Today In The Culture, September 13, 2023: Whitney Bradshaw to Curate Lubeznik | Steppenwolf’s Tarell Alvin McCraney To Lead Geffen Playhouse | Preservation Award Winners
Century and Consumers Buildings/Photo: Preservation Chicago
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ART
Art Basel Slots Seven Chicago Galleries For Americas Fair
Corbett vs. Dempsey, Document, Gray, Kavi Gupta, Rhona Hoffman, Mariane Ibrahim and moniquemeloche will exhibit at this year’s Art Basel Miami Beach. More here.
The Meeting Of Styles To Paint A Hundred Sites In South Chicago And West Englewood The Weekend
“Street artists from across the country will add bursts of color and creativity to South Side viaducts and walls this weekend as the Meeting of Styles gathering returns to Chicago,” reports Block Club. From Friday-Sunday, near the intersections of 93rd and Commercial and South Chicago in South Chicago, and 59th and Hoyne in West Englewood, “artists will set up at more than a hundred spots… Both intersections neighbor numerous viaducts, while the South Chicago spot is near prolific urban artist Roman Villarreal’s Nine3 Studios… The gathering unites graffiti artists… who learn from each other and appreciate their differing techniques during the event. Several community programs coincide with this year’s meetup.”
New Curator At Lubeznik Center For The Arts
Lubeznik Center for the Arts has announced Whitney Bradshaw as their new curator. Bradshaw is an artist, activist, curator and former social worker who lives and works in Chicago. Bradshaw is also a long-time educator. She was the chair of the visual art conservatory at the Chicago High School for the Arts for ten years and was an adjunct professor at Columbia College Chicago for thirteen years. She was also the curator of the LaSalle Bank Photography Collection and later the Bank of America Collection. She was a curatorial assistant and assistant registrar at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago.
“Whitney is a consummate professional. Her experience in curation and education is vast and, in addition, she is a successful practicing artist,” says Janet Bloch, executive director of LCA. “Bradshaw will put forth a program of exhibitions that is accessible and relevant to our community and the art world. She will build relationships with artists, museums, collectors and critics and support the values of LCA: excellence, relevance, accessibility, respect and inclusion. Giving engaging exhibit tours for adults will also be part of Bradshaw’s duties.”
DESIGN
Federal Report Favors State Street Towers
“Putting a pair of empty State Street buildings to new use might be a little better than tearing them down as planned, a new draft report from a federal agency says. Demolition of the Century Building, 202 South State, and the Consumers Building, 220 South State, would have a ‘negative, moderate effect’ on the historic Loop retail district,” reports Crain’s.
The Deep, Steep Decline Of The “Third Place”
“Third spaces, which include bars, parks, coffee shops, libraries, and even sidewalks, have been in decline for decades. Racism, classism, the climate crisis, overpolicing, a car-based economy, and the privatization and rising costs of amenities have all narrowed access to them,” writes Insider. “The dwindling of places to spend time together is a catastrophe for our communities and for us, exacerbating what U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy calls an epidemic of loneliness. One in five Americans reported feeling lonely or socially isolated often or all the time in 2018. One study found the rate of loneliness among young adults rose almost every year between 1976 and 2019. In a 2019 YouGov poll, twenty-two percent of millennials reported having no friends at all. And being lonely and spending a lot of time alone are associated with bleak health outcomes, including significantly raising the risk of premature death, especially from a stroke or coronary artery disease.” [More.]
Preservation Award Winners Announced
Landmarks Illinois has announced the winners of the 2023 Landmarks Illinois Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Preservation Awards, an annual program honoring exceptional preservation efforts across Illinois that is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary this year. Projects in Chicago, Aurora, DeKalb, Maywood, Marion and Peoria have won awards for the adaptive reuse and rehabilitation of our state’s historic places and for preserving Illinois’ cultural heritage. All 2023 recipients will be honored at a public ceremony on October 23 at the Athenaeum Center for Thought & Culture.
In Auburn Gresham, the Healthy Lifestyle Hub is noted for Adaptive Reuse; Carlos Nelson and Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation renewed a nearly hundred-year-old terra cotta building on West 79th into a bustling community center. Bronzeville Legends takes an award for Cultural Heritage Preservation: Chris Devins created a curated multi-site placemaking campaign that uses large-scale murals featuring past Bronzeville residents like jazz great Louis Armstrong and playwright Lorraine Hansberry to celebrate the rich heritage of the neighborhood. The Old Post Office takes an Award for Adaptive Reuse: The largest adaptive reuse project in the nation—led by 601W Companies, JLL, Telos, Bear Construction and Gensler—transformed the long-threatened, abandoned former post office in Chicago’s Loop into a hub of retail and office space featuring Art Deco features and modern amenities. The Tribune Tower gets an Award for Adaptive Reuse: The former home to the Chicago Tribune newspaper and its media companies has been converted into a residential building by Golub & Company and CIM Group. The reuse celebrates the historic character of the nearly century-old, Neo-Gothic skyscraper that makes it one of Chicago’s most notable landmarks. More here.
Sterling Bay Looking At Even More Fulton Market Abodes
“Sterling Bay plans a twenty-nine-story Fulton Market apartment building,” relays Crain’s, with 390 units, “a block north of Google’s Midwest headquarters,” adding to the stampede of residential projects in the neighborhood.
DINING & DRINKING
Sip Sliding Away: McDonald’s Slicing Self-Serve Soda
McDonald’s is phasing out self-service soda fountains, reports Crain’s. “The fast-food giant is phasing out self-serve machines in dining rooms around the country, forcing dine-in customers to ask for refills at the counter.” Reports Insider, “Restaurants in Illinois have already started the process, along with stores out West… ‘McDonald’s will be transitioning away from self-serve beverage stations in dining rooms across the United States by 2032… This change is intended to create a consistent experience for both customers and crew across all ordering points, whether that’s McDelivery, the app, kiosk, drive-thru or in-restaurant.'”
Chicago-Based Kellanova Will Take Up Pringles, Other Kellogg Snack Products
Kellogg Co.’s board of directors has approved a plan to split in two: WK Kellogg Co., a cereals company, and Kellanova, a snacks company to be headquartered in Chicago, reports the Trib. Kellanova products will include Pringles and Rice Krispies Treats. The Kellogg CEO says, “After more than a year of comprehensive planning and execution, we are more confident than ever that the separation will produce two stronger companies and create substantial value for shareowners.”
AI Crafts Beverage For Coca-Cola In Search For Youth Market
“Coca-Cola Y3000 is the latest flavor to launch under the company’s Creations platform designed to highlight its signature soda while drawing in younger consumers,” charts Food Dive. The beverage conglomerate says that it is “the first flavor co-created with human and artificial intelligence.”
FILM & TELEVISION
Considering The Faltering Movie Industry
“No one forced the studios into a streaming model. They had a business that did well and made lots of money. But they all wanted to chase that Netflix stock price. They’ve obliterated their own businesses, overpaying themselves and then calling their workers unreasonable,” animation writer Merrill Hagan posts on Twitter. “Businesses have to turn a profit to stay in business. You can open a pizza restaurant that sells one-dollar pizza and there may be giant public demand, but if it costs you two dollars to make a pizza, you aren’t going to be in business for long.”
“Our world has not only changed, it is now always changing rapidly, and we need to strategize how to keep up,”muses veteran producer Ted Hope at Hope For Film, his prolific newsletter. “Our industry has changed and will continue changing at a super fast rate, for ever and ever and ever still. The strikes indicate how most of us have failed to keep up… Despite the clear evidence before us that we should have adapted to the changes long ago, our actions have yet to change. We are looking at the situation but refusing to see it as it really is. We are holding onto our old perceptions… All sides are stuck in a fog. This should not be much of a surprise. Look at the whole wide world: we have created a system that floods everything with shit. Did anyone really want this? Even the ones that have gotten stinking rich from these blunders?”
“We are destroying the things we love. We are destroying the things that give us sustenance. We are destroying what once made us better people and communities. We are destroying art. We are destroying our soul… We no longer know what business we are in. We no longer know what our priorities should be. We forgot that our factory makes our widget—that the system we are in not only determines the product we make, but how we value it, and who benefits as a result.” Hope continues on his customary hopeful note: “But WE can change the system, and much of everything with it.”
MUSIC
Riot Mike Reveals Autism Diagnosis
“Riot Mike (Michael Petryshyn) sat down with the Chicago Sun-Times for an exclusive interview to share his recent diagnosis with Autism Spectrum Disorder (formerly known as Asperger’s Syndrome), and how music changed his life and made Riot Fest what it is today,” Riot Fest posters in a release. “As a child, Petryshyn knew he was different, obsessive in his passions to the exclusion of anything that could distract him. He was introduced to punk rock by older friends around the fourth grade and became immersed to an intense degree in albums, liner notes and anything else he could get his hands on to find out more about the bands, ethos and energy. He was unaware at the time how much it helped him process the complicated emotions and information that surged through his mind.”
“As an adult, he was diagnosed with ADHD (a common companion to other neurodivergent diagnoses) but that wasn’t the full story. His decision to go public with the diagnosis was formed in the hope to shine the light for people of all ages who might have similar experiences… After moving to Chicago to study Philosophy at Loyola, Petryshyn felt at a crossroads he didn’t quite understand. He feels that his subconscious was pushing towards getting his favorite bands on stage in Chicago.” More Riot Fest here.
Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra Renames Music Director Title After Half-Million Dollar Gift
Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra, three-time Illinois Council of Orchestras “Professional Orchestra of the Year,” has an aggressive fundraising goal of $5.1 million for its Campaign For The Future endowment. Owing to longtime IPO supporters Andrea and Richard Gibb, with the Gibb Family Trust, their cumulative $500,000 gift is the largest gift to date. In recognition of the Gibb’s generous contributions to the orchestra, IPO is renaming Maestro Kirov the Gibb Music Director. In 2022, Kirov agreed to a four-year contract extension which keeps him on the IPO podium through the 2026/27 season. More here.
Checking In With Jamila Woods
“For many artists, the weeks leading up to a new album are a hectic flurry of promotional obligations, relentless tour rehearsals and omnipresent anxiety,” styles Lindsay Zoladz at the New York Times. “But two months before the October 13 release of Jamila Woods’ ‘Water Made Us,’ the Chicago-based writer and musician was far from the music industry’s antic churn: at a six-week writing residency at a remote castle in Umbria, Italy. ‘I’m just grateful for the time to chill,’ Woods, thirty-four, said, video-chatting from her sparse room in the fifteenth-century fortress. Half of her chin-length hair was twisted up in pigtailed buns, and seven of her ten fingers were adorned with chunky, artful rings.”
STAGE
Tarell Alvin McCraney To Lead Los Angeles’ Geffen Playhouse
Steppenwolf ensemble member, 2003 DePaul graduate, playwright and Oscar-winning screenwriter of “Moonlight” will lead Los Angeles’ Geffen Playhouse: “It felt selfish to sit on the sidelines,” he tells Charles McNulty at the Los Angeles Times. “In selecting McCraney as its new artistic director, the Geffen Playhouse has made a commitment not just to playwrights and playwriting but to the future of American drama. It has shored up its identity as a playhouse—a showcase for writers with artistic mettle… An ensemble member of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company, he is professor of playwriting at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University and has earned a reputation as a passionate mentor. He will continue to teach at Yale while leading the Geffen Playhouse and said he’s eager to start working with writers in Los Angeles. McCraney’s appointment is surprising not just because he’s a playwright and these positions tend to go to directors and creative producers. It’s also because he is a trailblazing dramatist in his prime. He is also a screenwriter whose work (‘Moonlight,’ ‘High Flying Bird’) has won plaudits for its lyrical sensitivity and fearless witnessing.”
Winifred Haun & Dancers Set Season
Winifred Haun & Dancers’ new season will include a gala celebration, a residency in southern Illinois, and the return of First Draft, a program of new works by Chicago area dancemakers. Also: performances as part of the Detroit Dance City Festival, online Beginning Modern Dance classes and Wine with Wini. On Friday, October 13, the company will present a twenty-fifth “Moonstone” Season Gala, at the 21c Museum Hotel. Tickets here. Winifred Haun & Dancers will present their second “First Draft,” new work by Chicago area dancemakers, March 1-3, 2024, at Links Hall, a showcase of twelve new works by twelve Chicago-area choreographers. More here.
ARTS & CULTURE & ETC.
Google On Trial
“Google has exploited its dominance of the internet search market to lock out competitors and smother innovation, the Department of Justice charged at the opening of the biggest U.S. antitrust trial in a quarter century,” reports AP. “’This case is about the future of the internet and whether Google’s search engine will ever face meaningful competition,’ said the Justice Department’s lead litigator.”
Boosters Approved; Chicago Free Sites To Be Announced
“The Food and Drug Administration [has] greenlit twoupdated COVID-19 booster shots in people as young as six months old, triggering a process that could see the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines become available in doctors’ offices, clinics, and pharmacies later this week,” posts Stat. “The updated approvals relate only to the two messenger RNA vaccines on the U.S. market. An application for an updated vaccine from Novavax is pending.” The federal government is looking at the shots less as boosters then as “an annual immunization effort akin to the flu vaccine,” writes the New York Times. Boosters will be free in Chicago, writes the Sun-Times, at sites to be announced; pandemic unemployment may at last be waning, reports WBEZ.
Robberies Rip West Town, Logan Square
“Over the weekend, West Town tavern Chipp Inn was hit by armed robbers, along with nearby Ola’s Liquor Store and Division Street Liquors… A dramatic uptick in armed robberies on the Northwest Side has community leaders, local police and neighbors on edge and scrambling for solutions,” writes Block Club. “The Shakespeare (14th) Police District, which includes Wicker Park, Bucktown and parts of Logan Square, has seen at least 351 robberies as of August 31, up sixty-two percent from the same point last year… That’s more than double the 152 reported during that period in 2020.”
