feeding the nation… The $535 million Double Black Diamond Solar project’s estimated 592-megawatt generation capacity will power the equivalent of approximately 97,000 homes. Construction is underway, with completion by late 2023.”
DINING & DRINKING
Obama Center Needs Restaurant Partner
“The Obama Presidential Center needs a restaurant partner to operate its dining, and it’s looking to operators on the city’s South and West Sides,” reports Crain’s. The Obama Foundation’s “chosen partner would oversee a restaurant and grab-and-go cafe that would collectively seat about 200 people at the center in Jackson Park. The partner would also oversee catering at the Obama Center and programming of the fruit and vegetable garden and teaching kitchen.”
FILM & TELEVISION
Oscar-Winning Documentarian Julia Reichert Was Seventy-Six
Filmmaker Julia Reichert, who co-directed her work with her partner, Steven Bognar, has died. Her fifty years of work, which Reichert and Bognar kept close to their Ohio home, included 2019’s Oscar-winning documentary, “American Factory,” the first film acquired for Netflix by the Obamas’ Higher Ground production company. “When talking to Julia Reichert and Steve Bognar, issues of class and labor, of how class and labor shape and inform us as people, are often the main text, and otherwise subtext,” wrote Eric Hynes at Film Comment of that film, “an omnivorous account of the opening of the Chinese-owned Fuyao car windshield plant in Dayton, Ohio,” and their work. “It is their second nomination as a team (filming in the same building that they watched shutter ten years prior with their 2009 Academy Award–nominated ‘The Last Truck: Closing of a G.M. Plant’), and Reichert’s fourth nomination overall…” Their final film together, “Dave Chappelle Live in Real Life,” follows fellow Ohioan Dave Chappelle as he prepares his live comedy concert in a Yellow Springs, Ohio cornfield during the pandemic in 2020. “We had to create alternative institutions because the way America was set up—the culture and the social structures we all lived under—was not working for us. It was not working for most people,” Reichert told Kartemquin senior advisor Gordon Quinn at Filmmaker in 2019. “I’m a working-class kid, I come from a small town. I remember in college reading Marx and Chairman Mao even, and realizing people like me—working class people—have a role to play in history. It’s not just elected officials or military leaders or whatever, it’s people like me.” In the closing words of her acceptance speech at the Oscars, Reichert quoted “The Communist Manifesto”: “We believe things will get better when workers of the world unite.”
Iowa Dairy Recreates Sewer Scene From “Christmas Vacation”
“‘Great minds’ from Hansen’s Dairy recently came together to reproduce a hilarious scene from an iconic holiday movie, said co-owner Blake Hansen,” as reported by the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier. “The idea to recreate the moment from the film ‘Christmas Vacation’ … ‘came at the right time, when we were emptying out the manure pit… When she’s full, she’s full,’ he said, about the task his farm takes on twice per year.In the movie, Cousin Eddie, played by Randy Quaid, is in front of a relative’s home with his RV… He proceeds to greet the neighbors as he empties the camper’s septic tank into the storm sewer while wearing a bathrobe and winter cap, smoking a cigar and sipping a beer… In the Hansen’s video, which was [posted] on TikTok, ‘Farmer Blake’ is seen ‘agitating the manure’ in order to make it easier to empty the pit. He dons an identical outfit (which includes his wife’s bathrobe) and smokes a cigar. Instead of a beer, he is holding a gallon of Hansen’s milk.”
MUSIC
Northwestern Seeks Dean Of Bienen School Of Music
Northwestern has posted an opening, seeking “a forward-thinking, collaborative, community-building leader to serve as the next dean of the Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music. An award-winning school with a national and international reputation that is well-positioned for the future, the Bienen School combines conservatory-level training with the academic rigor of a top-tier R1 university. Founded in 1895, the Bienen School is situated in the state-of-the-art Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Center for the Musical Arts (the Ryan Center), which opened in 2015. The School’s 130 full- and part-time faculty members are performers, scholars, and composers who serve 682 students—425 undergraduates and 257 graduate students.”
Peoria Symphony Looking For Director Of Development
The Peoria Symphony Orchestra “is seeking an experienced front-line director of development, who will be a key participant in its success by driving support for its growing vision. This person will bring energy, commitment, strategy, and inspiration into all aspects of fundraising for the organization,” the PSO posts. “Celebrating its 125th year, the PSO is a highly acclaimed cultural institution, and the fourteenth-oldest orchestra in the U.S. Frequently referred to as ‘the crown jewel of Peoria,’ the PSO offers an annual eight-concert subscription series, performed in an array of venues, as well as other public performances, education initiatives, and public television and media programs that work in cohesion with its robust artistic vision. With Maestro George Stelluto leading the artistic direction of the orchestra, and the new executive director Anthony Marotta in place, the Symphony is poised to engage a broader community and deepen its regional impact.”
STAGE
Did American Theater Really Say “F— David Mamet”?
“America’s most daring and insightful playwright tried to warn us that we were going haywire. By making him a hate object, American theater has made us all poorer,” writes Clayton Fox at Tablet. “Mamet has a prophetic gift for understanding American life, honed in his drama, perfected in his prose, and… there’s a lot that Americans of all political leanings could probably stand to learn from reading his work. But for the past fourteen years, the cognoscenti have ignored, shunned, and demonstratively not read, David Mamet.” Fox continues, “Mamet’s excommunication was a warning that something nasty was brewing in our discourse. This new Puritanism has been brutal on the creative soul of this nation (and possibly Mr. Mamet’s work) but it is especially a pity that it sidelined Mamet, an American prophet with a profound mastery of the rhythms of American speech and thought.”
Broadway League And Actors’ Equity Agree On Contract That Omits Touring Shows
“Actors’ Equity and the Broadway League reached a new, three-year collective bargaining agreement for Broadway shows and sit-down production,” writes the Hollywood Reporter. “The details of the agreement have not yet been released and still remain subject to ratification by a subset of Equity members who have recently worked on these contracts… Touring productions, which had been included in this contract in the the past, were not included in the discussion, as they are being spun off into a new contract.”
ARTS & CULTURE & ETC.
Weed Workers Commune
‘Roughly 17,000 people in Illinois, and half a million nationwide, work in the marijuana industry, the fastest-growing business in the country. It’s also one of the fastest unionizing industries in the country, with workers galvanized by safety concerns, working conditions and pay,” reports WBEZ.
Uber Salutes Chicago As Driver Scarcity Boosts Prices
“Uber last year opened a new office in the Old Post Office for its freight arm and Chicago operations,” reports the Trib. “Chicago was a natural choice for the freight business because of the city’s reputation as a logistics hub, and the company’s other divisions also have large presences here,” CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said at an Economic Club of Chicago appearance. “It’s the Paris of logistics of the Midwest.” Reports the paper, “Inflation is driving up prices, but a bigger factor is a shortage of Uber drivers, he said. The number of drivers has been growing, which is improving estimated arrival times and lowering surge prices, he said. And inflation is encouraging more people to begin driving for Uber, as they seek ways to earn extra cash for items like groceries, he said.”
Baby, It’s Cold Inside: Here Comes Santa Claus Shortage
“Santas all across Chicago,” reports the Sun-Times,” have more work than they can handle, having to tell disappointed party organizers they won’t be able to attend. And they aren’t just busier than they were during the pandemic when a lot of work dried up or went online. Some say this is the most hectic year they can recall… Nostalgia, a need to escape the grim realities of life and the recent openings of German Christmas markets in Aurora and Wrigleyville, among other places—are all reasons cited for the increased demand for Santa.”
Dog Flu Worse Than Chicago Outbreak Of 2015
The most recent outbreaks of canine influenza were “caused by H3N2, which originated in birds. It was initially detected in dogs in South Korea in 2007,” reports the New York Times. “In 2015, it showed up in Chicago, tearing through kennels, veterinary clinics and animal shelters. ‘In the shelter setting, flu is not super-subtle because it comes in like a tidal wave,’ said Dr. Sandra Newbury, who directs the University of Wisconsin Shelter Medicine Program… The virus spread through the Midwest and seeded additional outbreaks across the country before eventually fading out… Canine influenza, which is transmitted through respiratory droplets and aerosols, tends to spread quickly in group settings and can jump between states as infected dogs travel.” The virus “does not currently pose a risk to humans, experts stressed, and most dogs that contract it do not become severely ill. But the disease can progress to pneumonia, or even be fatal, in a small percentage of dogs.”
SpaceX Dragon Spacecraft Lands At Museum Of Science And Industry
“After traveling to and from Earth’s orbit and beyond, the SpaceX Dragon Spacecraft has arrived at its new home at the Museum of Science and Industry,” reports the Tribune. “The Dragon will sit alongside a fleet of artifacts and interactives at the Henry Crown Space Center, which pays tribute to the ‘dreams and drama of space exploration.’ Showcasing technology that has brought humans to the moon and beyond, the center displays the Apollo 8 module and the Aurora 7 capsule, which was part of the country’s first human spaceflight program.”
St. Louis Banishes People From Particular Neighborhoods
“A St. Louis ordinance lets courts banish people from huge swaths of the city as a punishment for petty crimes. These neighborhood orders of protection often prevent people from accessing the services they need and raise constitutional questions,” reports ProPublica. “Other American cities order people to stay away from specific individuals or places, and some have set up defined areas that are off-limits to people convicted of drug or prostitution charges. But few have taken the practice to St. Louis’ extreme, particularly as a response to petty incidents, according to experts in law enforcement.”
NEIU Won’t Renew President’s Contract
“The NEIU Board of Trustees announced that they will not be renewing President Gloria J. Gibson’s presidential employment contract,” reports the NEIU Independent. Gibson is expected to continue in her position until June 2023. “This development comes after the Faculty Assembly delivered a vote of no-confidence in the President (224-29) on November 14. The Faculty Assembly is currently holding a vote of confidence in the Board of Trustees… Both votes are symbolic, but a vote of no confidence in the Board could bring NEIU’s financial and enrollment crisis to the attention of the Illinois Governor’s office.”
