Regina Taylor, playwright and director of the upcoming Crowns at the Goodman Theatre is breaking bread with:
Theaster Gates Since officially moving to Chicago over a year ago now, I’ve been slowly finding my bearing. Navigating through, I keep bumping into a soulful Cheshire Cat—Theaster Gates.
Wickedly wonderful, wise, and profound, his work can be seen through June 10 in the exhibit “Feast: Radical Hospitality in Contemporary Art” at the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum.
Theaster is also collaborating with chef Michael Kornick and Erika Dudley of the university’s Civic Knowledge Project on a series of ritualized soul food dinners, hosted in the once-abandoned Dorchester Projects. The dinner is served on ceramics by Japanese master potter Kouichi Ohara, commissioned specifically for this collaboration. Food, eclectic guests, conversation, and performance are in the mash. Theaster Gates keeps reminding me why I love this city so much.
Craig Fass, owner and chef of the Bad Apple is out to graze at:
Acre If I could sum up what I have been doing most of all lately it’s pretty much one thing: eating Carlos Ysaguirre’s food over at Acre. We’ve been there five times in the past month and have had no repeat dishes. He is constantly reinventing his style of farm-to-table cuisine. The menu changes daily, and one day you can see he has butchered a whole goat throughout his menu. There will be goat confit, goat meatballs, goat ribs, goat sausages, etc. The next day you will see the influences of farm-fresh peas or ramps or whatever he can get his hands on. The reason I’m trying to eat there as much as possible is simple. Carlos is leaving us and moving to Austin. So, for the next few months get over to Acre and sample some of the freshest and most creative food in the city. The only regret you will have is if you let this chef leave Chicago without getting to know his food.
Horacio Nieto, fashion designer at Horacio Nieto Studio is feeling inspired by:
Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty This book is a look at the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen; it shows the emotions and the talent he had in his mind, body, and soul. Readers are able to see McQueen’s ability to make a garment into both a piece of fashion and a piece of art, making you wonder if the finished product was intentional or if it just happened in an organic process. Alexander McQueen was never a designer who cared what people thought, and I truly believe that is what made him create masterpieces in the world of fashion.
I was not able to see the McQueen exhibition in New York, but through this book, with a preface by curator Andrew Bolton, we are allowed to see some of his work and to get a better understanding of who he was. McQueen was truly an original and will always be remembered in the fashion industry.