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ART
Framing Van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh “did not want to surround his works with gold,” reports The Art Newspaper. “The National Gallery’s blockbuster exhibition, ‘Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers,’ provided an unusual opportunity to see how the artist’s works have been framed by their owners.” Van Gogh “favored wooden frames without carved ornament, with a plain design, occasionally painted. As Vincent put it to his sister Wil: ‘If the painting looks good in a simple frame, why put gilding around it?’ His own idea of framing can be seen in one of his paintings which was in the National Gallery exhibition, the version of ‘The Bedroom’ (September 1889) from Chicago. Just above the artist’s bed he depicted what is probably an imaginary landscape scene, framed simply in natural wood and rather crudely hanging from a string or wire on a nail.”
Van Gogh Museum Could Close
The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is endangered, reports the New York Times, “embroiled in a bitter feud over financing with the Dutch Ministry of Culture that could lead to its closure if left unresolved much longer. The museum, a national treasure that attracts some 1.8 million visitors a year, needs a refurbishment to preserve its more than 200 paintings and nearly 500 drawings by Vincent van Gogh, but two years of negotiations with the ministry over funding have reached an impasse, Emilie Gordenker, the museum’s director, said. ‘If this situation persists, it will be dangerous for the art and dangerous for our visitors… This is the last thing we want—but if it comes to that, we would have to close the building.’”
Trump Lunches With Smithsonian Secretary
Summoned to lunch at the White House, Smithsonian secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III met with the president “as the cultural institution faces a push by the administration to review the content of its exhibitions,” reports the New York Times. “Neither side publicly discussed what happened at the meeting, which came as the White House increasingly pushes for a role in deciding what is presented in Smithsonian exhibits. But a White House official described the lunch as ‘productive and cordial.’” Adds the Washington Post (free link), “While political sway at the Smithsonian is not unheard of, the institution has historically functioned largely independently and is only partially government-financed, with about sixty-two percent of its funding coming from federal sources.”
DESIGN
Florida’s Only Frank Lloyd Wright Residence Hits Market At $2.1 Million
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Spring House in Tallahassee, “the only residence he designed in Florida, has been listed for $2.1 million,” relays Surface magazine. “Built in 1954 for the Lewis family, the two-story structure reflects Wright’s late-career hemicycle style, with intersecting circular forms, sweeping glass walls, and native cypress detailing. The home was envisioned as a communal space, with an open-plan living area designed to draw in light and views of the surrounding woodland. Still owned by the Lewis family, the house now requires significant restoration after decades of exposure and was previously recognized as an endangered historic site.”
AIA Chicago Announces Design Excellence Final
AIA Chicago, the local chapter of The American Institute of Architects, has announced the finalists for the 2025 Design Excellence Awards, including the Unbuilt Award, Decarbonization Award and Roberta Feldman Architect for Social Justice Award. Award recipients in each category will be announced at Designight 2025, an event that honors Chicago architects’ global design achievements, at the Harris Theater on Thursday, September 18. The extended list of finalists, with images of projects, is here.
Seeing Red: Solo Cup Factory Redevelopment Stalled Again
“The third proposal in recent memory for redeveloping the former site of the Highland Park Solo Cup factory has proven controversial, with the fifth Plan Commission meeting over a multi-family development that would bring hundreds of units to the city dragging late into the night,” reports the Trib. Said a commissioner, “It fails to make use of any of the creativity in the design and planning that we’ve come to expect in Highland Park. I don’t think this project is worthy of Highland Park.”
Trump Again Orders All Federal Buildings Be In Antiquarian Fashion
“The executive order is titled ‘Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again,’” reports the Washington Post (free link). Trump has signed an executive order “declaring ‘classical and traditional’ architecture the preferred government styles, reviving and expanding his old fight against modernist government buildings and overhauling design principles that have guided the U.S. government’s construction for more than six decades.” The memo rejects Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s 1962 Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture, “which urged the government to avoid an ‘official style’ and to follow the lead of contemporary architects, resulting in… modernist buildings throughout the country.”
DINING & DRINKING
Craft Breweries Go Beyond Pints In A New Era
“Illinois’ craft beer scene is entering a new era, and it is no longer just about the beer,” reports Crain’s. “After a decade of unbridled growth, the industry hit a rough patch” the pandemic. “In need of additional revenue, the survivors… rolled out non-alcoholic options, food menus and THC-infused beverages. In aid, Illinois introduced a new brewer license category that allowed breweries to sell wine and spirits in addition to beer. To stay afloat now, craft breweries must look… a lot less like the taprooms of the 2010s that sold nothing but their own beer.”
Longman & Eagle Announces New Executive Chef
“After four years of crushing it behind the scenes (and two years running the show as Chef de Cuisine), we’re beyond proud to officially name Alex Swieton as Executive Chef,” announces Longman & Eagle. The restaurant notes that she’ll be “the first female Executive Chef in Longman’s long, storied history.”
FILM & TELEVISION
John Malkovich Lands In Second Season Of Vince Vaughn’s “Bad Monkey”
John Malkovich joins Vince Vaughn in the second season of Apple TV+’s not-bad “Bad Monkey,” reports Deadline. The comedy series from executive producer Bill Lawrence (“Ted Lasso,” “Shrinking,” “Scrubs”) was originally based on Carl Hiaasen’s 2013 comic novel.
LIT
Authors To Be Paid In AI Settlement To Dismiss Trillion-Dollar Lawsuit
Authors of books suing Anthropic, “an AI company founded by OpenAI defectors that offers the ChatGPT competitor Claude,” have reached a preliminary settlement, reports Futurism. “It’s a stunning turn of events, given how Anthropic was fighting tooth and nail in two courts in this case,” an expert on AI litigation told WIRED. “But they had few defenses at trial, given how [the judge] ruled. So Anthropic was staring at the risk of statutory damages in ‘doomsday’ amounts.” “The millions of copyrighted books that Anthropic used to train Claude meant that, in a worst-case scenario, it could have been facing a payout of more than $1 trillion—an amount that, even by the outsized financial standards of the AI industry, would almost certainly wipe the company out of existence,” summarizes Futurism. “The suit stood to ‘financially ruin’ not just Anthropic but the entire nascent AI industry.”
MEDIA
Cultural Criticism At Risk Of Erasure
“Recent announcements at major publications have seen critics losing their positions, an ongoing shift that we should all be alarmed by,” writes Jesse Hassenger at the Guardian. “The Chicago Tribune isn’t just undergoing a round of layoffs to weather some bad economic news; they’re eliminating the position of film critic entirely, and with it mainstay Michael Phillips, who inherited a beat once occupied by Gene Siskel.” At the New York Times, “four culture critics have recently been reassigned, essentially stripped of their original titles… Even more galling was Vanity Fair’s announcement of a refocusing on core coverage areas such as Hollywood, which would somehow actually necessitate firing their film critic Richard Lawson (as well as several journalists covering the exact areas the magazine is supposedly building up)… Arts criticism has been vanishingly difficult to break into for ages, no one’s idea of a growth industry. But publications have managed to make a dire situation worse; it’s now reached the point where long-tenured veterans are having their jobs erased in a misguided rethinking of what criticism even actually is.”
“There is a seismic shift happening in the media landscape, fueled by the rise of digital platforms, declining print readership and mass layoffs in cultural journalism. It also points to a larger epidemic in the consumption of this kind of writing, and how people engage with this industrywide,” adds the Observer. “With fewer eyes on the art, cultural coverage contracts accordingly, making it harder for critics to reach broad audiences or influence public discourse… The trend risks creating an art audience that doesn’t know, or worse, doesn’t care, to dive deeper and misses out on the real power of art to disrupt, provoke and illuminate. If criticism and thoughtful engagement continue to be pushed aside in favor of shallow viral moments, the cultural conversation risks becoming as thin and ephemeral as the Instagram stories that fuel it.”
MUSIC
Oslo Philharmonic Celebrates Final Season With Klaus Mäkelä
The 2025-2026 season marks Klaus Mäkelä’s final season as chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic, the orchestra announces. “After six successful years together, their collaboration will come to an end in May 2026.” The timing is a season early, notes Slipped Disc.
Meanwhile, over the weekend, Musikfest Berlin opened with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and conductor Klaus Mäkelä. “Until September 23, the Berliner Festspiele’s international festival of orchestral music—in co-operation with the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation—will invite [audiences] to over thirty concerts in the Philharmonie Berlin, the Chamber Music Hall and Konzerthaus Berlin.”
Delmark Records, Enuff Z’Nuff Named Illinois Rock And Roll Museum Inductees
The Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66 “will induct Enuff Z’Nuff, the metal band from Blue Island that sang ‘Fly High Michelle,’ and Delmark Records, a jazz record label founded in the 1950s, into its 2025 class of honorees,” charts the Sun-Times. “In a September 14 ceremony in Joliet, the museum will also… recognize its 2024 class of musicians, after delaying last year’s ceremony due to a tornado. The 2024 list of honorees with local ties includes… The Smashing Pumpkins and singer-songwriter Richard Marx.”
STAGE
A Broadway Trifecta For Steppenwolf
Across its history, Steppenwolf has sent eighteen shows to New York, writes Chris Jones at the Trib, “beginning with John Malkovich’s production of Harold Pinter’s ‘The Caretaker’ in 1986.” Steppenwolf’s production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ “Purpose” won last season’s Tony Award for best play, and now “two other Steppenwolf productions are headed to Broadway: ‘Little Bear Ridge Road,’ a play by Samuel D. Hunter, directed by Joe Mantello, that stars Laurie Metcalf and Micah Stock, will be produced by Scott Rudin. And director David Cromer’s Steppenwolf production of Tracy Letts’ ‘Bug’ will begin performances in December with a cast including Carrie Coon, a Steppenwolf ensemble member.”
Destinos Sets Lineup
The eighth edition of Destinos, the Chicago International Latino Theater Festival, will run from October 1 through November 2. Full details coming here.
City Lit Acknowledges Artistic Associates
Forty-five-year-old City Lit Theater has announced its first artistic associates. Says executive artistic director Brian Pastor, “These artists have a rich history with the company and represent a wide range of talents, both onstage and backstage.” They are Jeremiah Barr (scenic, props, puppet designer); Bryan Breau (actor); Manny Buckey (director); Liz Cooper (lighting designer); Kingsley Day (writer, composer, actor); Kat Evans (actor); Sean Harklerode (actor); Robert Howard (actor); Hazel Marie Flowers-McCabe (stage manager); Mark Pracht (actor, director, playwright); Shawna Tucker (actor, playwright); and Anne Wrider (actor).
ARTS & CULTURE & ETC.
UChicago Slashes $100 Million In Spending
The University of Chicago is “slashing spending by $100 million in an effort to plug its mounting structural deficit,” reports the Tribune. “Cuts to hiring, Ph.D. programs, master’s degree programs and construction projects” are included. The university “has struggled for years to balance its books. The university recorded a $288 million deficit in 2024—even after dipping into its $10.4 billion endowment.” Adds WLS-TV, “University president Paul Alivisatos blames changes in federal policy since President Trump took office and the fact that university income falls short of expenses.”
Surveying The Lead Pipe Problem In Chicago
WBEZ launches a major report on the lead water service lines all across Chicago: “The city estimates that about 412,000 of roughly 491,000 water service lines require replacement because they are known or suspected to contain lead. That’s the most of any city in the country.” The analysis and its implications are extensively mapped here.
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