We’re accustomed to seeing distinguished architecture in a certain way. Generally, when we think of award winning buildings, we envision something gleaming, sleek and soaring. Something that makes a statement about power or prestige. Structures that exude success. Buildings that are often 20th and 21st century temples of commerce and accomplishment. A surprising and absorbing …
The personality of one-time-only art exhibits and the feel of a traveling exhibit can vary so wildly, it’s startling. Both can either showcase the creative expression of a single artist or take on a broader view and feature artists who share aesthetic sensibilities. Few celebrate the vision of a single curator; making Duro Olowu’s Seeing …
Early on during this rocky and perilous crisis, the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts in Hyde Park has been presenting culturally exciting online options for public access. A few weeks ago, they managed to outdo themselves. Like expert tailors dabbling in magic, they wove together a lavish suite of artistic components commemorating …
Struggle and the arts have long been too close for comfort. Peer all the way to the distant past, and stories of artists searching for the right mix of time and place to have their art valued and appreciated run like wildfire throughout history. One of those artists is having his show simmering on hold …
Dropping into an art museum and having your mind explode in wonder won’t be happening for several more weeks yet if predictions hold. Fortunately, we have an old girl of 150 to thank for taking the splendor and brilliance of a world class art institution and sliding it onto the digital highway. What New …
Freedom is one of non-representational art’s most captivating attributes. Free of geographical borders, free of national divides and often not dependent on the specifics of an individual’s origins, it doesn’t depict a place, a person or a thing. As expressions generated purely of the mind, it can represent an idea or a memory. It can …
Whether they paint, sculpt, dance, write, design or work in the musical sphere, artists are remembered either for their renown or for their impact. The Elmhurst Art Museum’s exhibition simply titled Sandra Jorgensen movingly commemorates both. An accomplished modernist artist who also led a distinguished academic career, Jorgensen’s name is frequently associated with a Chicago …
Artistic Legacy on Display at Elmhurst Art Museum Read More »
Looking back at someone’s lifetime achievements does much more than chronicle their mastery of craft. If done with the hope of exposing a glimpse of the person as a human being as well as an artist, a retrospective can disclose how talent, savvy and knowledge of self can propel a person into lasting fame. Andy …
Even with the staggering number of choices Chicagoans have to satisfy our cravings for music, theater, dance and the visual arts, the entertainment playing field can never get too crowded. Having only been open a year, the city may be just beginning to realize what an asset Wrightwood 659 has already become. The sedately serene …
Museums can sometimes act as portals to rich and complex worlds. The Museum of Contemporary Art’s Figures of Speech, a retrospective on the work of 38-year-old Virgil Abloh, manages to reveal as much about one of the cornerstones of our culture, fashion, as it does about the prolific creative output of a gifted artist. Because …