News From Around the Art World: April 20, 2020
This West Town alley has been transformed into a gallery of murals
A West Town alley has become an unlikely showcase for large-scale art, with more than a dozen murals completed in recent years on garages and at the rear side of residences spanning a single block, many of them done by well-known international artists.
By Sun-Times staff
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Review: Theaster Gates talks about building a life and community on the South Side in new Apple series ‘Home’
The people filmed here are doing legitimately interesting things; the Sweden segment, for example, centers on a couple who built their family house inside a greenhouse. But the show’s guiding ethos feels rooted in marketing rather than curiosity and a willingness to ask uncomfortable questions. That said, the Chicago episode features artist Theaster Gates, who gives a thoughtful tour of the spaces he’s rehabilitated on the city’s South Side, and I can’t think of a better person to spotlight on a show like this.
By Nina Metz, Chicago Tribune
A Fashion Designer’s Love Letter to Art in Chicago
In Duro Olowu: Seeing Chicago, Nigerian-born British designer Duro Olowu has curated a show of treasures from the vaults of the MCA and other Chicago museums, as well as works from Chicago collectors and Chicago artists. The result is a dazzling collage of artistic styles, mediums, and messages, as varied and colorful as the patterns that Olowu incorporates in his clothing. For instance, Rene Magritte’s “Les merveilles de la nature” (“The Wonders of Nature,” 1953) hangs across from pen-and-ink drawings by punk singer-songwriter Wesley Willis. Chicago Imagists rub shoulders with the original Surrealists.
By Elisa Shoenberger, Hyperallergic