Exhibits

Ray Johnson c/o – The Art Institute of Chicago – February 11, 2022

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Unbeknownst to me, before email took over my life, I apparently was a leading practitioner of mail art, which as far as I can tell, is just a pretentious way to refer to hybrid chain letters, and I easily could have been the icon that Johnson became had I had the foresight to tell people to forward my letters, rather than just throw them out, often without opening.

But maybe it’s not too late to establish my legacy. According to Wikipedia, “The Correspondence School was a network of individuals who were artists by virtue of their willingness to play along and appreciate Johnson’s sense of humor.” I’m not sure how that makes Johnson an artist, though a lot of the art I see does require, often unintentionally, a sense of humor to appreciate. In any event, if my readers would like to consider themselves artists, and elevate me to one, perhaps they could start The Blog School in appreciation of my efforts.

My favorite part of the Johnson exhibit was the stack of boxes, containing who knows what, though I think not Lilibet Snellings, author of Box Girl: My Part Time Job As An Art Installation, as they were too small. Still, I think it would have been more interesting if presented as performance art, with someone unpacking and then repacking the boxes on an Old Faithful-type schedule.

The Chicago Reader at 50: A Half-Century of Revolutionary Storytelling – Newberry Library

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I’m the guy who made it through The Louvre in less than an hour, so it should come as no surprise that I finished my tour of Newberry Library’s Chicago Reader exhibit (on display through January 22, 2022) in under five minutes, or maybe it should, as the Reader had a much greater effect on my life than a bunch of old art work, although even I have to admit that the Winged Victory at the top of the Daru staircase is a sight one doesn’t easily forget.

I wish the Reader exhibit were larger. One small hallway, though nicely curated, really isn’t enough for a publication that helped shape a generation of Chicagoans, though kudos for mentioning the Missed Connections section that I once eagerly scoured in the hope that the young lady on the elevated platform really was checking me out.

And whose idea was it to have a constantly running broadcast of a couple of their podcasts interrupting your concentration while you’re trying to read the displays. It’s like studying with the television on. Oh, wait, that is how I studied. But I was younger then. It doesn’t count.

City on Fire: Chicago 1871 – Chicago History Museum – October 13, 2021

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I strolled into the Members’ Opening Commemoration to the strains of Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire playing in the background, just as I imagine it does at every meeting of AA (Arsonists Anonymous).

I wasn’t there for the exhibit (which is interesting and well done – though not as well done as the city was following the historical event), as I had already seen it a few days earlier on the actual 150th anniversary of the conflagration, but rather to partake of the refreshments in order to practice chewing with a mask on in public in anticipation of a couple upcoming dinner events on my calendar.

Though the mask wants to slip down off one’s nose, it’s definitely doable with controlled mastication. And perhaps it will even help me slow down my notoriously fast-eating habit, along with my habit of eating when I’m supposed to be fasting.

The other thing that I wanted to research was whether the inside of my mask would act as a garbage disposal of sorts, but, upon inspection after the fact, there were no noticeable remnants of the barbecue chips that the museum offered as gourmet fire-related food. So, bring on the ribs and Sloppy Joes.

Stay Tuned: Rock on TV – Museum of Broadcast Communications – November 14, 2019

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Straight from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Rock on TV exhibit is a trip down memory lane, with video from shows like Shindig, Hullaballoo, Soul Train, and American Bandstand; and artifacts, like one of Eric Clapton’s guitars, a Paul Shaffer keyboard, and costumes worn by Cher and Michael Jackson (not the same ones by both).

I wrote a two-page paper on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and its politics for my college freshman rhetoric class (how do I remember that?), so I was happy to see that show well-represented in the exhibit, especially because of two famous incidents it references.

One was Pete Seeger singing Waist Deep in the Big Muddy for a second time, after his first rendition was deleted by the network from an earlier show because of the song’s anti-war message. The other was Keith Moon, drummer for The Who, going a little overboard when blowing up his drum set on stage, apparently causing some permanent hearing loss for Pete Townsend.

Darlene Love appears in several of the videos, commenting on various shows, including, of course, both Late Night and Late Show with David Letterman, which forever etched her name in TV music history for the 28 times she performed Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) on them.

Letterman is lauded as someone who brought a lot of rock acts onto his show. Apparently, other hosts, like Johnny Carson, and Ed Sullivan, who famously had The Beatles and Elvis Presley, among other rock acts, on his show, only did so kicking and screaming.

It’s a stretch to call all the music highlighted in the exhibit “rock”, but my only real complaint is the varying, overlapping sound levels that sometimes make it hard to hear at a few of the stations, even if you’re not Pete Townsend.

Brewseum Exhibit – Field Museum – November 4, 2019

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Tucked away among fearsome-looking predators on the Field Museum’s first floor, there’s a small room housing the temporary Brewseum exhibit, which provides information about the history of Chicago breweries that they never taught us in school, and apparently still don’t, as evidenced by the lack of screaming children on field trips in my midst.

Having previously enjoyed hearing the Brewseum’s executive director, Liz Garibay, speak at the Art Institute, I was hoping for a larger, not just lager, exhibit. But at least they give you the opportunity to design your own beer label, and present you with some particulars for use in your next bar discussion after you run out of things to say about sports and politics.

William Lill and Michael Diversey owned the first Chicago brewery, which was destroyed in the Chicago Fire. What makes this interesting is knowing that the city eventually named a major street after Diversey, but only a minor one after Lill. The unstated reason, I presume, is that Diversey also was a Chicago alderman.

The Siebel Institute of Technology, located on Goose Island, founded in 1868 as the Siebel Zymotechnic Institute, and renamed in 1872, is a vocational school that focuses on brewing science. Perhaps my next career move.

As if they were children playing tee ball, the Pabst and Schlitz brewing companies both received participation medals at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. But Pabst later added Blue Ribbon to its name, even though there was no blue ribbon awarded at the fair.

On my way out, I made a quick stop at the museum’s Science Hub, where I was told that the Philippines contains two-thirds of the earth’s biodiversity and where I was given the opportunity to pet a dead chipmunk, which might have seemed more appealing had the Brewseum offered free samples.

Andy Warhol Exhibit – The Art Institute of Chicago – October 24, 2019

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In 1963, Andy Warhol silkscreened thirty black-and-white images of the Mona Lisa onto a canvas and called it Thirty Are Better Than One. Now part of the Warhol exhibit at The Art Institute, it reminded me of the scene between Ted and the hitchhiker from There’s Something About Mary.

Hitchhiker: You heard of this thing, the 8-Minute Abs?
Ted: Yeah, sure, 8-Minute Abs. . . . the exercise video.
Hitchhiker: Yeah, this is going to blow that right out of the water. Listen to this: 7 Minute Abs. . . . Think about it. You walk into a video store, you see 8-Minute Abs sitting there, there’s 7-Minute Abs right beside it. Which one are you gonna pick, man?
Ted: I would go for the 7.
Hitchhiker: Bingo, man, bingo. 7-Minute Abs. And we guarantee just as good a workout as the 8-minute folk.
Ted: You guarantee it? That’s — how do you do that?
Hitchhiker: If you’re not happy with the first 7 minutes, we’re gonna send you the extra minute free. You see? That’s it. . . .
Ted: . . . . That’s good. Unless, of course, somebody comes up with 6-Minute Abs. Then you’re in trouble, huh?

Irrefutable logic. If someone had dared to silkscreen 31 images of the Mona Lisa, we might be viewing their body of work instead of Warhol’s. James Dean instead of Marlin Brando. Progresso soup instead of Campbell’s.

Among the plethora of Warhol merchandise being sold in The Art Institute gift shop are jigsaw puzzles of his displayed work, including the famous portrait of Mao Tse Tung, which the museum label acknowledges, presented the ironic possibility of subverting a communist icon into a commercial one. I didn’t notice the price tag for the puzzle or whether its directions suggest that it be assembled communally.
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Fittingly, the exhibit is a very large one, evoking Warhol’s credo “Always leave them wanting less.”

Upcoming Events

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Normally I don’t take up my extremely valuable time, which could be better spent working on my hip flexors, publishing information about upcoming events, but the website has been acting up lately, causing several problems, like no one receiving newly published posts.  So, after two days of chatting with my new best friends in two different tech departments in two different countries, I feel the need to test the system to see if it’s working properly again, and what better way than to annoy my subscribers with unnecessary, verbose emails.

So, without revealing too much information about my clandestine movements, here’s some things you might consider attending.

Arts in the Dark Parade at 6:00 pm on October 19 on State Street.  You can dress up like your favorite movie character or just watch from the sidelines and admire the total lack of shame of the participants.

Sunset Boulevard just opened at the Porchlight Music Theatre, featuring Chicago legend Hollis Resnik as Norma Desmond.   Having attended an invitational rehearsal, I can tell you that the cast is great and the music is wonderful, but I did catch Resnik smoking in the parking lot during a break, which calls for detention.

The Art Institute is opening its Andy Warhol exhibit for member previews this week, which makes me want to look for clues as to whether he was really an undercover agent spying on extraterrestrial aliens as depicted in Men in Black III.

The Chicago Humanities Festival presents dozens of programs the last week of October.  Just like your insurance company, the festival has been furtively raising prices the last few years, but, unlike your insurer, there’s no competition, so suck it up and treat yourself.

And though I receive no commission for my continuing promotion of her (but should I?), don’t miss Meghan Murphy in Spamalot at the Mercury Theater.

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday Near Millennium Park Without Anyone Named George – July 21, 2019

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Interestingly, both Doctors Without Borders and Borders book stores, which no one was able to save (thereby making the doctors’ organizational name prescient), were founded in 1971. On the other hand, Crossing Borders Music, which put on the concert by my piano teacher, Marianne Parker, that I attended at the Chicago Cultural Center, across Michigan Avenue from Millennium Park, originated in 2011.

The wonderful solo concert featured music from Marianne’s new album of Haitian music, entitled Pages intimes. As I told her afterward, she obviously has been holding out on me, not teaching me everything she knows, because, shockingly, I can’t play like she can. What other reason could there be?

I then rushed over to the Art Institute, across Monroe Street from Millennium Park, to attend its annual Block Party. On my way to the Impressionism room containing Van Gogh’s The Drinkers, for a program put on by the Brewseum, I passed by Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, thereby completing my park-adjacent trilogy.

Pub historian, and Brewseum founder and executive director, Liz Garibay presented a delightful lecture to the crowd on both the Van Gogh painting and the history and culture of drinking and drinking establishments in Chicago, including the 1855 Lager Beer Riot. After this educational tasting, I now thirst for more information, which I attend to drink in at the Brewseum’s exhibition currently on tap at the Field Museum.

I ended my near-the-park Sunday by watching Mucca Pazza (which translates as mad cow) end the party with one of their unique musical performances. P.T. Barnum would have been proud of the way they closed by marching through the Monroe Street exit, helping to clear the building by leading out hundreds of visitors, who then realized that the show was over.  This way to the egress.

MSI After Hours – Wired to Wear – Museum of Science and Industry – May 31, 2019

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I was hoping to see the museum’s exhibits come alive as in one of the Night at the Museum movies, but, upon second thought, the simulated tornado in the Science Storms exhibit, for example, might have brought the party to a crashing halt, and the adventure just wouldn’t be the same without Robin Williams.

The museum’s new Wired to Wear exhibit is fascinating. It’s described as “smart clothing and devices designed to extend the human body’s capabilities and make us healthier, stronger and safer.” Although I have my doubts that the dress that barks like a dog when someone gets too close to the wearer will catch on, there are a lot of interesting innovations that are likely to result in useful options for the disabled, the professional athlete, and the idle rich searching for a Halloween costume.

In addition to the new exhibit and access to all the others at the museum without having to fight off busloads of school children, this adults-only party offered microscopic veggie sliders, generous-pour bartenders, and access to a live podcast of WBEZ’s Nerdette, featuring two of the Wired to Wear inventors.

If you listen to the podcast once they post it, you’ll likely get a digitally-cleansed version, so you won’t be able to appreciate the fact that the guest tech nerds couldn’t figure out that you have to hold the microphone near your mouth when you’re talking so that the audience can hear you, and you probably won’t hear me yelling from the audience “can’t hear you”, an act that didn’t get me kicked out, brought a murmur of appreciation from a part of the audience, and caused one of the guests to use the microphone properly for two seconds, before once again holding it as far away from his mouth as humanly possible.

Perhaps clothing with a built-in amplifier would be more useful than clothing that barks like a dog.

Louder Than Words: Rock, Power & Politics – Museum of Broadcast Communications – May 24, 2019

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I didn’t know that Neil Young wrote Ohio in an hour or ever think that I would see his handwritten lyrics for that anthem on a scrap of paper, but now I have, along with a lot of other interesting memorabilia and historical insights.

Going the morning of opening day, I was the first paying customer (there had been an invitation-only preview to which I wasn’t invited – I must be slipping) to see the museum’s new exhibit, on loan from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

I had a nice chat with a museum curator who approached me to ask me if I was enjoying the exhibit. I assured him I was (I really was – it’s great), but, me being me, I led him to one of the didactic wall panels on which there are a couple statements that I thought were inconsistent and confusing, though not of sufficient importance to shut down the exhibit. He assured me that he understood my concern and would discuss it with higher powers.

I couldn’t tell whether he was just being polite, but he did inform that I wasn’t the first person to point out an issue. At the preview (again, to which I wasn’t invited) someone noticed that the reed on the Bill Clinton saxophone on exhibit was improperly attached to the mouthpiece (insert own joke here). The curator, without the authority to change anything, had sent a message, with a picture of the saxophone, to the Rock & Roll Museum and was awaiting word as to whether they would be sending a swat team to correct the error.

The exhibit is arranged chronologically, with reference to the President of the time, starting with Eisenhower. Interestingly, there is a photograph of Clinton with Lou Reed, who did not appear to be improperly attached.