“The view that unions are a hostile force within a workplace is fundamentally incorrect. Creating a union is an act of love: love for your work, love for your colleagues, and love for the institution that means a great deal to many people.” This is a view that came to the forefront of my conversation […]
Tag: School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Posted inArts & Culture
Michelle Grabner does it again
A compact solo exhibition at MICKEY presents the remarkable range of Michelle Grabner’s three-decade career. A celebrated figure in local and national art scenes, Grabner has done it all. Adjacent to her dedicated studio practice, Grabner’s pioneering curatorial platform The Suburban—an experimental gallery established in Oak Park in 1999 with her husband Brad Killam—has championed […]
Posted inAgenda
Black Arts Movement School, Looking for Jean-Luc, and more
It’s the final week to catch the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s “SAIC Faculty Sabbatical Triennial” exhibition, which features work produced by 38 faculty members who completed a sabbatical or a similar paid leave during the last three academic years. Not only does this show represent the breadth of ideas and creative practices […]
Posted inAgenda, City Life
Performance art on film, 1919, and more
Steppenwolf for Young Adults brings its acclaimed production of 1919, J. Nicole Brooks’s stage adaptation of Eve L. Ewing’s poems about the “Red Summer” race riots and white supremacy in America, from their Halsted Street venue to a short tour this week with Chicago Park District’s “Night Out in the Parks” program, starting tonight at […]
Posted inMusic
Chicago-based sound artist Dorothy Carlos refreshes drone textures on Circuit Spectre
Cellist and sound artist Dorothy Carlos moved to Chicago last year to begin an MFA in sound at the School of the Art Institute, but she’s got a foot planted on the east coast. She studied cello performance and anthropology at New York University, and she recorded all of the new Circuit Spectre (American Dreams) […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Threads of connection for the cause
Quilting has long been used as a tool of creative resistance. During the Civil War, abolitionists sold quilts to fundraise for their cause. Starting in 1965, the Alabama-based Freedom Quilting Bee Cooperative helped raise money for Black community members who lost income due to their involvement in the fight for civil rights. Today, artists like […]
Posted inFilm
Welcome to the skate park
“When we go to a skate park, we take up space, and then all of a sudden you don’t see a bunch of guys trying to tell you to move out the way, ’cause we’re the majority now,” says Lid Madrid. “And we’re taking up space, and just changing the way that skate parks traditionally […]
Posted inMusic
Bill Connors, art director for the Empty Bottle
There’s a lot that makes going to shows magical besides the live music, and no one knows this better than Empty Bottle art director Bill Connors. The Illinois native never expected to be guiding the aesthetic of one of Chicago’s most beloved independent venues, but the job has proved a natural fit: Since high school, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Building an opera in the waiting room
Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke to Chicago artist and School of the Art Institute of Chicago assistant professor Anna Martine Whitehead in early June. The comic above captures moments of their conversation. Text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability. Performance maker Anna Martine Whitehead has been writing and developing FORCE! An Opera […]
Posted inCity Life
Photos: 2022 SAIC Fashion Show
Our contributor Isa Giallorenzo attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s fashion show in May. The annual event returned to an in-person format this year (the theme: “Humanature”) after a two-year hiatus to address safety concerns around COVID-19. Here are some images Giallorenzo shot of some of the over 100 pieces of student-designed work that […]
Posted inCity Life
Out of the box
The long-awaited School of the Art Institute of Chicago fashion show was back in May after a two-year hiatus brought on by COVID-19. In the previous pandemic years students presented their work in beautiful highly-produced videos, but nothing substitutes the experience of seeing their garments IRL—especially so up close and personal. And this year’s show […]
Posted inCity Life
A handmade tale
“Thrifting is huge right now—being able to go pick out your materials and put things together like Frankenstein; mixing a lot of elements to make something special,” says Cole Glover, 19, a student of designed objects at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Glover perfectly embodies what’s going on in fashion right now: […]
Posted inFilm
The banal, the brutal, and the beautiful
Expanding creatively when society was intentionally isolating itself marks a bold progression for the artists, whose work is widely regarded for its taut intimacy.
Posted inFilm
Art houses live
In a world whose problems are far from over, this article is dedicated to the tens of thousands of people who know that there is a place in the Loop where good art films can be found, where a respite from reality can lead to a greater understanding of it.
Posted inArts & Culture
Like a moth to a flame
A solo show by artist Hyun Jung Jun at Goldfinch Gallery in East Garfield Park.