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ART

Theaster Gates Interviews Dance Legend Bill T. Jones

Thirty years after the debut of his seminal “Still/Here,” dancer-choreographer Bill T. Jones “reflects on the purpose of art in the face of planetary injustice” in a conversation between Jones and Theaster Gates at Bomb. “At the crux of Jones’ oeuvre is the notion that dance and movement are inherently social. Attentive and attuned to the world around him, Jones weaves together individual and collective histories, asking how we might navigate the shared experience of both being in our bodies and being together in a world that is often cruel and devastating.” Jones and Theaster Gates, “who he met roughly a decade ago while performing in Chicago, discuss their shared desire to create work that is wholly engaged with the world and what it means to live a life devoted to an aesthetic pursuit.”

Former Hedrich & Blessing Space Hosts “Don’t Make Photographs, Think Them” 

“‘Don’t make photographs, think them’ was the motto of Hedrich & Blessing Photographers, a firm renowned for its innovative architectural photography that sought to capture the spirit of buildings. Operating from 1929 to 2017, the studio documented many of the defining works of twentieth-century architecture while also supporting emerging Chicago photographers by hosting exhibitions in its headquarters as early as 1935. Today, the property at 400 N. Peoria is under the care of the Litowitz Family and continues to serve as a venue for the arts.”

The Chicago Cluster Project will present “Don’t Make Photographs, Think Them,” an exhibition featuring twenty-seven contemporary and SAIC-affiliated artists reinterpreting historical photography. The exhibition will run for a month, accompanied by extensive programming and documentation online. Opens Friday, March 28 at the former Hedrich & Blessing Studio at 400 North Peoria and runs through April 27.

Is Gender Equality Possible In The Art World?

“A new report from Artnet and the Association of Women in the Arts reveals women face barriers to career advancement. Experts from galleries, auction houses and museums share how to change that.”

Twenty-Seventh Evanston Biennial Call For Entrants

“The Evanston Art Center Biennial is one of the Midwest’s largest and most prestigious juried exhibitions, offering artists an opportunity to have their work viewed by three talented curators: Chanelle Lacy, director of art initiatives at Gertie, Joe Lanasa, director and founder of Fulton Street Collective, and Cortney Lederer, public art consultant and educator. The Biennial will be promoted and viewed by hundreds of visitors, including gallerists, curators and collectors,” EAC says in a release.

DESIGN

Studio Gang Releases Design Of Women’s Leadership Center In Wisconsin

Studio Gang and Lincoln Road Enterprises, a philanthropic organization dedicated to women’s leadership led by Ann Drake, have unveiled the design for the Women’s Leadership Center at Williams Bay. Overlooking Geneva Lake, the 24,000-square-foot center will provide professional women’s groups with a retreat space to encourage “innovation, collaboration and leadership development.” The Center broke ground in July 2024 and hopes to open in 2026.

Can Technology Catch Up To Disappearing Photo Archives?

Countless photographic archives “represent our collective visual history. Institutions such as the Library of Congress, which holds sixteen million images, play a crucial role in preserving photojournalism, yet the surge of at-risk archives far exceeds anyone’s capacity. Adam Silvia, a photography curator at the library, usually receives two or three inquiries each month from photographers or their estates hoping to place a lifetime of work, but only a fraction can be accepted. The library holds just twelve complete archives of individual photojournalists. And there are many more photos than places to house them, digitize them and make them publicly available,” reports the Washington Post (gift link). Says photographer Donna Ferrato, “It’s the curse of the living photographer. The older we get, the more we understand the value of every single photograph that connects us to a human being from our past.”

Feds To Shed Eight Edifices For Now, Including Rush Street’s Lipinski Building

“The federal government has narrowed its strategy for reducing its real estate footprint, naming eight federal properties it wants to sell in the near future including one in Chicago that’s been on the market since 2023,” reports Crain’s (paywall), the William O. Lipinski Federal Building at 844 North Rush. The fifteen-story, 353,105-square-foot building is home to the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board.

Window Glass With Panes Thinner Than A Credit Card That Resists Two-By-Fours Shot From A Cannon?

A breakthrough for home and building design? “Over fifteen years of research at the Lawrence Berkeley federal lab has led to a point where private enterprise could take over and make an amazing new window glass at scale,” reports the Wall Street Journal. These new windows “could save American households billions of dollars in wasted energy each year, while allowing expansive views of the outdoors and making our homes quieter, more comfortable and able to survive even the most violent weather. The key enabling technology is thin panes of glass—sandwiched between thicker standard glass—which exist because of the same manufacturing and chemistry breakthroughs that made possible the light, strong, scratch-resistant screens on our smartphones, tablets and watches.”

Illinois’ First Ordinance Requiring Renewable Energy In Larger Buildings Passed In Evanston

The Evanston City Council last week has adopted an ordinance, the first in Illinois, “aimed at significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions created by large buildings, including residential,” reports the Evanston Review (paywall). The Healthy Buildings Ordinance “calls for buildings over 20,000 square feet—and municipal buildings over 10,000 square feet—to be powered by renewable electricity and create zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The ordinance will apply to nearly 500 apartment and commercial buildings in Evanston. Condominium buildings under 50,000 square feet and co-op buildings would be excluded.”

DINING & DRINKING

Manhattan Meets Alinea

In New York, “Grant Achatz’s maximalist pop-up,” a monthlong residency at Olmsted, “includes Japanese lit, hot-dog shots, and multiple restaurants,” reports Grub Street. Among the attractions: The final course, “melding future and past, is a ‘Chicago dog’: two discs of translucent hot-dog water—made of charred hot-dog stock run through a rotary evaporator—topped with a tiny brunoise of tomato, compressed onion, a slice of sport pepper, and a neon-green relish fluid gel. Each sits atop a monocle, which itself rests upon a postcard of Chicago.” At People magazine, Achatz talks in detail about his experience with tongue cancer: “Nobody likes to get told they have cancer, and to have tongue cancer as a chef, the irony there was pretty heavy.”

Close Friend Reopens Uptown’s BadaBing Wings

Popular Uptown wing spot BadaBing Wings “closed last year after founder Jose Lopez died. His friend Ani Saha has reopened it to carry on Lopez’s legacy,” dips Block Club.

Five Years On, Not All Chicago Restaurants Have Pivoted

Restaurant owners “have changed their businesses in big ways,” reports the Sun-Times. “And for most, costs for supplies and labor are up, hours have changed and customers pay more and order less… Restaurants in 2020 were hit by a perfect storm of challenges, including snarled supply chains, inflation that reached a near forty-year high, labor shortages and more costly safety regulations—not to mention a deadly virus. Five years later, many have since shuttered or never recovered.”

Andersonville Farmers Market Relocates To New Public Plaza

For its sixteenth season, the Andersonville Farmers Market will relocate from Catalpa to the 1500 block of Winona and an adjacent parking lot, in anticipation of Catalpa’s conversion into a pedestrian-only public plaza. Featuring more than thirty vendors, everything sold at the market is grown or produced within a 200-mile radius. Wednesdays, May 14-October 22, 3-7pm. More here.

Bar Louie Leaves Dearborn Station

Another South Loop restaurant is gone, reports Block Club. One of three Chicago Bar Louie locations, in Dearborn Station, closed over the weekend. “The national chain [also] closed two locations in the Detroit area over the weekend due to poor sales.”

John Avila Opens Chicago’s Only Indonesian Restaurant, Again

Opening April 5, Northwest Side native John Avila “is bringing his heritage to the forefront with Rendang Republic, serving halal plates, sandwiches and hot dogs in Wrigleyville,” reports Block Club.

FILM & TELEVISION

Doc10 Announces Tenth Anniversary Attractions

Highlights from recent film festival debuts comprise the tenth airing of Doc10, including Chicago premieres of Sundance highlights “Move Ya Body: The Birth Of House Music” on opening night, April 30; the Sundance Audience Award Winner “Prime Minister,” a stark, bold biodoc of former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern, who will attend; the chilling bodycam-footage-driven “The Perfect Neighbor” that pits families against a disturbed neighbor; and the combat-cam-driven “2000 Meters To Andriivka,” from Oscar-winning filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov (“20 Days in Mariupol”), capturing the grit and futility of modern trench warfare in Ukraine. Also: the punchy, sardonic “Predators,” which dissects then eviscerates the decades of the entrapment series, “To Catch A Predator.”

Doc10 will present three honors as well, the Luminary Award, celebrating members of the documentary community who have had a profound impact, to Tabitha Jackson, the first woman and person of color to be director of the Sundance Film Festival, and head of the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program 2013-2020. Oscar-nominated producer Kellen Quinn will receive the Vanguard Award, which honors documentary producers and filmmakers cultivating innovative and important documentary filmmaking. A new honor, the Angel Award, goes to Geralyn Dreyfous, the prolific American producer with over 180 film credits. Showings will include filmmaker Q&As and will be at the Davis and the Film Center. Tickets and more here.

LIT

Literary Arts Lab Presents Multi-Genre Readings

The Literary Arts Lab is an annual literary festival hosted by the University of Chicago’s Program in Creative Writing. This year’s festival will bring three authors to campus: poet Jericho Brown, journalist Kerry Howley and novelist Sigrid Nunez. The 2025 festival “addresses the theme of internal ecologies in the practice of writing. Our visiting writers will discuss approaches to writing, how to find inspiration and how reading affects writing.” Free. More here.

St. Paul’s Hamline University Abruptly Closes Creative Writing MFA

On February 28, students in Hamline University’s creative writing MFA program received an “urgent message” from the creative writing program’s leadership, reports Minnesota Public Radio. “It was announced to us that Hamline University interim president Kathleen Murray and interim provost Andy Rundquist will be making the recommendation to the Hamline University board of trustees to sunset the MFA program effective immediately… We are gutted.” The cuts also include the entire budget of the Water~Stone Review, “the program’s decades-old literary journal.” The program is worth saving, says program director Richard Pelster-Wiebe “because of its unique approach and the tight-knit community it has fostered. Not only is it the oldest creative writing MFA in Minnesota and flexible for students that work full-time, but it’s also a multi-genre creative writing MFA.”

STAGE

Jeffs Announce Fifty-First Non-Equity Awards

The Joseph Jefferson Awards has announced recipients for its fifty-first anniversary of Non-Equity awards. Thirty-three awardees were honored from among 138 nominees across twenty-five artistic and technical categories. Kokandy Productions received five awards for its musical production of “Into the Woods” including honors for production, ensemble, direction and musical director for a musical/revue, as well as artistic specialization for orchestrations. Open Space Arts took home four awards for its short run productions including “Cock,” which received awards for short run production and short run supporting performer, and “Light Switch” which took honors for short run director and short run principal performer.

For production—play, City Lit Theater Company was recognized for August Wilson’s “Seven Guitars” which also received an award for performer in a supporting role. City Lit Theater Company took the costume design award for “Murder in the Cathedral.” The company’s three awards tied with honors for Refracted Theatre Company which received recognition for “Coronation” for performer in a supporting role, lighting and projection design. Complete list of nominees and awards here.

American Blues Names Blue Ink Winner

American Blues Theater has announced the recipient of the 2025 Blue Ink Award is Alyssa Haddad-Chin for her play “You Should Be So Lucky.” Haddad-Chin receives a $3,000 cash prize and a staged reading at American Blues Theater. More here.

Redtwist Theatre Casts Taylor Mac’s “Gary: A Sequel To Titus Andronicus,” Directed By Steve Scott

Redtwist Theatre has announced the cast and creative team for Taylor Mac’s “Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus,” directed By Steve Scott, which will run April 24-June 1. The cast includes William Delforge, Hannah Rhode, Cameron Austin Brown, Madison Bacino and Hannah McCauley. Details and tickets ($35) here.

ARTS & CULTURE & ETC.

Robots Draw Blood At Northwestern

“Northwestern is among several health systems that have agreed to be part of a clinical trial of a device that automates blood collection. Northwestern and the company behind the device say it has the potential to make blood draws more efficient, while helping health systems deal with a shortage of phlebotomists, which are people trained to collect blood samples,” reports the Tribune (gift link).

Choose Chicago Close To Naming CEO

Discover Long Island president-CEO Kristen Reynolds could be named to head Choose Chicago after a decade drawing visitors to the East Coast, scoops Crain’s (paywall).

Illinois Returns 1,500 Acres To Prairie Band Tribe

Governor Pritzker “signed a law to restore Shabbona State Park, about 1,500 acres in DeKalb County, to the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation,” reports the Sun-Times. The action came “nearly a year after the group became the first federally recognized tribal nation in Illinois. Previously, Illinois had been one of fifteen states without a federally recognized tribal nation.”

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