EXPO CHICAGO, the international exposition of contemporary and modern art, has announced the list of exhibitors for April 13-16 at Navy Pier’s Festival Hall. EXPO CHICAGO’s tenth anniversary edition will welcome more than 170 leading galleries representing thirty-six countries and ninety cities from around the world.
“Leading exhibitors returning to EXPO CHICAGO include: Almeida and Dale, São Paulo; Cristea Roberts Gallery, London; CURRO, Guadalajara; DC Moore, New York; Edel Assanti, London; Hales Gallery, London, New York; Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin, Paris, London, Marfa; Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London; Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco, New York; Jane Lombard Gallery, New York; Kasmin, New York; Luhring Augustine, New York; Fergus McCaffrey, New York, Tokyo, St. Barth; Miles McEnery Gallery, New York; Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, New York; NINO MIER GALLERY, Los Angeles, New York, Marfa, Brussels; Vielmetter Los Angeles, Los Angeles; Michael Werner Gallery, New York, London, Berlin; Yares Art, New York, Palm Springs, Santa Fe; Marisa Newman Projects, New York; Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles; and WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town, Tulbagh.”
“Highlights among additions for 2023 include: Carpenters Workshop Gallery, London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles; Casas Riegner, Bogotá; Eric Firestone Gallery, New York, East Hampton; Micki Meng, San Francisco; Inman Gallery, Houston; Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles; Galerie Christian Lethert, Cologne; Ortuzar Projects, New York; Galerie Poggi, Paris; Almine Rech, New York, Paris, Brussels, London, Shanghai; Ryan Lee Gallery, New York; Welancora Gallery, New York; Isla Flotante, Buenos Aires; kó, Lagos; Reyes | Finn, Detroit; SEPTEMBER, Kinderhook; Southern Guild, Cape Town; and Overduin & Co., Los Angeles.” The complete list will be posted here.
Hyde Park Art Center Announces 2023 Resident Artists
Hyde Park Art Center marks the eleventh anniversary of its Jackman Goldwasser Residency program, which offers comprehensive residencies to seven local, national and international artists whose creative practices address a range of social and personal issues. The Visiting Residency Program, Chicago’s only international artist residency program, welcomes three artists from Belarus and Minneapolis, while the yearlong Radicle Studio Residency Program hosts four Chicago-based artists. For over a decade, the Residency program—with a particular focus on ALAANA (African, Latinx, Asian, Arab, Native American) artists—has provided valuable studio space, art classes and supportive resources, while connecting the residents to the city’s artists, curators, art institutions and cultural communities.
Radicle Studio Residents are provided a year at the Art Center through studio space where artists make work, research new projects, have access to the Art Center’s broad international network of artists and resources. The 2023 Radicle Residents include: Sofía Fernández Díaz, Eric Perez, Kushala Vora and Rhonda Wheatley. For the Visiting Residency seasonal residencies for national and international artists, the Art Center welcomes Minneapolis-based artists Norah Shapiro (April 10-22) and Rotem Tamir (May 15-27). The Art Center also welcomes Belarussian artist Rufina Bazlova (October 10-November 15). More information on the Jackman Goldwasser Residency, including the application process for the 2024 residency program, is here.
DINING & DRINKING
In Darien, One Of The Last Chuck E. Cheese Animatronics Phased Out
A Chuck E. Cheese location in Darien, originally a Show-Biz Pizza restaurant but changed over to Chuck E. Cheese branding in 1991, “includes a single Chuck E. Cheese animatronics character (called ‘Cyberamics’ in the parlance of the company) surrounded by four video screens in a setup called ‘Studio C,’ introduced in 1998,” reports Ars Technica. Booted from a 3.5-inch floppy disk and two DVDs, the “twenty-five-year-old setups are being phased out nationwide in favor of a remodel that replaces the animatronics character with a dance floor.”
FILM & TELEVISION
South By Southwest Programming Includes Chicago Doc
SXSW has announced its main slate of programming for its March 10-19 convocation. Among them: the world premiere of “Roger J. Carter: Rebel Revolutionary,” directed by Justin Fairweather and produced by Zachary Kingham-Seagle and Johnny Starke “follows the Chicago portrait artist as he creates staggering images of Black revolutionaries using hundreds of toy soldiers, representing the wars the marginalized face as they dismantle an established system.”
Micro-Budget Feature Produced At DePaul Debuts In Slamdance Narrative Competition
A shoestring-budget film made by film students at DePaul University is going to debut at Slamdance, the scrappier festival that runs concurrently with Sundance in Park City, Utah, and in hybrid form online. “Waiting for the Light to Change,” the feature debut from Vietnamese filmmaker Linh Tran, will compete in Narrative Features, a run of eleven films selected from 1,522 submissions. “Waiting for the Light to Change,” which co-stars Sam Straley (“Welcome to Flatch” on Fox), is a meditation on female friendship, with a female Asian and Asian American ensemble cast, its makers citing influence from filmmakers such as Hong Sang Soo, Jim Jarmusch and Éric Rohmer, made on a $20,000 budget. Slamdance synopsizes: “Over the course of a weeklong beachside getaway, Amy, having recently undergone dramatic weight loss, finds herself wrestling between loyalty to her best friend Kim and her attraction to Kim’s new boyfriend.” A ten-minute video interview with director Linh Tran, producer-actor Sam Straley and executive producer James Choi [Newcity Film 50] is here.
MEDIA
Tribune News Director Rochell Sleets Hired As Managing Editor Of Newsday
“Veteran Chicago Tribune editor Rochell Sleets is leaving the newspaper after sixteen years to become managing editor of Newsday, the Long Island-based daily newspaper,” reports the Trib. “It was a really difficult decision,” Sleets told the paper. “I’ve broken history here as the first Black person to be news director. To have that opportunity to be able to make that impact in a beautiful, complicated city, I don’t take for granted.”
STAGE
Ken-Matt Martin Named Interim Artistic Director At Baltimore Center Stage
“In a surprise announcement, Center Stage said Wednesday that Stephanie Ybarra is stepping down as artistic director of Baltimore Center Stage, Maryland’s largest professional theater troupe,” reports the Baltimore Sun. “Beginning April 1, Center Stage will temporarily be led by Ken-Matt Martin, the newly appointed interim artistic director. He had previously been commissioned to direct the upcoming Center Stage production of ‘Tiny Beautiful Things,’ which is based on a book by Cheryl Strayed. After Martin was publicly dismissed by the board of Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theater last June, the ensuing controversy sparked protests and mass resignations.”
ARTS & CULTURE & ETC.
More Than $2 Million In Federal Grants For Humanities And Art Projects In Illinois
Eighty-five National Endowment For The Arts Grants go to Illinois, reports the Trib. Included are 3Arts, $20,000 for artist communities; About Face Theatre Collective, $10,000 for Challenge America; Art Institute of Chicago (on behalf of Gene Siskel Film Center), $20,000 for media arts projects; Black Ensemble Theater, $30,000 for theater projects; Blair Thomas & Company (aka Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival), $25,000 for theater projects; Chicago Architecture Biennial, $40,000 for design projects; Chicago Children’s Choir, $50,000 for arts education; Chicago City Theatre Company (aka Joel Hall Dancers & Center), $10,000 for Challenge America; Chicago Human Rhythm Project, $20,000 for dance projects; Chicago International Film Festival, $25,000 for media arts projects; Chicago Latino Theater Alliance, $20,000 for theater projects; Chicago Media Project, $25,000 for media arts projects; Chicago Opera Theater, $25,000 for opera projects; Chicago Symphony Orchestra, $30,000 for music projects; Chicago Symphony Orchestra (on behalf of Civic Orchestra of Chicago), $35,000 for music projects; Chicago Theatre Group (aka Goodman Theatre), $20,000 for theater projects; Community Television Network, $15,000 for arts education; Eighth Blackbird Performing Arts Association, $20,000 for music projects; Elastic Arts Foundation, $10,000 for Challenge America; Facets Multimedia Incorporated, $20,000 for media arts projects; Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance, $10,000 for Challenge America; Hyde Park Art Center, $25,000 for visual arts projects; Hyde Park Jazz Festival, $15,000 for music projects; International Latino Cultural Center of Chicago, $20,000 for media arts projects; Joffrey Ballet, $10,000 for dance projects; Kartemquin Educational Films, $25,000 for media arts projects; Lookingglass Theatre Company, $15,000 for theater projects; Lyric Opera of Chicago, $40,000 for opera projects; Marwen Foundation, $15,000 for arts education; Mezcla Media Collective, $15,000 for media arts projects; Museum of Contemporary Art, $40,000 for museum projects; Newberry Library, $35,000 for museum projects; Steppenwolf Theatre Company, $45,000 for theater projects; Writers Theatre, $10,000 for theater projects. More grants at the link.
Eight National Endowment For The Humanities Grants For Illinois
The first grants of 2023 from the National Endowment For The Humanities have been announced. From $28.1 million in grants to 204 beneficiaries across the United States, Illinois garners eight, including two from Chicago: $29,950 from Digital Projects for the Public: Discovery Grants, for Northwestern University, “The People Who Created ‘America’s City’ (New York, 1770–1800),” for “research and consultations with scholarly and educational advisers to create a role-playing game about New York City during and after the American Revolution.” And: $60,000 for a fellowship for Victoria Troianowski Saramago at University of Chicago for “Against the Current: Electricity and Cultural Production in Brazil’s Anthropocene,” for “research and writing leading to a book on the cultural legacy of electrification in Brazil from the 1930s to the present.”
Two from Evanston, including a $60,000 fellowship for Dassia Posner, Northwestern University, for “The Kamerny Theatre: An Artistic History in Political Times,” for “research and writing leading to a book on the history of Moscow’s Kamerny Theatre, an avant-garde theater founded by Ukrainian-Jewish director Alexander Tairov and dissolved during Stalin’s purges (1914–1950).” And $60,000 for a fellowship for Jennifer Lackey, Northwestern University, for “Epistemic Reparations,” “research and writing leading to a book on the rights of victims to epistemic justice by being known and heard by the parties who wronged them.” From Centralia, Kaskaskia College, “Caring for the Dying, Caring for Us All: Death and the Meaning of Life in Healthcare,” $116,488 for “a three-year humanistic exploration of mortality, bereavement, death and dying, for faculty and students in nursing as well as members of the wider community.” From Champaign, $30,000 for Erin Riggs at the University of Illinois for “An Archaeology of Refugee Resettlement,” for “research and writing leading to a book that examines the urban resettlement and homemaking of Partition refugees in Delhi, India, from 1947 to the present.”
