Exhibits

Native Pop! – The Newberry – Mar 20–Jul 19, 2025

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I’m somewhat mystified by The Newberry subtitling its Native Pop! exhibit “How Indigenous people have shaped popular culture.”

I say that because the first thing you see when entering the exhibit is a huge poster depicting a struggle between The Incredible Hulk and Black Snake that was created for a protest movement opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline. While significant, this seems far afield from the shaping of pop culture.

(Coincidentally, a day before the exhibit opened, a North Dakota jury found Greenpeace liable for approximately $660 million for defamation, trespassing and other infractions in a case involving the protests against the pipeline.)

The poster is an example of ledger art, which was the adaptation from painting on animal hides to painting on paper (accounting ledgers being one of the most common sources of paper) after the near extermination of the bison herds.

On a lighter (or lightsaber) note, Star Wars is a major pop culture touchstone for Native communities. The Newberry will be presenting the Navajo Language version of Star Wars: A New Hope on May 3rd.

When it came to Star Wars, there literally and figuratively was a shaping of pop culture, as Princess Leia’s well-known coif was inspired by the Hopi squash blossom or butterfly whorl hairstyle, depictions of which are shown next to a photo of the esteemed leader of the Rebel Alliance.

The last item to particularly catch my attention was the Dakotah Scrabble set, including a dictionary. My independent research tells me that it is was created in 2006 (many decades after the original Scrabble, so again, not shaping) as a way to keep the language from dying out. The language already doesn’t have the letters F, J, L, Q, R, V , and X, so who knows what it may lose next.

Booked for the Evening – Newberry Library – Feb. 7, 2025

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If only I had brought my checkbook with me, I might have been able to purchase John Bringhurst and Rosina Matern’s Quaker marriage certificate from June 2, 1682 for a mere $5000. But I didn’t, so I limited myself to browsing, and chatting with some of the staff who had been released from their research nooks to be available to wax poetically about the esoteric materials on display.

One table exhibited a collection of early to mid-20th-century house plans, down to things like plumbing fixtures, in case I wanted to build the retro abode of my dreams, like Brendon Frasier did for his parents in Blast from the Past.

Another, which actually held some interest for me, presented the sheet music for twelve Tunisian dances, composed by Ali Ben Salomone, from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, made more interesting by the fact that at least some of those dances were notoriously performed by Fatima Djemille, the belly dancer famously known as Little Egypt.

Lastly, I would be remiss in not mentioning the Dutes Miller and Stan Shellabarger Coffee Book display, which might go well with Cosmo Kramer’s coffee table book of coffee tables that turns into a coffee table.

The married couple used a different piece of paper as a coaster for their cups every day from January 25 through August 30, 2020, and apparently forgot to throw them out, so that today I could appreciate the coffee stains and rings they had left.

I would have expected to see something like that at the Museum of Contemporary Art, especially since, it turns out, perhaps not surprisingly, that there is something known as coffee art, though that at least requires some creative value-added over and above putting out a new piece of paper every day.

Making an Impression: Immigrant Printing in Chicago – The Newberry – Dec. 12, 2024 – March 29, 2015

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Printing is so yesterday. Now it’s all about videos, DMs and deep fake photos, although the U.S. Supreme Court has installed a speed bump in the social media highway for about 170 million people.

Hickory Dickory Dock,
China is on the clock
The Court voted nine to none
That their U.S. time was done
For providing us their Tik and their Tok.

So let’s discuss printing. Chicago in the late 19th, early 20th century, produced newspapers for over 20 different foreign language communities.

The current Newberry exhibit made an impression on me, but not totally in a good way. I understand why documents are protectively placed behind glass, but could the library at least put them close enough to the viewer so that they can be read. That said, I press on.

The highlight, for me, was the section dealing with the company of Curt Teich, a- German immigrant who arrived here in 1895 at the age of 18. The company secretly printed 3 million maps for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in World War II that were used for invasions and as decoy maps. A couple were on display, but, again, were hard to view in person, so I went online afterward, but couldn’t find them. Apparently still a secret.

The company was also known for its postcards, printing up to 250 million a year depicting places around the country. Among those on display were a few featuring a Chicago Chinese restaurant, which left me wanting more.

Museum of Contemporary Art – October 1, 2024

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Finally, a way to promote societal interests through the recycling of my old tea bags. Apparently, ala Tania Bruguera’s Poetic Justice collage at the Museum of Contemporary Art, I can sew hundreds of them together on canvas and then convince someone that the result belongs in a museum as part of an exhibit called Trade Windings: De-Lineating the American Tropics.

Martha Stewart would be proud.

Not to be outdone in terms of using items found around the house, Juana Valdés created a boat sail (Tranquil Waterways) by sewing together cotton handkerchiefs, which by the look of them, had not, fortunately, unlike the tea bags, already served their original purpose.

I guess I’m going to have to learn how to sew.

Moving on to the Arthur Jafa: Works from the MCA Collection exhibit, I was visually overwhelmed, but not literally overpowered, by the credible cutout of The Incredible Hulk, though somewhat disappointed that it wasn’t made by sewing together leftover containers from carryout orders.

I concluded with Virginia Jaramillo: Principle of Equivalence, which, I must grudgingly admit, had a series of simple, elegant, unpretentious acrylics on canvas that I wouldn’t be embarrassed to hang on my walls. Bet you didn’t see that one coming.

 

 

Clown Torture and Spectrum Colors Arranged by Chance – Art Institute of Chicago – August 30, 2024

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I’ve never been scared of clowns, as some people are. I’ve always liked them, until I saw Bruce Nauman’s Clown Torture.

The exhibit, at the museum until November, is described as “utter cacophony, an aural and visual assault.” Is that a good thing? Not to me.

The “artist’s” suggested viewing time of the four films is an hour. A minute is more than enough. The only one that I found at all interesting was of a clown sitting on an accessible toilet reading a magazine (that should tell you something), but the awful racket from the other films, playing simultaneously, drove me from the theater before I could fully appreciate the profundity of the bathroom’s mise-en-scène.

Fortunately, I thought, I could salvage my visit with the soon-to-close Elizabeth Kelly 10-piece exhibit of Spectrum Colors Arranged by Chance. Swing and a miss.

Using papier gommette, which is, we are told, commonly used by French schoolchildren, Kelly’s work fits right into that mode.

She is described as one of the 20th century’s defining artists, creating collages using the “modified random technique.” If it’s random, what skill is she bringing to the table? I’m guessing this is one instance where no one would be able to tell the difference between Kelly’s work and one produced by artificial intelligence, except perhaps by the price tags.

A Bigger Table: 50 Years of the Chicago Poetry Center – Poetry Foundation – July 25, 2024

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I’ve walked past the Poetry Foundation approximately three million times since it opened its current location in 2011, and, until now, never stopped in. Part of the reason was that, on the first nine hundred fifty three thousand two hundred twelve or so occasions, I couldn’t figure out where the door was.

It wasn’t just me. A review of the building on the Chicago Detours tour company website said: “Upon initial entry I became briefly confused as an eddy of space was revealed. I found an court that was easily interpreted as the main entry, though it is a dead end.”

But, today, I approached from a different side and voila, an epiphany, as if I were Newton under the apple tree. I believe I had some help, as physical changes have been made, again, not just according to me, but also confirmed by someone I ran into on the street, later, on my way out.

The current exhibit is A Bigger Table: 50 Years of the Chicago Poetry Center. I have no idea where the organization was housed prior to 2011, perhaps in some bohemian cafe that was big enough to warehouse over 30,000 volumes.

Of the 30 or so short poems covering one of the walls, I could find only one, Wish You Were Here, by Denise Duhamel, that drew me in. It started, “I’m writing to you from inside a red m&m.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t like a wine tasting, where they pair cheeses. No bites were available.

Chicago Style: Mike Royko and Windy City Journalism – The Newberry – June 25, 2024

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I was an avid reader of Mike Royko, whose influence on me may be somewhat evident in my own irreverent style.

Though I don’t think we exchanged any pleasantries, I was present at his August 15, 1971 penny-pitching contest in the Chicago Daily News parking lot, the famous large photo of which adorns the exhibit. Unfortunately I’m not captured in the shot.

Royko won the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. If I hope to follow in his footsteps, I may need to make some adjustments.

The exhibit includes four typed pages, with handwritten edits, from Royko’s book Boss. Perhaps I should start showing all my tracked changes in my blog, though doing so would break the illusion I hoped to create that my prose just comes gushing out of me fully-formed,

Then there was the matter of Royko’s “fictional neighborhood-guy everyman” Slats Grobnik. Do I need my own alter ego? (Then I wouldn’t have to write “I” so much.) What would he be like?

Finally, there’s all the good contacts he had (and I don’t). His rolodex (what’s that?) was on display, open to the card for Studs Terkel. I sat next to Terkel at a restaurant once, but no contact information was exchanged. I need to find my own names to drop, which means I might have to interact with people.

To that end, and further inspired by the display of some of Royko’s press passes, I have located the page on the United States Press Agency website with information regarding press passes for bloggers. Also, now that the Democratic National Convention Committee has announced that it will allow social media content creators to apply for credentials to cover the 2024 convention in Chicago (that’s going to be interesting), that could be my ticket to fame and fortune, and my own exhibit at The Newberry.

Georgia O’Keeffe: “My New Yorks” Member Reception – Chicago Art Institute – June 24, 2024

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Note to self – next time you go to an event at the Art Institute that features “light bites,” skip everything but the chocolate banana bread.

It stands to reason that trained experts know a lot more than I do about their chosen fields, but that doesn’t mean that all the opinions they serve are easily digested. So, when curator Annie Morse told us that she viewed Georgia O’Keeffe’s Black Cross as, in a way, a self portrait, I had to take it with more than a grain of salt to make it appealing to my uneducated palate. (No amount of salt could have helped the quiche.)

That said, Morse gave an interesting, educational presentation in a nice half-hour package that included, not only photographs of New York from her husband Alfred Stieglitz, but also some mention of and visuals from other artists who Morse saw as influenced by O’Keeffe, including Roger Brown and his famous Leaning Tower of Touhy, housed at the Art Institute.

As for the exhibit itself, it was crowded, so I’ll have to go back to spend more time with it. It’s probably good, so I’ll give it a provisional four brushes for now and salt it away for future reference.

007 Science: Inventing the World of James Bond – Museum of Science and Industry – June 18, 2024

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It’s never too late for a new career, so why not secret agent, although, with James Bond, there never was anything secret about who he was (even repeating his last name to make sure everyone knew) or who employed him. His idea of a disguise was putting on a pair of glasses in Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Nevertheless, after gazing bleary-eyed at the massive amount of information about, and science behind, Bond’s gadgets, I tried the interactive, computerized, disguise station at the exhibit. I failed miserably, most notably in how well I would have blended into my environment (not at all).

Moving on, I killed myself multiple times attempting to recreate stunts from Goldeneye, The Man with the Golden Gun and Casino Royale (the remake).

What was left of the car from the CR stunt was present, looking exactly as battered as it appeared post stunt in the movie after rolling over seven times. Intact vehicles, however, abounded throughout the exhibit: cars, submarines, submarine cars, flying cars, motorcycles, boats, snowmobiles, jetpacks, etc.

My talents for a field assignment were further dashed by one look at Hang Time, which I skipped after reading the sign that said “ For your safety, do not use Hang Time if you have hand, knee, back, neck, or shoulder problems.” The only thing was missing was my picture.

I also wasn’t great at hiding listening and viewing devices, so a Q position is probably not in the offing.

Finally, I gave myself some hope with success at the decoding station. So perhaps a desk job with MI6, although I’m certainly not prepared for the British equivalent of a Three Days of the Condor adventure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Level Up: Writers and Gamers – American Writers Museum – May 23, 2024

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The only thing I know about Dungeons and Dragons is what I’ve seen on The Big Bang Theory. I also have seen the movies Ready Player One, Free Guy, Tetris, The Last Starfighter, Cloak and Dagger, Tron and Pixels, and the first season of Fallout, all together unfortunately still not enough to make me a hit at those geek parties I long to attend.

Way back when, I played Zork and Myst, not particularly well.  Both are mentioned in the exhibit, giving me at least a smidgen of credibility and knowledge that I thought I could at least quadruple by attending the exhibit’s opening event.

Alas, my attention span for such things is sorely lacking and I learned nothing except that game playing had changed the lives of a couple of creators who gave heartfelt and mercifully short speeches.

I spent a few minutes chatting with a couple guys from an organization of people who make movie props. They had a table with some samples, including guns, which I quickly found out were rubber, so phew.