Soon after the MCA settled into its home behind Water Tower Place in 1996, monumental sculptures began popping up, adding a dash of the surreal to the museum’s entrance plaza. So far, a dozen artists have been showcased there. In 2005, a car and its camper seemed to crash through the pavement from below in … Read more
This centenarian monthly has long engaged local writers, but a recent redesign claimed the magazine’s cover for contemporary artists. “Our heart is in Chicago, and lately we’ve been wearing it on our sleeve,” says Poetry’s art director, Fred Sasaki. This year, works by Rebecca Shore, Jessie Mott, Lilli Carré, and Kate McQuillen have graced the … Read more
The Roscoe Village–based artists Nick Butcher, 34, and Nadine Nakanishi, 38, who formed Sonnenzimmer (“sunroom” in German), were mentored by Jay Ryan, Chicago’s concert poster king. And over the past decade, they have churned out brilliant designs for scores of local and touring acts—including Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Kraftwerk, the Sea and Cake, … Read more
This Gurnee native’s career has moved steadily forward, almost always on Chicago steppingstones—Northwestern University undergrad, the Lyric Opera’s Ryan Opera Center, a starring role in Chicago Opera Theater’s La Clemenza de Tito. In 2010, Majeski grabbed some early limelight in the big hall when she substituted for a bronchitis-stricken Anne Schwanewilms in the Lyric’s The Marriage … Read more
Eight Chicago creatives whose feeds deserve your follow
Why not turn your front room into a white-cube art gallery, host events for the best local emerging artists, and sell their work to forward-thinking collectors? This living-working situation is practically a Chicago tradition and has been good to Bill Gross, who started 65Grand in 2005 in his West Town apartment. Now operating in a space … Read more
Until last year, the gig situation for contemporary classical music—an emerging form called new music by its practitioners—had groups renting space and lugging their equipment to concerts. But Peter Margasak’s new- and experimental-music series Frequency, started in May 2013 at the Roscoe Village club Constellation, eased logistics and created a gathering place in the process. … Read more
Founded by local fiction writer Victor David Giron in 2010, this DIY press started out as a semiserious way for him to publish his autobiographical novel Sophomoric Philosophy. But thanks to a 2012 deal with the publishing collective Consortium Book Sales & Distribution, Curbside is now churning out works by a long roster of top-notch … Read more
Say hi to the Field Museum’s winning in-house taxidermist.
Last November, Neil Firstenleit, a local “kindie” music celebrity known as Mr. Singer, opened a school for tots that has become the one parents clamor for. Operating out of a storefront beneath his Lake View home, Firstenleit runs group music classes in which kids from six months to six years old sing, dance, and, best … Read more
