News
Chicago Celebrates 50th Anniversary of Its Picasso Sculpture, a Gift Many Residents Didn’t Want
When it was unveiled, people protested the Chicago Picasso and called it a "colossal booboo." Now it's become a beloved icon.
Chicago
Art
The Subversive Works of China's First Video Artist
Zhang Peili, who's having his first American retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago, rejects the government's use of media for entertainment and propaganda.
Art
With Internet Comments and Colonial Imagery, an Artist Remixes Our Hybrid Identities
Larry Achiampong mixes pop culture, internet imagery, and historical iconography related to the African diaspora to craft images, videos, and installations that reflect the complexity of identity in today's fluid, interconnected world.
Art
A Latino Punk Band Looks Back on 25 Years of Music, Art, and Activist Resistence
CHICAGO — Los Crudos, a much-lauded punk band from Chicago, has always been about community, so when lead singer Martin Sorrondeguy realized that 2016 marked the band’s 25-year anniversary, he knew the occasion called for more than a traditional music show.
Art
How Kerry James Marshall Rewrites Art History
CHICAGO — When he studied art history in the 1970s in Los Angeles, Kerry James Marshall was struck by the absence of black artists in the "canon."
Art
Whimsical, Art Deco–Inspired Window Designs
CHICAGO — Confessions of an arts writer: my background is in theater design.
Art
Returning “Topless Cellist” Charlotte Moorman to Her Rightful Place in the Avant-Garde
EVANSTON, Ill. — A Feast of Astonishments: Charlotte Moorman and the Avant-Garde, 1960s–1980s, currently on view at the Northwestern University’s Block Museum, is a masterful (if only slightly overwhelming) orchestration of original artworks and archival materials that examines the legacy of avant-g
Art
Reckoning with Pop Art's Irrepressible Popularity
CHICAGO — Three major exhibitions devoted to Pop art that opened last year broadened the purview of this movement as a primarily Western (American) phenomenon by unearthing lesser-known artists to provide a global view of art in the 1960s and ‘70s.
In Brief
Rent a Re-creation of Vincent van Gogh’s Bedroom on Airbnb — Just Don’t Chop Off Your Ear
Now available for rent on Airbnb is a full-size, 3D replica of Vincent van Gogh's famous painting "The Bedroom" (1889), complete with rustic twin bed, pale violet walls, copper-green wood floor, and straw hat on a peg.
Art
A Curatorial Project Explores What It Means to Organize Your Own Community
PHILADELPHIA — What’s the best way to engage a person in caring for someone different from him/herself?
Comics
Animal Bones as an Artistic Medium
For the grand reopening of New Capital, a well-loved art space that's been closed for two years, Chicago-based artist Rebecca Beachy has installed a wide-ranging bone collection.
Comics
A Performance in Chicago Reimagines Caesar's Bridge
I think of the stage as a bridge upon which our imagination can be embodied.