What We're Reading: 2/16/24

Staff at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art launch campaign to form union

Workers at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) have become the latest to join the growing unionisation movement within the US culture sector. In an open letter released on 14 February and signed by 32 people who currently work at the museum, staffers announced their intention of forming a union. The letter’s signatories represent about one third of workers at the MCA who are eligible to potentially join the union, which would include around 100 staff members across departments including curatorial, collections, retail, building operations and front desk.

Via The Art Newspaper

New art store on Chicago's South Side showcases Black culture, creativity

Starting this Black History Month, Chicago has a new store showcasing Black culture and creativity on the South Side.

The store, Mahalia's, opened earlier this month and customers were already shopping for new paintings, clothes, and products reflecting artists' work in Chatham and surrounding neighborhoods.

Before she can point, Kristen Williams has to scrape and scrape to clean off the old paint from her tools. 

"It's a process," she said.

But then, she can create pieces in her studio.

"I feel happy," Williams said of the act of painting. "I feel at ease."

Via CBS

Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz Triumph as Art World ‘Giants’

Kimberli Gant, curator at the Brooklyn Museum, has had a hectic week. On February 10, the museum opened “Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys,” the first exhibition to bring together art from the couple’s collection. It’s a landmark show not just for the institution, but for the power collecting couple, who have never seen so much of their collection in one place, at one time.

Via Artnet