Alone on the second floor of the Hyde Park Art Center, I push aside thin felt curtains to enter a gallery featuring “The City,” the first of four video installation programs in “Spatial City: An Architecture of Idealism.” There are two pieces in this exhibition, Sarah Morris’s “Midtown” and Bertrand Lamarche’s “Autobrouillard.” The second is playing.

A white light passes over an otherwise dim scene of a city at night. The movement repeats over and over again, like a searchlight scanning desperately for the hint of life amid ruins, while the wreckage consists of glass and cement buildings. The only other movement on the screen, besides a blinking red light off in the distance, is the occasional appearance of a woman’s face, made visible by a reflection of the white light. Her hair has fallen back and her mouth is open as if producing a scream; she is frozen in that position, appearing momentarily on a glass panel in front of the city scene. It seems as if the white light is coming from inside of a building, shining through a window to probe the outside world.

The video art on view sits above the rest of “Spatial City,” an exhibit inspired by the theoretical structures of the same name by Israeli architect Yona Friedman (born 1923). After fleeing his native Hungary during World War II to settle in Paris, Friedman famously declared in his 1958 manifesto “Mobile Architecture” that the structures of an ideal city were to occupy a minimal surface area on the ground, to “be easily broken down and moved,” to be transformable by the individual inhabitant. His ideas disseminated widely in post-war France, and most recently provided the conceptual framework for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Nicholas Frank, the originating curator of “Spatial City.” Each piece in the exhibit relates in some way to the architecture of a utopic city that is alternately optimistic and cynical. The artists selected for the exhibit, like Friedman, make reference to the brutality of war, dehumanizing conditions in totalitarian states, and the impact of urban living and industry on the environment and individuality.

Walking through the exhibit, any trace of unstained wood is startling—the viewer is overwhelmed by steel, plastic, and, especially mirrors. The layout of the art in the exhibit looks as if it could be modeled after the plan of a city. In Friedman’s drawings and collages at the entrance of the exhibit, urban spaces are geometric sets of layered circles and boxes. Likewise, the position of each piece has been carefully chosen to highlight the beauty and horror of these monuments to progress. In Didier Marcel’s massive “Sans titre (labours 4),” stained black wood contains waves of freshly turned dirt. It is a frozen garden, set on display with steel, polyester, resin, and glass fiber instead of flowers. Made with several hundred pounds of actual resin, the structure could have theoretically served as the bed for new life. Near the opposite wall of the gallery is Philippe Ramette’s “Objet Cynique,” a four-person electrical chair constructed of wood, rope, electric cable, and aluminum. The image suggests that a collective exit from the world we’ve made has the potential to mollify the pain of death. The most conscious use of urban planning is seen in the arrangement of Kristina Solomoukha’s “Shedding Identity,” a set of neon digital prints behind Plexiglass and mirrors. When stepping between certain prints, the viewer becomes an inhabitant of a city that no longer looks beautiful.

While occupying HPAC, the exhibit also features works by Chicago-based artists Sara Schnadt, Jeff Carter, Hui Min Tsen, and Detroit artist Ben Hal, in addition to those from the French Regional Contemporary Art Funds (“the Frac”). Schnadt’s “Network” hangs above a gallery attendant, who reads silently in the corner. Electric yellow twine is tied in knots overhead in a site-specific web, suggestive of a virtual network landscape. Jeff Carter’s “Untitled #1 (Chicago Tribune Tower)” is made entirely of modified IKEA products in the form of the eponymous structure.

It is the first time that these works, brought together by the Frac from each region of France, are being shown together in the United States. Dwelling in our own metropolis until August 8, “Spatial City” is a bold and terrifying reflection of humanity’s complicated relationship with the structures it enables.

(courtesy of Vermilion Development)

In May 2008, when the University of Chicago completed the $6.5 million purchase of Harper Court, President Robert Zimmer heralded the moment as an opportunity. “Ideally,” he said in a public statement on the purchase, “this project will be reflective of the distinctive nature of Hyde Park and represent the best of Chicago’s mid-South Side.” This January, after Vermilion Development was selected by the University to redevelop Harper Court, its CEO, David J. Cocagne, was quoted by the Chicago Maroon echoing the same sentiment. “We’re very excited to be undertaking this project,” Cocagne said. “We think it will be very transformative for the commercial core of Hyde Park and will really celebrate all that Hyde Park is.”

The idea that Harper Court, once it is redeveloped, will represent the essence of its neighborhood has garnered considerable backing from both the University and its developers, who also market the redevelopment as bringing a much-needed retail and entertainment district to the area. But what is the “distinctive nature” of Hyde Park, and how do the redevelopment plans celebrate it? What is going into the Harper Court redevelopment? What will come out of it? Currently, the University is working with Vermilion Development (which could not be reached for comment) to prepare financial proposals for the project that are due in mid-June, according to Susan Campbell, Associate Vice President for Civic Engagement at the University. Once the funding is approved, Vermilion will begin work on a final redevelopment design, which will incorporate retail and office space, a hotel, a parking garage, and possibly a movie theater, and deal with structural changes such as the rerouting of streets as thoroughfares. While there have been no changes to the planned groundbreaking in early 2011, the financial climate is making it difficult to find funding for some aspects of the development, especially the housing project that is proposed for the second phase of construction, scheduled to be completed in 2015.

The funding issue highlights an important issue surrounding the redevelopment of Harper Court: gentrification. If the housing units of the redevelopment were priced at market rate, it is likely that many current residents of Hyde Park would not be able to afford to live there, while those with bigger pocketbooks would. Although the intent is to eventually offer affordable mixed-income options for sale and for rent, right now money is tight. “It’s hard to find funding to build housing, let alone mixed-income housing, “ Campbell says.

There are also questions about the displacement of local businesses from the revitalized Harper Court, a concern embodied by the departure of Dixie Kitchen in June 2009. Though Dixie Kitchen was not actually forced out by the university—Campbell quickly points out that they were offered relocation assistance by the University and that “it was a business decision” to close the Hyde Park location—it was an unsettling indicator of the potential negative effects that redevelopment could have on locally owned businesses. Campbell, however, points to measures to be taken by the University to engage with the community and local businesses to make sure that the final redevelopment plan is equitable. Her office is partnering with the Southeast Chicago Commission and the Hyde Park Chamber of Commerce to plan events like a July 4th neighborhood fair at Nichols Park, which is intended to “highlight businesses that have stayed in Hyde Park.” The project’s declared goal is revitalization that works for Hyde Park residents. “We have a vision of making a more vibrant commercial corridor, including retail that appeals to everyone” while at the same time “always trying to help [local] businesses,” Campbell says. “Hyde Park has a uniqueness, a diversity that people enjoy. Our key claim to fame is our people.”

Community response to the proposed redevelopment has been markedly more positive than it was when the University first announced its obtainment of the Harper Court property, and certain elements of the designs, like open spaces for farmers markets, suggest there is a real possibility of keeping a local sensibility in the new developments.

The Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference (HPKCC), a local association, has grown to support the redevelopment plans. According to HPKCC’s president, Jay Ammerman, what was once a controversy about whether to do anything with an underperforming Harper Court became a compromise, and what was once a community-run commercial center was turned over to the University with the promise of future revitalization. “Over the course of several years, we came to the conclusion that a change was necessary,” he says. “I don’t think we have an argument about where this is headed.” He adds, though, that HPKCC, in its capacity as an organization working on behalf of the community, would continue to critique University involvement so that community concerns would be heard.

Underlying the whole project is the question of whether or not the University would transform Harper Court the same way that it had redeveloped neighborhood spaces in the past. “When urban renewal was initiated in 1958, it meant drastic change, and a lot of displaced people with low incomes, small businesses, and people involved in the arts,” says Bart Schultz, a senior lecturer in philosophy at the UofC and director of its Civic Knowledge Project. The development of Harper Court in 1965 was a response to the displacement of artists from the prominent artist colony at 57th Street and Stony Island Avenue, where artists, writers (including Sherwood Anderson), and used bookstores set up shop. Harper Court was envisioned as a retail space for artisans to replace their previous haven. While it didn’t successfully replicate the atmosphere of the artist colony, Schultz argues that open space and elements of local authenticity like public chess tables made Harper Court “innovative” in its own way.

For Schultz, a successful development will keep those aspects of Hyde Park that set it apart from other neighborhoods in the city. According to walkscore.com, for example, Hyde Park is one of the top 10 most walkable neighborhoods in the city, rivaling the Loop and Lincoln Park. Institutions like the Seminary Co-op—which Schultz calls “the best bookstore in the country”—should be treated like “treasures to be preserved.” How, he asks, will plans for a hotel, which brings in road traffic, be reconciled with Hyde Park’s walkability? How will it be guaranteed that local business not suffer if chain retailers move in? “In all honesty, it’s hard, when you have what’s essentially a 12,000-person corporation, to engage the community,” says Campbell. “We try hard to help and to not overstep our bounds.” To that end, the University is working through its Civic Engagement office to be far more open with the community on the Harper Court redevelopment than with other projects currently underway. Just last week, for example, the University announced their selection for the architect of the new Milton Friedman Institute without any faculty or community input. Schultz says that measures like soliciting art installations from the Hyde Park Art Center are a move in the right direction, but he cautions against rejoicing too soon. “It’s very easy to announce a project with great fanfare, when really it’s a constant process,” he says. “I worry about that.”

The chess tables that once lined the open space at the center of Harper Court are more significant than they might appear. In the original plan for Harper Court, a chessboard prominently backdrops its logo, and its outdoor tables were a meeting point for neighborhood chess enthusiasts. Upon the removal of the chess tables in 2002, community groups like the Friends of Harper Court Chess staged protests and encouraged boycotts of the shopping center. Chess, they said, was something that made Harper Court unique, something that was a part of “all that Hyde Park is.” Maybe the powers-that-be are listening. At the February 8th meeting of the 53rd Street TIF (tax increment financing) district, Vermilion presented plans to include a small pavilion in the redevelopment, complete with chess tables. It’s a start, but Schultz encourages restraint and patience. “When a community gets into something like this,” he says, “the discussion is just barely starting to get along.”

(courtesy of Court Theatre)

Though only two actors command the stage and the set consists of little more than chairs and a backdrop, Court Theatre’s production of “Sizwe Banzi Is Dead” is filled with an energy and charm that belies its spartan setup. Deftly directed by Ron OJ Parson, the play is served well by the intimate nature of the Abelson Auditorium. Although more obscure and seemingly dated than other work by Athol Fugard (best known for “Tsotsi,” which was made into an Academy-Award winning film), “Sizwe” carries underlying themes of alienation and identity that move the piece beyond its 1970s South African setting.

The ninety-minute play opens with an extended monologue by Styles (Chiké Johnson), a photographer in New Brighton who regales the audience with tales of his past as a line worker and his battles with cockroaches in his studio. Just when it seems his stories will never end, a rap at the door interrupts him. The nerve-stricken man he photographs, Sizwe Banzi (Allen Gilmore), falsely introduces himself as Robert Zwelinzima. Styles does his best to draw out this sorrow-ridden character, whose reasons for mystery and misery soon become clear. As the audience finds out, Banzi came to Port Elizabeth in order to find work. Unable to do so, he has found out he has three days to return to King William’s Town—he can work the mines there or remain jobless. After a long night of drinking with Buntu (also played by Johnson), a friend of a friend, the pair comes across a corpse in an alley. The corpse carries papers with a work permit. Name? Robert Zwelinzima. Banzi is then faced with the decision of returning home a failure or adopting the identity of this dead man, losing his own in the process.

The history of this play is in some respects as fascinating as the play itself. Fugard wrote this work in combination with John Kani and Winston Ntshona, who both acted in the original production of the play. Kani used to improvise Style’s opening monologue, in some cases extending his lines until Ntshona forced himself on stage. Although never overt with its condemnation of apartheid, “Sizwe” was controversial enough to warrant the arrest of both actors for obscenity in 1976. Showings were marked by active audience participation and dialogues about the ethics of Banzi’s act would break out in the middle of scenes. The audience at Court Theatre for this production was a good deal more passive, though not for lack of trying on the actors’ parts.

Although the play is certainly a product of its time, this production of “Sizwe” has more going for it than its historical elements. The story’s personalized commentary on apartheid is well matched by the close physical proximity of the actors to the audience, and neither character is afraid to directly confront their viewers, grabbing hands and climbing over seats in one climactic scene. The play is strikingly physical: Johnson appears shirtless, and in one cathartic moment, Gilmore strips to his briefs. Without props or staging to hide behind, Banzi and Buntu’s physiognomies are all the audience has to understand the characters. Questions of identity abound, some obvious and others subtle. At what cost should one give up one’s name? For family, food, life? The dead man who Banzi becomes is not a deus ex machina solution to a problem of work but an absurdist beginning to a debate on identity. Although the play may have begun life as a political feature, its current aim is more philosophical—and Court Theatre meets that aim admirably.
Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave. Through June 13. Wednesdays, 10:30am and 7:30pm; Thursdays, 7:30pm; Fridays, 8pm; Saturdays, 3pm and 8pm; Sundays, 2:30pm and 7:30pm. courttheatre.org

(Mehveş Konuk)

The Op Shop, a temporary creative arts space, is Laura Shaeffer’s “attempt to create a sphere of community exchange and responsibility.” For Shaeffer, curating the space is a dialogical process. She likens it to preparing a soup: “Everyone brings their own ingredients, and together we make a soup that feeds all.” The ingredients don’t necessarily seem compatible at first–a heap of compost sits in the center of the store (surely this only adds to the flavor), and a church-organized thrift store in the right corner. Somehow, however, they interact to form an organic whole.

The space that was previously separated into romance, horror, sci-fi, and drama aisles is now divided into departments entitled Oral History, G.E.E.E. (for General Exquisite Economic Exchange), Mural, Indoor Yard Sale, Art Potluck, Fort Cardboard, and Reenactment. These sections are fluid, one genre merging into the next. At the Indoor Yard Sale, a woman tries on a purple skirt from the ‘80s while her daughter reaches for some Curious George books. The mother wanders over to talk to volunteers from the United Church of Hyde Park, and signs up for the Op Shop’s sewing workshop afterwards. The diversity of the store’s offerings attracts a similarly varied clientele.

Having spent thirteen years in Berlin, where art is an integral part of life, Shaeffer recognizes the shortage of accessible, communal creative spaces in Chicago. The Op Shop is an attempt to attend to that need, giving more residents the opportunity to enjoy collaborative art. The high school students painting a mural in one corner of the showroom have no artistic credentials, nor some of the contributors to the Art Potluck, yet all are given the freedom to explore their talents and exhibit their work. “When selecting artists, I don’t ask for any qualifications,” Shaeffer says. “I only require them to have spirit.” Even the space itself is given a chance to shine: a video installation in the far left corner charts the many incarnations of the storefront, from its time as a Walgreens to its current form as an eclectic art den.

Like the mutable history of the shop as a whole, nothing in its collection is static. According to Shaeffer, “the vision of the show is changed and recreated by what transpires during it.” Marie Krane Bergman, a member of G.E.E.E., describes it as a “theory/practice collective including artists and others,” embodying the same spirit of inclusion as the Op Shop. She explains that it is a “neighborly exchange experiment regarding whether the way we relate as neighbors can operate as a barter system, not an economy.” In an effort to put such ideals into practice, the shop is offering plants and seeds in exchange for anything with “value.” Patrick Thornton, another member of G.E.E.E., says that the Op Shop is the perfect place for their first public foray because “it’s a place for experimentation” that serves as an outlet for the creative community in Hyde Park.

This art forum is not meant to last forever, though. At the end of April, this manifestation of the Op Shop will come to an end. Shaeffer is already busy conceptualizing the next two. Her main aim with these projects is to make people realize that “art is messy and need not always be coherent.” Here’s to looking forward to Hyde Park’s next dose of incoherence.

The Opportunity Shop is temporarily located at 1530 E 53rd St.

(courtesy of Carrie Splitler)

Meeting every Tuesday evening at the King Public Library in Bronzeville, the group is organized by the Neighborhood Writing Alliance, a nonprofit based in Hyde Park. Since 1996, the NWA has held free writing workshops across Chicago, focusing, according to current Executive Director Carrie Spitler, on “areas where there are few opportunities for adults to engage in hands-on artmaking.” It also publishes writing from these workshops in a quarterly magazine, the Journal of Ordinary Thought, which bears the motto, “Every person is a philosopher.” JOT was founded in 1991 by Hal Adams, then a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. It began as an outlet for the writing produced by parents at Chicago public schools, but expanded in 1996 when Adams recruited Deborah Epstein and Sunny Fischer to start the NWA with aid from federal grants. Currently, the organization operates between ten to fourteen regular workshops on the South and North sides of the city, but the exact number often changes due to fluctuations in funding. It is run by two to three full time staff members, with the help of volunteer workshop leaders and proofreaders, and a board of directors who bring diverse expertise to the table.

Though the written word brings NWA’s philosophers to the table, teaching is not the organization’s only goal. The workshop leaders introduce writers to different kinds of verse and provide criticism, but according to Jeanette Jordan, who has frequented sessions at the King Library since 2006, “There’s no attendance taken. You don’t have to do homework. You don’t have to do anything. You come and you enjoy each other. Everybody writes differently, and that’s wonderful.” Says Lindsay, an MFA student at Chicago State University and the author of several books, “I come to pass on what I have and also to get the input and the conversation. So it’s a table of equals. Even though I may be the person who may have the more literary skills in terms of information—and that’s very questionable—there are other things I pick up. It’s opened my mind a lot.”

In addition to providing literary lessons, the NWA aims to open minds and dialogues, to build connections between its writers, as well as between individual lives and larger social questions. JOT serves as evidence, says Spitler, that “people can narrate their own story, can be in control of how their own experience is portrayed, can be involved in civic engagement and push for political change.” The workshops are not only a space to write, but also a space for writers to discuss issues that impact their daily lives. A recent issue of JOT devoted to transportation provoked discussions about the Chicago Transit Authority’s budget cuts. Writers are currently being encouraged to think about environmental issues for a future edition of the journal.

The workshops are also perpetuated by this kind of grassroots communication. Jordan tells the story of her own induction into the King Library writers’ circle: “On my journey to work every morning, I would meet this lady, and we would say, ‘Good morning,’ ‘Good evening,’ ‘Have a good weekend,’ that sort of thing. But we never knew each other’s names or anything.” One day, they struck up a deeper conversation, and Jordan learned that this familiar stranger was a published writer who frequented the King Library workshops. “She said, ‘Why don’t you come?’ I said sure. I loved to write, but I really didn’t have structure until this man came into my writing spirit,” she says, gesturing towards Lindsay. “I have writing friends of all ages, sexes, and everything. We share our words, and our inner spirits, and it’s wonderful.”

Of course, one of JOT’s biggest audiences is the writing family that produces it. “We want them to see their work published,” says Spitler, “and they take a lot of pride in seeing their writing in print.” But through JOT, the NWA also hopes to bring an understanding of its writers’ daily lives to a wider public. “In the same way we want to start conversations in our workshops, we’re hoping something in the journals will strike people and start a conversation.” She adds that the organization hopes that readers will “see the creative capital of neighborhoods that might be outside their experience, or that they only read about in newspapers.” Copies of JOT are sent out to various policymakers, with the hopes of, in Spitler’s words, helping them “find out what’s on the minds of their constituents.” She notes, however, that the NWA has received “very little” response from politicians.

Though many of JOT’s writers have stuck with their workshops for years, the NWA looks forward to bringing in new faces and broadening its mission. The workshops record each writer’s name, address, gender, ethnicity, and other information at the beginning of each meeting, and according to Spitler, “the demographics have changed over the last few years. For a time, we had 75 to 80 percent women, mostly older and African-American.” But the workshops have managed to bring in a greater Latino population, and, with the introduction of the St. Leonard House branch, based at the halfway house for released prisoners, an increase in the male population. The NWA also hopes to expand into the online world in the near future, in order to spread its message further and to encourage tech literacy. And of course, each new issue of the Journal of Ordinary Thought brings new writers to touch on new subject matter.

On Wednesday, the evening after the King branch’s meeting, the latest edition of JOT is unveiled to an audience packed into the Harold Washington Library’s Author’s Room. Based on a classic writing prompt, this issue’s theme, “Where I’m From,” asked writers to explore their cultural, spiritual, and geographic origins. The event brings writers from different branches together, offering them a chance to share words and experiences. Jeanette Jordan moderates the reading, opening with the poem “What Is,” specially written for the event. The release of this issue of JOT has special importance for Jordan. Not only are two of her pieces included in the new issue, but it also takes its title, “Whistle Talk,” from a piece by one of her fellow writers at King Library, Phyllis Roker. At the end of the two-hour marathon session of thirty readings, the room erupts into applause, then cools into a crowd of congratulatory hugs and book-signings. The library closes and everyone is shuffled home, but as the evening’s first poem “What Is” had predicted, “The words bloom like flowers/Each having fragrances for hours.”

Check back in a few days to see a short film of the Neighborhood Writing Alliance reading, produced by the Chicago Weekly.

Bridgeport’s Schaller’s Pump (3714 S. Halsted) strikes a balance, with a $1 entry fee but questions cooked up behind the bar. The problem is that it’s a once-a-month event, on the third Tuesday (of course) at 7pm. And Buffalo Wings and Rings (3434 S. Halsted) has computerized trivia, but—much like the beer—why go for that when you can have the real thing?

(Mehves Konuk)

Spring is in the air. Soon birds will be building their nests, couples will canoodle in newly-green parks, and students sick of their dorms or their roommates will begin the hunt for a new (or first!) apartment in Hyde Park. The world-weary staff of the Weekly, who collectively have occupied at least 30 apartments, are here to help you with the last.

This special feature has two sections. In the first part, we offer advice about practicalities such as hiring movers, knowing your legal rights as a tenant, and expanding your apartment search beyond Hyde Park. In the second, we provide information about several major Hyde Park landlords, including locations, prices, and amenities. In addition, last year’s housing issue with additional advice and landlords is available on our website at chicagoweekly.net/housing-guide—but be aware that rents and contact details may have changed. We hope this helps, and we wish you all good luck.

Neighborly Advice
Getting a Move On
Renters’ Rights
Renters Insurance
Subletting
Other Neighborhoods
How to Get Free Furniture

So, What are the Options?

This nightly apparition that haunts the corner of East Hyde Park and Cornell every night from 4 to 10pm is only a peripheral component of “Notes to Nonself,” an installation that has been hosted at the Hyde Park Art Center for the past 21 days and will remain until May 2. A long-distance collaboration between artist, musician, and psychotherapist Diane Christiansen and builder, puppeteer, and fellow artist Shoshanna Utchenik, “Notes to Nonself” is a totally immersive alternate world, complete with plywood trees, a dingy clubhouse, and a massive papier-mâché octopus, all framed by a canopy of wire-suspended clouds and the looming animation vaguely described above. The aural component, which is projected out to the street, is titled “Mastodons,” and was written and performed by Christiansen’s husband and usual bandmate, Steve Dawson.

Christiansen’s artistic repertoire is primarily restricted to the domain of, as she puts it, “iconography.” She found a partner in Utchenik back in 2006, while looking for someone to help her build a life-size cartoon character. Both graduates of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, they naturally had mutual acquaintances and hit it off immediately. After their “cocoon girl character” was completed, however, Utchenik gave birth to her son, Oskar, and moved back to Slovenia.

Inspired by therapeutic notes that Christiansen and Utchenik sent to each other across the Atlantic for the past four years, “Notes to Nonself” features sentimental notes created both by the artists and visitors, which hang low from nearly invisible strands attached to the ceiling. “[Utchenik and I] decided to create an installation informed by and covered with our notes which we were exchanging weekly,” says Christiansen. “[We were] each drawing or writing on the other’s notes in this crazy Baroque pen pal fest, so that’s how it started.” The notes, which are largely comprised of whimsical imperatives (“Wear more blue!”) and truisms (“Leather is good in moderation”), add both a dynamic and distinctly intimate element to the installation, in that one can actually relive the experience of previous visitors.

The truly dynamic feature, however, will take place this Saturday, when Christiansen and Dawson team up with bassist Jason Roebke and drummer Frank Rosaly to perform songs off of Dawson’s new album, “I Will Miss the Trumpets and the Drums.” Dawson’s style—which can be sampled on stevedawsonmusic.com—blends the unabashed exuberance of ’90s bands like Polaris and the Smashing Pumpkins with the twangy poignancy of Simon & Garfunkel and Neil Young. Actually located in the installation, the concert will be accompanied by Utchenik’s friend and fellow puppeteer, Mark Kinsella, who Christiansen says will be “riffing off of the content of the show.”

On Saturday night, the disembodied voice of Steve Dawson will no longer haunt the corner of East Hyde Park and Cornell. But inside HPAC, a fascinatingly contrived kitsch landscape will finally come alive with the only soundtrack it has ever known, plus some improvisational puppetry.
Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave. March 6. Saturday, 7pm. (773)324-5520. hydeparkart.org

“The ‘darker side’,” explained Anne Leonard, the Chicago curator of the exhibit, at its opening last Thursday afternoon, “means a kind of different look at this period of art history that we often associate with Impressionism: outdoors, people lolling on the grass having picnics.” Peter Parshall, the curator of Old Master prints at the National Gallery of Art and organizer of the show (as well as a UofC alum), was slated to give a lecture during the opening’s food and drink reception, but snow and bad weather prevented his arrival. Leonard, then, led a tour of the gallery on her own.

Primarily composed of prints—etchings, lithographs, drypoints—from the mid-to-late nineteenth century, “The Darker Side of Light” does indeed portray subject matters not often addressed in more popular works from the time period. The curators framed the exhibition around seven categories—Nature, Creatures, City, Obsession, Reverie, Abjection, and Violence & Death—and grouped them accordingly on the gallery walls. Leonard led the tour through the gallery, each theme darker than the last, the group of curious students gradually growing quieter. As she shared background on the exhibit and the individual works, stories of death, vice, and loneliness sent her listeners into solemn contemplation of the dark images around them. Leonard explained, “There’s something about this medium [of printmaking] that encouraged people to explore new subject matters, taboo topics, the ills of society.”

The second half of the exhibition’s title, “Arts of Privacy,” proposes a possible explanation as to why. Most of the works included in the show were originally intended for ownership by private collectors, an audience that was more appreciative of touchy subjects and more generous with artistic license. Printmaking is particularly well-suited to these conditions. As prints get larger, it becomes harder for an artist to make an even impression from a plate, so smaller pieces are preferred. The texture and nuance lent to works by techniques such as etching and drypoint are better appreciated up close, meant to be enjoyed in dim light so as to preserve the integrity of light-sensitive papers. “Most of this art is intended to be viewed in domestic environments,” said Leonard. “It’s kept in desk drawers, folios, tucked away in cabinets. This is the kind of thing that would be in peoples’ libraries. It’s not wallpaper—you have to take it out, like a book off of the shelf.”

The works in the exhibit are not famous museum pieces, but neither are their creators obscure artists. Works signed by Kollwitz, Munch, and Toulouse-Lautrec are not so surprising, as their more popular works often deal with the seedier side of life—but artists such as Degas, Cassatt, and Corot, whose names have become synonymous with the lighter, airier, style of Impressionism, also make appearances. Regardless of his or her reputation, each artist displays a deep and sometimes unexpected understanding of the art of printmaking, both its technical capacity for shade and shadow, and the unique qualities that made it so well suited to the intimate, difficult subject matter of their time. “The artists try to manage the difference between light and dark,” Leonard said with a tight smile, aware of the pun she was making, “but they use more dark than light.”
Smart Museum of Art, 5550 S. Greenwood Ave. Through June 13. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, 10am-4pm; Thursday 10am-8pm; Saturday-Sunday, 11am-5pm. (773)702-0200. smartmuseum.uchicago.edu

(Michael Brosilow, courtesy of Court Theatre)

The lights open on an empty elevated platform marked only by a small wooden table with a coffee cup and flowers atop it. There is also a simple chair. The performance is already an intimate one. Soon thereafter, Fisher as Didion walks onstage and says, “This happened on December 30, 2003. This may seem like a while ago, but it won’t when it happens to you. And it will happen to you.” And so begins the story of the deaths of Didion’s husband and daughter.

In the ninety-minute play, performed without an intermission, Didion chronicles the two-year period in which both John and Quintana, her daughter, die. Unable to simply list facts, Didion constantly interrupts herself with lists of memorized medications and neurological terms, long heart-breaking silences, and memories. Didion refers to these moments of consumptive memory as “the vortex.” In the vortex, the backlights of the stage shine directly onto the audience with blinding intensity. In the vortex, John still works in his office in their Malibu home, and Quintana’s hair is still green from pool chlorine. In the vortex, one dwells on life and health, not death and sickness. But eventually the lights refocus on the stage, and we are brought back to the drips of IVs in the sterile ICU at Beth Israel Medical Center’s Singer Division.

One reason we share Didion’s horror and sadness is she is among the world’s greatest observers. And here, she observes her own life in exacting detail.

On the page, Didion’s prose is extraordinary in its calmness in light of chaos and tragedy, but onstage a different dynamism is required. And Fisher has found it. With an oversized silk blouse and a long scarf draped around her shoulders, Fisher moves across the stage with an ease that causes you to forget that it is one. While Fisher’s energy on stage feels different than Didion’s on the page, she, like Didion, has captured the power of detail. From fidgeting with a bracelet to speaking with a quiver in her voice, Fisher brings life to both the truly funny moments and truly tragic ones.

There is no greater special effect than a well-paired director and actor. In Charles Newell’s production of “The Year of Magical Thinking,” a minimal set is the scene of a nuanced drama. Throughout the play, the greatest changes are Fisher’s movements around the chair. As she jumps forward and backwards in time, Fisher’s Didion sits and stands, she moves the chair left and right, and she faces each section of the audience. Eventually, with her back to the audience, sitting in the chair she has moved so many times to punctuate the unfolding chronology of the play, Fisher’s Didion silently settles into its cushion. She seems to have tired of moving around. A soft melody plays. With her back to the audience, Fisher’s Didion spends the last few minutes of the play as a witness to her own story. This is how Newell’s production ends and this is how Didion finally “lets things go.”
Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave. Through February 14. Wednesdays, 10:30am and 7:30pm; Thursdays, 7:30pm; Fridays, 8pm; Saturdays, 3pm and 8pm; Sundays, 2:30pm and 7:30pm. courttheatre.org