Smart showcases Soviet Union poster child
Photo: The Ne boltai! CollectionThe Smart Museum of Art’s exhibit Vision and Communism is many things —political, ideological, and structured—but restrained, it is not. Composed of posters,...
View ArticleStudent care unified under SHCS
Efforts by the University’s Student Health and Counseling Services (SHCS) to revamp its image and consolidate its care providers are moving forward, though students are complaining that the flurry of...
View ArticleMatt & Kim to headline MAB fall show
Brooklyn-based dance-punk duo Matt & Kim will headline this fall’s Major Activities Board (MAB) November 5 show in Mandel Hall after an opening set by U of C band Squat the Condos. MAB Chair and...
View ArticleHayes’ unassuming art fights for every message
Photo: Courtesy of Sharon Hayes and the Tanya Leighton GalleryIn the Near Future (detail), 2005â09 by Sharon Hayes Two tinted glass doors bearing the artist’s name lead into a dark, expansive room...
View ArticleAn undiminished appetite
Ever have a particular craving for mandarin and ice cubes drenched in oils? How about some rabbit brain and sea anemones? Both of these avant-garde dishes topped the menu at El Bulli’s final...
View ArticleTop 5 Albums
1: Watch the Throne – Jay-Z & Kanye West At once catchy and upbeat enough to play at a party and complex and nuanced enough to warrant 50 listens, Watch the Throne is the ultimate collaboration...
View ArticleChild’s play gets serious in Suárez’s Memoria
Photo: Hyde Park Art CenterSuárez uses mixed media to create compelling images of the Latin American immigrant experience For most people, the memory game is simple enough. Flip a card over and try to...
View ArticleMotley crew of objects can an exhibit make
Photo: The Modern InstituteWilkes uses old mannequins, among other objects, in her work. What’s the difference between a painting and a pile of junk? Nothing, suggests Glasgow-based artist Cathy...
View Article‘SightSoundSpace’ brings together wider Chicago art community
Photo: Adrienne Swan Walking head-down to avoid slipping on the sheet of ice layering the sidewalk, I rapidly pass by the Reg, whose blocky facade looks more like an igloo than a library tonight. The...
View ArticleDIY is your boo’s best friend
So Valentine’s Day is here, midterms are fast on your heels (again), you’re running low on cash, and you still haven’t gotten around to buying a gift for your sweetheart. Or perhaps you’re seeking to...
View ArticleFit for consumption: Everyone’s invited to ‘Feast’ at the Smart
Photo: Courtesy of the Smart Museum of Art It’s an intriguing premise. Gather a bunch of people together, ply them with food and drink, and sate their artistic appetites with exhibits that examine the...
View ArticleSHop exhibit explores line between home and museum
With the First Unitarian Church planning to sell the Fenn House, the current residence of the Southside Hub of Production (SHoP), the title of SHOP’s latest exhibition, This House is Not a Home may...
View ArticleEntre who? French artist probes identity
Photo: Courtesy of Soizic AudouardClaude Cahun depicts herself as a mime in "self-portrait" Stage masks, androgynous clothing, and mime-like makeup are the defining trademarks of Claude Cahun’s...
View ArticleEdifice complex: Logan Center draws mixed reactions
Photo: Jamie ManleyThe Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts aims to consolidate the arts on campus. At a height of 12 stories, the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts casts a new, definitive...
View ArticleBeats & Pieces creates “Legacies” of sights and sounds
Cables and wires coiled around bare feet, bright lights of glittering machinery, and rows of a mesmerized audience, wooed into a silent sway by hypnotic wailing vocals, graced the first floor of the...
View ArticleCivil War drama at Steppenwolf covers scorched ground
Photo: Courtesy of Michael Brosil(left to right) Coalhouse Walker (ensemble member James Vincent Meredith) and Wilma (ensemble member Alana Arenas) discuss the difficulties of being newly freed and...
View ArticleHyde Park Art Center’s “Hairy Blob” has split ends
Photo: Courtesy of The VisualistLauren Carter's tower of encyclopedias at the Hairy Blob exhibit in the Hyde Park Art Center. Photo: Courtesy of Hyde Park Art Center Close your eyes and picture the...
View ArticleNo more California dreaming in Best Coast’s new album
Photo: Courtesy of Mexican Summer As ninth week kicks off with blue skies, breezy temperatures in the low 70s, and plenty of sunshine, summer seems just around the corner. Suddenly the idea of spending...
View ArticleO-Issue 2012: Libraries
The list of available study spaces around the U of C’s campus appears limitless and is constantly changing—from students heading high up into the trees on the main quad on warmer days, to snuggling up...
View ArticleO-Issue 2012: Chicago Art
From Anish Kapoor’s iconic Cloud Gate sculpture in Millennium Park to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House nestled in our very own neighborhood, the city of Chicago boasts an artistic richness that is...
View ArticleDanh Vo puts the ‘u’ and ‘us’ in Uterus
Photo: Courtesy of the Renaissance Society Late-summer evenings leave campus quiet and empty in the dying light; a couple Thursdays back, though, it was a different scene entirely. Just shy of five...
View ArticleMcQueen’s art reigns over space, time, and the human body
Photo: Courtesy of Marian Goodman Gallery and Thomas Dane Gallery London Frigid pellets of rain and too-cold-too-early autumnal temperatures were no match for the buzz of artistic ardor in the Rubloff...
View ArticleMischief Night pours some sugar and PBR on HPAC
Photo: Courtesy of Hyde Park Arts CenterAfrican drum ensemble Low End Theory keeps the crowds on their feet at Hyde Park Art Center's annual Mischief Night.What do a fully functional pool table...
View ArticleRoss’s candid camera documents incarcerated youth
Photo: Courtesy of Richard RossJuvenile-in-Justice, currently on display at the Gage Gallery, documents juvenile incarceration in America through photographs and interviews.The walk down Michigan...
View ArticleHot off the University of Chicago Press
Photo: Courtesy of the University of Chicago Press It becomes clear on page 40, when Neil Steinberg opts for a Jay-Z-style definition of Chicago—“a state of mind”—that the payoff over the next 200...
View ArticleIn Reg, zine but not herd
Photo: Alice/The Chicago Maroon At the intersection of the ultra-personal and the act of artistic creation is the zine—a new face of poetic storytelling that is fundamentally visual, and as much...
View ArticleIn new Art Institute exhibit, Kara Walker raises up her profile
Photo: Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago Known for her dramatic, wall-mounted cut-paper silhouettes, Kara Walker’s exhibitions cultivate a world of their own: Rife with hyperbolized antebellum...
View ArticleDo What You’re Told
Photo: Alice/The Chicago MaroonFriday | March 5 “Please don’t confuse our show with typical antique shows,” advises the website for the Chicagoland Antique Advertising, Slot-Machine & Jukebox Show....
View ArticleArtists destroy matter to create meaning at MCA
Photo: Courtesy of Alex Garcia“Wildboar Hunting 1” by Kazuo Shiraga consists of the hide of a boar that the artist himself shot, killed, and skinned. He then painted on it using only his...
View ArticleRenaissance Society gets a rise out of Pope.L’s new exhibit
Photo: Courtesy of The Renaissance SocietyForlesen, the William Pope.L show at the Renaissance Society that opened last Sunday, capitalizes on our obsessive need to categorize and to make sense of the...
View ArticlePoem Present bids adieu to the year with Ariana Reines
Photo: Courtesy of Andrew KenowerA collaborative effort between the Renaissance Society and Poem Present brought Ariana Reines onto campus for this quarter’s final installment of the Reading and...
View ArticleLetter from Vienna: Having it all by taking none
Photo: Courtesy of Alice BucknellThe sprawl of city buildings somehow grows brighter as the train reels away from the Stockholm station. I can see individual office buildings trapped in a pasty yellow...
View ArticleAt Experimental Station, artists handle new gun law
Photo: Courtesy of Margaret CrowleyImmediately upon entering the gallery, I hear the sound of a gunshot echoing on a tight loop. The occasional whirring of a mechanized gun sticking out of one of the...
View ArticleAIC’s Paul-David Young sneaks a swig of Molly Soda
Photo: Couresty of Amalia Soto MollysodaPhotography is memory materialized, emotions crystallized, time condensed and made palpable. Like any material object, photographs are transferrable, disposable,...
View ArticleFor one week only, Gray Center presents University’s #PAST
Photo: Courtesy of the Gray Center for Arts and InquiryThe three years I’ve spent at the University of Chicago have produced an incredible series of structural changes: constructions and...
View ArticleMCA curates Genzken showcase worth returning to a-Genzken
Photo: Courtesy of the Museum of Contempory ArtIt’s 10 a.m. on a sunny Friday morning, and I’m on the fourth floor of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) downtown, standing among a crowd of older news...
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