Today In Culture, Friday, November 3, 2023: “Transformative” Gift To MCA | Joliet Slammers Sold To Mike Veeck And Bill Murray | Five New Michelin Bib Gourmands
Marilyn and Larry Fields, Madeleine Grynsztejn/Photo: Ingrid Bonne, courtesy of MCA.
ART
Collectors Marilyn And Larry Fields Make “Transformative” Gift To MCA
Chicago collectors Marilyn and Larry Fields have given The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago a transformative gift from their collection. Comprised of seventy-nine objects, the donation “not only enhances the museum’s commitment to a more holistic portrayal of contemporary art but also underscores its dedication to uplifting the voices of women and BIPOC artists,” relays the MCA. The Fields contribution, selected alongside MCA’s curatorial leaders, includes paintings, photography, new media and sculptures by eminent artists like Arthur Jafa, Cindy Sherman and Rashid Johnson. Of the fifty-nine artists included in the Marilyn and Larry Fields Gift, twenty-three will be represented in the MCA Collection for the first time. Approximately eighty percent of the works in the gift are by pivotal woman-identifying and BIPOC artists, such as Huma Bhabha, Amanda Ross-Ho, Adrian Piper and Jennie C. Jones. Marilyn and Larry Fields have a longstanding relationship with the MCA. In 2012, the museum received a $2 million gift from the Fields to endow the position of the Marilyn and Larry Fields Curator. This support has enabled those in the position, such as Naomi Beckwith and Carla Acevedo-Yates, to develop groundbreaking exhibitions. These include “The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music, 1965 to Now” (2015), “Howardena Pindell: What Remains To Be Seen” (2018), “Carolina Caycedo: From the Bottom of the River” (2020-2021), and “Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1990s–Today” (2022-2023). “Marilyn and Larry Fields, long-time supporters of the museum, have always valued the power that contemporary art has in fostering new ideas and inspiring change,” Pritzker Director Madeleine Grynsztejn said. “This generous gift will help the MCA move the permanent collection forward by adding emerging voices and new artists to the collection, expanding our ability to highlight underrepresented narratives.”
DESIGN
Could Former Chicago Museum of Broadcast Communications House Asylum Seekers?
“City Hall was tight-lipped about reports the Johnson administration has toured the shuttered Chicago Museum of Broadcast Communications in the River North neighborhood as a potential shelter for migrants,” reports CBS 2.
National Association Of Realtors Longtime CEO Bob Goldberg Leaving
“The National Association of Realtors’ longtime CEO Bob Goldberg is leaving the trade association,” reports Yahoo Finance. He will be replaced by Nykia Wright, former Sun-Times CEO as interim CEO. “Goldberg’s departure comes just two days after a federal jury in Kansas City, Missouri, ruled that NAR, HomeServices of America and Keller Williams had colluded to artificially inflate real estate agent commission rates. Staffers had previously called for Goldberg’s resignation in an anonymous letter… in the wake of sexual harassment allegations brought forth in a New York Times exposé… Goldberg will stay on at the trade group serving as an executive consultant to support the transition.”
WeWork, No Longer Worth Nearly $50 Billion, Nears Bankruptcy
“WeWork bankruptcy filing may happen next week as market cap falls to $60 million,” reports Ars Technica. “WeWork warned in August that the company may not survive for long. Because of WeWork’s ‘losses and projected cash needs, combined with increased member churn and current liquidity levels, substantial doubt exists about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern,’ the company said.”
DINING & DRINKING
Chicago Gains Five Michelin Bib Gourmand Notches
“Five new Chicago restaurants were selected as 2023 Michelin Bib Gourmands,” reports Eater Chicago. The five are Boonie’s, Cellar Door Provisions, Pompette, Union and Yao Yao.
West Town’s High Dive Will Become 1970s Cocktail Bar
“The team behind Moonflower, a Northwest Side hit that brought a fancy cocktail option to Portage Park and Jefferson Park, is opening a bar next week in West Town,” reports Eater Chicago. “Owners Zach Rivera and Christina Chae named Golden Years for David Bowie’s 1975 hit single. It’s a partnership with High Dive owners Georg Simos and Alex Tsolakides. High Dive—a beloved neighborhood bar that melded aspects of a dive with a solid pub food menu—closed two years ago during the pandemic as New York-style pizzeria Dante’s took over the space.”
Illinois Restaurant Association Takes Position On Leave Time
“The Illinois Restaurant Association, still dazed from Chicago’s decision to phase out the tipped minimum wage, is mounting a campaign against a proposed ordinance that would increase paid time off for Chicago workers to twelve days,” reports Eater Chicago. Restaurants “can’t afford the payouts proposed in the ordinance, Sam Sanchez, head of government for the Illinois Restaurant Association says. The association estimates it could cost restaurants with 1,000 workers about $500,000 per year. Sanchez says neither L.A. nor New York mandates payouts. L.A. mandates sixteen days of leave, while New York mandates five.” Adds the Sun-Times, “A key City Council panel on Thursday advanced an expansive paid leave ordinance that will require employers to offer ten days off to workers, though opponents in Chicago’s business community say concessions within the deal don’t go far enough.”
Chicago Winter Dining Could Continue
“Year-round outdoor dining is a trend that picked up during the peak of pandemic, and many Chicagoans want to keep it,” reports CBS 2. “There is a renewed push from the city to allow some bars and restaurants to keep their patios open as the weather gets colder.” Parking, of course, gets a nod in coverage: “While the outdoor street dining is advantageous for businesses, the reality of it all takes away from prime parking for the people pulling up.”
Wisconsin Old-Fashioned With Brandy Gets Salute
“Two Republican state legislators from Wisconsin, Representative Jon Plumer and Senator Cory Tomczyk, introduced a resolution making the brandy-based old-fashioned the official Wisconsin state cocktail,” reports the New York Times. “This is not to be confused with Wisconsin’s official state drink: Milk… The classic, more popular version of an old-fashioned has a base of bourbon, rye or another type of whiskey… Brandy old-fashioneds have a long history in Wisconsin, the resolution notes. The state accounts for at least half of the brandy maker Korbel’s annual sales in the United States.”
FILM & TELEVISION
Los Angeles Filming Too “High-Maintenance”: Could That Be To Illinois’ Gain?
“Insiders say recent fee hikes by FilmL.A. add to a long list of motives for productions to film in other areas,” as says the Hollywood Reporter. “Unless there’s some specific reason to be in Los Angeles, we don’t shoot there anymore,” says a major production executive. “Other areas saw considerably more growth… Los Angeles’ loss was Georgia’s and the U.K.’s gain. Those regions saw a forty-two and sixty-five-percent increase respectively in hosting scripted TV productions.”
Disney To Buy Remainder Of Hulu
Disney “will pay at least $8.61 billion to Comcast, which owned a thirty-three-percent stake of the streaming service,” reports the New York Times. “‘The acquisition of Comcast’s stake in Hulu at fair market value will further Disney’s streaming objectives,’ Disney said in a statement. Hulu, which has roughly forty-eight million subscribers, offers programming from ABC, FX, Fox and other traditional networks, along with original shows like ‘Only Murders in the Building’ and ‘The Kardashians.'”
LIT
Anti-Little-Free-Library Legislation Postponed
“Ald. Raymond Lopez (15th) introduced an ordinance this summer to require a public way use permit for anyone wanting to build a ‘public bookcase’ on city-owned property. Little Free Libraries are often placed on city parkways outside their owners’ homes,” reports Block Club. “Lopez’s ordinance has received widespread pushback from alderpeople in recent days, despite it breezing through committee review last month… But Ald. Samantha Nugent (39th) moved to re-refer the ordinance to the transportation committee, halting it from moving forward.”
MEDIA
San Diego Union-Tribune On Last Legs?
More news about Tribune owner Alden Global Capital: “Under Alden, there’s no plan for the future” of the San Diego Union-Tribune, writes the Voice of San Diego. “There’s just revenue extraction for as long as a generation of older newspaper subscribers live to keep paying their bills… When Alden showed up in other cities in recent years, journalists and their supporters had time to mobilize an opposition. In Chicago, Tribune reporters turned their investigative focus to their new prospective owners in an effort to raise the alarm… In all the other sales the U-T has endured, there’d been little secret the paper was on the market… Alden appeared with no warning. One morning, everything was normal. Minutes later, San Diegans were processing, yet again, what a new owner would do to their largest source of news and information. This one came with a variety of colorful monikers: the grim reaper of journalism, the men who are killing newspapers, strip-miners, vampires and vultures—reputations they do little to dispel.”
MUSIC
“Music Changes Lives”: Terri Hemmert On Fifty Years On ‘XRT
“On November 3, 1973, Terri Hemmert signed on at 93.1 WXRT, a station that carried foreign language programming during the day and aired rock ’n’ roll at night,” the veteran broadcaster tells WBBM Newsradio in a nearly hour-long conversation. “We were on the air from 10pm to, like, five or six in the morning… There’d be someone on from 10pm-1am, and I’d come in at 1am and finish it up.” Hemmert “said the solitude of the overnight shift was broken up by the occasional person who climbed the broadcast tower above the studio at 4949 West Belmont. ‘You know, we had that big antenna there, and people would climb up that antenna at night and threaten to jump, or maybe they had too many drugs.'”
CSO Violinist Blair Milton Retires After Forty-Eight Years
“Blair Milton, a member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s first violin section for forty-eight years, has retired. Across his distinguished tenure with the Orchestra, he performed under music directors Sir Georg Solti, Daniel Barenboim and Riccardo Muti, as well as former Principal Conductor Bernard Haitink and Principal Guest Conductor Pierre Boulez, and participated in forty-four international tours, including the Orchestra’s first tours to Asia, Australia and South America,” the CSO advises. “Milton, who was appointed to the CSO by Solti, performed with the Orchestra for the first time at the opening concert of the 1975 Ravinia Festival season. He went on to perform regularly on the chamber music series of the CSO and the Ravinia Festival. He also appeared as a soloist with the Chicago String Ensemble and with the CSO conducted by Sir Georg Solti.”
STAGE
Steppenwolf Extends “POTUS”
Steppenwolf Theatre Company continues its forty-eighth season with the Chicago premiere of Selina Fillinger’s farce “POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive,” a satirical look at the women in charge of the man in charge, directed by artistic director Audrey Francis. POTUS features ensemble members Celeste M. Cooper, Sandra Marquez, Caroline Neff and Karen Rodriguez with Karen Aldridge, Chloe Baldwin and Meighan Gerachis. Due to popular demand, POTUS has added an additional week of performances, extending through December 10 in Steppenwolf’s Downstairs Theater, 1650 North Halsted. Single tickets for POTUS starting at $20 are now on sale for all performances here.
ARTS & CULTURE & ETC.
Joyce Foundation Head Stepping Down In 2024
Ellen S. Alberding, president and CEO of The Joyce Foundation has announced that she has “decided to step down as President and CEO of the Joyce Foundation in 2024. The board of directors will launch a search in January. I plan to stay in my role until a new leader has been selected,” she writes. “My three decades at Joyce have been a tremendously fulfilling experience. Our mission—to achieve racial equity and economic mobility in the Great Lakes region—compelled me every day to utilize all the resources at our command to achieve progress. I feel beyond lucky to have had the opportunity to work with and learn from so many of you on some of the most important policy issues faced by our nation, and to work with a board and staff whose talent and fortitude allow for a long-term approach to solving complex challenges. The Foundation remains committed to the $250 million grant-making strategy launched in 2021, which aims to improve outcomes for all young people, particularly those who disproportionately face structural barriers to social and economic progress.”
Majority Stake In Joliet Slammers Sold To Mike Veeck And Bill Murray
“Joliet Slammers majority owner Nick Semaca has sold a majority stake of the team to legendary minor-league baseball owner Mike Veeck and Hollywood funnyman Bill Murray,” reports WJOL 1340. (Newcity had the news in Dave Hoekstra’s profile of the Veeck family here.)
Chicago Mercantile Exchange Pioneer And “Master Analyst” Alice Kelley Was Seventy-Three
Alice Kelley “began trading at the Mercantile Exchange in the 1970s and became a member of the Index and Option Market in the 1980s,” reports the Sun-Times. “With her market-tracking charts under her arm, [she] walked the notoriously macho trading floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. She mostly avoided entering the rough-and-tumble trading pits and placed orders through brokers who’d enter the fray on her behalf to buy or sell… ‘It was a physical thing down there in the pit. Some of the younger guys who came there to make their fame and fortune were pretty male chauvinistic, and she wouldn’t put up with it,’ said Ygal Baruch, a friend and fellow trader. ‘She would read you the riot act, and say, “You’re not in high school anymore, and you’re not going to push me around.”‘”
Six Flags And Cedar Fair To Merge For Megabucks-Megafun
“Cedar Fair and Six Flags are merging to create an expansive amusement park operator with operations spread across seventeen states and three countries,” reports AP. “The combined company, worth more than $3.5 billion, will boast twenty-seven amusement parks, fifteen water parks and nine resort properties in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. It will also have entertainment partnerships and a portfolio of intellectual property including Looney Tunes, DC Comics and Peanuts.”
Toyota Adds Benefits After UAW Gains
Toyota Motor “is raising the wages of nonunion U.S. factory workers just days after the United Auto Workers union won major pay and benefit hikes from the Detroit Three automakers,” reports Reuters. “Hourly manufacturing workers at top pay will receive a wage hike of about nine percent effective January 1… Other nonunion logistics and service parts employees are getting wage hikes.” (Other benefits are added as well.)
