What We're Reading: 8/11

The World on a Single Plane: Joseph E. Yoakum at the Art Institute of Chicago

Joseph E. Yoakum’s origin story has long been inseparable from the reception of his artwork. In 1962, when he was a 71-year-old retiree living in a storefront apartment on Chicago’s South Side, Yoakum had a dream in which he was urged to make art. He drew nearly every day for the remaining ten years of his life, using inexpensive paper, ballpoint pens, pastels, colored pencils, and sometimes watercolors to create more than two thousand pieces that constitute an atlas of his psychic geography. Among his best-known works are undulant landscapes that are almost psychedelic in their vertiginous perspectives. “What I Saw,” on view at the Art Institute of Chicago, gathers nearly one hundred of these works, plus portraits, sketchbooks, and ephemera—a small but revelatory fraction of Yoakum’s singular output.  

Via Art in America

More in Common, a review of The Sindhu Project: Enigma of Root

Who could have imagined that a casual conversation in Chicago in 2016 between Mahwish Chisty, an American-based artist from Pakistan, and Gunjan Kumar, an American-based artist from India, would result in the compelling exhibition currently on view at South Asia Institute? During their chat, the artists discovered that their family homes were only four hours apart. But, in an interview with the artist Chisty notes, “Due to the tense political relations between India and Pakistan, we could not have met if we lived in our respective countries, even though we share the culture, traditions, and Punjabi language.” Their conversation and the realization that despite the political situation, they had more things in common than divided them became the genesis for The Sindhu Project: Enigma of Roots.

Via Sixty Inches from the Center

Chicago Ugly Buildings Tour Is An ‘Educational Roast’ Of Downtown’s Least-Loved Buildings

Chicago may be the architecture capital of the United States — but that doesn’t mean it’s without unsightly buildings.

Mike McMains, of Tours With Mike, is highlighting some of that ugliness with his tongue-in-cheek Ugly Buildings Tour. It starts Friday, with McMains helping attendees see Chicago’s best, worst buildings and understand why they’re just so hideous.

Via Block Club Chicago