Abel Grimmer, Interior of a Church, 1600/1610. Oil on panel; Collection of the Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University
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ART
Haggerty Museum Of Art Has First Exhibition Of Dutch, Flemish Art In Decades
The Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University will open “Image in Dispute: Dutch & Flemish Art from the Haggerty Museum of Art’s Collection” on Friday, August 25. Curated by Kirk Nickel, PhD, Marc and Lillian Rojtman, Consulting Curator of European Art, the exhibition features more than fifty paintings, engravings, and etchings selected from the Haggerty’s holdings of Early Modern art. The Haggerty’s first exhibition of historical Dutch and Flemish art in more than thirty years, “Image in Dispute” explores how artists in the Low Countries—modern Belgium, Luxembourg, and Netherlands—responded to the extraordinary upheaval experienced in their homeland between 1560 and 1680. More here.
DESIGN
Sterling Bay Sells Property Near Lincoln Yards To Co-Founder’s Firm
“Scott Goodman’s Farpoint Development has acquired a high-profile property near Lincoln Yards from his old firm,” reports Crain’s. The former Sterling Bay principal has landed a deal “that comes as Sterling Bay labors to jump-start the sprawling $6 billion North Side megaproject. A joint venture of Goodman’s Farpoint Development and real estate investor Langdon Partners earlier this month bought the 122,000-square-foot industrial property at 1854 North Besly Court… The joint venture purchased the property from a Sterling Bay entity that originally acquired the building in 2014.”
Major Construction On Lake Street Bridge Next Year
“Lake Street will be closed between Canal Street and Wacker Drive for eighteen months as construction crews work on the Lake Street Bridge, including replacing the span and improving mechanical and electrical systems,” reports the Sun-Times, detailing the stages. “The bridge, built in 1916, carries CTA trains on the upper level and vehicles and pedestrians on the lower level.”
Chase Bank Fills Site Of Wicker Park Bar History
“Chase Bank is consolidating two of its Wicker Park branches into one new location at the Damen-North-Milwaukee intersection in the heart of the neighborhood,” reports Block Club. It was the home of a sports bar called Wicker Park Tavern, often known as just Tavern, and before that, in the heyday of 1990s Wicker Park as The Border Line Tap (until 2003). Chicago Bar Project wrote in that time, “What happens when you mix trendy Whites, Blacks and Hispanics in an after-hours bar in the heart of Wicker Park? You’ll find out at the Border Line Tap. Rather than a quiet neighborhood pub, like the name may imply… it’s closer to a hip version of a bar you might find in Tijuana. Exotic women, the occasional spilling of blood and an excellent beer selection are par for the course at the Border Line–a place considered sexy by women and seriously cool by men.”
Per Block Club, “Chase Market Director Claudia Guzman said the new branch is in an ideal location for greater foot traffic and brand visibility—plus, the company was attracted to the building’s architecture.” Some of the location’s earliest history is here; DNAInfo described the site in 2017 here.
DINING & DRINKING
Erling Wu-Bower Opening New Concept
“Erling Wu-Bower, who led Pacific Standard Time, is opening a new concept this winter,” reports Michael Nagrant at The Hunger. “Josh Tilden and three-time James Beard finalist Chef Erling Wu-Bower will launch Maxwells Trading in winter 2023 in Chicago’s Kinzie Industrial Corridor.”
Solar For Wicker Park Big Star’s Permanent Patio
During the pandemic, Big Star added a tent with seating for about 120; becoming so popular that the restaurant is “creating a solar-powered permanent addition.” “I was blown away because I was always the one who said the whole thing about Big Star is it’s open to the sun and that’s what people want,” Terry Alexander, partner at One Off Hospitality, which owns Big Star, tells Eater Chicago. “But eighty-five percent of the people wanted to sit underneath the shade as opposed to being out in the sun…One of our values at One Off Hospitality is kindness to the environment… My partner, Paul Kahan, has been all about sourcing, sustainability, and working with the farmers for the past twenty-five years. We’ve moved away from plastic bags and we’re recycling to-go containers. But we’re always trying to do a little bit more.”
MEDIA
Tom Skilling Celebrates Forty-Five Years At WGN-TV
“It’s the forty-fifth anniversary of Tom Skilling’s very first day at WGN,” posts WGN-TV. “Take a trip back in time with us to August 13, 1978 for Tom’s first appearance on TV in Chicago! Tom is still forecasting weather at the same building here at Chicago’s Very Own, although he’s now doing it with significantly different technology.”
Block Club Investigates
Block Club is on The Watch and an investigative journalism team is born, the site relays. “The new investigative team will work closely with Block Club’s neighborhood reporters to root out corruption, wrongdoing and inequality on the South and West sides… The team is made possible by a three-year, $1.6 million grant from the McCormick Foundation, additional funding from the Driehaus Foundation and the unwavering support of our subscribers…The Watch reporters, Mina Bloom, Rachel Hinton and Manny Ramos, have an impressive track record of serving the South and West sides through their investigative work… They join Senior Editor of Investigations Curtis Lawrence and Investigative Editor Mick Dumke, who joined our staff earlier this year.”
Fox News Ex-Exec Says Murdochs Unfit To Own TV Stations
Preston Padden was a key Fox News executive for six years in the 1990s, and today “is once more front and center at a fight in Washington involving the FCC, this time on the other side from Murdoch and his powerful corporation. Padden has joined a small band of highly vocal critics objecting to Fox’s effort to seek renewal for its station in Philadelphia, called Fox 29.” He tells David Folkenflik on Morning Edition, “I could see the tremendous damage that, in my opinion, Fox News Channel was doing to the country… I could see it in the news. I could see it in friends and family who watched Fox News. And I thought, ‘You helped establish Rupert as a force in American television. You, Preston, have a responsibility to do something.'”
X Crossing Out News Sources Disliked By Musk; Is The World’s Richest Man Okay?
“The site formerly known as Twitter has added a five-second delay when a user clicks on a shortened link to the New York Times, Facebook and other sites Musk commonly attacks,” a Washington Post analysis found. After the Zuck-Musk dustup, writes Casey Newton at Silicon Valley’s Platformer: “Musk remains the owner of one of the most prominent social networks, despite all he has done over the past year to diminish it. He is also co-founder and CEO of several other companies that are salient in the public imagination, including Tesla, Neuralink, and SpaceX, which among other things operates the Starlink service that provides internet service in Ukraine and more than sixty other countries. All of which is to say I think it matters if such a person is appearing to lose his grip on reality. And after another few days of unhinged behavior, I don’t know what other conclusion about Musk you could reasonably draw… What’s important here is not whether an MMA fight takes place. It’s that the world’s richest man—a person with a security clearance and government contracts and more than a little power over Ukraine’s continued internet access—is threatening to hunt down a rival CEO at his house and challenge him to a duel. Posts like these are the sort of thing X might remove from the platform for violating its community standards—if it had any.”
MUSIC
“The Evolution Of Steve Albini”
“Steve Albini was long synonymous with the indie underground, playing in revered bands and recording albums by the Pixies, PJ Harvey and Nirvana. He also often seemed determined to offend as many people as possible. What led him to reassess his past?” The Guardian features an extended profile of audio engineer Steve Albini, from a series of interviews conducted last year by Jeremy Gordon. “Possibly you are wondering why it matters that Albini–from afar merely a middle-aged American musician who tweets a lot about poker and U.S. politics–was re-evaluating his past. He’s never written a hit single or performed on a late-night television show or sung a melody that could be described as catchy. His most famous song, ‘Kerosene,’ is a six-minute case for the recreational merits of arson. But his significance vastly outweighs his fame. Even today, the mention of his name conjures a complete worldview that, years after its peak, still inspires deep respect and occasional controversy…”
“Albini turned sixty last year; the end of his career, while not totally in sight, is close enough to merit consideration. ‘My Dad’s hearing started to go when he turned sixty. Eventually, my hearing is gonna go and it will be irresponsible for me to keep making records. So what I want to do is figure out a way to end the working part of my career gracefully, where I’m not embarrassing myself in the studio.’ (He tends to wear ear plugs everywhere outside the studio and home–at the coffee shop, when he’s travelling, even at the World Series of Poker.)”
Chance Pop-Up At WNDR
Chance the Rapper is hosting a pop-up at WNDR Museum August 16-20 in celebration of his sold-out “Acid Rap Ten Year Anniversary Show” at the United Center on Saturday. The weekend long pop-up includes a transformation of WNDR’s merch store into “The Chance Store,” featuring a limited supply of exclusive merchandise, apparel and accessories. Chance will appear at the Museum the day of the store launch, August 16. WNDR will also redesign nearly fifteen of its most popular interactive exhibits into “The Acid Rap Experience” to further celebrate the hit album’s tenth anniversary, aligning with the colors and themes of the tunes off the album. On Friday, visitors will have the opportunity to purchase tickets to Chance’s sold-out show at the United Center on Saturday. Tickets start at $32 here.
STAGE
“The Who’s Tommy” is the Most Successful Production in Goodman Theatre History; See Pete Townshend’s Closing Bow
Goodman artistic director Susan V. Booth and executive director-CEO Roche Schulfer announced that the Goodman’s musical “The Who’s Tommy” smashed box office records, officially becoming the highest-grossing production in the ninety-eight-year history of Chicago’s largest not-for-profit theater company. The unanimously acclaimed, twice-extended production “went clean” in the 856-seat Albert Theatre, selling a record number of single tickets and selling out thirty-six performances. Audiences hailed from all fifty United States, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and twenty-one other countries as far away as New Zealand, with many patrons attending multiple performances.
Based on The Who’s original 1969 rock opera, “The Who’s Tommy” is reimagined for 2023 by its original Tony Award-winning co-creators—music and lyrics by Pete Townshend and book by Townshend and Des McAnuff, who also directs—featuring a cast of twenty-nine accompanied by a nine-piece orchestra. On closing weekend (August 5 and 6), the original Tony Award-winning creators brought the sold-out, standing-room-only crowd to their feet when they joined the company on stage. That final curtain call, with Pete Townshend, is here.
Steppenwolf Opens Forty-Eighth With “Sanctuary City”
Steppenwolf Theatre Company will open its forty-eighth season with the Chicago premiere of “Sanctuary City,” by Pulitzer Prize winner Martyna Majok (“Cost of Living,” “Ironbound”), a “harrowing and hopeful tale of immigration and young love,” directed by Steph Paul, playing September 14–November 18 in Steppenwolf’s in-the-round Ensemble Theater. “Sanctuary City” will feature Grant Kennedy Lewis, Brandon Rivera and Jocelyn Zamudio. Classic Memberships are on sale for Steppenwolf’s 2023-24 season here. More details and Single tickets for “Sanctuary City” (starting at $20) are here.
“American Theater’s Existential Crisis”
Another overview on the America theater crisis that is not going away: “From coast to coast, the regional theater movement is facing the biggest crisis in its seventy-five-year history,” reports the Guardian. “An estimated twenty-five-to-thirty-percent of audiences have not returned since the shutdown enforced by the pandemic… Older people have apparently lost the theatergoing habit or been spooked by reports of rising downtown crime. Younger people are commuting less and working from home… Several companies have perished in Chicago, a theater hub that rivals Washington for number two status behind New York… Theaters are searching for solutions that will bring in cash without compromising artistic integrity.”
From the Washington Post: “These losses and many others have inspired renewed calls for the government to save America’s nonprofit professional theaters. What strikes me about these calls isn’t that they’ve been sounded time and again to no avail. It’s that there are still people who believe that these institutions—struggling in cities big and small across the country—should be rescued in their current form… Theater leaders should read the writing on the wall instead of continuing to beat on a closed door… American theater will always exist; only its forms will change. And the dominant nonprofit model is neither necessary nor even traditional. It’s a recent invention… The bigger theaters got, the more assets they had to maintain, the more administrators they had to pay, the more capital campaigns they had to launch, the more debt they had to take on and the more seats they had to fill to break even.”
Meanwhile, stage settings are going minimalist, reports Isaac Butler at the New York Times. “What we consider theatrical minimalism today used to be standard: Greek tragedies barely had sets; the major visual element in Elizabethan theater was the performance space itself… As lighting technology improved over the next 200 years… productions grew increasingly ornate and complex. Throughout the twentieth century, many attempted to bring minimalism back: Orson Welles and John Houseman thrilled audiences with a scenery-free ‘Dr. Faustus’ and a modern-dress ‘Julius Caesar,’ both in 1937… Practicality may also be driving minimalism’s appeal. Building a set on Broadway has only gotten more expensive: Not only has the cost of materials like wood and steel increased… ‘but during the pandemic a lot of artisans that worked at these shops took other jobs.'”
ARTS & CULTURE & ETC.
Lightfoot Last-Minute Land Deal With Billionaire Developer Detailed
“On the campaign trail, Mayor Johnson vowed to end… selloffs of public housing land,” reports Mick Dumke at Block Club in an investigation encompassing thousands of emails and other documents. “During her final months in office, former Mayor Lightfoot teamed with the CHA to seal a backroom land deal before successor Brandon Johnson would have a chance to stop it… Since his May inauguration, the new mayor has declined to talk about the CHA’s deal with the Chicago Fire soccer team, and some of his top allies say he may not be able to undo it… The Fire will lease twenty-three acres on the Near West Side for at least forty years so the team can build a new training facility on the site. The Fire are owned by Joe Mansueto, a billionaire business leader and Lightfoot campaign donor.”
