Raven Theatre board member and supporter Stephen Johnson at The Johnson Stage
ART
Dalí Exhibit Coming To Art Institute
“The Art Institute of Chicago has announced a new exhibition honoring artist Salvador Dalí, which will include a number of ‘rare loans from around the world,'” reports NBC 5. “Salvador Dalí: The Image Disappears” will run February 18-June 2. “The collection features twenty-five paintings, drawings, and surrealist objects created by Dalí at the height of his career.”
DESIGN
“Capturing Louis Sullivan: What Richard Nickel Saw” Extended
The Richard H. Driehaus Museum has extended “Capturing Louis Sullivan: What Richard Nickel Saw” through May 21, “a major exhibition of photographs by Richard Nickel, best known for his role in documenting and preserving the work of the modernist architect Louis Sullivan. Focusing on Adler & Sullivan’s Chicago buildings of the 1880s and early 1890s, the exhibition explores the firm’s architecture through Nickel’s photography, providing a detailed record of these buildings and, in particular, Sullivan’s signature ornamentation. The exhibition highlights the integral role Nickel played in preserving Sullivan’s legacy—the photographer’s work is all that remains of many of Adler & Sullivan’s major buildings—while ultimately losing his life in an effort to salvage artifacts during a demolition. The exhibition features around forty photographs as well as a selection of over a dozen architectural fragments from The Richard H. Driehaus Collection and loans from other private collectors—many initially saved by Nickel himself.” Hours now run Wednesday-Sunday. More here.
Why Are So Many Super-Tall Buildings Being Built?
“Tall, supertall (984 feet or taller) and even megatall (at least 1,968 feet) buildings are being added to city skylines around the world,” reports IllinoisEdu’s Illinois News Bureau, which spoke to University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign architecture professor Abbas Aminmansour, who specializes in the design of steel and reinforced concrete structures and of tall buildings. “The primary reason is the need for space, both residential and commercial, in urban areas. Globally, about ten million people move to urban areas each month. Some very large cities don’t have much land available to build on, driving developers to build tall, supertall or even megatall buildings… And there are the personality aspects of some developers and occupants to want to build taller than the competition or to have a condo or office address in a supertall building. Cities with skylines including tall buildings are viewed by many as forward-looking and prosperous.”
Two Notable Michigan Avenue Office Towers Hit Market
“Two office towers on the same block of Michigan Avenue near Millennium Park have gone up for sale,” reports Crain’s, including the building formerly know as the Smurfit-Stone Building – notable for its appearance in “Adventures in Babysitting” – and the home of the American Writers Museum. “A venture of New York-based CBRE Investment Management has hired real estate services firm Eastdil Secured to sell the forty-one-story office building at 150 North Michigan… Just a few steps north, a venture of Chicago-based Marc Realty is looking to sell the twenty-four-story vintage office building at 180 North Michigan, which brokerage CBRE is framing as a prime candidate to be converted into apartments.”
A Rare Look Inside The Delaware Building, Atrium And All
The owners of the Delaware Building in the Loop want to convert the office building into apartments, reports Dennis Rodkin at WBEZ, but say McDonald’s is standing in the way. “In the early 1870s, when a new downtown Chicago was rising from the ashes of the Great Chicago Fire, one of the finest buildings to ascend was the Bryant Block at the northeast corner of Randolph and Dearborn.” It’s one of twenty or so downtown buildings left from the years directly after the 1871 fire. Among the revelations about the neglected edifice: “The Delaware Building is the shape of a giant doughnut with an open center daylit by a rooftop atrium, staircases and walkways on every level.”
Lawson House Affordable Redevelopment Advances
“The affordable housing redevelopment of the twenty-four-story Victor F. Lawson House continues construction work at 30 West Chicago,” reports YIMBY Chicago. The “1931 Art Deco tower… designed by Perkins, Chatten & Hammond, is having elements of its facade restored, including a full sweep of recently installed windows.”
Leaders Vow To Rebuild Universal Temple Of Christ
“One man looked sadly through a fence at what’s left of the church site. He and [others] released balloons as a sign of hope for the future,” reports CBS 2. “In Englewood, leaders are vowing to rebuild [the Universal Temple of Christ], destroyed by fire.”
Times Cites South Side Community Arts Center Among Eight U. S. Sites That Illuminate Black History
The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund hopes to prevent the loss of historical sites. The fund, launched in 2017, “has raised more than $80 million through partnerships with the philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, the Ford Foundation and others, supporting more than 200 preservation projects across the country,” writes Shayla Martin at the New York Times. “The idea is to create financially sustainable cultural institutions that steward these physical assets, because we have not had representation in the American landscape that tells the Black lived experience,” said Brent Leggs, the executive director of the fund. Among the eight highlighted is South Side Community Arts Center, “the only art center of the more than a hundred established by the Works Progress Administration still operating in its original building” and which continues to nurture careers in a line that includes “sculptors Elizabeth Catlett and Richmond Barthé; the photographer and filmmaker Gordon Parks; the painter Jacob Lawrence; the poet Gwendolyn Brooks and the visual artist Archibald J. Motley Jr.”
DINING & DRINKING
Profiling Atelier Chef Christian Hunter
“I think food is more than just an expression of oneself,” Christian Hunter tells WTTW. “It’s definitely of an environment.” Hunter starts as executive chef at Atelier, the successor space to Elizabeth with a fresh tasting menu. “Atelier will inherit Elizabeth’s staff and kitchen, while the dining space is undergoing a ‘cosmetic redo.’ … Hunter is eager to discover the produce that Chicago, as a crossroads of the Midwest, has to offer… ‘I want my food to speak about all of these things that make food food, and where we are in that moment, and who’s making the food, and how that really affects the food that we eat. The food that we’re putting out on a plate is going to be representative of my community and myself, and how I interpret American food in my way.’ … ‘American food’ is encompassing to Hunter. You can find deli influences on his opening menu (pastrami spice, whitefish salad), Ethiopian spices (a raw lamb dish), and Japanese flavors (a delightfully American ice cream sandwich flavored with toasted rice and furikake).”
Worst American Bird Flu Strikes Poultry, Wild Birds, Bears
It’s not just the price of eggs that’s troubling, reports the Wall Street Journal. In the worst breakout of avian flu in memory, egg-laying flocks in states including Nebraska and Colorado and elsewhere have been stricken. “In South Dakota, the highly contagious bird flu… first hit commercial poultry farms in March 2022 and has continued to affect flocks… Egg-laying hens and turkeys at local farms were infected, leading to the deaths of more than 1.3 million poultry over that period… Nearly four million poultry have died in the state since the start of the outbreak” that has lasted almost a year.
The New York Times reports that raising your own chickens isn’t simple. “Spooked by a huge spike in egg prices, some consumers are taking steps to secure their own future supply. Demand for chicks that will grow into egg-laying chickens—which jumped at the onset of the global pandemic in 2020—is [rising] again… leaving hatcheries scrambling to keep up… Many attribute the spike to… rapid inflation for eggs, which in December cost nearly sixty percent more than a year earlier… Grain supplies contracted and costs for fuel, fertilizer and animal feed have soared.” Plus, “highly pathogenic avian flu had been found at farms raising fifty-eight million birds in forty-seven states as of January.” Said one expert, “It’s just been one thing after another.”
FILM & TELEVISION
Construction To Start On South Shore Regal Mile Film Studio
Ground has been broken for Regal Mile Studios, the “state-of-the-art media campus on a site bounded by 77th Street, Stony Island Avenue and South Chicago Avenue,” reports CBS 2. “The 22,000-square-foot film studio would be built on what had been seven acres of long-vacant property in the South Shore neighborhood. Developers say the $60 million project will create 250 construction jobs while the film studio is being built, and more than 300 permanent film production and film studio jobs… It will join the massive Cinespace Chicago Film Studios in North Lawndale and plans for another film production complex in Avondale… ‘The Chi’ producer Derek Dudley [Newcity Film 50] teamed up with Chicago-based investment firm Loop Capital Markets to finance the project. Both Dudley and Loop Capital CEO James Reynolds grew up in South Shore.”
Second Round Of Chicago Filmmakers Training Program Announced
Chicago Filmmakers has set the second cycle of its tuition-free Film & TV Production Assistant Training Program. The program provides entry-level knowledge and experience designed to create a path for workers, especially from groups underrepresented in the film industry, to have access to entry-level jobs in the local feature film and TV industry. Chicago Filmmakers is looking for twelve participants “who are passionate about film and TV and are committed to building a longterm career in Illinois working in motion picture production. This program aims to benefit the local creative workforce by improving access to industry jobs, with a particular interest in job placement for BIPOC applicants or those who identify as female, gender non-conforming, or LGBTQ+.”
Selected participants will receive over eighty hours of professional training from late March through May, culminating with career counseling. “Training is at the Chicago Filmmakers’ facility in the Edgewater neighborhood. Chicago Filmmakers’ Film & TV Workforce Development Programs are made possible through funding from the Illinois Film Office through the Illinois Department of Commerce & Economic Opportunity, the National Endowment for the Arts and The Walt Disney Company.” Applications are open through February 27 here.
“AMC: Where Somewhat Adequate Is What You Get (Unless You Pay Even More)”
AMC is unrolling another customer-unfriendly added charge, to join its “Dolby Vision” auditoriums, where films are projected brighter and louder than in other rooms: you’re going to pay more to be able to sit in the middle of the room, writes the Hollywood Reporter. AMC is calling the program “Sightlines,” a taunt that if you don’t pay to be a Stubs member and pay for a more expensive ticket, your sight of the picture will be poorer. If you go to a movie after 4pm, you will have to pay more. Seats will be put into “Value Sightline, Standard Sightline, and Preferred Sightline sections. Standard sightline seats will be the most common in auditoriums and available for the traditional cost of a movie ticket.” Slate’s Sam Adams comments, “Said before and will say it again: there is no business that hates their customers more than movie theater chains.”
MEDIA
WGN Anchor Jack Taylor Was Ninety-Four
“Jack Taylor, the old-school news anchor who graced Chicagoans’ televisions on WGN for more than twenty years… had a seven-decade career in journalism, worked alongside Len O’Connor, Harry Volkman and Jack Brickhouse [and] anchored WGN’s nightly news for several years,” reports the Sun-Times.
MUSIC
Grammys: Beyoncé Breaks Solti Record For Wins; Plus Sir The Baptist, And Wilco For Best Historical Album, Reissue Of “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”
Wilco’s “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (20th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition),” took a Grammy for Best Historical Album, shared by Jeff Tweedy and Cheryl Pawelski, compilation producers, and mastering engineer Bob Ludwig. NBC 5: “Beyoncé climbed to the top with her thirty-second career win for best dance-electronic music album for ‘Renaissance,’ breaking a record set in 1997 set by classical conductor Georg Solti.”
STAGE
Raven Theatre Dedicates “The Johnson Stage”
Raven Theatre has renamed its eighty-five-seat East Stage “The Johnson Stage,” in honor of longtime board member and supporter Stephen Johnson. Thanks in part to a generous gift from Johnson, the theater has new seating and other improvements. The theater will be unveiled to the public during Raven’s Chicago premiere of “Right To Be Forgotten,” February 9-March 26. “It is not an exaggeration to say that Raven Theatre would not be where it is today without Stephen Johnson,” says Raven managing director Markie Gray in a release. “His impact on our organization, from board leadership to financial support to care for our staff and artists, is immeasurable. We are honored to have his name on our theatre and hope it inspires others to emulate his true service to the arts.” More here.
Broadway Streaming Here To Stay?
“The League of Live Stream Theater (LOLST), a newly formed nonprofit organization, is collaborating to bring nonprofit Broadway and the best of regional theater into homes, schools and community centers,” reports Los Angeles Times theater critic Charles McNulty. First up: the Broadway production of “Between Riverside and Crazy,” Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, at the end of its run at the Hayes Theater. Livestream tickets are available through February 12 “at the reasonable price of $68—a bargain if you consider that a single purchase could reach an entire living room of people.” McNulty says that it “was the first digital performance that I’ve attended since the Broadway production of Lynn Nottage’s ‘Clyde’s’ was streamed last year,” and McNulty notes technical improvements throughout the presentation.
