Posted inNews & Politics

Nowhere You Are Not

“This is going to be about the not happy ending,” Sandra Gilbert says. She has just stepped to the podium at Roosevelt University’s O’Malley Theatre and the audience for her Chicago Humanities Festival lecture is getting its first good look at her: a middle-aged woman with dark, bobbed hair squinting into the spotlight. The seating […]

Posted inArts & Culture

Houses of the Future Today

No visit to Jim Morrow’s All-Steel Historic Home would be complete without a swing past the Century of Progress Architectural District in nearby Beverly Shores, where you can see four model homes from the 1933 World’s Fair. It’s a trip back to the future and a glimpse of Lustron’s inspiration. The four houses were part […]

Posted inArts & Culture

Chesterton, IN

Chesterton grew up as a railroad town, but the train doesn’t stop here anymore. The big event seems to be the annual Oz Festival, held in September and featuring some of the real Munchkins from the 1939 movie, The Wizard of Oz. Chesterton also has a year-round Oz Fantasy Museum (route 49 and Yellow Brick […]

Posted inArts & Culture

Group Efforts: gods in peril

Gwen Lux was 20 years old when she brought the gods to Michigan Avenue. It was 1929, and Lux and her husband Eugene had been commissioned to create sculpture for a 16-story skyscraper going up at 520 N. Michigan. The building’s architects, Frederick J. Thielbar and John Reed Fugard, wanted embellishment that would complement the […]

Posted inArts & Culture

Graphic Confessions

HOLLIS SIGLER: THE BREAST CANCER JOURNAL at the Museum of Contemporary Art, through November 6 I knew Hollis Sigler was in trouble when I saw the compliments Chicago Tribune critic Alan Artner paid another artist, Kay Rosen. Working his way through current shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Artner dealt with Rosen first. He […]