In a special collaboration for New York Live Arts, artists Nick Cave and Bob Faust create a kaleidoscopic mural from one of Cave's iconic Soundsuits constructed entirely of woven bags collected from around the world. These bags we carry are filled with promise is a through-the-looking-glass interpretation that the baggage we all walk through life with is anything but weighty. In this manifestation, the bags seem to defy gravity, and rather than weighing us down, actually carry the hopes, dreams, and aspirations that fuel us for our choices ahead. From the single source image of Cave's work, Faust selects and manipulates key details that seem to morph seamlessly into multiple patterns, shape-shifting across the 31 linear feet of lobby wall. The mural acts as a conditioning agent for audiences, preparing them for the performative experience on Live Arts' mainstage that awaits on the other side.
The Music Institute of Chicago, one of the nation's oldest, largest, and most distinguished community music schools, welcomed 300 guests to its 2018 Anniversary Gala on Monday, May 21 at the Fairmont Hotel Chicago. The event raised more than $715,000 from a combination of table sponsorships, ticket sales, and outright contributions.
The Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery has opened its call for entries to the fifth triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. Entries will be accepted now through Sept. 3, 2018, at portraitcompetition.si.edu. Established in 2006, the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition invites artists (who are at least 18 years of age) living and working in the United States to submit one portrait for consideration. Selected artworks are featured in a museum exhibition and some artists are awarded prizes. This year, the competition will focus on broadening the definition of portraiture while highlighting the genre's relevance in contemporary art and culture.
Adventure Stage Chicago (ASC), the participatory arts program of Northwestern Settlement (the Settlement), announces its 15th season of programming for young audiences, exploring the challenges of 'hunger,' both literal and metaphorical, as the company applies its mission of telling heroic stories to the Settlement objective of disrupting generational poverty.
Live Arts Pride 2018 - THE HOUSE PARTY is New York Live Arts' premier Pride celebration; a building wide and sidewalk performance party in the historic "gayborhood" of Chelsea, just blocks from the Pride March. The epic 6-hour event honors the historical importance and unwavering power of collectives in LGBTQAI culture. Young families from NYC's queer nightlife and art scene come together under one roof to serve up the city's most colorful and fierce performance, music, and more for a multi-space, nonstop party for the ages.
The world's changing, bro. This summer, Goodman Theatre premieres Support Group for Men, a new comedy by Ellen Fairey, directed by Kimberly Senior. Fairey, whose work has been hailed 'a must-see for anyone who follows important new plays' (Chicago Tribune), explores shifting social and gender roles through the lens of four men who gather every Thursday night to vent about middle-aged maladies.
From June 22 through September 9, 2018, the Art Institute of Chicago presents an exhibition on renowned design company Georg Jensen and its contributions to changing ideals for modern living across the 20th century. Known for its singular approach to materials and craftsmanship, Georg Jensen silver tableware and objects for the home kept pace with the era's shifting culture and lifestyles, balancing design and function in its diverse product lines. With its dual embrace of exceptional and everyday objects, the firm appealed to a wide range of customers and contributed to the meteoric rise of Scandinavian design in the United States and around the world. Presenting over 100 spectacular and rare works in silver, this exhibition celebrates the company's evolving vision for the modern home, which came to include inventive and accessible designs for flatware and serving dishes in stainless steel, wood, and melamine.
Victory Gardens Theater concludes its 43rd season with Mies Julie, written by Yael Farber, directed by Dexter Bullard, and adapted from August Strindberg's Miss Julie. Mies Julie runs May 25 - June 24, 2018, with the press performance on Friday, June 1, 2018 at 7:30pm at Victory Gardens Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue.
A Vessel for Carriage by Matty Davis and Ben Gould takes place on the deck of a Chicago River Cruise boat at dusk. This new project bridging performance, dance, and installation is specifically designed for an intimate audience, and is tuned to the boat, the moving water, and the distinctive bridges spanning the river artery that passes through the city. The artists have created the work as a response to evolving senses of the body-injury, trauma, healing, and growth. Both physically and sonically charged, the work radically explores control and response between the two performers, motored in part by the raw energy of Gould's Tourette Syndrome. Both audience and performers are awakened to real experiences of risk and trust in a setting that melds the built environment and the flow of the river over time.
From July 1 through September 30, 2018, the Art Institute of Chicago will present an exhibition of American portraitist John Singer Sargent with a focus on his numerous Chicago connections. Featuring nearly 100 objects from the Art Institute's collection, private collections, and public institutions, John Singer Sargent and Chicago's Gilded Age examines Sargent's impressive breadth of artistic practice and the network of associations among the artist, his patrons, his creative circle, and the city. Through the lens of Sargent's work, this exhibition explores the cultural ambitions of Chicagoans to shape the city into a center of art, the development of an international profile for American artists, and the interplay of traditionalism and modernism at the turn of the 20th century.
Book-It Repertory Theatre brings a fluid, minimalist production of The Picture of Dorian Gray to Seattle in June. Directed by Victor Pappas, the famously dark 1890 novel by Oscar Wilde was adapted for the stage by Judd Parkin. Pappas calls this production a horror story about the danger one's soul is in among the corrupting influences of society.
Performance Space New York continues its East Village Series' examination of the history, assessment of the present, and radical gaze into the future of the neighborhood in which it was founded and has boldly returned this season. Autonomous, anti-capitalist, gender self-determining collective BRUJAS-who build revolutionary political coalition through youth culture, and express community through skateboarding, art, and political organizing-will be in residence at Performance Space New York from May 25-June 9. With their project, Training Facility, they have enlisted industrial designer Jonathan Olivares to transform the organization's new theater into a skate park and intimate meet-up spot. On May 25, as part of Red Bull Music Festival, the collective will throw their third annual Anti-Prom in the space, kicking off their residency with the gender-queering party described by the New York Times as 'an effervescent celebration of people usually sidelined by traditional prom culture.' Or, as BRUJAS co-founder Arianna Gil herself has described it, 'the Met-Gala of the underground.'
Performance Space New York continues its East Village Series' examination of the history, assessment of the present, and radical gaze into the future of the neighborhood in which it was founded and has boldly returned this season. Autonomous, anti-capitalist, gender self-determining collective BRUJAS-who build revolutionary political coalition through youth culture, and express community through skateboarding, art, and political organizing-will be in residence at Performance Space New York from May 25-June 9.
Thirty of Chicago's statues will continue to chat with visitors and Chicagoans alike through 2020. Statue Stories Chicago, the free, city-wide arts initiative, was funded by The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation and produced by UK-based Sing London.
Who decides what art is and where it belongs, and what is the role of race, class, and pedigree? THIS IS MODERN ART, the acclaimed and controversial 2014 play by Idris Goodwin and Kevin Coval, based on the 2010 "bombing" of the Art Institute of Chicago by an underground graffiti crew, is making its New York debut. The production by Blessed Unrest is directed by Jessica Burr and performing as part of the inaugural season of Next Door at New York Theatre Workshop (79 East 4th Street between Bowery & 2nd Ave., New York, NY 10003.)
From May 4 through August 5, 2018 the Art Institute of Chicago will present an exhibition showcasing the works of Ivan Albright (1897-1983) and highlighting a subject that captivated the artist throughout his career - human flesh. Albright first announced this theme in his 1928 painting, Flesh, and urged himself to "make flesh more like flesh than ever has been made before; make flesh close, close, and closer, until you feel it." On the 100th year anniversary of Albright's premier at the Art Institute, the exhibition will feature more than 30 works from the museum's collections and present a focused retrospective of Albright's enduring masterpieces.
From April 27 to August 19, 2018, the Art Institute of Chicago presents an exhibition that explores the relationship between commercial studio photography and popular music in the former West African country of Upper Volta. Featuring the photography of Sanle Sory and the music of Volta Jazz, this immersive installation brings the complex culture of Upper Volta to life through more than 100 of Sory's photographs from the 1960s and '70s; objects from Volta Photo such as its signature backdrop, studio lights, and props; digitized music from the era; and 45-rpm record covers. Through this dynamic unification of image and sound, Volta Photo examines the postcolonial culture of an economically challenged but recently liberated country negotiating its identity on the world stage.
Betty Cuningham Gallery is pleased to open Philip Pearlstein: Today, which features recent paintings. The artist will be present for an opening reception on Thursday, May 10th, from 6-8 PM.
The Art Institute of Chicago announced today a $50 million unrestricted gift from Janet and Craig Duchossois and a $20 million gift from Robert and Diane v.S. Levy for acquisitions and operations. These historic gifts advance the museum's civic mission and enable bold planning for the future.
Louisville Public Media Presents An Evening with David Sedaris, author of the previous bestsellers Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and regular National Public Radio contributor will be appearing for one night only at The Kentucky Center on Tuesday, April 24, 2018 at 7:30 p.m. His new book, Theft By Finding Diaries (1977 - 2002), is a collection of diaries that is in stores now.
