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ART

“More Things, Japanese” Opens Tonight

The Heritage Museum of Asian Art (3500 South Morgan) presents “More Things, Japanese,” with a preview party tonight and an opening tomorrow. The exhibition explores “the unseen stories of how Japanese art and culture have touched and influenced the lives of Chicagoans—across racial, cultural and generational divides. Through historical artifacts, living traditions, and contemporary artistic responses, ‘More Things, Japanese’ illuminates the deep and sometimes surprising ways Japanese aesthetics, philosophy, and craftsmanship have shaped Chicago’s cultural landscape.” More here.

Trump Cuts Hit American Museums Hard

“One-third of American museums have lost government grants and contracts since President Trump took office, according to a survey of 511 museum directors conducted by the American Alliance of Museums,” reports ARTnews. “Even with its relatively small sample size… the report demonstrates the impact of grant cancellations from such federal agencies as the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts.” The twenty-five-page survey (pdf) is here.

Should Museums Ban Selfies?

“The Uffizi in Florence is restricting selfies, and New York’s Frick Collection bans all photography—but other museums encourage them,” writes The Art Newspaper. Says a Frick spokesperson, “We tried allowing photography, but had to revert back to our existing policy… because visitors often came very close to backing into the art when taking pictures.” According to Ross Parry, a professor of museum technology at the University of Leicester, for some institutions, “a ban on selfie-taking could be an operational choice, tied to staffing levels, available space, or the types of objects on display.”

DESIGN

Lucas Museum’s Latest Opening Date: Fall 2026

Once planned for Chicago’s Lakefront, “the long-awaited Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles has set its opening date for September 22, 2026,” reports ARTnews. The edifice “has been in the works for over a decade. Its founders, filmmaker George Lucas and Ariel Investments co-CEO and president Mellody Hobson, first began exploring a location for the museum in 2013, with San Francisco and later Chicago as possible sites… The construction of the building, designed by Ma Yansong of MAD, has been delayed several times” since 2021.

National Public Housing Museum Hosts “Breakthrough: Housing Futures”

The National Public Housing Museum will present “Breakthrough: Housing Futures” from November 19 through April 19, 2026. “The exhibition looks back at the historical Department of Housing and Urban Development program ‘Operation Breakthrough’ and presents experimental housing prototypes from the Housing Futures Initiative. It is organized by Alexander Eisenschmidt, a designer, writer, and professor of architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago.” Find details on the opening reception and more here.

Who’s Behind The Special-Edition Chicago Review Of Architecture

“Chicago’s built environment will be the focus of a forthcoming magazine called the Chicago Review of Architecture, slated to come out sometime next year with Kate Wagner and fellow local architecture critics Anjulie Rao and Zach Mortice serving as editorial advisers,” reports Nina Metz at the Trib. “An offshoot of the New York Review of Architecture, the Chicago magazine plans to have just a single issue for now that will feature ‘erudite, humorous and hyperlocal writing on the built (and unbuilt) environment’… The inclusion of ‘humorous’ as a descriptor jumps out, because when you think of architecture criticism, that typically isn’t a word that comes to mind.”

“Chicago Loves Local” Gets The City Shopping In The Neighborhoods

A “new initiative aims to get more Chicagoans to shop local and support shops from the North Side to the far South East Side near Indiana,” reports WBEZ. “Chicago Loves Local” hopes to counteract the negative impact that both tariffs and the ongoing immigration raids have had on local businesses. It was “organized by the Andersonville Chamber of Commerce, the Rogers Park Business Alliance, the Illinois Coalition on Immigrant and Refugee Rights and the Chicago Is With You Task Force.”

Humboldt Park’s Pioneer Arcade Wins Funding For Redevelopment

City Council “has approved TIF funds for the residential redevelopment of the former Pioneer Arcade building at 1539 North Pulaski,” charts Chicago YIMBY. “Just south of the intersection with West North Avenue, the historic two-story structure will anchor a larger building being developed by the Hispanic Housing Development Corporation. Working with local architecture firm UrbanWorks, the plans call for preserving the historic Spanish Baroque façade as well as select elements from the original lobby. Built in 1925, the building served the community as a recreation hall for eighty years. The developer purchased the property in the mid-2000s and has been working toward redevelopment since.”

Chicago-Area Luxury Home Sales Break Record

“When a $4.4 million house on Fremont Street and a $4.1 million condo on North Michigan sold November 3, they tipped the Chicago area’s upper-end housing market over the line into record territory, surpassing the biggest-selling year on record, 2022,” accounts Crain’s. “It’s been a big year in the $4 million-and-up category, a price range that encompasses the uppermost two-tenths of one percent of all home sales in the nine-county Chicago metro area. The bottom rung of the category is $4 million, but so far this year it runs up to $31.25 million, the price buyers paid for a Winnetka estate in September.”

Why Can’t New York Fix Penn Station?

“The nation’s busiest transit hub stands as a symbol of a condition that afflicts so many attempts to get big things done in America: inertia,” records the New York Times (gift link). “In 1999, President Bill Clinton stood across the street from New York’s Pennsylvania Station with the state’s governor and its senior senator to announce plans for transforming the area into a modern gateway for the nation’s biggest city… More than twenty-five years, five presidencies and four governors later, the plan to rebuild Penn Station is nowhere near completion… Countless ideas for making Penn Station grander and more commuter-friendly have been floated and shelved over the decades.”

DINING & DRINKING

Michelin Bumps Alinea Down To Two Stars

As Alinea celebrates its twentieth-anniversary year, Michelin has stripped a star from its rating. “Michelin did not say specifically why Alinea lost a star but simply cited its standard methodology and star criteria, which includes ‘quality of the ingredients used, mastery of flavor and cooking techniques, the personality of the chef in the cuisine, harmony of flavors and consistency between visits,” reports Crain’s. Removing the star from the seventy-seat Lincoln Park boîte “leaves Smyth, the West Loop restaurant from chefs John Shields and Karen Urie Shields, as Chicago’s sole three-star spot.” Adds the Sun-Times, “Grant Achatz posted on social media that he was disappointed by the demotion by Michelin reviewers.”

At The Hunger, Michael Nagrant—who worked a long time ago on the Alinea cookbook—disagrees, too: “While there’s gonna be a lot of media-driven schadenfreude about this demotion, there are still only thirty-six two-star restaurants in America. This means that Alinea is theoretically still in very rarified air and according to Michelin is performing at an incredibly high level. But we also know that the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times both trashed Alinea in the last year giving them two stars, which sounds nice, but considering the Tribune gave at least three stars (really, check it out) or more to almost every single restaurant it reviewed this year, they’re saying Alinea’s one of the worst restaurants they reviewed.

“Two stars at the notoriously picky NYT for a spot like Alinea is also basically like saying, hey bro, you should close your doors. What this exposes to me is someone’s rating system is lying, but who? … Are the Times and the Tribune wrong, or are they right and Michelin is trying to save face for an old friend and just putting in a generous placeholder before they demote it to one star, where it is likely to join rumored 2025 Michelin newcomer Feld?”

How Immigrants Brewed Chicago’s Bar Scene

“The city’s drinking culture was forged in nineteenth-century saloons and taverns,” writes the Reader. “Chicago became a hub for beer brewing… By 1900, the city had around sixty breweries, thanks to an influx of German and Irish immigrants who brought with them lighter, more carbonated lagers. From the popular (but often-avoided) Malört to the vibrant social atmosphere of bustling pubs and taverns, immigrants integrated deep into the fabric of the city.”

What The Shutdown Did To Pullman Restaurants

“Pullman restaurants’ sales have slumped during the government shutdown, as traffic to the neighborhood’s National Historical Park slowed to a trickle,” surveys Crain’s. “Barbecue restaurant Lexington Betty Smokehouse has seen lunchtime sales drop about twenty-percent since the federal government shutdown began, said owner Dominique Leach. ‘We thrive on lunch,’ she said, noting that the restaurant does about sixty-percent of its sales then. ‘We have to find other ways to pivot, because that’s what we relied on to cover us for slow dinners.’”

FILM & TELEVISION

Deadline Ahead For Thirty-Sixth Onion City Experimental Film Fest

Submit your experimental films in the next week to meet the regular deadline for Onion City Film Festival, a production of Chicago Filmmakers. Onion City “showcases contemporary experimental works, focused on artistic excellence with an eye towards representing differing styles, forms and nationalities.” More here.

Disney+ Will Allow User-Generated Content Via AI

“Don’t want to wait until 2027 for ‘Frozen 3’? Soon, you may be able to make your own.” During its fourth-quarter and annual earnings call, “Disney CEO Bob Iger hinted at ‘productive conversations’ with unnamed AI companies that would protect IP but add new features to the studio’s flagship streaming service,” writes The Hollywood Reporter. Says Iger, “[One] thing that we’re really excited about, that AI is going to give us the ability to do, is to provide users of Disney+ with a much more engaged experience, including the ability for them to create user-generated content and to consume user generated content—mostly short-form—from others.”

LIT

Poets For Chicago Join For Immigrant And Refugee Rights

Poets for Chicago will present a December 11 benefit reading supporting the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant & Refugee Rights at Co-Prosperity. The reading will feature a lineup of Chicago literary figures, including Illinois Poet Laureate Mark Turcotte, Erika L. Sánchez, Tara Betts, Stefania Gomez and Daniel Borzutzky, among others. “Poets for Chicago will bring attention to ongoing threats while raising funds to support ICIRR’s critical work protecting and advocating for immigrants and refugees,” the group writes.

Poets for Chicago is presented by local literary curators and organizations, including Jeffrey Wolf (An Inconvenient Hour), Simone Muench and Kenyatta Rogers (Sunday Reading Series), S. Yarberry (PO Box Collective), Ben Niespodziany (Neon Night Open Mic), and the artist collective Exhibit B. All sales including admission ($20 donation) will go directly to ICIRR to fund legal aid, rapid-response efforts, family support and community advocacy. Co-Prosperity, 3219 South Morgan. Thursday, December 11 at 7pm.

Sarah Jessica Parker’s Booker Year

Sarah Jessica Parker describes her year reading 153 books as a judge for the Booker Prize to the New York Times (gift link). “Winning the Booker Prize is a life-changing experience for an author. Sales blow up. Demands for interviews pour in. But Parker, who oversees a literary imprint at Zando, said that being a judge was just as life-changing. The process altered her reading habits, she said, made her question how she judged fiction and gave her the confidence to argue for novels she loved. Now that it’s over, she’ll be able to once again take part in movie nights, theater trips and family dinners with her husband, Matthew Broderick, and their children.”

MEDIA

Indiana University Will Allow Students To Print News Through School Year

“Indiana University has backtracked on its decision to cut future Indiana Daily Student print editions for the rest of the school year. The university has also abandoned its initial illegal directive prohibiting the IDS from printing news,” reports the Indiana Daily Student.

STAGE

Steppenwolf Presents “A Merry Little Christmas With Megan Hilty”

Steppenwolf Theatre and Mark Cortale will present “A Merry Little Christmas with Megan Hilty.” “Join the two-time Tony Award nominee and her longtime friend and music director Matt Cusson as they weave together classic and contemporary holiday tunes along with Broadway favorites–all sure to get you in the spirit of the season!” Three performances only, December 12-13 at Steppenwolf’s Downstairs Theater. Tickets ($99-$159) here.

ARTS & CULTURE & ETC.

Nora Daley, Chicago’s “Unofficial Cultural Czar” Who Shuns Social Media

“The Divvy-riding, totebag-hauling Nora Daley comes from a political dynasty, but the city’s unofficial cultural czar is doing things her own way,” profiles the Sun-Times. “Daley prefers to keep things analog. That includes steering clear of social media, which, at fifty-two, she has managed to resist entirely.” Recently, Daley “turned her attention to the Chicago Architecture Biennial, where she signed on as co-board chair last February alongside the Graham Foundation’s Sarah Herda. Daley joined the board because she believes the Biennial, which invites architects and artists from around the globe to explore how design shapes public life, can—and should—evolve.” Read Vasia Rigou’s interview with Daley and other Biennial leadership for Newcity here.

Jamey Lundblad Moves From Lookingglass To Americans For The Arts

Americans for the Arts has hired Jamey Lundblad as chief marketing officer, the group announces, where he’ll reunite with former DCASE Commissioner Erin Harkey, currently the CEO of Americans for the Arts. This follows a period leading Lookingglass Theatre Company through its revival. “Lundblad will lead the organization’s marketing and communications strategy to strengthen AFTA’s brand, drive growth and champion the arts as essential to communities nationwide. Lundblad [was recently] managing director of [the] Lookingglass Theatre Company… and spent eleven years as deputy commissioner for marketing and development at DCASE.”

What’s A World Without Pennies? Retailers Reply

What will companies do if they’re short on change?, surveys CBS News MoneyWatch. In some locations, McDonald’s customers “paying with cash may no longer receive exact change because pennies are increasingly unavailable. Instead, the chain will round totals to the nearest five cents for cash transactions.” Wendy’s says it’s told its “restaurants to round cash transactions down to the nearest nickel if they are experiencing penny shortages. The company emphasized that digital orders and card payments are not affected… Kroger [says] ‘we kindly ask customers to consider providing exact change’ if using cash. The supermarket chain will continue to accept pennies as legal tender.”

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