Art Review
Artists’ Monuments to the Great Migration
Histories need to be unearthed, recorded, studied, intersected, sung, paraded, and learned, and two Chicago shows do that for the Great Migration.
Lori Waxman
Lori Waxman has been the Chicago Tribune’s primary art critic since 2009. She teaches art history at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and performs occasionally as the “60 wrd/min art critic.”
Art
Woven Being Interweaves the Complexities of Native Art and Life
Native and Non-Native curators come together for this ambitious non-hierarchical exhibition tackling land and waterways, extra-human connection, and nonlinear time.
Art
Artists Shine a Light on Chicago’s Complex Ecosystem
Given that the vast majority of the world’s lands have by now been modified by humans, urban gardens might be the best we can hope for.
Art
Theaster Gates’s House Museum Gone Wild
When Clouds Roll Away is an immersive viewing experience dedicated to the Johnson Publishing Company that prioritizes imaginative reuse over context.
Art
Chicago’s History of Radical Art Pedagogy
Two concurrent shows focused on the radical social and political possibilities of progressive art education in Chicago ask: Who is art really for?
Art
A Cry of Rage by Ukrainian Women Artists
In Women at War, art is a counterattack, a means by which a victimized populace fights back.
Art
Riva Lehrer’s Portraits Bring Out the Beauty in Difference
The artist has long been fighting for people with disabilities or marginalized identities, with sincerity, courage, and fierce love for the monsters in us all.
Art
Robert Earl Paige’s Colorful Textile Worlds
The 87-year-old artist is having one of those rare the-art-world-is-paying-attention moments, and it feels joyful and deserved.
Art
It’s Time for Chryssa’s Neon Art to Shine
Chryssa, it turns out, did everything that the famous Pop and New Media artists did, simultaneously or, in some instances, first.
Art
The Fetishistically Fantastic Art of Christina Ramberg
Ramberg was one of the lesser-known — but, to my mind, most exciting — artists often grouped together as the Chicago Imagists.
Art
A Rock and a Fry Pan Walked Into a Gallery
In addition to being some combination of formally delectable, politically astute, and historically poignant, five solo shows currently in Chicago are hilarious.
Art
Selva Aparicio’s Memorials to Loss and Renewal
Aparicio treats unwanted things with extreme sensitivity, personally gathering and storing them over many years, renewing them with remarkable vision.