Today In The Culture, April 5, 2023: Oriental Institute Changes Name | Blues, Gospel and House Music Fests Announced | Housing Ideas from Top Architects
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ART
Photographer Kwame Brathwaite Was Eighty-Five
“Photographer Kwame Brathwaite, who through his warm and elegant photos documenting life and culture adjacent to the civil rights and Black Power movements popularized the phrase ‘Black is beautiful,’ died in Brooklyn on April 1 at the age of eighty-five. Brathwaite with his older brother Elombe Brath cofounded the African Jazz Art Society and Studios and Grandassa Models, both of which… brought ideals of dark-skinned beauty into the mainstream at a time when even magazines aimed at primarily African American audiences, such as Ebony and Jet, promoted and held women to a standard of beauty that reflected white benchmarks of attractiveness,” reports Artforum. “Things Well Worth Waiting For,” “a selection of his photographs [on] his passion for music, is on view at the Art Institute of Chicago through July 24.” Susan Aurinko’s review of the show for Newcity is here. More on the show here.
Sharon Louden’s “Community” Acquired By National Gallery
Sharon Louden’s painting “Community” (2013) will join some of her other pieces in the National Gallery of Art’s permanent collection, and is on view through September 10 in the East Wing of the gallery as part of the exhibition “The Interior Life: Recent Acquisitions,” curated by Molly Donovan. Louden’s painting gives an aerial perspective on individuality, sparking a dialogue around shared compositions. “Her expressive linework is discrete in each gesture of bold color; this suggests a painstaking process in which Louden allows the paint to dry in between applications. Conversely, the strokes of paint act in response to one another—bending, overlapping, and joining in a collective motion to create a composition greater than any one shape on its own,” relays ENGAGE Projects. Louden’s painting from her “Hedge” series is in ENGAGE’s current show, “Blue Space.” More here.
Downtown Cleveland’s ArtCraft Building Evicts Artists For Police HQ
“The ArtCraft Building is a massive, seven-story brick structure on the eastern edge of Downtown Cleveland. It was built in 1919 as a garment factory. Textile makers and light industry occupied the building until the early eighties when the building found a new life as a working home for artists. This is a familiar trajectory for sturdy old warehouses,” reports Belt magazine. “Few were surprised when in the fall of 2022 the building’s tenants were served with eviction notices. The assumption was that ArtCraft would finally be renovated and turned into condos.” But “the city of Cleveland announced that it was moving forward with plans to purchase and renovate the ArtCraft building to become the new Cleveland Division of Police headquarters…For a city like Cleveland, which has a contentious relationship between citizens and police, the news felt surreal, grotesque even. In the wake of the murders of Tamir Rice, Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams, the police department was operating under a federal consent decree. There was hope that Cleveland’s new mayor, Justin Bibb, would follow through on his campaign promise for police reform, but evicting artists for the police feels like a violation.”
St. Louis Preservation Agency Saves Bob Cassilly Workshop And Studio
“A warehouse where City Museum founder Bob Cassilly created some of his iconic sculptures was saved from the wrecking ball after a decision by St. Louis’ preservation agency,” reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “The Cultural Resources Office has denied a developer’s request to demolish Cassilly’s former workshop and studio.”
DESIGN
Come Home Housing Ideas Competition Names Forty-Two Finalists
Chicago’s “effort to ‘repopulate’ the South and West sides of the city through infill development on vacant lots in the initiative Come Home Chicago, managed by the Chicago Architecture Center,” reports the Architect’s Newspaper, “asked design firms to submit ideas for refreshed takes on Chicago’s iconic housing styles, including two-, three-, and six-flats, rowhomes, and single-family homes—the ‘missing middle’ housing that was wiped out by targeted, racialized disinvestment. CAC’s jury, consisting of four architects and one developer, named forty-two finalists. Among them are Jahn, Ross Barney Architects, David Baker Architects and Tatiana Bilbao ESTUDIO. Each finalist’s design is displayed in an exhibition at the CAC, wherein said foamcore boards are displayed (anonymously) on the CAC’s second-floor gallery. Boards are mounted on rolling, double-sided display cases with visibility issues… Visitors can pay $7 to view the exhibition and scan a QR code on each board to rank their favorites. The entries are also available for public viewing and feedback online.”
Motorola Exec Who Made First Cellphone Call Talks ChatGPT
“Motorola executive Martin Cooper was standing on Sixth Avenue just blocks from Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan on April 3, 1973… when he dialed his Chicago-built cellphone prototype. The two-and-a-half-pound, ten-inch-long model’s inspiration came from a bespoke, two-way radio system that the company created in the 1960s for the Chicago Police Department,” reports the Tribune. “Artificial intelligence has a little ways to go, but it still does some incredible things,” avers Cooper. “It’s another place where people are going to have to learn how to handle new technologies—and it’s not going to be easy.”
In Non-Binding Referendum, Eighty-Nine-Percent Of Voting Parisians Say No To “Trottinettes”
“An overwhelming majority of Parisians who took part in a referendum on rental electric scooters have voted to ban the devices from the streets of the French capital, reflecting exhaustion with a public-transit alternative that was once seen as convenient and climate-friendly but is now largely regarded as dangerous and environmentally questionable,” reports the New York Times. (Only 103,000 votes were cast, less than 7.5 percent of those eligible.)
Long Trains A-Comin’ For You
“Trains are getting longer. Railroads are getting richer. But these ‘monster trains’ are jumping off of tracks across America and regulators are doing little to curb the risk,” reports ProPublica, in an extended report.
DINING & DRINKING
Chicago Market Season Starts May 11 In Daley Plaza
The Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events has announced the 2023 summer season of Chicago City Markets, selling fresh seasonal produce, flowers, unique Chicago-made products and rare finds. The tastes are at Chicago’s longest-running farmers market on Daley Plaza as well as a dozen more community markets in neighborhoods across the city. The Maxwell Street Market returns to its home at 800 S. Desplaines. every Sunday May-October, in alignment with the Chicago City Market schedule. A complete list of city-run markets, dates and times are here.
Welcome Conference Returns To Chicago
Virtue’s Erick Williams and Alpana’s Alpana Singh will co-host the return of the Welcome Conference after a three-year hiatus, reports Eater Chicago. “A lot’s transpired since September 2019 when Boka Restaurant Group’s Kevin Boehm and One Off Hospitality Group’s Donnie Madia [created] Chicago’s first-ever Welcome Conference, a one-day event full of speakers meant to inspire members of the hospitality industry. The event will be Monday, June 26 at the Harris Theater in Millennium Park and tickets will go on sale Monday, May 15.
Four Farthings In Lincoln Park Replaced By Red Sauce
An Italian American restaurant named DeNuccis will replace Four Farthings, reports Eater Chicago. “Four Farthings Tavern & Grill, which opened in 1963, took its name from ‘Lord of the Rings’ and represented a particular type of Chicago bar, one with odes to Ireland [and] a full menu of ribs and chops… The last few years have seen the bars around Lincoln Avenue in Lincoln Park turn over. Gamekeepers, Stanley’s Tap, and Sedgwick’s have long departed.” Ballyhoo Hospitality is leasing the formerly “creaky space on the corner of Lincoln, Cleveland and Dickens” and opening it later this year. They perceive “an absence of red sauce Italian restaurants in the neighborhood and [want] to bring New Jersey and New York vibes to the menu, as opposed to the European focus at Ballyhoo’s Lakeview restaurant, Coda di Volpe.”
FILM & TELEVISION
Thirty-Ninth Chicago Latino Film Festival Unveiled
The thirty-ninth Chicago Latino Film Festival, produced by the International Latino Cultural Center of Chicago, will present fifty-one features and thirty-five shorts from April 13-23, most of them at the Landmark Century Centre Cinema. The opening-night selection is Claudia Sainte-Luce’s comedy “Love & Mathematics,” and the closing-night selection will be Patricia Ortega’s “kinky and poignant comedy about sexual awakening among the elderly,” “Mamacruz.” These attractions will be at the River East 21 and conclude with a post-screening party at Chez, 247 E. Ontario. The Festival also unveiled its first wave of titles which include “15 Ways to Kill Your Neighbor” (Argentina); “Sad Machines” (Argentina); “Blanquita” (Chile); “I Have Electric Dreams” (Costa Rica); “Agustina” (Mexico); “Daughter of Rage” (Nicaragua); “Eami” (Paraguay); “The Fishbowl” (Puerto Rico); and from the United States, “Amigo” and “Daughter of the Sea.” Tickets and more here.
MEDIA
Times Opinion Page Live, With Stephens And Douthat
“New York Times opinion columnist Bret Stephens is used to criticism,” writes the Chicago Maroon. “I’ve been a contrarian all my life, for as long as I can remember,” he told the UChicago paper. Stephens, a 1995 graduate, “will return to campus in June as the speaker for the 2023 Class Day ceremony.” A sizable number of the writer’s statements are put to him in the 2,100-word piece, but Stephens remains nonplussed: “I’ve never asked anyone to agree with me in my columns. I’ve only asked them to try to think twice. And if I can succeed just at that, I’m succeeding as a columnist.” Stephens’ companion Times Opinion scrivener Ross Douthat is also coming to Chicago, to expand on “The Decline Of Cinema.” As part of the Athenaeum Center For Thought & Culture’s “The Film & Culture Series, Episode 1: The Decline of Cinema,” Douthat will “engage the question of movies as a communal experience and cultural art form, and explores why Hollywood no longer produces the caliber of movies that were a commonplace just twenty years ago. The internet, the laptop and the iPhone personalized entertainment and delivered it more immediately, in a way that also widened Hollywood’s potential audience—but habituated people to small screens, isolated viewing and intermittent watching, the opposite of the cinema’s communalism.” Athenaeum Center, April 12, 7pm. $35 tickets are here.
MUSIC
Blues Festival, Gospel Music Festival, House Music Festival And Conference Announced
Chicago music festival summer kicks off with the Chicago Gospel Music Festival, June 3, continues with the Chicago Blues Festival, June 8–11 and goes on with the Chicago House Music Festival and Conference, June 23-24. The Chicago Gospel Music Festival in Millennium Park will feature Choir Nation opening for multiple performers including Karen Clark Sheard and Tye Tribbett. More here.
The Chicago Blues Festival, the largest free Blues festival in the world, returns with four days of performances across three stages in Millennium Park. Headliners include Los Lobos, Blind Boys of Alabama, Bobby Rush, Mud Morganfield, John Primer & The Real Deal Blues Band, Lil’ Ed & The Blues Imperials, the Jimmy Burns Band and Sugaray Rayford. More here.
The Chicago House Music Festival and Conference takes place June 23 at the Chicago Cultural Center and continues June 24 on the lawn at the Humboldt Park Boathouse. DJs include Roy Davis Jr., Psycho-B, NoshaLuv, Emmaculate and DJ V. The House conference includes panel discussions relating to the culture, art and business of House Music. As part of additional programming citywide throughout the weekend, the festival brings local DJs to spin at the Maxwell Street Market, June 25, noon–2pm. More here.
A Petition To Save The Home Of House
Preservation Chicago has a petition to save The Warehouse. “We must urgently recognize, protect and celebrate the three-story industrial building at 206 South Jefferson in Chicago’s West Loop. Despite its extraordinary role in music and cultural history, the Warehouse has ZERO protections against alterations or demolition.”
STAGE
Court Theatre Announces Sixty-Ninth Season
Court Theatre’s sixty-ninth season will feature the family saga, James Goldman’s “The Lion in Winter,” directed by resident artist Ron OJ Parson; the Sophocles classic bringing Court’s Oedipus Trilogy to a conclusion, “Antigone,” directed by associate artistic director Gabrielle Randle-Bent; one of Tom Stoppard’s earliest and best-known works, “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead,” directed by artistic director Charles Newell; and “Stokely: The Unfinished Revolution,” a world premiere by Nambi E. Kelley and directed by Tasia A. Jones. Relays the theater, “Court’s upcoming season marks a thrilling inflection point in the theatre’s history, catalyzed by the 2022 Regional Theatre Tony Award. The season centers timeless themes in strikingly rich interpretations, encouraging audiences to find the fresh in the familiar. Court has compiled a carefully curated blend of beloved texts and new voices to take audiences on this invigorating journey.” More here.
Actors Equity Could Strike Against Touring Broadway Productions
“The union for actors and stage managers, which represents more than 51,000 stage managers and actors, has been bargaining with The Broadway League, which represents industry producers, presenters and general managers, since mid-January to create a new touring contract,” writes the Hollywood Reporter. “The union is also asking for greater coverage for actors on tour, as well as for stage managers, many of whom do not have any coverage on tour if they are sick or injured. Coverage has been a key issue for Equity during the pandemic, as there is pressure to find a way for the show to still go on after members of the company are sidelined with COVID-19 or other illnesses.”
Gift Gala 2023 Is Coming
The Gift Theatre will celebrate its twenty-second season at “Gift Gala 2023: We’ve Only Just Begun” on Friday, April 14 at the Greenhouse Loft. Hosted by artistic directors Brittany Burch, Emjoy Gavino and Jennifer Glasse, the Gift ensemble will “indulge in an evening of fine fare, libations, entertainment, special guests, silent and live auctions with one-of-a-kind items, a raffle and dancing.” This theme, “We’ve Only Just Begun,” celebrates a season of renewal and a look ahead at The Gift’s future. All proceeds support The Gift Theatre and its programming. More here.
Harris Theater for Music and Dance Looking For VP Marketing & Sales
“The Harris Theater for Music and Dance is seeking a dynamic and experienced arts marketing leader to join the high-performing executive team of one of Chicago’s finest culture institutions as their new Vice President of Marketing and Sales. This is a newly reinstated position, developed as part of a larger strategic reorganization at the Harris Theater, wherein the Marketing and Programming teams are being divided between two VPs after being combined for the past several years. This position will lead the newly reconfigured Marketing and Sales team through this period of transition and catalyze new operations and workflows while still working closely with the Programming team.” More here.
ARTS & CULTURE & ETC.
The OI Is Now The “Institute for the Study Of Ancient Cultures, West Asia And North Africa”
“In recent years, we have worked to develop a more accurate way of describing the nature of our work and collections,” ISAC announces. “We have changed our name from the Oriental Institute (OI) to the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, West Asia & North Africa (ISAC)… Since our founding in 1919, we have strived to be one of the world’s leading research centers on the ancient cultures of West Asia and North Africa by combining innovations in theory and methodology with the highest standards of rigorous scholarship.” More here.
Navy Pier Hospitality Workers Vote To Strike
“Hospitality workers at Navy Pier could go on strike after trying to negotiate a contract with Maverick hotels and restaurants for more than a year,” reports CBS 2. “Housekeepers, bartenders, cooks and servers at Offshore rooftop, Lirica restaurant and Sable Hotel voted to authorize a strike.”
Foxtrot Names New CEO
In the midst of the company’s expansion wave, Foxtrot founder Mike LaVitola will move to a chairman role, reports Crain’s. “Liz Williams will take over as CEO, according to a statement from the Chicago-based upscale convenience store. Williams joined Foxtrot less than a year ago as the company’s first president and chief financial officer.”
UpRising Bakery Will Relocate Rather Than Close After Show Of Support
“UpRising is more than a bakery with vegan and gluten-free choices, it is a safe space,” says Lake In The Hills café owner Corinna Sac, reports NBC 5. She says a recent “groundswell of support” proves “people want us in McHenry County,” and while she plans to stay in the area, she is looking to relocate. Reports the Daily Herald, “She has been approached by three other communities, both inside and outside of McHenry County, offering to become the new home for her embattled business… Her chef has taken a position elsewhere, so she will cut back on food while expanding the bakery selection.” Sac tells the paper, “My product, my morals, my values have not changed… What did change was the amount of hatred and disinformation put out there to take away from those things that people knew and liked about us.”
Tennessee State Rep Queries Protestors: What Gun Do You Prefer To Be Shot With?
“State Representative William Lamberth agreed to talk with the protesters,” reports HuffPost, “[and asked] the students which firearm they’d prefer to be shot with. ‘If there is a firearm out there that you’re comfortable being shot with, please show me which one it is’… Lamberth probably thought the question he asked the protesters was deep and Socratic, but it came across as heartless—especially when accompanied by a shrug. ‘So you’re not going to like my answer, and, look, I’m going to say that straight up… It’s not about this one gun.'” (Video here.)
The Tennessee governor has his own solution: more guns and police in every school: “As thousands swarmed the Capitol, Governor Bill Lee and state lawmakers held a press conference nearby to unveil legislative proposals that would add more funding for school resource officers and mental health resources. The proposals included $140 million to place an armed security guard at every public school, as well as $27 million to enhance public and private school security. Lee is also proposing adding $30 million to expand the state’s homeland security network.”
