What We're Reading: 3/15/21
Elmhurst Exhibit on Fair Housing Features Rare MLK Photos
A new exhibit at the Elmhurst Art Museum is using photography to explore Chicago’s fair housing history and features rare color photos of Martin Luther King Jr. during the Chicago Freedom Movement.
The images of King mark his time in Chicago in the 1960s. They were captured by Wheaton-based photographer Bernard Kleina.
Via WTTW
A Group of Artists Has Withdrawn From an MCA Exhibition in Protest
A group of artists have withdrawn their work from “The Long Dream,” an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, to protest the museum’s layoffs of more than 40 staffers in January.
On Thursday, the group met with museum director Madeleine Grynsztejn to make multiple demands, including public apologies to laid-off staffers of color, the adoption of progressive standards for compensating artists who participate in exhibitions, and a restructuring of museum leadership.
Via Artnet
A new exhibit looks to build bridges between Pilsen and South Shore by highlighting the parallel journeys of the Black and Brown residents of the South Side neighborhoods.
Seeds In My Pocket aims to create a space of healing through art after a year of civil unrest. Curated by South Shore artist Dorian Sylvain and Pilsen artist Pablo Serrano in partnership with the Chicago Art Department, the exhibit is focused on the shared journey of Black and Latino families who navigate barriers to create a sense of home and place in Chicago.
Via Block Club
How A Super Chicago Theater Fan Has Adapted During the Pandemic
What has this year been like for the most voracious of culture vultures? A super fan in Chicago lets us into his life without the arts.
Via New York Times
A Netflix True Crime Series About the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Heist
Netflix’s latest true crime documentary will revisit the infamous heist at Boston’s Isabella Stewert Gardner Museum, an unsolved robbery in which a pair of thieves posing as policemen tied up a night watchmen and made off with 13 masterpieces by the likes of Rembrandt, Johannes Vermeer, Edgar Degas, and Édouard Manet, collectively worth an estimated $500 million.
Next week marks the 31st anniversary of the break-in, carried out in the wee hours of the morning amid St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. There is still a $10 million reward for information leading to the paintings’ return, and it remains the most expensive art theft in US history.
Via Artnet
The First To Get Cut: The Case For Art’s Power In CRE
Funding for the arts is generally placed low on society’s list of priorities during economically challenging times. The coronavirus pandemic has significantly impacted the arts more broadly with the temporary closing of galleries, museums and performing arts venues across the country.
However, long-standing Percent for Art programs, which place fees — usually a percentage of the development cost — on commercial new-build projects to fund public art, have bolstered the resiliency of art in commercial real estate.
Via BisNow