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ART

Cathy Edelman Launches Annual Photography Prize

Yael Martínez is the first winner of the Edelman Impact Award in Photography. Established by Cathy Edelman, who’s worked with photographers since the opening of her Chicago gallery in 1987, the Edelman Impact Award in Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, will each year recognize an outstanding emerging or mid-career photographer with a demonstrated commitment to social issues and exceptional visual storytelling. Each year’s winner will receive an unrestricted gift to support their work, and the award recipient and the museum’s curatorial team will collaborate to make a selection of the recipient’s work to enter the museum’s collection. Martínez will receive a cash prize of $50,000 in recognition of his achievements. More here.

Gray Center Presents “Worlding Otherwise” Symposium On Arab Art

“Worlding Otherwise: Speculative Histories and Counter-Futures in Arab Art” is a free two-day symposium that “will bring together contemporary artists from the Arab world and diaspora—in conversation with curators and scholars—to reflect on the importance of speculation ‘in the construction of alternative states of becoming.’” Examining “the possibilities and limits of futurity amidst ecological, territorial, existential and ideological states of crisis, these artists turn to sites of historical and present rupture to envision alternate, possible or impossible worlds.” At the Gray Center on May 8 and the Logan Center on May 9. More here.

Are We Seeing The Death Of The Art School?

“The rampant corporatization and ‘administrification’ of American higher-education institutions has turned students into mere consumers,” argues Hyperallergic. “Terms like participant, member, student, client, user, customer, citizen and constituent carry distinct social logics. A participant or member belongs to a shared institution. A buyer or subscriber belongs to a market. Students are not buyers or consumers. They are participants in the production of knowledge. More importantly, they are future members of a public that does not yet exist. In that sense, an art school, college or university is a factory. But what it produces is not a commodity. It is a capacity for thinking, for argument, for questioning without a predetermined answer.”

How Does Venice Go On After A Curator’s Sudden Death?

Koyo Kouoh died at the age of fifty-seven, “only a few months into her dream job as the curator of the central exhibition at the Venice Biennale, the art world’s most important event,” reports the New York Times (gift link). “Her show was set to open almost exactly a year later. To some art world observers, it seemed unlikely that the Biennale’s organizers would continue Kouoh’s work. Overseeing the Biennale’s main show requires months of crisscrossing the world to meet artists, commission works and charm donors. Yet on May 9, the exhibition will open under Kouoh’s name and with her chosen title, ‘In Minor Keys.’ In the Biennale’s main exhibition halls, a vast presentation of works by 110 artists and collectives is now coming together, with participants including Wangechi Mutu, the acclaimed Kenyan multimedia artist; Alvaro Barrington, the Venezuela-born painter; and the American installation artist Nick Cave.”

Crystal Bridges Installs Tiffany Windows

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art has installed two Tiffany Studios stained-glass windows, titled “Mountain Landscape (Root Memorial Window)” (c. 1917) and the “Arkansas State Window” (c. 1931). “The museum acquired ‘Mountain Landscape (Root Memorial Window)’ in 2025, a monumental stained-glass masterpiece created by Tiffany Studios and attributed to designer Agnes F. Northrop,” while “‘Arkansas State Window’ is part of the program of additional Tiffany windows created in 1931, when ‘Mountain Landscape’ was relocated from Omaha to the chapel of a tuberculosis hospital founded by Woodmen of the World in San Antonio.” Both are on view in Crystal Bridges’ Visions of America Galleries, ahead of the museum’s expansion, opening June 6-7. More here.

Wexner Museum’s Theater Could Be Demolished

“A plan to redesign a prominent pedestrian entrance to Ohio State University’s campus is moving forward,” reports Columbus Underground. “The OSU Board of Trustees approved $2.3 million to hire a firm to produce a preliminary design for what is being called the ’15th & High Arts Plaza.’” The present pathway “to the center of campus takes pedestrians slightly to the south of the proposed route; around a raised, landscaped plaza that is part of the Peter Eisenman-designed Wexner Center for the Arts building. Underneath the raised plaza sits the Wexner Center’s film theater, which could be altered or demolished as part of the planned redesign” of the Center that was completed in 1989.

DESIGN

The Alley Sets Fiftieth-Anniversary Block Party

The Alley, now located in a huge industrial warehouse in Avondale after its scrappy beginnings at Clark and Belmont, will celebrate its fifty-year anniversary as “Chicago’s iconic counterculture shop.” The event “will celebrate the legacy and future of The Alley with local food, local artists, live music and a fashion show.” Free. Sunday, June 14, 11am-8pm. More here and on Instagram.

What The BUILD Plan Could Mean For Illinois Housing

“Illinois is closer than it has ever been to passing a serious statewide housing reform package,” reports Chicago Cityscape. Governor Pritzker’s BUILD Plan, “short for ‘Building Up Illinois Development,’ was the centerpiece of his February State of the State address, and a package of proposals was simultaneously introduced. If any meaningful slice of it passes, it will reshape where and how new homes can be built across Chicago and the surrounding region. The real value, however, is in adopting the whole set.”

Halsted Pointe Construction Begins On Goose Island

“Construction has kicked off for the first tower of Halsted Pointe at 931 North Halsted on Goose Island,” relays Chicago YIMBY. “Sitting on the southeastern tip of the island, Halsted Pointe is replacing the demolished Greyhound bus facility just across the river from the upcoming Bally’s Casino.” Canadian developer Onni has been working on the proposal. “While the completed project will include five high-rises and a mid-rise, this initial phase will consist of a forty-six-story tower designed by local architecture firm HPA. The 500-foot skyscraper will be anchored by a five-story podium, which will meet the slope of Halsted as it descends from the nearby bridge. This will be done via split-level retail connecting it to the ground level below.”

“What Has Gone Wrong With Architecture?”

Architecture “sits between capital, politics, infrastructure, climate, design, engineering, art, psychology and economics. Its task is to hold these domains together, manage complexity, and, at its best, make spaces and places in which we can live better together,” argues academic Arthur Kay at Time. “Responding to wider trends in professional services, architecture embraced specialization. In doing so, it has lost influence by steadily narrowing its scope. The discipline has allowed, and at times encouraged, scope to be subsumed by adjacent professions: transport planners, urban designers, cost consultants, interior designers, fire safety consultants, project managers and a multitude of engineering disciplines. Today, the architect is one consultant among many.”

Six Single-Family Homes To Replace Noble Square Church

“A developer has applied for a permit to tear down the former Santa Maria Addolorata church,” which closed in 2021. “Neighbors have advocated for the building to be saved,” reports Block Club. The shuttered Catholic church in Noble Square, “built in 1960 with so much stained glass that worshippers appeared to be all but surrounded by it, is almost certain to be replaced by six single-family homes,” Crain’s reported last year. “They’re very likely to be priced at over $1.3 million each.…’It’s in a dense neighborhood where you’d expect more multifamily to go,’ said Rich Anselmo, who… is representing the property for the Archdiocese of Chicago.”

DINING & DRINKING

Chicago Gourmet Returns In September

Chicago Gourmet returns in September with the theme, “Let Your Tastebuds Dance,” which “celebrates the shared energy and passion of food and dance.” The event will include “a dynamic lineup of dance-inspired events, pairing fabulous cuisine and libations with rhythm and movement on the Harris Theater Rooftop at Millennium Park and iconic venues across the city.” More here.

Discourse Coffee Opens In Fulton Market

Taratsa Hospitality Partners of Chicago and Milwaukee-based hospitality firm The Afterglow Group will open Discourse Coffee in Fulton Market on Monday, May 4. “Known for their highly creative approach and commitment to quality, Discourse Coffee delivers inventive, off-the-wall espresso and tea creations like Channel Orange, Motorhead and the viral Ramen Latte along with premium café standards and pastries. Discourse will offer both counter service and café seating.” More here.

Omakase Blahs At The Times

Restaurant critic Ligaya Mishan expresses sushi fatigue at the New York Times (gift link): “In the past decade and a half, omakase, in which the guest cedes power and the chef decides what you eat, has become the dominant form of sushi in major American cities… At the highest-end spots, everyone sits down at the same time and is fed in the same order, as if at the most elegant of mess halls…  No such surprises await at most of today’s sushi-yas. Instead, you are assured that you will get what you pay for: pliant and unchallenging fish, occasional pyrotechnics and status-symbol frills on demand. Which is to say, what you think you want, or the world wants you to want. Nod to the chef; fiddle with your phone. Whatever comes will probably be delicious. It will also be boring.”

Small Change For The $1.50 Costco Hot Dog

Instead of a soda, you can now get bottled water to go with the $1.50 hot dog at Costco, posts ABC 7 News. The change “offers customers a healthier option for those who still relish that forty-year price point.”

FILM & TELEVISION

Weeklong Chicago Critics Film Festival Starts Friday With “The Invite”

Over in Film at Talking Screens, we talk to Chicago Critics Film Festival co-producer Brian Tallerico about the weeklong event on the Music Box’s big screen (as the smaller house is closed for the expansion with a third screen). “In the Algorithm Era, a time when so many systems are designed to provide what they think you want to see, people are more actively trying to break free from those patterns,” Tallerico tells us. “Curation still matters.” At the Sun-Times, Bill Stamets makes his picks from the raft of features as well as shorts. Learn more about the Chicago Critics Film Festival here.

LIT

Behind Pilsen Community Books’ Expansion

Pilsen Community Books was pushed out of its location of ten years by a landlord boosting rent by fifty percent. But they found a larger storefront, moving there earlier this year, reports In These Times. Pilsen Community Books “is the only cooperatively owned bookstore in Chicago. It also happens to be an explicitly anti-capitalist, radical leftist institution, with sections on such topics as Marxism and anti-colonialism. The store also functions as an organizing hub, classroom and neighborhood meeting spot.”

The five worker-owners began looking around the neighborhood. “Much larger, the new store will allow them to scale up community programming, expand their book selection and host bigger events with higher-profile speakers. The new event space, in the back, will double as a banner library, where people can take signs for protests. ‘It’s really just a glorified attached garage,’ [one] says, grinning, ‘But we’re going to make it very cool.’”

MUSIC

Is The Salt Shed Becoming Chicago’s Music Festival HQ?

“The Salt Shed’s fairground, which can hold about 4,000 people, has become a hub for the kind of summertime music programming that’s typically the bread and butter of big street festivals and the kind of midsize fests that gate off public parks,” writes Leor Galil at the Reader. “The Shed’s summer schedule is still filling out, but… in July the venue will host the return of the Silver Room Block Party, which at its peak drew 40,000 to the streets of Hyde Park,” while “Warm Love Cool Dreams, a minifest that made its debut at the Salt Shed in fall 2024, is kicking off this summer’s jammed concert calendar with a two-day blowout on Memorial Day weekend.” The piece notes that “Warm Love Cool Dreams has four local acts on a roster of fifteen—a much better ratio than Lollapalooza.”

Gia Margaret Rediscovers Her Voice

“After experiencing nerve damage in her vocal cords, Gia Margaret turned her musical creativity to composing and producing,” records the Sun-Times. With the album “Singing,” “she’s embracing her new, more mature voice… It’s a celebration of the Chicago singer’s nearly eight-year journey toward reclaiming her voice.” Said Margaret, thirty-eight, “I think singing for me is so much more than just the act of it. I think singing is the ultimate vulnerability.”

Drill Rapper Lil Zay Osama Charged In Winnetka Home Invasion

On March 8, six intruders including Lil Zay Osama “allegedly held a person captive for about an hour and demanded access to a safe, computer and online cryptocurrency accounts,” reports the Sun-Times. “The charges follow an investigation that involved the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Winnetka police.” Prosecutors say one of the men “posed as a food delivery driver, prompting someone inside the Winnetka home to open the front door. That’s when [they] allegedly forced their way inside, armed with loaded firearms.”

ARTS & CULTURE & ETC.

Brookfield Zoo Workers Authorize Strike

“More than 200 workers at Brookfield Zoo Chicago have authorized a strike, after rejecting the latest contract offer from management at the zoo,” reports CBS Chicago News. “Animal care specialists, groundskeepers, patrol officers, seasonals, aides and custodians represented by Teamsters Local 727 are seeking pay increases and minimum staffing guarantees from the Chicago Zoological Society.” The strike was authorized “after turning down the zoo’s ‘last, best, and final offer,’ which was presented on Monday.”

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