Bob Faust, “That Which Mixes Under the Skin” (detail), 2015, corregated sheathing, flash paint/Photo: Elmhurst Art Museum
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ART
Sotheby’s Adapts A Marcel Breuer Icon
“Herzog & de Meuron has begun renovating Marcel Breuer’s former Whitney Museum building to serve as Sotheby’s New York headquarters, set to open in November,” newsletters Surface magazine. “The project preserves key Brutalist features, including bluestone floors, bush-hammered concrete walls, and domed lights, while adapting the interiors for auction operations with reconfigured sight lines, a new freight elevator, and updated mechanical systems. Public spaces will expand across four floors, with art displays, a Roman and Williams-designed restaurant, and enhanced lighting that highlights the building’s distinctive inverted ziggurat form… reinvigorating one of the city’s most recognizable architectural landmarks.”
Mayumi Lake And Bob Faust’s Upcoming Museum Show Inspired By “Shakkei”
This fall, the Elmhurst Art Museum presents “Shakkei: Work by Mayumi Lake and Bob Faust,” the first major museum exhibition for Chicago-based artists Mayumi Lake and Bob Faust. Lake and Faust are inspired by the Japanese principle of Shakkei (“borrowed scenery”), “a design philosophy that incorporates organic features and architectural designs. The artists’ kaleidoscopic works create immersive optical experiences, addressing the intersection of the patterns of everyday life and cultural and social histories. The exhibition will feature recent large-scale artworks by Lake and Faust in separate galleries, as well as a collaborative new work combining their design languages.” Elmhurst Art Museum, September 6, 2025-January 5, 2026. More here.
Gagosian Features New Paintings By Nathaniel Mary Quinn
Gagosian announces an exhibition of new paintings by Chicago native Nathaniel Mary Quinn, reports FAD magainze. In “Echoes From Copeland,” “the artist explores themes of familial dysfunction, hope, aspiration and redemption, inspired by Alice Walker’s debut novel, ‘The Third Life of Grange Copeland’ (1970). As part of a continued meditation on his own creative influences, which include Francis Bacon and Romare Bearden, Quinn situates figures in different environments including interiors, a cityscape, and natural settings… In ‘Study for The Traveler’ (2024), the artist portrays himself dreaming of an escape from the impoverished conditions of austere public tenement housing on the South Side of Chicago.”
SAIC Grad Apichatpong Weerasethakul Divides Time Between Film And Galleries
Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul realized his work was “meaningless”; his “pandemic revelation has come to life as an installation at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art,” relays the Sydney Morning Herald. “I appreciated what surrounded me instead of what I created,” Weerasethakul says. “Those trees and the immensity of nature.” The installation is “A Conversation with the Sun (Afterimage),” and “features ninety minutes of clips that he filmed with the small camera he always carries, accompanied by a slowly moving curtain that is sometimes a screen and other times a ghostlike sculpture. The randomly appearing clips include Tilda Swinton staring at a wall, a fire burning, and a forest from the air.”
A New Art And Counseling Space Opens In Morgan Park
A new art and counseling space, Roots & Rays Center for Creative Medicine, will open its first show, “Emergent Matter. Wild Future,” on Sunday, September 21. The exhibition will be “the debut of Roots & Rays’ custom-built, trauma-informed facility—an intentionally designed space where creative expression and healing are woven into every detail. This new home will serve both as the clinical base for Roots & Rays Creative Counseling, a private art therapy practice, and as the exhibition and community programming hub for the nonprofit Roots & Rays Center for Creative Medicine.” More here.
How Is Art Selected For Big City Airports?
“Developers are investing in art for multibillion-dollar terminal enhancement projects, but the process around commissioning these works is mostly opaque,” charts Hyperallergic in a look at works meant “to beautify John F. Kennedy International Airport’s new Terminal 6.” In Chicago, the competitive process shared by the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events and the Chicago Department of Aviation is more transparent. In 2023, O’Hare debuted $3.5 million of new public art by twenty Chicago artists.
DESIGN
AIA Chicago Honors Adrian Smith, Architect Of World’s Tallest Tower
AIA Chicago, the local chapter of The American Institute of Architects, has announced Adrian Smith, FAIA, RIBA, founding partner of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (AS+GG) and former partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), as recipient of the 2025 AIA Chicago Lifetime Achievement Award. Smith will be honored at Designight 2025, AIA Chicago’s signature awards program honoring Chicago architects’ global design achievements, which will be held at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance on Thursday, September 18. More here.
Work Begins On New CTA Station At State And Lake
“Initial work has commenced on the upcoming reconstruction of the CTA State and Lake station,” posts Chicago YIMBY. “Plans for the station were announced in 2021 and have been in development since… Work will begin with sidewalk expansions along Lake Street to improve pedestrian safety. Following that, four new elevators will be installed at each street corner, along with two escalators and additional stairs. The redesigned station will feature widened platforms, new flyover connections between platforms, improved lighting, and a massive glass canopy that will envelop the entire structure.” (The halated rendering from SOM looks like an outtake from Francis Coppola’s “Megalopolis.”)
“The Last Wright” Debuts
Magnolia Network will present “The Last Wright: Building the Final Home Design of America’s Greatest Architect,” debuting Wednesday, September 3, with episodes streaming the next day on HBO Max. “The four-part limited series follows mother-daughter team Debbie Dykstra and Sarah Dykstra as they take on the ambitious challenge of building a home based on the last set of plans created by legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright before his death in 1959. Filmed in Willoughby Hills, Ohio on the Dykstra’s property that also features The Louis Penfield House, a Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian home built in 1953, the series follows the Dykstras as they bring to life a home blending Wright’s historic artistry with contemporary sensibility. Each episode highlights the careful balance between preserving architectural integrity and adapting to modern needs.”
First-Gen Apple Products Go To Auction
“Steve Jobs and the Apple Revolution” “brings together a clutch of computer collectables from the dawn of Silicon Valley,” pictures Wallpaper. Lots include “brand new, sealed examples of classic Apple tech as well as a fully functioning ‘museum quality’ Apple-1, plus countless items of computing ephemera like checks signed by the early Apple team.” The auction listing is here.
DINING & DRINKING
Andersonville’s Cocktail Club Opens With Marty’s Martini Move
Street savant B Talent relays that “Andersonville regained another cocktail bar… with the opening of The Nook Cocktail Club at 1511 West Balmoral. This is the former home of Marty’s Martini Bar; Marty’s is moving south to 1477 West Winnemac… former home of a Mexican restaurant [that] closed in 2023.”
FILM & TELEVISION
Could The Uptown Theatre Ever Reopen?
“The Uptown Theatre has sat vacant for forty-four of its hundred years,” tallies Block Club. “A new effort carries a $190 million price tag, with funding yet to be secured. ‘Uptown is missing its crown jewel,’ its owner said.” Robert Loerzel’s ongoing Uptown history is excerpted in the form of a centenary look back at the space at the Trib (gift link): “‘It is one of the great art buildings of the world,’ the Uptown’s owners, Balaban & Katz, asserted in [an] ad. ‘You have never seen such dignified luxury, such exquisite elegance as lives in its towering pillars, its mountainous ceilings, glowing colors, stately promenades, lounges, cosmetic rooms and smoking rooms.’ The grand opening was touted as ‘an event you will remember all your life.’” Loerzel posts pics on Instagram showing a fresh layer of red paint applied to the Uptown marquee.
Siskel Film Center Seeks Programmer
For only the second time in over a quarter-century, the Siskel Film Center is looking for a programmer: “The Associate Director of Programming is responsible for managing programming at the Gene Siskel Film Center, including the booking of retrospective series, new releases, special events, SAIC programs and festivals, including the Black Harvest Film Festival and the Chicago European Union Film Festival. The Siskel Film Center seeks an Associate Director of Programming who can support a future of sustainability and audience growth, while balancing the legacy of a venerable institution with a national and international reputation as a home for outstanding film.” The extensive job description is here.
LIT
Poetry Foundation Announces The 2025 Ruth Lilly And Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellows
The Poetry Foundation has announced “the 2025 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellows: Jada Renée Allen, DeeSoul Carson, Andres Cordoba, Maryhilda Obasiota Ibe and Aris Kian. The fellowships are part of the Poetry Foundation’s mission to amplify poetry and celebrate poets, providing outstanding young poets with recognition of their current contributions to the field, along with monetary support to use as they see fit in the development of their craft. Established in 1989, the prize of $27,000 per fellow is among the largest awards available to young poets in the United States.”
Evanston’s Fountain Square Lit Fest Features Poet Angela Jackson
“Bookends & Beginnings and the Guild Literary Complex present an afternoon of literary celebration on Saturday, August 23, noon-8pm.” The event features “author readings, hands-on writing workshops, bookmaking, and live music in downtown Evanston. Whether you’re a seasoned writer, an avid reader or simply looking to be inspired, this festival centers around a dynamic community space to connect, create and celebrate the written word in all its forms.” View the event lineup and other details here.
DOGE Library Cuts Damage Entire Book Publishing Ecosystem
“A funding freeze at the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the agency responsible for distributing federal funding to public libraries and museums, left libraries forced to draft budgets for fiscal year 2026 without being able to rely on much of the bedrock grant funding that sustains them,” reports Publishers Weekly. “And one of the only line items, beyond staffing, that could reasonably be altered is collections. In other words: the books budget. If libraries are forced to cut acquisitions due to lack of funding, it will inevitably affect the bottom line at publishing houses big and small.” The cuts “are forcing libraries to further trim their budgets, hurting publishers along with patrons.”
MEDIA
A Pulitzer Winner Will Lead Chicago Public Media
Chicago Public Media has named Kimbriell Kelly as the organization’s editor-in-chief, effective September 2, the organization relays. Kelly, “a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and newsroom leader, will oversee the integrated Chicago Public Media editorial team, which includes WBEZ, Vocalo and the Chicago Sun-Times.” She “began her journalism career in the Chicago area, reporting for the Daily Herald, hosting a public affairs program on WFLD and producing a weekly radio show on WBEZ.” She was also “an investigative reporter at The Washington Post, where she contributed to Pulitzer-winning work, later serving as the Washington bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times and teaching at Howard and Princeton Universities.”
Local Paper The Onion Sees InfoWars Ownership Back In Play
“Infowars conspiracist Alex Jones is a big step closer to losing his studio and brand,” NPR headlines cheerily. “A state judge in Texas Wednesday ordered Infowars’ assets to be turned over to a newly-appointed state receiver, who will sell them to pay the families of the Connecticut children killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. They won a $1.3 billion defamation case against Jones [and] his listeners who harassed the families for years.” Following up on an earlier effort, “Legal experts agree, a sale to The Onion is more likely now that Infowars’ fate has shifted to Texas state court.”
Susan Stamberg, NPR “Founding Mother,” Will Retire After Fifty-Four Years
Susan Stamberg, one of NPR’s original hosts “and a fixture in American broadcast journalism since 1971, will retire September 1,” tunes Inside Radio. Stamberg, “the first woman to anchor a national evening news program, hosted ‘All Things Considered’ for fourteen years before taking the helm of ‘Weekend Edition Sunday’ and later serving as a special correspondent covering the arts…. ‘Susan Stamberg is the voice of NPR… She has been our franchise,’ said Weekend Edition Saturday host Scott Simon. ‘She is one of the great figures in American broadcast history.’”
MUSIC
Chance Drops New Album
“Star Line” “has been called Chance the Rapper’s ‘most ambitious and personal project to date,’” reports Vocalo. “It’s also his first new album in six years. The artist will kick off his And We Back Tour on September 26.” Tickets go on sale Friday, 10am. Details here.
Love Poems From 1900s Couple Powers Double Album
Local opera star Will Liverman, of “The Factotum,” “tapped a who’s who of contemporary vocal talent for his two-album project ‘The Dunbar/Moore Sessions,’” reports the Sun-Times. It’s inspired by the poetry of married African American writers Paul Laurence Dunbar and Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson. “Seeing the breadth of work that he put out in his very short life, I felt a deep connection to his writing,” Liverman said. “[I thought], ‘Why not? What do I have to lose by not waiting for permission and not waiting for someone to tell me to do something?’ Liverman stresses that no survey of Dunbar’s life and work would be complete without Dunbar-Nelson, also a prolific poet.”
Weird Al Yankovic Pulls Back From Smithsonian Gift
Weird Al Yankovic’s favorite Hawaiian shirt is the one “that I wore for the bulk of my movie ‘UHF.’ It’s an orange Hawaiian shirt. I haven’t worn it since the movie,” he tells Vulture in an extended interview. “There’s nothing that screams ‘custom’ about it, so the stylist probably found it in a thrift store… I was getting ready to donate it to the Smithsonian. I had several things I was going to give to the museum because it requested it for a ‘Weird Al’ exhibit, but I’m putting that on hold because, as you may have heard, the Smithsonian is going through some changes right now, and I’m waiting until the dust settles. So it may or may not ever make its way there, but it’s certainly the most prized shirt of my life.”
STAGE
Dance For Life Stays In Family
“What began as a way for performers to support their friends and colleagues at the height of the AIDS epidemic has become a yearly celebration for Chicago dance,” reports Chicago magazine in a story of choreographers, transplants, family and recovery. “For more than three decades, the city’s biggest companies have come together for a night of awe-inspiring performances at Dance for Life. The August 16 concert this weekend at the Auditorium Theatre… will raise funds for the Chicago Dance Health Fund, which years ago expanded… to support anyone in the dance field facing unexpected expenses due to a chronic health condition [and now includes] mental health and general wellness support for dancers in need.”
ARTS & CULTURE & ETC.
Cubs Will Host A Wrigleyville Oktoberfest This Fall
A three-day Oktoberfest near Wrigley Field “will feature beer tents, carnival rides and a family-friendly Kinderfest. It takes place the same weekend of another Oktoberfest nearby,” reports Block Club. “The festival will take place September 19-21” and will “feature traditional Oktoberfest staples like a ceremonial keg tap, …live music and themed competitions.”
Pope Home Bus Tour Launches
A new pope-themed bus tour begins at Holy Name Cathedral. The consecrated jaunt “includes stops at Pope Leo’s birthplace in Bronzeville, the former Mercy Hospital, and the Catholic Theological Union seminary in Hyde Park, where he trained for the priesthood,” reports the Sun-Times. In July, Chicago mapped the former favorite “local haunts” of Bob Prevost in “The Pope Slept Here.”
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