Alicia Eler is a cultural critic and arts reporter at the Minneapolis Star Tribune and author of "The Selfie Generation: How Our Self-Images Are Changing Our Notions of Privacy, Sex, Consent, and Culture" (2017).
Interview
The Chicago-based project Extinct Entities engages with art spaces and collectives that no longer exist. Collaboratively run by Anthony Stepter, Erin Nixon, and Anthony Romero, this project brings together artists and individuals who were once very invested in now-extinct Chicago-based spaces, and a
Art
KANSAS CITY, Missouri — There's an amazing show about contemporary performance art, and it may be coming to an art venue near you. Having just left the H&R Block Artspace at the Kansas City Art Institute, curator RoseLee Goldberg's exhibition Performance Now is like a touring indie rock band, minus
Art
Pittsburgh-based artist Francis Crisafio's ongoing project HOLDUP in the HOOD extends the definition of the selfie, bringing in a directorial component similar to the one seen in Oli Rodriguez's rendition. For more than a decade, Crisafio has been documenting an after-school arts program called FACE
Art
CHICAGO — I remember my first mall — Lincolnwood Town Center just north of the Indian and Hasidic Jewish blocks of small business on Chicago’s Devon Avenue.
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CHICAGO — Little boys don't piss in rivers. They pee in picturesque ways and all look like the "Manneken Pis," a small bronze fountain sculpture of a little boy peeing forever into the fountain's basin. On view in Brussels since it was erected by Hiëronynus Duseuesnoy the Elder in 1618-ish, this scu
Art
CHICAGO — An adolescent girl in her bedroom is a curious thing. In her series A Girl and Her Room, Boston-based artist Rania Matar photographs adolescent girls in their bedrooms, capturing them in moments vulnerable and fresh. She manages to do so without a hint of voyeurism, and with a serious dose
Art
CHICAGO — Donna Huanca is from the South Side of Chicago, and she hasn't been back here since she was 15, an adolescent girl.
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CHICAGO — A seven-week road trip isn't something you just plan overnight. In fact, it's a long-term project that takes significant strategizing and visits to couchsurfing.com. Once on the road, it becomes clear that not everyone has the stamina for that seemingly never-ending alone time, the ritual
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CHICAGO — At surface value, ArtPrize is all giant flowers, mythical dragons, yarn-bombed trees, and cash galore. Begun in 2009, the annual event attracts thousands of visitors from Michigan and elsewhere, a strange combination of populism and art world elitism wrapped into one — but it is not an ide
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GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan — At this year's ArtPrize, Grand Rapids-based Collective Wings organized the Division Fibers Yarn Bomb project on Division Street, one of the most trafficked areas of the city.
Art
GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan — In a smaller city like Grand Rapids, where the cost of living is far lower than American art centers like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, there can be more curatorial opportunities — if one plays their cards right.
Art
GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan — Grand Rapids is a two hour drive due west of the state’s bankruptcy carnival that is Detroit, the hometown of President Gerald R. Ford, and the first city in the U.S. to add fluoride to its drinking water. It is an easy-to-visit city located on the banks of the Grand River w