February 10, 2016 by South Side Weekly

2016

SATCHMO, MUSIC VS. GUN VIOLENCE, PRESENT STANDARD, & MORE INSIDE

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SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY The South Side Weekly is an independent nonprofit newsprint magazine written for and about neighborhoods on the South Side of Chicago. We publish indepth coverage of the arts and issues of public interest alongside oral histories, poetry, fiction, interviews, and artwork from local photographers and illustrators. The South Side Weekly is dedicated to supporting cultural and civic engagement on the South Side and to providing educational opportunities for developing journalists, writers, and artists. Editor-in-Chief Osita Nwanevu Executive Editor Bess Cohen Managing Editors Jake Bittle, Olivia Stovicek Politics Editor Christian Belanger Education Editor Mari Cohen Music Editor Maha Ahmed Stage & Screen Julia Aizuss Editor Visual Arts Editor Corinne Butta Editor-at-Large Emeline Posner Contributing Editors Lucia Ahrensdorf, Will Cabaniss, Sarah Claypoole, Eleonora Edreva, Lewis Page, Hafsa Razi, Sammie Spector Social Media Editors Austin Brown, Emily Lipstein, Sam Stecklow Web Editor Andrew Koski Visuals Editor Ellie Mejia Deputy Visuals Editors Ellen Hao, Thumy Phan Layout Editor Baci Weiler Senior Writer: Stephen Urchick Staff Writers: Olivia Adams, Sara Cohen, Christopher Good, Emiliano Burr di Mauro, Michal Kranz, Kristin Lin, Zoe Makoul, Sonia Schlesinger, Darren Wan Staff Photographers: Juliet Eldred, Finn Jubak, Alexander Pizzirani, Julie Wu Staff Illustrators: Javier Suarez, Addie Barron, Jean Cochrane, Lexi Drexelius, Wei Yi Ow, Amber Sollenberger, Teddy Watler, Julie Wu, Zelda Galewsky, Seonhyung Kim Editorial Interns

Gozie Nwachukwu, Kezie Nwachukwu, Bilal Othman

Webmaster Publisher

Sofia Wyetzner Harry Backlund

The paper is produced by an all-volunteer editorial staff and seeks contributions from across the city. We distribute each Wednesday in the fall, winter, and spring, with breaks during April and December. Over the summer we publish monthly. Send submissions, story ideas, comments, or questions to editor@southsideweekly.com or mail to: South Side Weekly 6100 S. Blackstone Ave. Chicago, IL 60637

IN CHICAGO A week’s worth of developing stories, odd events, and signs of the times, culled from the desks, inboxes, and wandering eyes of the editors

Not Budging As if the hundreds of other (justified) doomsayers about the Illinois budget crisis weren’t enough, now Toni Preckwinkle has joined the fray. While speaking to the Sun-Times editorial board, the Cook County Board President supposedly said the state owes Cook County more than $66 million in funding, including $18 million allocated for child support services. Preckwinkle says social service programs in Cook County will soon have to “skinny down” or lay off staff to make up for the missing money. She, like everyone involved in the budget dispute and everyone else who has commented on it, doesn’t anticipate an end to the conflict any time soon. Meanwhile, President Obama is set to address Illinois lawmakers in Springfield on Wednesday, possibly in order to urge them to, you know, pass a budget. Black Restaurant Week If you didn’t have a chance to take advantage of the deals during the official Chicago Restaurant Week, you’re in luck: Chicago Black Restaurant Week is running through February 13. CBRW was created to put a spotlight on black-owned eateries in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs, which number over 120 according a list in to the Bean Soup Times. Lauran Smith, the “Designer” of CBRW and a self-described “PR Guru,” was concerned that these eateries were not well-known and wanted to help promote them. This week was chosen not because it directly followed Chicago Restaurant Week, but to commemorate “Negro History Week,” which fell on the second week of February from

Smoke and Mirrors Under-twenty-ones can exhale a sigh of relief, with or without nicotine in their breath: Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s latest push to raise tobacco taxes, this time with an ordinance to raise the tobacco-buying age from eighteen to twenty-one, wasn’t even brought to City Council for a vote on Monday. His planned $6 million tax on cigars, roll-your-own cigarettes, and smokeless tobacco would have paid for a summer program for all incoming high schoolers and two weeks of summer school for eighth-graders identified as dropout risks. For aldermen worried about small businesses and illegal cigarette sales, however, these possible benefits didn’t outweigh ongoing concerns about the negative effects of increasing a cigarette tax that’s already the highest in the country. During his tenure Emanuel has emphasized—and been successful at—driving down teen smoking rates, but aldermen have opposed his tobacco tax increases for years. Factor in Emanuel’s tumble in political influence after his handling of the Laquan MacDonald shooting, and you’ve sa chance for aldermen to speak out in full force, accompanied by applause from 7-Eleven franchisees.

IN THIS ISSUE rise and fall familiar sounds of satchmo

“Playing that pretty music every night, it takes a lot of an old man.” emiliano burr di mauro...4 today's vanguard

For advertising inquiries, contact: (773) 234-5388 or advertising@southsideweekly

“We’ve been through this before.” kanisha williams...5

Read our stories online at southsideweekly.com

junctures: garfield

Cover photo by Zachary Jesse.

1926 to 1976, when February was declared Black History Month. Fifteen different black-owned restaurants, bakeries, and food trucks are participating in CBRW’s inaugural year, ranging from Bronzeville Jerk Shack to Truth Italian Restaurant. “People need to know that we offer great food, that black people can cook,” Peytyn Willborn, the owner of Truth Italian Restaurant, told WBEZ.

wabash

A good idea at the right time. alex harrell...6

gripping art

Some of the coolest art doesn’t sit still for a photograph. stephen urchick...8 black history month

“She takes what some people might call trash...and creates the art that we see.” maséqua myers...9

"The South Side don’t need this kind of exploitation.” zach taylor...10 rap becomes the remedy

"Put the Guns Down" emiliano burr di mauro...11 calling local writers

Indie City Writers seeks to address disparities in writers’ resources throughout the city. ada alozie...12

FEBRUARY 10, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 3

Familiar Sounds of Satchmo A number of South Side organizations have partnered for a festival honoring the life and legacy of Louis Armstrong BY EMILIANO BURR DI MAURO

arch, 1971, Louis Armstrong—the “World’s Greatest Trumpet Player”—is playing a two-week engagement at the iconic Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York in what would be one of his final performances before passing away just a few months later. Satchmo at the Waldorf, at Court Theatre, fictionally portrays Armstrong at the end of one of these evenings at the Waldorf, in his dressing room, reflecting upon his life and the legacy he is to leave behind. The one-man show, making its Midwest premiere after a run Off-Broadway in New York, is directed by the Artistic Director of Court, Charles Newell, and was written by Armstrong biographer Terry Teachout (Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong). It is just one part in an ongoing multi-organization festival celebrating Louis Armstrong’s legacy, forty-five years after his death. Having started in early January and extending into late February, the festival includes an archival exhibition at the Beverly Arts Center, jazz performances at the Logan Center for the Arts, the Promontory, and the South Shore Cultural Center, and, finally, various screenings and talks given by organizers of the South Side-based festival and Armstrong experts. The Satchmo Festival, named after one of Armstrong’s commonly used nicknames, was first conceived by Stephen J. Albert, Court’s executive director, in conversation with the executive director of the Beverly Arts Center, Heather Ireland Robinson. “I wanted to see if I could get South Side organizations working together and generate the kind of excitement that his music generated,” Albert said. After receiving word that Satchmo at the Waldorf would be coming to Court, Albert began doing his research on Armstrong, even going to New York to visit the Armstrong Archives and the Armstrong House Museum, where he once resided. Shortly afterward, varying organizations began signing on to collaborate on the festival. “What we do with a theatre of our size is, that whenever we have the opportunity to make a lot of noise, we take it. And this festival has allowed us to make a lot of noise about the production 4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

and about his legacy,” Albert says. Given the great success in New York, certain aspects of the show were to remain unchanged for the Chicago production, Newell said, such as the script and the fact that one actor would play three characters (Armstrong, his manager Joe Glaser, and Miles Davis). However, Newell wanted to create an even more stripped down version than the one seen in New York—the minimal set design only features a few objects on stage and a large mirror behind Armstrong. “The whole point was that it was less literal, it was only reminiscent [of a typical dressing room], and we wanted to get to the emotional core of the piece,” Newell said. “With this actor, I think we really have.” The three characters are played by Barry Shabaka Henley, who seamlessly (with the help of subtle changes in stage lighting) transitions between them as he recounts the trials and tribulations of Armstrong’s life, illuminating the complex relationships Armstrong had with Glaser and the white society that accepted him and propelled his career. The central themes of the play—the passage of time, struggles with immense success, racially-driven obstacles, his declining health—are not particularly humorous topics, but when Henley delivers Armstrong’s story to the audience, there is no option but to laugh, even if just for the moment before contemplation settles in. His performance is a testament to the sense of humor the jovial, charismatic Armstrong had about his life. Yet, just as Henley wins over the audience, as Armstrong did for decades, he reveals the sadness and frustration Armstrong possessed towards those very audiences who considered their admiration of him an ‘exception’ because of his race. “Everyone knows him as the joyous, positive, upbeat, Louis Armstrong,” Newell says. “The story of his life is much more complicated than that and that’s the Louis Armstrong we wanted to portray—the one you don’t know.” Armstrong, born to a poor family in New Orleans, first came to Chicago in 1922 to play trumpet in Joe “King” Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, where his southern style won

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massive popularity. After a brief engagement in New York, he returned to Chicago in 1925 and began recording records under his name, accompanied with his band Hot Five. It was also around this time that Armstrong began playing in the Carroll Dickerson Orchestra at the Sunset Café in Bronzeville, which Glaser owned. In 1928, Glaser became Armstrong’s manager and launched him into national stardom, having him tour extensively throughout the United States for the next three decades, and even earning him a couple of number one hits by the end of the sixties. His monumental career came to an end in 1971, when he passed away in New York from a heart attack. At the time of his death, he was hailed as one of the most influential artists in jazz music—perhaps one of the smallest signifiers of his recognized contributions being that the list of honorary pallbearers at his funeral included Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, and Frank Sinatra.

JULIE XU

et something, perhaps the most important driving force in his life, was absent from the play—his music. It only appeared every now and then, and whenever it did, it was brief, playing in the background in an echoing, haunting manner. It was an omission made out of respect, and one intended to contribute to a different focus on Armstrong that is seldom explored. “The play doesn’t have his music, and you could never get an actor to play his music, and because of that, I thought it was missing that character,” Albert says. That particular character found its place in other forms: the exhibit at the Beverly Arts Center, which displays archival items on loan from the Louis Armstrong Archives, even one of his trumpets, is meant to directly complement the show. Trollies can take visitors to the exhibit following a matinee performance of the play, to give them historical context after being introduced to Armstrong’s narrative story, Albert says. Festivalgoers find the sounds of Armstrong and those influenced

STAGE & SCREEN by him through various live performances by saxophonist Darius Hampton and trumpeters Marquis Hill and Orbert Davis, among many others. Armstrong’s legacy becomes difficult to fully understand considering all the moving parts: his music, his artistry, his role in society, and his own personal identity, incessantly contradicting, clashing with, and complementing one another. Yet Satchmo at the Waldorf and the accompanying festival efficiently hone in on Armstrong by means of wide-sweeping avenues fictional, historical, and musical. The return of Satchmo’s music and legacy to Chicago is also particularly striking considering the road he paved for numerous black entertainers and musicians, here and elsewhere. Simply put, by bringing this festival to the South Side, Court and its partnering organizations have used their combined immense stake in the Chicago cultural world to bring back a celebration of jazz and those who make it. “One of the things about being on the South Side of Chicago, is that jazz music is a big part of its own legacy,” Albert says. “There’s so much richness, but there’s a hunger of so many people to have that legacy back.” Court, which traditionally dedicates itself to a number of classic productions from the Western canon every year, is marking a new, conscious direction with the Satchmo Festival. It is both refreshing and immensely exciting to see a newfound investment in the history and culture of the predominantly black communities that surround the theater, an ongoing mission since Court established the Center for Classic Theatre in 2010. This step is one that is certainly dependable, and will contribute to the “cultural ecology” of the South Side, according to Albert—that is, as long as they continue to program more collaborative events and productions that fall under this new direction. Towards the end of the play, Henley proclaims: “Playing that pretty music every night, it takes a lot out of an old man,” and for a moment there is a sense that Armstrong, who evidently just wanted to play music, simply happened to find himself in a world that adored him for it. Whether or not people listened, and bought, and waited for the sounds of his trumpet, his life is a reminder that the true legacy an artist can have is one in which they would have played regardless of how much people paid attention. Despite his difficulties in dealing with the pervasiveness of America’s white supremacy, the extent of which he saw while touring the country, when Armstrong was on stage, he was nothing but the world’s greatest trumpet player.

Today's Vanguard

Black Cinema House connects the Black Panthers and contemporary activist organizations

BY KANISHA WILLIAMS

he January 29 free screening of Stanley Nelson’s 2015 documentary The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution was packed beyond capacity well before the screening’s start time. A crowd of at least ten more milled outside, trying to convince a security guard to let them through the door. Accepting their defeat, the crowd of elders pleaded with the guard to at least allow me in: “She’s young; she’s a student. She doesn’t know about it, but we lived through it. Let her in!” I sat down outside of the door, not sure if I’d be waiting in vain (and rain) for two hours, or if I’d be able to get inside. About three minutes later, the guard came back and opened the door. “They were using you. If I’d let you in in front of all them, they would’ve come in, too; that’s for certain.” After sharing laughs, scoffs, and perhaps a tear or two with the audience members in reaction to the insights of police officers, former Black Panther members, and historians, I expected more than half the audience to trickle out before the panel started. Instead, not a soul in the room stirred. The audience wasn’t just here to watch a documentary about the life and death of an influential black organizational movement, but also to learn from it. Vanguard acted as an overview of the world of black organization efforts through the lens of this particular historical, influential group, while at the same time reexamining the Black Panthers’s legacy through accounts by police officers, former members, and historians. In this approach, the film itself seems to be aware that it’s dealing with a subject perceived as radical, violent, and little else. The interviews feel warm and lighthearted, making the concept of organizing a body of people into a political force an accessible one to those who find themselves staring the world of activism in the face and feeling shy. The film seems to tell the audience, “We’ve been through this before,” and then encourages its audience to search for answers beyond it.

The panel was well prepared to provide those answers. It featured a range of perspectives: Damon Williams, co-founder of the #LetUsBreathe collective and co-chair of Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100); Jane Rhodes, professor of African American Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, author of Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon, and consultant on the film; Bob Madullah, a member of the Prisoners of Conscience Committee, started by Fred Hampton, Jr.; and a former member of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party. The panel was moderated by BYP100 member Imani Jackson, whose discussion points, in addition to the audience’s questions, took the issues raised by the film and contemporized them. The conversation developed into an illuminating dissection of problems that the community faces in the realm of political activism in Chicago today. In response to a question on the role of women in political and activist organizations, Williams explained how BYP100 works to address the way in which the role of women and young people in these movements have been minimized and forgotten. “This is one of those [places] where the younger generation has learned from the mis-

KANISHA WILLIAMS

takes of the past,” Rhodes remarked, though she added that part of the infighting was due to a “lack of negotiation” on how power was distributed within the party in general, among women in particular. Later in the discussion, Veronica Morris Moore, an organizer whose work with Fearless Leading by the Youth was a major part of the movement to bring an Adult Level I Trauma Center to the South Side, joined the panel to speak on coalition building. “It’s also important for us to build community around this issue, and essentially building coalition and community is building power—that’s people power,” she explained. “That’s that bridge...all of these people sat on our coalition to bring both different resources and also different stories to tell.” Each of the five panelists spoke about the importance of political education and how critical it was to liberating black people from oppressive structures and figures. The former Black Panther member put it eloquently: “I think Harriet Tubman made a good point: she said that she could’ve freed more people if they knew they were slaves,” he said. The film and the panel not only focused on the critical role of political education, but were themselves forms of it.

FEBRUARY 10, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5

JUNCTURES

Garfield & Wabash

Developer hopes to restore glory of historic Washington Park bakery BY ALEX HARRELL

caffolding lines the building to protect pedestrians from falling debris. Cigarette butts and decomposing leaves solidify into thick ropes at the base, impeding any entrance into the already gated, bolted, and locked doors. Despite the factory’s decaying facade, the creamy terra cotta still looks freshly glazed. When the sun hits the peeling blue paint, it’s easy to envision the once lavish details on the façade. Paul Schulze left Germany in 1893. That same year, he founded what would later become the most modern baking business of its time, the Schulze Baking Company, at the intersection of Wabash Avenue and Garfield Boulevard. In 1914, Chicago architect John Ahlschlager built the Schulze factory that still stands in Washington Park. The plant is designed in early Art Deco style. Curiously, though, Art Deco wouldn’t emerge for eleven more years in Paris, and sixteen more in America, according to Gardner’s Art Through the Ages. In addition to the outside, Ahlschlager, whose firm also designed what is now the Logan Theater, made sure the interior could house large-scale industrial baking by employing conveyor belts and assembly lines. And it did. With this technology, Schulze revolutionized the baking industry. According to the Schulze and Burch Biscuit Company’s website (Schulze merged with the Burch Biscuit Company in 1933), Schulze earned titles for owning the largest bakery 6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

in the world and the highest-producing baking company in the country. The factory was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. The factory was a good idea at a good time. At the 1911 convention of the National Association of Master Bakers, of which Schulze was the president, Schulze extolled the utility of industrial baking ovens, which were able to reach higher temperatures than household ovens. Housewives baking bread at home ended up producing half-cooked loaves laced with bacterial disease, Schulze said in his speech, claiming that these home bakers were “unquestionably committing murder.” This sensational claim reached the pages of the New York Times, and, according to the Schulze and Burch website, the commercial bread industry boomed. Ninety years later, in 2004, the factory closed. The bread industry was in decline, a trend that some blame on the low-carb Atkins diet craze of the early 2000s, others on poor management in the industry. The plant has been vacant for over a decade, and the smell of baked bread has dissipated altogether. Landmark Illinois listed the building as one of its Most Endangered Historic Places in 2015. Ghian Foreman, a Washington Park native and real estate developer, still remembers the fragrance from when the bakery was open. That’s partially why he bought the factory in 2006. The real reason for his $3.1 million purchase, however, relates to Schul-

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ze’s original vision for the bakery. The Schulze and Burch website claims that Schulze’s factory brought the initial industrial boom to Washington Park. Now Foreman, who is a partner with Maktub LLC and a board member at the Greater Southwest Development Corporation, hopes to bring a second boom to the neighborhood by reviving the factory. “Returning the building to its former glory could have a significant impact on the community,” he said. But it hasn’t been easy: Foreman has been at work on restoring the building for ten years. Because of the factory’s status as a historical landmark, it is eligible for historic preservation tax credits. But during the economic downturn that began in 2008, government funding was limited; the Schulze bakery was swept to the sidelines. Foreman has had plenty of chances to sell the land and make a pretty penny, but he’s denied them all. “I had to consider what was best for my family, as well as the community,” he says. “I would’ve made money but t`he community could’ve ended up in a worse place.” This past fall, with Foreman’s approval, the American data center operator 1547 Critical Systems Realty invested over $130 million into Schulze Bakery. The company began transforming the building into a hundred-thousand-square-foot data center where a large number of computer servers will be housed. “This is where the cloud lives,” Foreman explains, referring to the common term for

ALEX HARRELL

internet data storage. He will be the managing partner of what will be called the Midway Technology Center. The center is expected to go live in 2017. Foreman promises that the remaining 130,000 square feet of the unit will be utilized in the most community-oriented way— perhaps a hydroponics farming center or a training facility to teach adults and children coding, but he says it definitely will not be a storage unit. “We don’t know what it is that we are going to do, but we know that we have space that can be beneficial somehow, someway,” he says. “I would like it if that opportunity was also something that could be beneficial for the community, not just pure profit.” The Schulze Bakery, then, will soon be more than a bittersweet reminder of the prosperous past. Once again it will exist as a result of an emerging enterprise in a neighborhood that lacks economic investment, using new ideas and new technology to bring jobs, traffic, and other opportunities to the community. “Everybody thinks that profit is just in dollars, but it’s a lot more than just dollars,” says Foreman. “It will generate jobs, taxes, and it could potentially spark other development in the community.” But Foreman isn’t celebrating just yet, and he won’t be until the old Schulze factory reopens its doors. “It’s almost like raising a child,” he says. “I’ve been fighting with this thing for almost ten years, but it’s that important.”

VISUAL ARTS

Gripping Art

“Present Standard” and “Librería Donceles” make the Cultural Center all touchy and feely BY STEPHEN URCHICK

he exhibition “Present Standard” red-flags the pleasures and terrors of touch. On display at the Chicago Cultural Center in the Loop through April 24, “Present Standard” assembles art by twenty-five U.S.-based, Latino contemporary artists with connections to Chicago. The show, curated by Edra Soto and Josué Pellot, spans three galleries and is accompanied by educator Pablo Helguera’s popup bookstore, “Librería Donceles.” Loosely organized around questions of what it means to fly a flag, and identify with a people or place, “Present Standard” really rallies beneath the banner of feeling objects and surfaces, wanting to turn things over in your hands. In doing so, “Present Standard” plays with the two words that make up its name. What does Latino art look like, right now? What objects can be held up as a pennant or symbol for this art? Each individual artwork dives a little deeper into those words, posing its own questions about identity, nationhood, migration, and home. But the show also wonders if it’s even correct to talk about one, singular type of “Latino art”—to “standardize” it. Recognizing and respecting shared experiences is important, but sometimes we talk about this cultural knowledge too much and expect a one-toone connection between the artist and the art. The best way to move between these competing ideas is to deal with the art itself. A little room defined by walls of fluorescent string; inflatable paintings, and paintings that wrap around corners; perforated sheet metal beaten across a circular, wooden stretcher frame; a microphone that bangs itself into the wall every fifteen seconds. Some of the coolest art in “Present

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Standard” doesn’t sit still for a photograph. Soto and Pellot chose to exhibit art that you have to go in person to see, to sniff, and—when permitted—to run your fingers through. Diana P. Gabriel’s “Fleco” celebrates the giddy and playful side of the fiber arts. Four wooden posts and overhead spanning beams mark out a boxy pavilion of about six or seven square feet. Gabriel stapled long lengths of mint, lime, and bright yellow cotton string across the top beams, creating vibrant, porous draperies on all four sides of the wooden frame. “Fleco” is an abstract salute to the chintzy bead curtain, or the venerable vertical loom. In visually referencing weaving and meticulous labor, “Fleco” could be said to respond to ideas about power, the domestic sphere, and work. It’s the most direct, literal reply “Present Standard” has for its interpretive title, regarding the theme of flag-like textiles. However, these thoughts don’t entirely match the happy, electric, and innocent effect “Fleco” had in the gallery on “Present Standard’s” opening night. Eight children and a grown man camped out, cross-legged, inside the box. Visitors pawed at the colorful strands—spreading their fingers like a cat its claws, letting the material slide past. “Fleco” shakes up the expectations that fill the quiet, important, and whitewashed gallery. When there was no one inside “Fleco,” nobody dared touch the piece, but as visitors gradually entered and exited, they signaled the safety of the space—they unconsciously invited the next beholder through the curtain. While one is inside the piece, the strings cast bright vertical stripes over the outside world, making it hard to bring distant people into focus.

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COURTESY OF THE D

They map weird patches of high contrast onto exterior images, creating odd, shadowy hazes, straining the eyes the longer you look. “Fleco” narrows your attention down to the people inside “Fleco.” In a way, “Fleco” was something like the sculptural sister to Pablo Helguera’s more expansive “Librería Donceles” installation. Taking over its own, fourth gallery separate from “Present Standard,” Helguera moved in a highly browseable, pay-whatyou-like, Spanish-language bookstore. It’s an answer to the death of bookstore culture, and the general difficulty of finding books in Spanish. Helguera’s “Librería” is a hierarchy of intimate spaces, subdivided with densely-packed shelves. There’s a cozy performance arts area, a living room with deep armchairs, a centermost enclosure with a ring of semicircular ottomans, a kid’s nook with pint-sized furniture near

the children’s titles. Just as “Fleco” invites the beholder to experience the whimsy of weaving, “Librería Donceles” gives a warm, grandfatherly charm to the experience of literature. Both invite viewers to learn with touch. Leafing through pages is just the start of Helguera’s sensuous repertoire. Leather upholstery, heavy wooden furniture, lamps with cutglass shades in tortoiseshell patterns all comfortably weigh down the visitor. There’s plenty of strong raking light, but no bright ambient light. Lanterns focus all their power into the bookshelves instead of onto people. Bulbs are filmed over with brown sheets of plastic, heightening the off-white cream-color of acid-free paper, the beaten tan of crumbling pulp publications. However, “Fleco” and “Librería Donceles” only account for half of the art on display. Touch, sight—sensation—can be

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS AND SPECIAL EVENTS

equal parts brutal, dangerous, and frightening. Sofia Moreno’s “Untitled I” and “Untitled II” are thin mixed-media and paper paintings that look like sheer slices of diseased skin. Luis Sahagun’s “Conflicts of Desire” works nail polish, lipstick, screws, cardboard, and three different types of paint into a meaty, three-dimensional outcropping. Juan Angel Chávez bolts a metal barn door to a circular frame and suspends it from the wall. The cladding is beaten into a coral-like web of indentations, blasted through by repeated pumps of red-hot birdshot. The eeriest example of this touch-asterror trend is a six-foot-tall shed-snakeskin-and-beeswax sculpture of a Madonna-like ghost, executed by Mariano Chavez. Chavez’s “Ghost” makes the obsession with tactility morbid. The differences between each strand of skin, used to

make up the ghost’s hair and cloak, aren’t simply formal. It’s not a difference between long, matte, clearly segmented skins and withered, drawn-out rinds. The use of snakeshed means conjuring up the many slithering creatures that made these materials. Each texture is one true-to-life fingerprint: the trace of a living thing. In the same way, the beeswax doesn’t just mimic the cellular texture of the snakeshed. It also gives off a faintly perceptible, sickly-sweet odor, reminding the beholder that this is soberingly “all-organic,” produced by life that slithers, buzzes, stings or suffocates. “Present Standard” runs two flags up the same pole: playing, swishing, turning, and stroking starkly contrast with scalping, gouging, and shooting. Although “Librería Donceles” exists outside of “Present Standard,” Helguera’s bookstore aligns with a group of objects in the exhibit that are thrilled about dynamic, sculptural making in the round. The artists all share an intimate, down-to-earth relationship with their materials; their practices seem to bounce between artistic and artisanal. “Present Standard” asks about Latino art in the U.S., and its representative artists respond with technical triumphs in working neat materials. The exhibit beckons us to break the gallery’s cultural prohibition against touching, and come to grips with great art. Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington St. Through April 24. Open Monday–Thursday, 9am–7pm; Friday–Saturday, 9am–6pm; Sunday, 10am–6pm. Free. (312) 744-6630. chicagoculturalcenter.org

Joyce Owens - Heart and Hand (2015) Acrylic on wood with beads and metal In honor of Black History Month, Maséqua Myers, Executive Director of the South Side Community Art Center, has curated a small series of images from the Art Center’s collection to celebrate African-American history, African-American art, and the South Side Community Art Center’s role in preserving that legacy.

oyce Owens is a graduate of Howard University for her undergraduate degree; her master’s was at Yale University. [Until recently she was] a professor of art at Chicago State University. She works with oil on canvas, but the piece we’re talking about here is her sculpture, which is wood and metal. And what she does is take; the reason why I love her is because she takes what some people might call trash, or different objects that are thrown away, and creates the art that we see. So she’ll take pieces of wood that have been thrown out. She’ll find buttons and steal pieces of nails and thumbtacks—all these types of what someone has thrown away and can’t use—and create this beautiful piece of artwork and sculpture, and that’s one of the reasons why I chose her. (Maséqua Myers)

FEBRUARY 10, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9

LABOR

Rise and Fall

As Nabisco’s largest factory plans to move 600 jobs out of the Southwest Side, the bakery’s employees haven’t lost hope BY ZACH TAYLOR

ast May, the over one thousand workers at Nabisco’s towering 73rd and Kedzie bakery (their largest in the country) came into work only to discover that up to half of them would be losing their jobs in the upcoming year. The decision came as a shock to the plant’s workers, who’d been expecting to see a $130 million investment in upgrading the Chicago facility. Instead Mondelez, the confectionary, food, and beverage conglomerate of which Nabisco is a subsidiary, plans to put the $130 million toward improving its new facility in Salinas, Mexico. The Marquette Park facility has been in operation since the fifties—almost anyone who’s lived in the area, walked down Kedzie, or played basketball in Marquette Park can describe the scent of Oreos that has filled the air since its beginnings. In fact, many of the plant’s employees have parents who worked in the bakery for decades before them, and can easily recount enjoyable times they spent on the production lines. Sabrina Pope, an employee for thirty-five years, got a job when her mother encouraged her to apply. “I’d been working at a state facilityand I couldn’t handle the gap between paychecks,” says Pope. “My mom suggested I go over to the bakery and apply. I was in by Mother’s Day.” Her fellow employee and friend Barbara Cimbalista says that employees used to love their jobs so much that management couldn’t get them to leave. “It was so great, people wouldn't go home,” says Cimbalista. “Working overtime, they could do their laundry at the bakery.” It wasn’t long before Pope and Cimbalista took up more hours and became union stewards with the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco, and Grain Millers (BCTGM) Local 300 Union. But when Pope and Cimbalista entered the factory in May, they were immediately split up into separate small groups to be told that they wouldn’t be receiving the stateof-the-art machinery they were promised. 10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

“We really had our hopes up, thinking wed get all those lines,” says Pope. The unions operating at Nabisco were told that taking the new lines wasn’t enough to avoid a $46 million deficitn. “They told us this was a business, and we need to stay afloat,” says Pope. “I said, not on my back!” Pope says that she and the rest of the factory workers were unaware of the size of the alleged deficit. "We invited the unions to bring forward any input they had and thoughts they had to address that gap," said Laurie Guzzinati, a spokeswoman for Mondelez. According to Guzzinati, the input from the union wasn’t enough to convince Mondelez to reverse their decision. Jethro Head and Ron Baker, two representatives from BCTGM International Union, claim that Mondelez gave the bakery’s workers an ultimatum: lose the six hundred jobs, or take a $22 wage cut. “Mondelez proposed that if South Siders wanted to keep their jobs, they’d have to finance it themselves,” says Head. “It was a deal no one would take because it’s damn near nothing.” Many employees and union members think the solution is obvious: rather than cutting jobs and wages, they think Irene Rosenfeld, CEO of Mondelez, should front the costs herself. According to Crain’s, Rosenfeld took roughly $21 million compensation in 2014. While the company claims the move will bring financial salvation for employees in other countries, Baker claims the transfer is more complicated than that. The issue isn’t just the removal of jobs from Chicago and into Mexico, according to Baker, but also the continued exploitation of the company’s workers. “If they were really taking these jobs and moving them to Mexico, then the people working those jobs would have the same wage, the same benefits,” says Baker. “But they won’t, because it’s all about exploiting them. If you want loyal employees, why can’t Mexican employees even afford the products they’re making?” According to multiple media sources, Mondelez has yet to comment on the wages at

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ZACHARY JESSE

Sabrina Pope (left) and Barbara Cimbalista (right) have been employees at the Nabisco factory on 73rd and Kedzie for decades. As union stewards, they have fought Mondelez's decision to lay off six hundred workers from the factory. the Salinas plant at the time of writing. A question arises, then: why is Mondelez making such drastic cuts to its largest plant, one that produces many of its Nabisco products including Oreo, Chips Ahoy, Nutter Butter, belVita, Ritz, and Wheat Thins, rather than to other facilities such as those in Virginia or New Jersey. Mondelez officials themselves admit that the Chicago facility is “an important part of the network.” “It’s no coincidence they chose Chicago,” says Baker. “With such a large percentage of the site’s workers being over forty years old, Hispanic and/or African-American...It’s clear that this is discrimination.” “They think they can do this to us because our workers are minorities,” says Pope. On December 11, BCTGM filed a grievance with Mondelez, stating that moving the factory jobs to Mexico violates a nondiscrimination clause in their collective bargaining agreement. Ten days later they filed another grievance alleging that the factory’s management has been filling jobs in the union bargaining unit with unaffiliated contract workers in order to tip the scale in their favor before the jobs are officially cut. On January 19, however, 277 employees received pink slips in reverse-seniority order, according to one employee who broke the news on Facebook to current and retired plant workers. Head, who grew up in Marquette Park and worked in the bakery at a younger age, thinks this is a direct hit to the economy of the neighborhood and the South Side in general.

“I grew up in this area, and I see the South Side change a little bit every time I’m around here,” he says. “But I’ll tell you something— this city don’t need this. The South Side don’t need this kind of exploitation.” As Chicago has seen in the past, the outsourcing of labor has had a profound effect on the industrial sector of Chicago’s South Side. The closing of the city’s stockyards and steel mills in the seventies affected hundreds of working families, and since then the city has seen some of the world’s largest industries dwindle down to small, scattered plants. It seems likely that the outsourcing of jobs from the Nabisco plant will affect Brighton Park in a similar way. But even in the face of this damage to their community’s industry, the workers at the plant haven’t given up. Baker and Head are promoting a kind of read-the-label boycott campaign of Oreos made in Mexico, in hopes of pressuring the company to reconsider the decision. Baker claims that at this point BCTGM exists solely to make sure Mondelez “does the right thing.” The union stewards and representatives are joined by supporters like Alderman Derrick Curtis of the 18th Ward in pushing back. Their next stop on the campaign is re-negotiating the BCTGM contract, which expires at the end of February. “I expect that all six hundred jobs stay here, I expect that we get a raise, and I expect a contract renewal,” says Pope. “We made this bakery. It was made by us and those before us, and we're not giving up.”

MUSIC

Rap Becomes the Remedy

The Music Vs. Gun Violence campaign urges Chicagoans to think twice before picking up a gun

BY EMILIANO BURR DI MAURO

his past December, rapper King Louie, one of the acts on the multi-artist rap campaign Music Vs. Gun Violence, was shot in the head in the Southwest Side neighborhood of Ashburn. For the campaign’s music video “Put the Guns Down,” King Louie, who has since recovered, is joined by rappers Common, Lil Herb, Katie Got Bandz, and Saba, among many more—all contributing verses that urge citizens to take a moment to think before they pick up a gun. The initiative was forged from conversations between artists, engineers, activists, and other professionals at the annual Chicago Ideas Week conference last October. Eventually, the group that formed partnered with Chicago-based advertising agency Leo Burnett and began work on a campaign. Music Vs. Gun Violence hopes to capitalize on the ability of music—specifically rap—to accomplish social change, according to Brian Shembeda, creative director of Leo Burnett. “The issue [of gun violence] is on the news every night, and people can turn off the news, so we had to find a way outside of the news for people to have this conversation,” Shembeda says. Shembeda and his team purposely recruited rappers who were born, raised, or lived in Chicago for this campaign, thereby giving the artists a personal stake in the project. One such artist, the producer Anthony “The Twilite Tone” Khan, lost a cousin to gun violence just a few months ago. Khan signed onto the project immediately because he thought this campaign could be more effective at reducing the number of shootings than a call for gun policy reform, he says. “I think music, particularly the rap genre, is an effective method in instigating change because its message can serve as a vehicle to motivate and inspire conversation, which will ultimately cause a call to action for change,” Khan says. In producing the track, Khan knew he wanted to use a drill-inspired beat because

it was a soundtrack “that exemplified the streets” with its “progressive, conscious rappers acting as trusted reporters,” he says. From an advertising standpoint, however, the decision to use rap was not just about its connection to Chicago or its people, but instead about the genre’s tempestuous relationship with guns. “The drill scene was born in Chicago,” says Shembeda. “And since the drill scene is so pro-gun, we wondered: if music [has been blamed for] gun violence, then we can use music to stop gun violence.” The forces behind “Put the Guns Down” hope that the four-minute drill song eventually comes to last hours, Shembeda says, since the campaign is asking Chicago residents to submit videos of their own verses. These, they hope, will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with “Put the Guns Down” and contribute to the ongoing dialogue of trauma and resilience. “We want to get as many people [as possible] to submit their verses, which means the conversation is growing and people are listening. Then people are putting guns down,” Shembeda says.

his is not the first campaign that has used the popularity of rap music, or even the star power of a Chicago-based rapper, to raise awareness about gun violence. Last year, Chance the Rapper, along with his brother and fellow musician, Taylor Bennett, launched the online Twitter campaign #SaveChicago. The campaign gained a huge amount of traction online, and there were no shootings in Chicago for forty-two hours. It is difficult to say whether the participation of multiple rappers in one project will get more media coverage than a project with just one big-name rapper, but the people behind Music Vs. Gun Violence don’t see the two campaigns as opposed. “I don’t believe there is any one thing that can be done that can affect this problem,” Shembeda says. “It is something that is going to have to be

BACI WEILER

tackled on multiple fronts.” “Put the Guns Down” centers around one video hosted on YouTube, which makes it (intentionally) easy to share. The video itself assumes the expected role of a music video, featuring each artist on the track rapping his or her own verses. The video takes a turn toward direct activism with the juxtaposition of images of families affected by gun violence: they look straight towards the camera, all appearing solemn and strong. As the video progresses, the number of family members that appear together also increases—mirroring rising rates of violence, more names becoming hashtags, and more young people caught in the crossfire. The choice to include these families was both necessary and obvious to Leo Burnett and its creative team, Shembeda told me: “You can’t divorce this topic from the people who have been affected by it, and in my humble opinion, it would be wrong to do that...it would mean taking away the pain and suffering of gun violence, and honestly a lot of [those affected] have the strongest voices right now.”

ith gun violence claiming more victims with every passing day, many find Music Vs. Gun Violence’s strategy insufficient. The South Side rapper GOD told me recently, in reference to the campaign, “It’s going to take way more than that. Most people...might ignore that type of movement anyway. “A lot of what’s going on out here is personal, so they won’t stop until they feel like they got payback,” he continues. “It don’t matter what movement somebody else is on...it’s just a vicious cycle that probably only jobs, money, and extra activities can slow down.” With this project, a large obstacle to the goal of creating ongoing participation is the fickle nature of the Internet, especially considering that community participation in the campaign requires a greater commitment of time and creative energy than many viewers are willing to give. The music video has garnered roughly 52,000 view on YouTube, but with only about eighty submissions in total and a waning submission rate since its premiere, it seems the stamina produced by the video's star power is not very sustainable. “I’m hoping that we can get more momentum moving forward and getting people to submit,” Shembeda says. But of course, if people aren’t getting interested, we are going to have switch up our tactic here.” If Music Vs. Gun Violence hopes to capitalize on music and the public’s heavy investment in the industry, then participants are going to have to be more vocal about the issue than they have been. However, it would be unfair to call the campaign ineffective, especially since it does not aim to instigate a real-life change in gun violence numbers. While it lacks a self-sustaining narrative, the initiative has contributed to an overarching dialogue of creative activism that has picked up momentum in Chicago over the past few years. For now, giving voice to those affected by gun violence is a good start.

FEBRUARY 10, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11

LIT

Calling Local Writers

Newly formed writing group hopes to foster South Side literary talent BY ADA ALOZIE

eats are filled, and some stand elbow-to-elbow alongside the bookcases, patiently waiting in the back room of 57th Street Books for the first live showcase of the Indie City Writers, a new writing community based in Hyde Park. Tired of “perpetually traveling up north for expert talks about publishing, for live-lit performances, [or] to hang out with other writers,” K.B. Jensen created the Indie City Writers to foster and “strengthen the writing community on the South Side.” The group seeks to rectify the discrepancy in writers’ services like industry talks, workshops, and live performances, all of which she says are hard to find south of the Loop. While many writers’ groups exist throughout the North Side and Evanston areas, the time and cost of transportation to those neighborhoods begins to take a toll on those who don’t write full-time or can’t spare a two-hour commute. Jensen, together with M.L. Kennedy and Kayla Gordon—both local writers—has worked to establish an artists’ space for emerging writers on the South Side. Jensen and Gordon met at a writers’ meet-up and Kennedy met Jensen through

12 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

a mutual friend from Minneapolis. Jensen introduced the two to each other, and they started to think about how the group would take shape. They wanted it to be a community since “writing, a lot of the time, is isolating,” as Jensen put it. “And you really need a community. It’s not enough to just sit there in your own little house, typing away...you need to be able to edit it, workshop it, and grow as a writer.” At the group’s weekly meetings, participants can workshop pre-existing works, begin the writing process with a prompt, read one of their pieces, or hear an industry representative speak to the group about the steps to publication. Though the activities of a meeting may differ depending on the night, the collaborative, supportive principles behind the group’s inception are meant to be an important characteristic in all interactions. All are welcome, and in addition to the low price of dues ($0), the nurturing feeling of community is sure to motivate many to join. Currently the group is relying on word of mouth to advertise, though so far they’ve been successful in reaching out not only to local writers, but also to those from

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the North Side and Chicago suburbs. The showcase at 57th Street Books served to showcase the talents of emerging writers, and it was interesting to note the various subject and genre matters handled: from Melanie Holmes’ excerpt from her novel <i>The Female Assumption</i>, a feminist endeavor to survey and understand motherhood’s role in womanhood, to Wednesday Quansah’s humorous short story about a coffeeshop (“Coffee Shop”) and its surly barista, and from a humorous twenty-five-word short about seeing Santa in September to an uncompromising class-conscious poem about the significance of an insignificant street sweeper. Although the writers in the collective come from varying genres and experience levels, the group believes great writing is great writing no matter the specialty, and it works to supplement and reinforce the talents of all its members. It acts as not only a platform for its members to showcase their work, but as a place for them to grow. After watching Quansah showcase her ability to wring humor from a scenario as mundane as ordering coffee before going to work—at moments producing belly laugh-

ter throughout the room—it was clear that she and the other performers have unique ways of letting their pieces demonstrate their dedication to storytelling; the pieces performed were not first drafts. For Jensen, the purpose of the Indie City Writers is to “showcase emerging writers. [To see] people developing their talents before [they’re] famous… A group where you can create, share, learn, critique, refine. All those things.” She has large plans for the organization: in five years, she sees it evolving from a writer’s collective to a nonprofit for supporting emerging writers. Jensen hopes the group can serve as a springboard for supporting and developing talent, which could make a lasting impact on “bridging the gap” between the inequity of writer’s resources on the North and South Sides. If the first live showcase is any indication of what the group has to offer, then all admirers of good literature and local talent should keep their eyes out. If interested in attending a meeting or getting more information, e-mail Indie City Writers at indiecitywriters@gmail.com.

EVENTS BULLETIN

Dressing for the Revolution: Fashion and Black Power Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture, 5733 S. University Ave. Thursday, February 11, 6pm. (773) 702-8063. csrpc. uchicago.edu Writer and academic Tanisha C. Ford will deliver a lecture based on her book Liberated Threads: Black Women, Style, and the Global Politics of Soul, which examines how black women have used fashion as a form of activism and empowerment, from the Soul Power movement to the present day. (Anne Li)

Teach-in on Racism and Activism Saieh Hall, 5757 S. University Ave. Friday, February 12, 10am–5pm. (773) 702-8063. csrpc.uchicago.edu Though hosted by UofC students and faculty, this teach-in has a broad mandate—to address racism around the city and the world, as well as on campus—and the university’s neighbors are invited. After the leak of racist, sexist and Islamophobic emails from a UofC fraternity, including derogatory references to “community members,” the event has acquired a sudden timeliness. (Adam Thorp)

Solidarity Day Chicago 63rd St. and King Dr. Saturday, February 13, 12:16pm. Ja'Mal Green, a musician and activist, is calling for thousands of people to march to protest gun violence and police brutality. The march will begin on 63rd Street and King Drive and end on 69th Street and Emerald Avenue, where a concert will begin at 3pm. (Lily Li)

Teach In: Black Futures and the State’s Attorney Race Arts Incubator, 301 E. Garfield Blvd. Monday, February 15, 6pm–9pm. byp100.org It was inevitable that the competitive threeway race for Cook County State’s Attorney would be considered in the light of the shooting death of Laquan McDonald and the

public outrage brought to bear before Anita Alvarez, the incumbent candidate, agreed to file charges. This teach-in, hosted by Black Youth Project 100, uses their concern for black futures to frame the race. (Adam Thorp)

Fair Elections Launch and Phone Bank First Lutheran Church of the Trinity, 643 W. 31st St. Thursday, February 18, 5:30pm– 8:30pm. (312) 372-2422. fairelectionsil.org With election season right around the corner, political groups like the Reclaim Campaign and Common Cause Illinois are rallying behind the Fair Elections Ordinance, an effort to match small donations with public funding and offset the influence of wealthy donors. Join them for a discussion and phone bank session. (Christopher Good)

United Working Families Southwest Side Candidate Forum 2229 S. Halsted St. Saturday, February 20, 1pm–4pm. (773) 442-2628. unitedworkingfamilies.org Attendees of this forum will discuss the issues affecting communities in southwest Chicago and ask questions of candidates running for offices in the region. Candidates that may attend include Anita Alvarez, Kim Foxx, Donna More, Alex Acevedo, and Theresa Mah. (Lily Li)

Expanding Your Horizons 2016 UIC College of Pharmacy, 833 S. Wood St. Saturday, March 19, 9am–3pm. sites.google. com/site/eyhchicago This symposium allows sixth through eighth grade girls interested in STEM to explore countless possibilities and careers under the guidance of female professionals. Parents or educators may also attend an informative program on obstacles that could arise in pursuit of these careers. (Sara Cohen) VISUAL ARTS

Monster Roster: Existentialist Art in Postwar Chicago Smart Museum of Art, 5550 S. Greenwood Ave. Opening reception Wednesday, Febru-

ary 10, 5:30pm–7:30pm. February 11–June 12. Tuesday–Sunday, 10am–5pm; Thursday, 10am–8pm. Free. (773) 702-0200. smartmuseum.uchicago.edu Stop by the Smart Museum for a new exhibition featuring nearly sixty works of art from the darkly innovative “Monster Roster,” a postwar group of Chicago-based imagists. The opening reception will feature food, drink, a documentary screening, and live music from the cornet-driven Josh Berman Trio. (Christopher Good)

the pasts they brought with them Monique Meloche Gallery, 2154 W. Division St. Opening reception Thursday, February 11, 5pm–7:30pm. February 11–April 2. Tuesday–Saturday, 11am–6pm. (773) 252-0299. moniquemeloche.com Afrofuturism, hip hop, African-American ethnography, spiritualism, and imagery of Americana are just a few influences of Sanford Biggers’s often abstract work. An artist of many disciplines, Biggers offers a range of work: videos paired with sculptures and quilts. Plans are in the works to end the exhibition with a live performance of Biggers’s “Moon Medicin.” (Mira Jaworski)

Beyond the Binary at Woman Made Woman Made Gallery, 685 N. Milwaukee Ave. Artist talk Thursday, February 11, 7pm–9pm. Through February 25. Wednesday–Friday, 11am–6pm; Saturday–Sunday, 12pm–4pm. Free. (312) 738-0400. womanmade.org Join artist Janice Bond at this woman-oriented art gallery for a discussion of “the vast spectrum of womanhood and nature.” Bond's work, including her “Beyond the Binary” exhibit, calls for women, and particularly women of color, to establish an “intergenerational and intercultural sisterhood” dedicated to exploring questions of life, love, and being. ( Jake Bittle)

Shared Language: A Community Classroom Arts Incubator, 301 E. Garfield Blvd. Opening reception February 12, 6pm–8pm. Free. (773) 702-9724. arts.uchicago.edu

This exhibition showcases work influenced by the relationships between systems of education and art. The featured artists—Carris Adams, Reginald Eldridge Jr., David Geary, James Jankowiak, Trisha Oralie Martin, Victoria Martinez, and Grace Needlman with installations by Alex Bradley Cohen and Gloe—are actively involved in both. Many are affiliated with local arts organizations, museums, grassroots organizations, and Chicago Public Schools. (Mira Jaworski)

Lecture by Dread Scott MacLean Ballroom, 112 S. Michigan Ave. Monday, February 15, 6pm–8pm. (312) 6296100. saic.edu Dread Scott, a contemporary artist whose work offers a powerful social and political commentary, will give a lecture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Scott’s practice moves between performance, photography, painting and installation, and one famous piece resulted in a Supreme Court case over freedom of expression. (Anne Li)

Van Gogh’s Bedrooms Regenstein Hall, Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan Ave. February 14–May 10. Daily 10:30am–5pm; Thursday 10:30am–8pm. $14–25. (312) 443-3600. artic.edu. Vincent Van Gogh’s three paintings of his bedroom in his beloved “Yellow House” in Arles are reunited in this exhibition—a first for North America. They accompany dozens of other works by the artist. Delve into Van Gogh’s quest for a home, a journey that brought him to the south of France and the annals of artistic fame. (Anne Li) MUSIC

Blipster Life The Promontory, 5311 S. Lake Park Ave. February 11, 8:30pm doors. $10 General, $15 Table. 21+. (312) 801-2100. promontorychicago.com This evening—with live music by Palace Sound, comedy provided by T-Murph, Dave Helem, and Felonious Munk, and a soundtrack by DJ JoeyStaysBusy—will culminate with a communal auditory experience of Kanye West’s long-awaited new album, due out this week. (Lewis Page)

FEBRUARY 10, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13

EVENTS go. Neon balaclavas are welcome, but not required. (Christopher Good)

SX Showdown Reggies, 2105 S. State Street. February 12, 7:30pm. $10. 17+. (312) 949-0120. reggieslive. com Come watch such local legends as Yoko and the Oh No’s, Shah Jahan, Big Syn, Soddy Daisy, Arclight, and Rebel Soul Revival in a musical battle royale. The last band standing will venture south and west of Illinois to perform at this year’s South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. (Lewis Page)

Pete Rock & Rich Medina The Shrine, 2109 S. Wabash Ave. Friday, February 12, doors 10pm. $20 early bird, $30 general admission. 21+. (312) 753-5700. theshrinechicago.com Hip-hop legends and DJ innovators Pete Rock and Rich Medina team up again to take listeners on a ride down a musical memory lane. With over fifty years of experience between them and skilled ears for mingling music old and new, hip-hop will be displayed in its highest form. (Kezie Nwachukwu)

The Dojo Presents: Perspectives The Dojo. February 13, 7pm. $5 recommended donation. (312) 631-8139 (call for address on day of show). facebook.com/thedojochi Curators Emilie Modaff and Jalisa Ambrose present what they describe as “an evening of blended personalities, bodies, energies, and perspectives” at this Pilsen DIY space. The bodies, personalities, and energies to be blended include visual artist Sarah Rose, musicians Coelti Eythay, Divino Niño, Casual Ties, and BLOOM, and an organized clothing and trinket swap. (Lewis Page)

Pussy Riot: Punk Politics and Prisons Thalia Hall, 1807 S. Allport St. Sunday, February 21, doors 7:30pm. $15. All ages. (312) 526-3851. thaliahallchicago.com Illinois Humanities and the UIC School of Art & Art History will host a conversation about the Kremlin’s least favorite art-rock provocateurs, Pussy Riot, with former band member/political prisoner Masha Alyokhina and prison reform activist Ksenia Zhiva14 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

Lynn Hilton The Quarry, 2423 E. 75th St. Friday, February 26, 7pm–11:30pm. (773) 741-6254. mobetterjazzchicago.us Internationally renowned vocalist Lynn Hilton will drop by Mo Better Jazz later this month. Having performed around the world, she returns to her native city of Chicago to share her multifaceted abilities. (Bilal Othman)

Wayne Wonder and Mýa The Shrine, 2109 S. Wabash Ave. Saturday, February 27, doors 10pm, show 12:30am. $30 early bird, $40 general admission. 21+. (312) 753-5700. theshrinechicago.com If the slush and sunshine of the warmest winter ever has you in a tropical mood, celebrate by seeing Jamaican dub and dancehall all-star Wayne Wonder. Wayne will be joined by R&B starlet (and one-time Dancing with the Stars contestant) Mýa, best known for her collaboration on the <i>Moulin Rouge!</i> version of “Lady Marmalade.” (Christopher Good)

Busta Rhymes The Shrine, 2109 S. Wabash Ave. Saturday, March 26, doors 10pm. $37.50. 21+. (312) 7535700. theshrinechicago.com Fresh off his Christmas return-to-form mixtape The Return of the Dragon (featuring Chance the Rapper and BJ the Chicago Kid), Busta comes to The Shrine for a mysterious show. “Finally… The Shrine & The Conglomerate present Busta Rhymes,” the event page reads, offering little more information but leaving us with the feeling that we’ve been waiting for this without knowing it. Expect a show. (Sam Stecklow)

STAGE & SCREEN

Following: Valentine’s Day High Concept Labs at Mana Contemporary, 2233 S. Throop St. Sunday, February 14, 5pm7pm. $5 suggested donation. highconceptlabs.org

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This Valentine’s Day, long-distance lovebirds and artistic co-conspirators Tyler Lumm and Luis Mejico will host a “special evening of orchestrated sentiment,” complete with live musical accompaniment and plenty of maraschino cherries. If you’ve ever wanted to see Harry Harlow’s macaque contact comfort experiments reinterpreted with tongue-incheek multimedia, you’re in luck. (Christopher Good)

Seeds of Disunion: Judge Priest Black Cinema House, 7200 S. Kimbark Ave. Friday, February 12, 7-9:30pm. (312) 8575561. rebuild-foundation.org. Judge Priest established Lincoln Perry and Will Rogers as a long-running comedic duo, with Rodgers as a genial Southern judge and Perry as both his friend and less-than-subtle bundle of prevailing stereotypes about black people. After this screening, film historians from Northwestern and the UofC will critically discuss the movie. (Adam Thorp)

IN>TIME16 AT HCL High Concept Labs at Mana Contemporary, 2233 S. Throop St. Thursday, February 11–Saturday, February 13, 6-8:30pm. $10 suggested donation. highconceptlabs.org “High Concept Labs” is a name that really has to be earned. Nicole Mauser’s “The Light Drips Down” plays with space, color, and architecture through disorienting collage; Anna Martine Whitehead’s “Treasure” uses movement and sound to weigh the value attached to black death as new forms of media increasingly project it out to the world. (Adam Thorp)

DuSable High School Holdings Stony Island Arts Bank, 6760 S. Stony Island Ave. Thursday, February 11, 5pm–7pm. Free. (312) 857-5561. rebuild-foundation.org The Rebuild Foundation will celebrate the opening of its exhibit on the history of DuSable High School—which includes a library of documents and books relating to the school—with a night of performances. DuSable students will read spoken word poetry reflecting on their time at the school; Mikel Patrick Avery will follow them with a “jazz reflection.” ( Jake Bittle)

Reading by Poet Ed Roberson The Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St. Thursday, February 11, 6pm. Free. (773) 7022787. arts.uchicago.edu Join acclaimed poet Ed Roberson—whose voice has been described as one of the most innovative of our time—for a night of poetry. He will read selections from across his ten books of poetry, for which he’s received awards from the Iowa Poetry Prize to the National Poetry Competition Prize. (Corinne Butta)

Trick Bag Kartemquin Films. Friday, February 12 – Thursday, February 18. Free. (773) 472-4366. watch.kartemquin.com This piece in Kartemquin's historic lineup of documentary films asks Chicagoans of all kinds about their experiences of racism in order to determine “who gets hurt and who profits.” According to the film’s description, participants include “gang members, Vietnam vets, and factory workers.” ( Jake Bittle)

Satchmo at the Waldorf Court Theatre, 5535 S Ellis Ave. Through February 14. $38, discounts available for seniors, faculty, and students. (773) 753-4472. courttheatre.org Satchmo at the Waldorf, which is getting its Midwest premiere at the Court Theatre, is a single-actor play that deals with the emotions, legacy, friendships, and fate of Louis Armstrong, set after his last show in 1971. As the highlight of Chicago’s Louis Armstrong Festival, this jazzy journey is not one to miss. (Margaret Mary Glazier)

Lines in the Dust eta Creative Arts Foundation, 7558 S. Chicago Ave. February 5 – March 27. Friday and Saturday, 8pm; Sunday, 3pm. $30, discounts available for seniors, students, and groups. (773) 752-3955. etacreativearts.org “Who gets the best education in America?” This is the question asked by Lines in the Dust, playwright Nikkole Salter’s gripping look into education inequity, poverty, and its human cost. Join director Phyllis E. Griffin for the play’s Chicago premiere. (Christopher Good)

South Side Weekly Civic Journalism Workshops

What do you want to know about Chicago journalism? The Chicago Civic Journalism Project is presented by the South Side Weekly, City Bureau, University of Chicago Careers in Journalism, Arts, and Media, and Chicago Studies. Send us your thoughts at editor@southsideweekly.com

southsideweekly.com/workshops

Call for Weekly Lit Submissions The Weekly plans to begin publishing original poetry by South Side residents on a regular basis. Submit your work for consideration at lit@southsideweekly.com FEBRUARY 10, 2016 ÂŹ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15