Director Eugene Park, cinematographer Tracy Pitts, and lead actor Wanda Jin in production for “Self-Deportation: The Untold Tale of a Marginal Woman.” Courtesy Conner Keeffe.
Scripts which open with a character waking up will be rejected,” instructs the call for script submissions on the website of the Bridgeport Film Club. Among the other guidelines: “No special effects or choreographed action.” Continue reading
The Co-Prosperity Sphere’s main area, a wide-open space with soaring ceilings, should seem vast, but tonight it feels intimate, filled by a low hum of conversation and the sounds of the three-man band warming up. Continue reading
PAULA GARRETT-ELLIS
A seemingly simple dot, the Bindu is in fact a powerful Indian symbol that represents the point at which creation begins and may become unity. In a collaborative exhibition at the Bridgeport Art Center named after the Bindu, artists Paula Garrett-Ellis, Mareev Vaid, and Stacey Sirow explore the symbol’s deeper meaning in a collection of works that spans folk art, contemporary printmaking, sculpture, and photography. Within these pieces, the artists search for unity in a clash of cultures and customs—between India and America, past and future, tradition and modernity. Continue reading
MIKE WARHOT
The Co-Prosperity Sphere is pretty bare. About thirty attendees sit on benches and chairs before the screen. The topic is public art in Chicago in general, and the Chicago Picasso in particular: a fifty-foot untitled sculpture in the Loop, dedicated to the city in 1967. Continue reading
“Pin the Tail” by Steve Sherrell
Steve Sherrell’s “Mixed Bag” is less jumbled than the title lets on. The new exhibition, hosted by 33 Contemporary at the Zhou B Art Center in Bridgeport, puts bold outlining and a canvas’s meticulous, geometric subdivision into correspondence with canvases removed from their stretchers, literally slit apart and stitched together again. Insistently, distinct shapes and broad fields of color contrast with canvases that are dismounted and distressed, minimal and morbid. But Sherrell’s digitally rendered “Mashups” anchor the exhibition by proposing a compromise—looking less consciously contrived, but remaining unscarred, intensely intricate, and exuberantly colorful. Continue reading
STEPHANIE KOCH
A story of stories, John Hospodka’s “South Side Trilogy” is the narrative of a neighborhood that is at once real and out of this world. Told through art, video, poetry, prose, voice recordings, and song, the multimedia work follows the lives of a few residents of Hardscrabble, Chicago, a fictional neighborhood based on Bridgeport. Continue reading
SARA HINDMARCH
On a chilly November night, Co-Prosperity Sphere barely seems to be heated, but this matters little to the small crowd that has gathered for South Side Story Club. Kept warm by scarves and excitement, people mingle as they add their names to the list from which a few will be randomly picked to present. The theme for the night is “Since Last Time.” What has happened in the last thirty days? The answers are surprising, entertaining, interesting. All are delivered in the intimate setting of this eclectically-furnished space, within a time limit of eight minutes. Continue reading
CINDY DAPOGNY
Christina Milian is staring at me. She smiles coyly, framed in a frayed, six-by-six square of cardboard. Next to her is Snooki, and next to Snooki is Rosario Dawson. Below each of them is a sticker with their names, along with, “Andrew Hall. 50.00.” Hall himself is standing next to me, pointing at each portrait in turn, smiling. “These ones are mine.” Continue reading
SHARON LURYE
There is a secret that only a select few may understand. For decades, those who do have gathered in dimly-lit rooms, huddled together for hours as they play out their wildest fantasies. But today, the secret is becoming downright common knowledge. Your friends, co-workers, even family members have probably already admitted it to you: they play Dungeons and Dragons. Continue reading
COURTESY OF CESAR CONDE
When our eyes meet with a stranger’s, we size them up, give them a once-over, make guesses about where they’ve come from and where they’re going. In this moment, whatever prejudices we have come out in full force.
It is in this moment that Cesar Conde dwells with “In The Hood,” a stunning series of portraits in which Conde had African-American professionals of all occupations don hoodies before he painted them. With this series, Conde attempts to establish a dialogue about race, perception, and prejudice, and forces us to examine our behaviors within those crucial seconds of initial judgment. Continue reading