Tag Archive
Natural Selection
Friday night outside the Zhou B. Art Center, the low thumping of house music and huddled groups of gallery habitués on smoke breaks penetrated the otherwise deserted street. Inside, the buzz of voices transported gallery-goers to a livelier place, where moss sprouted from the walls and live plants hung from the ceiling as part... »
Chic chicas
The Zhou B Art Center in Bridgeport bustled with activity during Thursday’s Latino Fashion Week event. Patrons, vendors, and participants moved through the front hall of the center, which was filled to the brim with tables lined with bright signs and colorful clothing. »
Third Fridays: Does the gallery crawl pay off for Bridgeport’s art community?
Light and noise spill out from the Zhou B Art Center onto a dark street lined with vacant brick factories, hinting at the warmth and activity inside. Cross the threshold and the eerily quiet street life is replaced with a different kind of urbanism. Hulking marble sculptures lay about like ancient ruins. Young cosmopolitans... »
What’s the Matter with Pilsen?: The Chicago Arts District falls on hard times as artists head south to Bridgeport
Bursting with art studios and galleries a few years ago, Pilsen’s stretch of South Halsted Street now features flyers advertising the potential of empty storefronts. Crowds continue to pack the street on the district’s monthly Second Friday event, but they find fewer open galleries and openings than in past months. A good portion of... »
Best of the South Side 2009: Bridgeport
Originally called Hardscrabble, Bridgeport began as a community of Irish-American canal workers paid for their labor with land deeds. While its segregation from the South Side’s black neighborhoods made it a hotbed of torrid racial relations up through the ’90s, today it is considered one of the city’s most ethnically diverse neighborhoods and is... »
Self-Reflection: 33 Collective’s fifth annual self-portrait exhibition
Last Friday night signaled the opening of 33 Collective Gallery’s annual self-portrait exhibition. The approximately 100 pieces on display confirm the growing importance of this event to the versatile group of Chicago-based artist contributors, who span the spectrum from the up-and-coming to the well-established. The common denominator: all were given the chance to share... »
The Sound and the Fury: The “Event Promoters” ordinance and Chicago’s politics of noise
The recently tabled “Event Promoters” ordinance, originally scheduled to be voted on by the Chicago City Council on Wednesday, May 14, is so patently fatuous and overbroad that you are moved to wonder how it was ever considered for passage into civic code. While the entire proposed law runs to several thousands of words,... »
Bridgeport Blues: Why has the city been shutting down arts events?
The cops broke in like it was the Haymarket Riot. The Zhou B. Art Center in Bridgeport—white interior gleaming, techno beats pulsing softly—was hosting the 3rd Annual Printers’ Ball, a gala for the see-and-be-seen crowd in Chicago’s independent publishing circle. Then the boys in blue arrived. “I noticed early on that the off-duty police... »
