Art Feature Archives - Page 2 of 20

JoJo Baby sits on the porch of a white Victorian house painted with bright yellow, pink, and teal trim. Turquoise and yellow floral arrangements surround them. They were a green wig and a yellow sparkly jacket and are posing with one hand raised to their face.

Remembering JoJo Baby

by Micco Caporale June 15, 2023June 20, 2023

JoJo Baby made a life as a living doll. After nearly four decades in nightlife, the artist and performer died this spring from a long battle with cancer. They were 51. Before becoming JoJo, they were born Joseph Arguellas—the oldest of four children raised by a Greek father and a Lakota mother. From the modest […]

Photo shows a corner of the gallery, with the title of the show on the wall. To the right are four black and white pencil drawings in light wood frames.

Arts & Culture

Mean what you draw, draw what you mean

by Cristobal Alday June 7, 2023June 7, 2023

The room was filled with chatter as the awed crowd took in works by Esperanza Rosas, who is most known by her creative name, Runsy. “Plata o Plomo,” which translates to silver or lead, is the title of Runsy’s first solo exhibition, which took place at Franchise Gallery in Los Angeles. Now, Rosas brings a […]

The statue stands on a raised platform. Behind it are a crowd of people. The sky is overcast.

Arts & Culture

A healing practice

by Michelle Meyer June 2, 2023June 1, 2023

Sonja Henderson adorns herself in turquoise jewelry. When I met her at her studio recently, the color was drawn on in the inner corners of her eyes—her signature look—and turquoise fabric was laid upon chairs in her art studio. Turquoise is a color that can mean protection, hope, and tranquility. Henderson is a visual artist […]

Zines and stickers are piled atop one another in a messy display.

Arts & Culture

Just stick to it

by Isa Giallorenzo June 1, 2023May 30, 2023

As the saying goes, Chicago is a big small town. We’re always bumping into each other. Artist, photographer, zine maker and promoter, curator, event organizer, and lifetime Chicagoan Oscar Arriola, 51, is one of those welcoming, familiar faces often present at the coolest, most underground happenings. As an appreciator, connector, and maker, Arriola is a […]

A triptych illustration of stanley brown's face, with orange, green, and blue backgrounds. The artist is balding and wears glasses.

Arts & Culture

Who’s afraid of stanley brouwn?

by Emeline Boehringer May 25, 2023May 18, 2023

I don’t understand. stanley brouwn steps? Oh, another place!He walks. . . . He appears in places and walks maybe, and he’s video-ing while he walks?stanley brouwn steps! [Laughs, whispers.] What? [Laughs.]Where’s he going to appear? [Laughs.]London! So flowed a conversation between two seven-year-olds who sat next to me on a bench nestled in the Art Institute’s […]

Installation view shows a large gallery lit by neon lights. A partial wall on the right has a large vinyl decal from a comic by the artist. On the left is a large LED screen showing another comics image, an android female with her internal organs visible.

Arts & Culture

Only romance

by Nicky Ni May 24, 2023May 18, 2023

If there’s one thing we know about Afrofuturism, it’s that it uses speculative genres as a future-imagining device to share criticism and discontent about the present. Asian Futurism, as discussed by scholars such as Dawn Chan and Xin Wang is a loose discourse that struggles to find footholds in the west outside of techno-Orientalism. There […]

Lily is dressed in layers of nude lingerie. She stands in the center of the Rotunda, which is empty save for tables behind her. She is lit by a spotlight.

Arts & Culture

The RenBen makes space for the unexpected

by Kerry Cardoza May 22, 2023May 22, 2023

After more than an hour in traffic on Lake Shore Drive, I made it to the Renaissance Society Thursday night just minutes before they closed. (The gallery had special afternoon hours for those attending its annual gala, the RenBen.) The unnamed exhibition on view, seemingly organized by Bruce Hainley and Shahryar Nashat, is just the […]

On the right of the frame sits a large black soft floor sculpture in the shape on a whale's tail. To its left hangs a soft sculpture in the shape if an eye. On the walls of the gallery are a series of frames collages by James Hosking.

Arts & Culture

Common threads

by Annette LePique May 22, 2023May 12, 2023

Picture a strand of thread, feel it in your hands, make a knot. In Japanese folklore, there is a story that each and every person is born with a red thread around their finger. This thread connects them to another person: a pair destined to make indelible marks on the lives of one another. In […]

Installation view shows a diamond shaped purple-blue canvas hung above a white shelf on which sits candles, dice, and other talismans.

Arts & Culture

Ethereal revelations

by Cristobal Alday May 17, 2023May 15, 2023

The first thing I noticed when I walked into Roots & Culture recently, on one of the better weather days in Chicago, was the smell of earthly incense wafting through the air. I stood in the entrance for awhile to take in the smell, but also to give myself a moment to realign my thoughts […]

Photo shows the gallery walls at night, where two videos are projected onto adjoining walls. One shows a sparkling close up of Lake Michigan and the other is a still of writer Lorraine Hansberry's face.

Arts & Culture

A meditation on the flow of being

by Rachel Dukes May 12, 2023May 12, 2023

Lake Michigan has served as my compass since I moved to Chicago. I will never forget an old coworker telling me to remember “the lake is always east!” when I described how lost I’d get trying to find my way around the city. It took a few years for it to click, but once I […]

Arts & Culture

‘One beautiful action won’t magically change the complex problem’

by Coco Picard May 11, 2023May 18, 2023

Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with Chicago artist Amanda Williams about her art project “Redefining Redlining” and how art can help inspire action. Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability. In October 2022, artist Amanda Williams organized a massive community tulip planting event, in which volunteers planted 100,000 red tulips in […]

An overhead photograph shows three tables of diners sitting down to eat in a lush backyard.

Arts & Culture

Backyard bacchanal

by Erin Toale May 8, 2023May 3, 2023

Station Eleven, the impactful TV show based on Emily St. John Mandel’s novel of the same title, follows a motley crew of survivors around the Great Lakes region following a pandemic that killed all but .1 percent of the world’s population. As they renegotiate the human condition sans societal infrastructure, the nomadic band of protagonists […]

In the brick-walled gallery are two large wooden stands upon which sit a handful of hand carved stone sculptures.

Arts & Culture

An artistic life

by Kerry Cardoza May 3, 2023May 3, 2023

“I always said I was going to be an artist,” Kay Hofmann says. “It’s all I was interested in.” The 90-year-old artist has a startlingly clear statement of purpose: to make art, primarily hand-carved stone sculptures, no matter what. And she has done exactly that, creating countless works over her long and storied career, just […]

A TV screen on a white stand in the center of the image shows a video work. On the wall to the right hangs a black trans lives matter flag and on the wall to the left are various hung textile works.

Arts & Culture

Bridging the gap

by Charlie Kolodziej May 2, 2023May 2, 2023

The exhibition “Iridescent Footprints: Stories and Glories of Our Lives” opened Friday at the Center on Addison in collaboration with queer faculty at SAIC, UIC, and the University of Chicago. The show is part of the LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project, a program that brings together multigenerational LGBTQ+ adults to promote discussion about the joys and […]

A black and white photograph that shows a man and a woman dancing on an outdoor patio.

Arts & Culture

The radical potential of photography

by Alexandra Drexelius April 27, 2023April 25, 2023

“Not all realisms: Photography, Africa, and the Long 1960s,” on view at the Smart Museum of Art, examines the mobilization of photography amid the shifting cultural and political dynamics that coincided with the African independence movements of the 1960s. The show surveys the dissemination of images over an array of print media, featuring the work of photographers […]