Visual Art

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Saturday is Fluxus Day!

Posted by Sam Worley on Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 2:13 PM

Patrick_Hoesly.jpg
  • Patrick Hoesly
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.

Continue reading »

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Luftwerk has a date with the Bean

Posted by Deanna Isaacs on Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 5:24 PM

luftwerk.jpg
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: , , , , , , , ,

Gig poster of the week

Posted by Luca Cimarusti on Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 10:53 AM

chairlift.jpg
ARTIST: Craig Hansen
SHOW: Chairlift and Nite Jewel at Empty Bottle on 3/30
MORE ONLINE: artonomous.com

Tags: , , ,

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Puppets versus censorship

Posted by Ben Sachs on Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 11:09 AM

DWPW_Poster_Chicago_web.jpg
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.

Continue reading »

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Beer that you wear, if you're lucky

Posted by Kevin Warwick on Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 4:20 PM

Sweater.JPG
  • AJ Fosik
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.

Continue reading »

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Thursday, January 5, 2012

My year in music photos

Posted by Miles Raymer on Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 4:30 PM

Village
  • Village
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.

Continue reading »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In this week's Reader: Our fifth annual Photo Issue

Posted by Tal Rosenberg on Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 9:00 AM

A-Side_120105.jpg
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: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

It doesn't cost anything to look: Weekdays only, through February 10 at AIC

Posted by Deanna Isaacs on Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 4:03 PM

800px-Art_Institute_of_Chicago_Modern_Wing.jpg
  • 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.

Continue reading »

Tags: ,

Thursday, December 29, 2011

City arts staff gone missing—again

Posted by Deanna Isaacs on Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 5:15 PM

1325115831-summer_dance_test.par.10408.image.-1.-1.1.jpg
Yikes! An e-mail sent to the city's widely admired music programmer Michael Orlove this week came back with this auto-reply: "I no longer work for the Chicago Office of Tourism and Culture."

Orlove's innovations include the World Music Festival, Downtown Sound, and SummerDance; his departure would be a huge loss—if it should actually happen.

It might or might not, since what we have here is round two of the city's magic arts-and-culture-staffing show: now you see a whole team of arts workers, now you don't.

Continue reading »

Tags: , ,

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

"Clunkers"—or masterpieces?

Posted by Michael Miner on Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 3:00 PM

mutt.jpg
Steve Johnson's provocative discussion of what he calls the "clunkers" or "sore thumbs" taking up precious space in Chicago's great museums is necessary reading for anyone who thinks oneself aesthetically engaged.

Johnson's most provocative case in point: the Arthur Rubloff paperweight collection in the bottom floor of the Art Institute. He calls them "moderately pretty hunks of glass."

And "tchotchkes."

Continue reading »

Tags: , , , , , ,

Recent Comments

©2012 CL Chicago, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.