Visual Art
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Posted
by Sam Worley on
Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 2:13 PM
What’s happening this weekend, and it may not be anything at all, is happening at the
Chicago Cultural Center, which hosts a day of happenings inspired by
Fluxus, the 1960s anti-art movement famous for its bizarre, anarchic “happenings.” George Maciunas coined the term, which is related to the Latin word for “to flow,” in 1961. In a review in the
Reader in 1993,
Fred Camper noted that Fluxus artists “worked in a wider variety of media than any other ‘movement’ I know of,” and to the extent that people still follow the movement, that’s true—in 2010 the Experimental Sound Studio hosted a
Fluxus-inspired musical bike ride. In conjunction with its show
"Write Now: Artists and Letterforms," that bastion of avante-gardism the Cultural Center presents Fluxus Day on Fri 2/11 from 11 AM to 5 PM. Some highlights lie beyond the jump.
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Tags: Fluxus, Fluxus Day, Chicago Cultural Center, George Maciunas, Stampland, Fred Camper, Experimental Sound Studio, John M. Bennett, Write Now: Artists and Letterforms
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Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Posted
by Deanna Isaacs on
Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 5:24 PM
The last time I got to see Luftwerk's magic, it was the zippy video "score" they'd created for an equally zippy piece of contemporary music—"Shunt," by local composer
Mischa Zupko. But another opportunity's coming up: on February 10, the Chicago-based multimedia
team, consisting of SAIC graduates Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero, will switch on a site-specific light-and-sound installation at Cloud Gate in Millennium Park. "Luminous Field" will be on view from 6 PM to 9 PM, Sunday through Thursday; and 6 PM to 10 PM Friday and Saturday, through February 20. Check out what they did at Frank Lloyd Wright's
Fallingwater if you want to know why you should stroll by.
Tags: Luftwerk, Millennium Park, the Bean, Petra Bachmaier, Sean Gallero, Mischa Zupko, Luminous Field, Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater
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Posted
by Luca Cimarusti on
Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 10:53 AM
ARTIST: Craig Hansen
SHOW: Chairlift and Nite Jewel at Empty Bottle on 3/30
MORE ONLINE: artonomous.com
Tags: Gig poster, Chairlift, Empty Bottle, Craig Hansen
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Thursday, January 19, 2012
Posted
by Ben Sachs on
Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 11:09 AM
It’s the best of times and the worst of times for
Everything Is Terrible, the prolific Chicago collective that remakes abandoned cassette tapes into sometimes funny, sometimes unnerving video art (full disclosure: I’ve shared
office space with them for several years). On January 27 at
Lincoln Hall, the group will premiere its third feature-length project,
Doggie Woggiez! Poochie Woochiez!, before taking it on a three-month tour. They describe the movie as “an all dog VHS remake of [Alejandro Jodorowsky’s cult classic]
The Holy Mountain,” compiled from literally thousands of tapes. “It seems the dumber our ideas get, the harder they are to realize,” Nic Maier, a member of the group, explained to me in an e-mail.
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Tags: Everything Is Terrible, Doggie Woggiez! Poochie Woochiez!, Michael Pearl, No Greater Joy Ministries, The Holy Mountain, VHS, censorship, Google, YouTube, Vimeo
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Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Posted
by Kevin Warwick on
Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 4:20 PM
The annual winter onslaught of Facebook photos from friends' vacations to Los Angeles, New Orleans, or some decadent tropical destination never really irks me. You're sitting poolside in 72-degree weather—the temperature is always noted—drinking a Bloody Mary and reeking of suntan lotion? Good for you, I guess. I'll be hanging in Chicago, where the winters are appropriately cold and gray, and the summers are superior to any other city's in the country. I think I'll make it.
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Tags: beer sweater, vintage, AJ Fosik, Facebook, winter, Chicago, Hamm's, fashion
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Thursday, January 5, 2012
Posted
by Miles Raymer on
Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 4:30 PM
I spend a lot of time documenting my experiences with music in words for public consumption, but I also shoot a lot of photos, mostly for myself. I figured that on the occasion of the
Reader's
annual Photo Issue I'd share some of them. After the jump, 12 of my favorite moments that I caught on
film CMOS sensor in 2011.
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Tags: Tyler the Creator, Odd Future, Pitchfork Festival, Village, Danny Brown, Das Racist, Rick Allen, Def Leppard, Mickey, T.C. Starchild, Brent Zmrhl, Hatch Show Print, Tough Shits, Empty Bottle, Madonna, Sean Penn, Keith Haring, Sex Pistols
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Posted
by Tal Rosenberg on
Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 9:00 AM
This week we present our photo issue. For our fifth edition, we've selected money as the theme (not like it's a big topic of discussion these days or anything). Take a look at the winning photographs
in our slideshow.
Michael Miner, inspired by his recent participation in defining a journalism award, ruminates on journalists who tell other people's stories in evocative, nonparticipatory fashion. Along the way, he gets fecund quotes from excellent journalists Alex Kotlowitz and Kate Boo; he also quotes Janet Malcolm's The Journalist and the Murderer, a book I recently read and enjoyed in a class taught by Kotlowitz, of all people.
In a new Mudville, Kevin Warwick pricks the debate on whether bicycle seats cause erectile dysfunction.
Plus, Savage Love: This week, readers submit their tales of polyamorous relationships.
Tags: photo issue, money, Michael Miner, Alex Kotlowitz, Kate Boo, Janet Malcolm, The Journalist and the Murderer, Kevin Warwick, Mudville, erectile dysfunction, Savage Love, polyamorous relationships
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Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Posted
by Deanna Isaacs on
Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 4:03 PM

- Fetchcomms/Wikimedia Commons
Just as this so-far tolerable winter turns a tad unpleasant, along comes the Art Institute with a great reason to get indoors: its annual (mandatory) gift of
free admission for the local audience. Unfortunately, the AI's generosity doesn't extend to weekends, when most of us could make it.
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Tags: Art Institute of Chicago, Bertrand Goldberg
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Thursday, December 29, 2011
Wednesday, December 21, 2011