News from Around the Art World: April 16, 2018
Old Chicago Main Post Office receives landmark designation
The Chicago City Council recently approved the landmark designation for the Old Chicago Main Post Office. Built in phases from 1921 to 1932, the 2.3-million-square-foot structure is located on the western bank of the south branch of the Chicago River in Chicago’s Near West Side. The building’s brawny nine-and twelve-story art deco design is the work of Chicago architectural firm Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, a successor to D.H. Burnham and Company.
By Elizabeth Blasius, The Architects Newspaper
The FBI Has Cracked the 30-Year-Old Case of a Stolen Marc Chagall
Thirty years after it was stolen, an early Marc Chagall has been recovered by the FBI. The painting, titled Othello and Desdemona, belonged to retired jeweler and art collector Ernest “Pick” Heller and his wife Rose “Red” Heller, and was stolen from their New York apartment back in 1988, along with numerous other paintings, sculptures, and art objects including jewelry, carpets, silverware, and Steuben china.
Sarah Cascone, artnet.com
Story of Mexican art in Chicago is the story of Chicago art
There’s a kind of Zelig quality to the new “Arte Diseno Xicago” exhibition at the National Museum of Mexican Art. Its subtitle is “Mexican Inspiration from the World's Columbian Exposition to the Civil Rights Era,” and across those 80 years this eye-opening show intersects with so many key figures in Chicago art and the culture more broadly.
By Steve Johnson, Chicago Tribune
Expo Chicago Expands 2018 Talks Program and Adds Professional Forum
The Expo Chicago art fair is expanding its programming for 2018, with an off-site edition of its “/Dialogues” discussion program at the Venice Architecture Biennale in May and, at the hometown fair in September, more talks in addition to a first-time Professionals Forum to convene specialists in mind of “managing, selling, and acquiring a contemporary collection,” according to an announcement.
By Annie Armstrong, ArtNews
Louvre’s director: we are active in 75 countries
Four months after the grand inauguration of Louvre Abu Dhabi, Jean-Luc Martinez was off to Iran in March to open The Louvre in Tehran—a temporary exhibition (until 3 June). Unlike most art historians, the director of the Musée du Louvre in Paris, whose mandate was renewed for three years last week by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, does not shy away from political commitment and fully embraces the diplomatic role played by his institution.
By Vincent Noce, The Art Newspaper
