The cast of “The Brass Teapot” performs at the 2024 Chicago Musical Theatre Festival/Photo: Derek Van Barham
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ART
Former Art Basel Director Marc Spiegler Offers Online Course On Understanding Market
“Marc Spiegler, the former director of Art Basel, the world’s most important fair for modern and contemporary art,” reports ARTnews, is about to launch a $935 live online course, “Understanding Today’s Art World.” Spiegler ran Art Basel from 2007 to 2022 “and now works on a portfolio of cultural-strategy projects including Superblue and the Luma Foundation.” A Chicago native, Marc Spiegler began his career as a staff editor at Newcity.
Starting February 4, the course “is aimed at people ‘who are in other industries and love art and are thinking about trying to understand how the art world works and where they might fit within it,’ says Spiegler. ‘Professionally, it’s people who have been recruited from other industries like luxury, finance, management consulting to work for galleries and auction houses and need to get up to speed very quickly. They could be working anywhere from the cultural department of a government to the wealth management division of a bank.’”
OH Art Foundation Sets First Black History Month Festival Of The Arts
The OH Art Foundation has announced its first Annual Black History Month Festival of the Arts on January 17 at the Zhou B Art Center in Bridgeport. “The exhibit will showcase pieces that reframe traditional representations, inviting viewers to engage with themes of resilience, introspection, liberation and the ever-shifting contours of identity. Artists are encouraged to challenge stereotypes and preconceived notions of Blackness, emphasizing the beauty and power that resides in embracing vulnerability.” Among featured artists are Takako Konshi, Jeffery Beckham and Summer Coleman with a music performance by Marvin Hathaway, The Ari Brown Quartet and Emoni Brown-Bey. More Zhou B here.
Printer’s Row Art Fest Applications Open
Applications are open for the seventh Printer’s Row Art Fest, August 9-10, which will feature original work of a hundred artists outside Chicago’s historic Dearborn Station. Art of all media is accepted. Hosted by the South Loop Neighbors and Greater South Loop. The regular deadline is January 20. More here.
DESIGN
Congestion Fee For Chicago?
After the long-delayed launch of congestion pricing for traffic into Manhattan, the nation’s first, Mayor Johnson floats the notion for Chicago, reports Block Club. He said “he believes it’s something the city ‘should explore’—especially to collect fees on drivers who don’t live in the city. ‘I think being able to have… conversations about how we respond to congestion, and of course, how we generate revenue, particularly from individuals that take full advantage of our city resources, but don’t necessarily live here.’” Paul Krugman blogs about the economic implications of congestion pricing here.
Bertrand Goldberg Health Facility Could Be Demolished
Elgin Mental Health Center, “a circular healthcare facility designed by American architect Bertrand Goldberg, is at risk of demolition after being closed for more than twenty years, but is ‘worth preserving’ according to Goldberg’s son,” reports Dezeen. “The building consists of a four-story circular tower resting upon a square base. Archways surround the building at ground level, while the body of the building is clad in glass and external louvers. ‘It’s very unusual in several ways,’ architect Geoffrey Goldberg, son of Bertrand, says. ‘Overall, it’s well worth preserving for the legacy. Whether that convinces anyone from a preservation or utility viewpoint is another matter.’”
Could CTA Increase Its Renewable Power Usage Above Eleven Percent?
“Running the trains takes a lot of power—with the CTA’s electric bill totaling $36.2 million last year,” reports WBBM-TV. “More of the electricity that powers the trains is generated by fossil fuels that warm the climate than by renewable sources like wind or solar power… The CTA’s power comes from nuclear power plants—a total of sixty-seven percent. Another twenty-two percent comes from fossil fuels, while only eleven percent comes from renewable sources.” O’Hare and Midway “and two of the largest water treatment plants in the world, are sourced by one-hundred-percent solar power… But the CTA is independent from Chicago city government.”
Netherlands Transforms Panopticon Prisons Into Arts Hubs
A key architectural feature of Haarlem, “a small Dutch city, is a 125-foot-high dome, crowning a rotunda. You might assume it was built for religious purpose—until you notice the bars covering its 230 windows,” reports the Guardian. “Operating as a prison from 1899 until 2016, the Koepelgevangenis (‘dome prison’) is one of three panoptic penitentiaries built in the Netherlands. All were shut down in the past decade as part of the country’s drive to reduce its prison population and are being repurposed as arts venues. Haarlem’s Koepel opened as a cultural hub in 2022, thanks to a grassroots initiative led by the local population.”
Getty Images And Shutterstock Will Form $3.7 Billion Stock Photo Source
Getty Images “has agreed to merge with its rival Shutterstock in a cash-and-stock deal,” snaps TechCrunch. “The combined entity is expected to be valued at $3.7 billion… Both companies offer stock photos and video footage that can be licensed and reused. This content is commonly used by news organizations, film and documentary makers, ad agencies and marketing firms.”
DINING & DRINKING
Make Shaw’s Chopped Seafood Salad At Home
“More than twenty years ago, Sara Rowe, the late partner at Shaw’s Crab House, set her chef team a lofty challenge: Create the best seafood salad in the business,” writes Chicago magazine, sharing the recipe. “The result—a luxurious jumble of sweet shellfish, crisp greens and not one but two dressings—has been a beloved menu fixture ever since.”
Bad Coffee Opening In Ravenswood
“At Bad Coffee, we are unapologetically bold, with a hint of irony and a deep love for Chicago’s grit and creativity,” Ravenswood’s latest café says. “We’re the cool, approachable friend who isn’t afraid to tell it like it is, but always with a smile.” Their grand opening is Saturday, January 18, 7am-3pm with a fifteen-percent discount and live music 11am-1pm, through the alley at 1801 West Berteau. Instagram here.
Oakland Is America’s Hottest Food City, But Restaurateurs Say It’s Unsustainable
“If you only heard about Oakland’s restaurant scene from the national media, you might assume it was some kind of food paradise,” reports the San Francisco Chronicle (gift link). “A recent Condé Nast readers’ choice survey voted Oakland the best food city in the United States. Last week, the New York Times asked whether Oakland will be the new ‘it’ food city of 2025. Is this the same city where restaurants are closing at an alarming rate? Where one of the city’s largest employers told its staff to stay in the office for lunch to avoid the risk of crime? Where the only In-N-Out ever to close shuttered due to public safety concerns?”
FILM & TELEVISION
Former MoviePass CEO Pleads Guilty To Fraud Over Sustainability Claims
“Ted Farnsworth, the architect of MoviePass‘ doomed $9.95-a-month subscription plan, pleaded guilty Tuesday to defrauding investors in the company,” reports Variety. “MoviePass rapidly expanded in 2017, after it rolled out its all-you-can-watch theatrical subscription service. The company quickly grew to three million subscribers, but lost hundreds of millions of dollars before declaring bankruptcy in 2020.”
LIT
Final Novel By Zora Neale Hurston, Saved From Flames, Now Published
“Outside of a handful of scholars, the world had not seen Zora Neale Hurston’s final novel, ‘The Life of Herod The Great,’” reports NPR. “Following Hurston’s death, the unfinished manuscript sat in a trunk that was nearly consumed in a fire along with many of her other belongings… A neighbor and friend of the writer intervened with a hose, saving hundreds of pages that ended up in the hands of Deborah G. Plant, a scholar specializing in the life and works of Hurston. Plant edited the work that is out this week, the mark of Hurston’s 134th birthday.”
MEDIA
What’s To Become Of The American Ideal Of The Free Press?
“There were many great journalists at Gawker Media, just like there are many great journalists at the LA Times and the Washington Post,” writes Gawker alum Hamilton Nolan. “But all of those journalists are like sailors on a ship. The strongman system that we are heading into does not have to pick off each individual journalist; it only has to sink the ships. It does not have to go after each crusading journalist. It only has to break the credibility of the journalistic institutions. Once you get the owners of the publications to equivocate, to give up on that economically irrational commitment to pure editorial freedom, you can poison the public’s faith that what they are reading will be, at least most of the time, an honest effort at the truth. Once the readers lose that faith, the journalism loses its power. The politicians’ job is done. They have neutralized the referees.”
Heritage Foundation Will “Identify And Target” Wikipedia Editors
“The Heritage Foundation plans to ‘identify and target’ volunteer editors on Wikipedia who it says are ‘abusing their position’ by publishing content the group believes to be antisemitic,” reports Arno Rosenfeld at The Forward. “Employees of Heritage, the conservative think tank that produced the Project 2025 policy blueprint for the second Trump administration, said they plan to use facial recognition software and a database of hacked usernames and passwords in order to identify contributors to the online encyclopedia, who mostly work under pseudonyms.”
MUSIC
Preserving The Aadam Jacobs Local Show Recordings
“Chicago music fanatic Aadam Jacobs began recording local shows in the early eighties and kept at it obsessively for more than thirty years. He’s never sought to monetize this work,” writes Leor Galil at the Reader. “Jacobs taped concerts for his own satisfaction… In most cases no one else heard them. His archive exceeds 10,000 shows, and in recent years it’s taken on a mythic status… So far Jacobs has given the Internet Archive about one hundred DAT recordings and at least a decade’s worth of CD-R copies of old show tapes… At the current uploading rate, it’ll take more than five years to get everything online.” The downloadable archive, with almost 200 recordings uploaded so far, is here.
Makaya McCraven Artist-In-Residence At NYC Winter Jazz Fest
Makaya McCraven is artist-in-residence for the 2025 NYC Winter Jazz Festival, January 9-14, relays label International Anthem. McCraven will do five shows at five venues in five unique combinations, including multiple performances commemorating the ten-year anniversary of his debut album “In The Moment.” More here.
STAGE
Pivot Arts Names Executive Artistic Director
Pivot Arts has appointed Jorge Silva as executive artistic director, “marking an exciting leadership transition poised to shape the next chapter of innovation and community engagement for the organization.” Silva succeeds Julieanne Ehre, the founding director who has guided Pivot Arts since its beginnings. “With degrees from Cornell University and an MBA from The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, Silva is currently managing director at the Wirtz Center at Northwestern University and previously served as the managing director for The Neo-Futurists; both roles have demonstrated his expertise for implementing thoughtful, financial sustainability measures that balance solvency with community responsibility—a tenet core to Pivot Arts’ mission.” More here.
Submissions Open For 2025 Chicago Musical Theatre Festival
Kokandy Productions announces submissions for the 2025 Chicago Musical Theatre Festival, which will return April 3-6 on The Chopin Theatre Mainstage. Five finalists will be chosen to perform concert presentations, “a vital opportunity for new musical development in Chicago.” The deadline for submissions is Sunday, February 2. There is no fee to apply for or participate. Finalists will be announced in early March. Submission guidelines, FAQs and applications are here.
Court Theatre Presents Its First Production Of “A Raisin In The Sun”
Court Theatre will present Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun,” from January 31-March 2. Staged sixty years after Hansberry’s passing, senior artistic producer Gabrielle Randle-Bent (“Antigone”) directs. The cast includes Shanésia Davis (Lena Younger/Mama); Brian Keys (Walter Lee Younger); Kierra Bunch (Ruth Younger); Martasia Jones (Beneatha Younger); Jeremias Darville (Travis Younger); Di’Aire Wilson (Travis Younger, alternating); Eliott Johnson (Joseph Asagai); Charles Andrew Gardner (George Murchison); Julian Parker (Bobo); Vincent Teninty (Karl Lindner); and J. Nicole Brooks (Mrs. Johnson). Tickets here. More here.
Music Theater Works Tunes Up “Annie”
Music Theater Works’ final production in its forty-fifth season will be “Annie,” December 18, 2025-January 4, 2026. Season subscriptions are on sale with single tickets for all the 2025 productions going on sale Tuesday, January 28 at noon. More here.
Twin Cities Dance At “Inflection Point”?
With costs rising and funding falling, “many hope that in its next iteration, the Cowles Center can act as a hub for a dance scene grappling with post-pandemic struggles,” relays the Minnesota Star Tribune. “The Twin Cities dance scene, long a bastion of risk-taking choreographers, is facing an existential threat with a loss of some key infrastructure.”
ARTS & CULTURE & ETC.
Great Lakes Winters Have Shrunk By Two Weeks In Three Decades
“A new study puts more scientific teeth behind everything from having white Christmases to how long ski hills stay open: Winters on the Great Lakes are shrinking,” reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Since 1995, winter has shortened by about fourteen days—and in some spots close to three weeks, according to a recent study [that] adds to mounting evidence that winter is the most rapidly changing season in the Great Lakes region, growing warmer and wetter with less snow. Most prior research has been done on land. When it comes to what is going on in the Lakes themselves, ‘winter is quite the blind spot’ for scientists.”
It’s Vanity Plate Rejection Time, Led By “MUNCH,” “ILLCUTU” And “THICCAF”
From 60,537 vanity plate requests, the Illinois Secretary of State’s office denies vanity plates that are difficult to read “and could pose a problem for law enforcement. Some of those included ‘MWMWMWM’ or ‘OOQQOO,’” relays the Sun-Times. “Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias commended the public for showing creativity [but] said his office’s employees are well-versed in identifying ‘lecherous language and sneaky swearing’ and placing those requests on a permanent list of prohibited plates,” which now includes 8,015 license plate combinations. Watch a video with Giannoulias here.
Roseland Mental Health Clinic Reopens
“Mayor Johnson reopened the previously closed Roseland Mental Health Clinic,” reports the TRiiBE. “The CPDH-operated clinic, now known as the Roseland Health Hub, will offer no-cost mental health and sexual health services to city residents, regardless of insurance or immigration status.”
Shabbona Lake Will Be Returned To Potawatomi Nation
“Lawmakers in the Illinois House of Representatives approve a bill that will return portions of land in DeKalb County to the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation,” reports WIFR-TV. “Senate Bill 867, which was passed by senators last May, essentially honors an agreement made in 1829 between the federal government and the Potawatomi Nation. The land, which includes Shabbona Lake and State Park, was gifted to the tribe but illegally sold years later. The state of Illinois purchased the land in the 1970s.” Republican legislators say the bill is bad as it “does not include any protections for landowners who currently reside on land included in the land transfer agreement… The bill also does not address that the State of Illinois is giving away a State Park, worth tens of millions of dollars, without regard for the taxpayer or the residents who utilize the park.”
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