Arts & Culture
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A whole new (art) thing? Chicago’s 2012 Cultural Plan.
CITY OF CHICAGO LAUNCHES 2012 CULTURAL PLAN INITIATIVE Public Town Hall Meetings Begin Tonight! The Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) is asking residents, cultural organizations and community groups for their input in developing the 2012 Chicago Cultural Plan. The plan will deliver a set of recommendations to support the arts and artists…
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La Cade: The little hair care company that made some big waves.
La Cade Products was another of many Chicago-based black hair care firms (that I detail here) during the late 60s through the 1970s. Though not as well-known as Supreme Products (who created Duke and Raveen) or Johnson Products (who created Soft Sheen, Afro Sheen, and Ultra Sheen), La Cade left behind scant but fascinating evidence…
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Don Cornelius: made Soul a household name.
One of the most amazing things about the life of Don Cornelius (and to be clear, this post is about his life… not his death) is the trajectory of his rise to prominence as an ambassador of Soul. Starting out as a radio journalist here on Chicago’s WVON in the early 1960s, he built important…
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See Potential: helping us all envision the rebirth of abandoned buildings on the South Side.
See Potential in what’s around us. That’s the goal of photographer Emily Schiffer’s See Potential initiative: affixing huge weatherproof photographic works to undervalued community assets. It’s a great idea that can help harness the public imagination for the greater good. It’s the sort of greater good that Schiffer always hoped her art would serve. She…
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The Listening Room: at Seattle Art Museum, the artists’ medium is wax.
Record Store — an installation presented by Seattle Art Museum in collaboration with [storefront] Olson Kundig Architects (MacDowell architect Tom Kundig’s firm) — on December 13th in Seattle attempted to remove the barrier between artist and audience, Record Store encourages the community to participate in the curation of this Olson Kundig Architects-designed traveling installation. Record…
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Mahogany (1975): Cult Movie of the Week
Sometimes a post idea for Darkjive happens organically: the intersection of various occurrences in my life make it clear that I MUST post about something in particular. In this case, “Mahogany” started out as a request from a reader who thought that, because it was primarily shot here in Chicago, the lack of a post…
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Opportunity Please Knock Chorus: oscar brown, jr.’s collaboration with the blackstone rangers
In 1967, members of the Blackstone Rangers, a notorious Gang in Chicago, collaborated with singer/composer/playwright/activist Oscar Brown Jr. to create a Musical Revue called “Opportunity Please Knock”. About eight thousand people went to the show during the first weeks of performance (at Chicago’s First Presbyterian Church). Photos in this post are from that first run.…
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Wilbur Holmes: images of the West Side with Grit and Grace
Carlos of Surplus of Options (a smokin’ hot Antique/Resale shop full of curiosities here in Chicago) found these pictures… in fact, he picked up dozens of them… at a West Side Junk shop for almost nothing. I was immediately struck by the photos, both for their composition and tone. I bought the pictures from him…
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Record Store: where you can’t buy anything, but you can listen to everything.
I’ll be spinning for the opening of this… The record store is completely modular and made to encourage the kind of listening-based cultural interchange that makes record stores awesome. Over 4,000 records on loan from community members’ collections. None of them are for sale, but visitors can listen to them all: from “Belly Dancing Favorites”…
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Chicago: in all its fried, dyed, laid-to-the-side (or perhaps natural) glory.
I was watching my “Best of Soul Train” DVD box-set this weekend (of course), which includes tons of original TV spots for Ultra Sheen and Afro Sheen (two black haircare lines manufactured by Chicago’s own Johnson Products). Iconic brands, to be sure. During the glory days of Black Haircare manufacture in Chicago (roughly the late…
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