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(04/20/07 4:00am)
CHICAGO – You have a world atlas on your desk. With a few mouse clicks, you can print out door-to-door directions via the Internet. Then there’s the GPS device mounted on your car’s windshield.\nWith Americans possessing more tools than ever to help get them where they want to go, a major upcoming exhibit at the Field Museum will route how maps have changed over the centuries and how various cultures have chosen to depict the world.\n“Maps: Finding Our Place in the World,” opening Nov. 2, will feature more than 130 famous or prized maps. Organizers, who will officially announce the show Friday, are billing it as the most ambitious cartography exhibit ever in North America.\nPieces confirmed for display include a 3,500-year-old clay tablet detailing walls, gates and palaces in the town of Nippur in what is now Iraq; three drawings by Leonardo da Vinci rarely lent from the English royal collection; the map Charles Lindbergh carried with him on his history-making flight from New York to Paris; and drawings by author J.R.R. Tolkien of his fictional Middle-earth.\n“We were successful beyond our wildest imaginations,” said James Akerman, one of the exhibit’s curators and director of the Newberry Library’s Center for the History of Cartography. The Newberry has partnered with the Field Museum to present the show.\nIts genesis was a question asked by the Field’s president and CEO, John W. McCarter Jr.\nMcCarter had been fascinated with maps since he was a child, when he kept a box of maps he cut out from National Geographic and studied World War II battle maps with his father at their kitchen table.\nNow head of one of the country’s most prominent natural history museums, he asked a friend and cartography expert: Had there ever been an exhibit on the 100 greatest maps in the world?\nHe learned there had, in 1952 in Baltimore. McCarter decided to try to mount another such show, and became even more determined when he found a sponsor in Navtec, a Chicago-based provider of digital map data.\nThe exhibit’s opening is still six months away. But Akerman and fellow exhibit curator Robert W. Karrow Jr., the Newberry’s curator of maps, provided a sneak peek of items to be displayed from the library’s permanent collection.\nOne, contained in book published in 1524, is a map of the Aztec Empire’s capital of Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City) based on the eyewitness account of Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes.\nThe map marries European-style representations of buildings with indigenous-style pictographs to show pyramids and a rack decorated with human skulls.\nIt’s the first printed map of any American site. Yet the blue of the water surrounding the city is still vivid nearly 500 years after the map was painted by hand.\nAnother piece is a pocket globe produced in England in the early 19th century. The globe rotates while nesting in its lizard skin case, about the size of a softball.\nOn the top of the case is a tiny, delicate map of the solar system. On the globe itself, one can trace the path of Captain James Cook, whose explorations of the South Pacific in the late 18th century were of great interest to British audiences.\n“One of the overarching themes of the show is how maps reflect back on us, on the people who use them,” Akerman said.\nThe show’s organizers also wanted to include maps from outside the European tradition, such as a deerskin map drawn by members of an American Indian tribe, where circles connected by lines indicate political ties among communities.\nAlso on loan from other collections will be a small Hindu globe that depicts continents in the shape of lotus petals and an Ottoman map from the 17th century showing the Nile River snaking through Egypt, with south, instead of north, at its top.\nEven as viewers are amused or perplexed at how other cultures chose to depict the world, Karrow said he hopes they realize that modern maps also reflect choices – for example, what points of interest to feature, or a GPS system that directs a viewer to take major roads, not necessarily the most scenic.\n“Any map,” said Karrow, “even a modern map, even the most scientifically rigorous modern map, comes packed with a whole bundle of cultural propositions that regulate how it’s going to look.”\n“Maps: Finding Our Place in the World,” will be on display at the Field from Nov. 2 through Jan. 28, 2008. It then will move to Baltimore’s Walters Art Museum from March 15 through June 8, 2008.
(04/04/07 4:00am)
CHICAGO – A new 15-foot totem pole that marries traditional carving styles with contemporary techniques was erected Monday at The Field Museum, replacing a pole that was returned to an Alaskan tribe.\nThe new totem pole was carved by a father-and-son team from a western red cedar tree given as a gift to the museum from the Tlingit community of Cape Fox, Alaska.\nIn 2001, the museum returned one of its most treasured items–a 26-foot totem pole removed from southeast Alaska in 1899 by a scientific expedition –to the Tlingit people.\nThe new pole was carved by Nathan Jackson, a master carver and member of the Chilkoot-Tlingit Tribe of Alaska, and his son, Stephen Jackson, a sculptor based in New York City.\nNathan Jackson’s wife, Dorica Jackson, did much of the painting. She also helped her husband navigate the Internet when their son sent his proposed design and follow-up changes via e-mail.\nFollowing months of work in the family’s workshop in Ketchikan, Alaska, the three have been putting the finishing touches on the totem pole for the last two weeks, working in front of the public in the museum’s massive Stanley Field Hall.\nThe trio had been toiling for 24 straight hours to finish the pole before it was installed Monday morning.\nThe result is a totem pole painted in brilliant colors of red and turquoise. Like the pole it is replacing, it features representations of a bear and birds. But in a nod to contemporary art, it also features an abstract, swooshing, molded silicone element created by Stephen Jackson.\n“It was challenging, because maybe my ideas have diverged a little bit from his,” said Jackson, who began carving with his father at age 14. “We were trying to figure out common ground. I think we did–we found some.”\nThe totem pole measures about 3 feet wide, and weighs about 1,500 pounds – including the steel supports that keep it in place. The platform on which it rests is a transition point where the museum’s new “Ancient Americas” exhibit meets the Field’s long-standing area devoted to the native cultures of the Pacific Northwest.\nThe original totem pole – along with artifacts housed at four other museums – was returned to the Tlingit people in 2001 under the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.\nIt was removed in 1899 by what became known as the “Harriman expedition,” a survey along Alaska’s coast led by railroad magnate Edward H. Harriman and a group of artists and scientists.\nThe group thought the Cape Fox village of Gaash had been abandoned, and left with treasures that eventually found their way to some of the country’s leading science museums, said Janet M. Hong, a project manager for exhibitions at the Field.\nLarge numbers of Tlingit members had been killed by smallpox and other diseases that accompanied white explorers and fur traders. The survivors were encouraged by missionaries to move to more consolidated areas so their children could attend Western-style schools, Hong said, but the village was still used and visited by Tlingit people.\nNathan Jackson said it was an honor to participate in a project that brings full circle the removal of a totem pole from a village of his ancestors more than 100 years ago. He also said he believed The Field Museum acted as a good custodian of that pole.\n“It was brought back in good shape,” he said.
(01/05/07 5:07am)
CHICAGO -- Ice-fishing tournaments in Minnesota are being canceled for lack of ice. Indiana landscaping crews are busy planting shrubs and trees. And golfers are hitting the links in Chicago in January.\nMuch of the Midwest and the East Coast are going through a remarkably warm winter, with temperatures running 10 and 20 degrees higher than normal in many places.\n"I'm not complaining. I can take this," said Rudolph Williams, a doorman in New York City who normally wears a hat this time of year but stood outside in 50-degree weather with his shaved head uncovered. "The Earth is recalibrating itself: Last year, we had a cold winter, and it's balancing itself out now. In January, it feels like the middle of April."\nIn Indiana, the lingering warmth has meant extra income for outdoor businesses, which in a normal winter all but shut down until just before the spring thaw.\nRick Haggard, the president of the Indiana Nursery and Landscape Association, said recent talk among landscapers has focused on the unusually mild weather.\n"For us it's unexpected money," he said. "It's been like October or November weather, rather than January days."\nNew York City saw a November and December without snow for the first time since 1877. And New Jersey had its warmest December since records started being kept 111 years ago.\nMaria Freitas said that not only are crocus bulbs blooming in her Rahway, N.J., backyard, but the asparagus is 3 inches high.\n"They think it's spring. They're so confused," she said.\nMeteorologists say the warm spell is due to a combination of factors: El Niño, a cyclical warming trend now under way in the Pacific Ocean, can lead to milder weather, particularly in the Northeast; and the jet stream, the high-altitude air current that works like a barricade to hold back warm Southern air, is running much farther north than usual over the East Coast.\nThe weather is prone to short-term fluctuations, and forecasters said the mild winter does not necessarily mean global warming is upon us. In fact, the Plains have been hit by back-to-back blizzards in the past two weeks.\n"No cause for alarm. Enjoy it while you have it," said Mike Halpert, head of forecast operations at the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center.\nAt the Sydney R. Marovitz Golf Course in Chicago near Lake Michigan, 30 people teed off between 9 a.m. and noon, when there are usually no golfers at all this time of year.\nLeonard Berg, the course's superintendent for maintenance, gestured to the fairways with pride: "Normally this time of year there would be a brown singe to it. Look at that nice emerald green."\nBut the mild weather is also hurting some businesses and events.\nIn Minnesota, where a water skier in a wet suit was recently seen on the Mississippi River near St. Paul, ice-fishing tournaments have been canceled. The U.S. Pond Hockey Championships -- scheduled for Jan. 19-21 in Minneapolis -- have only a 50-50 chance of being held.\nAnd organizers of the St. Paul Winter Carnival, scheduled to begin late this month, said the ice is not thick enough to harvest into 1,400 blocks for the ice maze. They may have to switch to plastic blocks.\n"It would give the effect, but it's not exactly Minnesota winter," said Mary Huss, a spokeswoman for the event.\nKeith Baughman, a landscape architect with Lawn Pride in Indianapolis, said that since no significant snow has fallen in central Indiana so far this winter, his company has been short of trucks without the heavy blades for the landscape work his crews find before them.\n"We're geared up for snow removal to try to make money that way, but that's not happening," Baughman said. "Everything's converted over for snow, so that's kind of minimized our equipment. You kind of have to go back and forth from one day to the next as to what we're going to be able to do."\nIn Ohio, Dan Motz said sales for his firewood business in a Cincinnati suburb are down about 25 percent.\nIn New Jersey, the Mountain Creek ski resort in Vernon is struggling to open more trails. There haven't been many nights cold enough to make snow.\n"We're keeping our fingers crossed that the cold weather will get here soon," resort spokeswoman Shannon McSweeney said. "Either that, or sending trucks out to Colorado to steal some of their snow."\n--Associated Press writers Rick Callahan in Indianapolis, Archie Ingersoll in Minneapolis, Chris Williams in Minneapolis, Ben Greeve in Baltimore, Michael Felberbaum in Richmond, Va., Wayne Parry in Kenilworth, N.J., Terry Kinney in Cincinnati, Nahal Toosi in New York and Laurel Jorgensen in Chicago also contributed to this report.
(10/02/06 2:43am)
CHICAGO -- Wendy Ellis Somes is explaining to a ballerina portraying the Summer Fairy in "Cinderella" how to capture the languid essence of her solo: Think of how caramel would react on a steamy Chicago day, she suggests.\nDuring her career with Britain's Royal Ballet, Somes danced everything from the tiny part of a page to the title role of the girl who loses her slipper in Frederick Ashton's lavish full-length version of the fairy tale, set to a score by Sergei Prokofiev.\nNow Somes is in Chicago coaching the Joffrey Ballet, which will become the first American company to perform Ashton's work when "Cinderella" opens Wednesday at the Auditorium Theater. It's the company's biggest production ever, with a cast of 50 dancers plus 25 children and a budget of more than $1.5 million.\n"They're very excited because it's a very challenging ballet for them ... and I mean that from Cinderella to the smallest role in the corps de ballet," Somes said in a recent interview following her rehearsal with four dancers, each playing a different seasonal fairy.\n"It's all hard -- really hard dancing. And that is quite unusual in big ballets today. There is a lot of sort of milling around, and not exactly doing steps."\nAshton, a contemporary of George Balanchine, is considered one of the great classical choreographers of the 20th century, known for his lyricism and musicalilty. His other landmark ballets include "The Dream," "La Fille mal Garde" and "Birthday Offering."\nAshton died in 1988, and he left his ballets to friends, dancers and relatives. He willed the rights to "Cinderella" to Michael Somes, a frequent partner of Margot Fonteyn who created the role of the Prince when The Royal Ballet debuted "Cinderella" in 1948. When Somes died, he left the ballet to his wife, Wendy Ellis Somes.\nSomes said other companies in the United States have expressed interest in performing Ashton's "Cinderella." Robert Joffrey even hoped to make it happen for his namesake company before his death in 1988.\nBut it's a major undertaking, requiring a huge cast and glorious costumes and sets. Somes decided to grant the rights to the Joffrey after coming from England two years ago to see the company perform. She appreciated the quality of the company's dancers and productions and how it felt like a family.\n"I felt comfortable. I felt, yes, this is the right time to do it," she said. "It just felt right. A gut feeling."\nAnd back at the Joffery, they felt a production of Ashton's "Cinderella" was perfect for its two-season celebration of the 50th anniversary of the company's founding by Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino.\nNot only had Robert Joffrey always hoped to have his company perform the ballet, the Joffrey was offered the chance to buy "Cinderella" sets and costumes from the Dutch National Ballet -- saving it the expense and time of creating them from scratch.\nAnd as a special treat, the Joffrey has arranged for two of the company's big stars from the 1970s -- Christian Holder and Gary Chryst -- to return and dance the roles of the Ugly Stepsisters, portrayed in Ashton's version by men in 2 1/2-inch high heels, towering wigs, heavy makeup and outlandish dresses. (Ashton played the younger stepsister himself.)\nHolder and Chryst said Joffrey actually mentioned to them once in the 1970s that he could envision them as the stepsisters. It was unusual, they said, because he didn't usually talk to dancers about what he had in mind for them.\nDecades later, they were both in Chicago to see a Joffrey performance when they heard about the company's interest in "Cinderella." When they mentioned what Robert Joffrey had told them decades ago, the company's management knew they'd found their stepsisters.
(09/04/06 3:20am)
CHICAGO -- For a guy born 150 years ago, architect Louis Sullivan has been in the news a lot lately. Unfortunately, not much of it has been good news for buildings designed by the man considered one of America's most influential architects.\nHis Pilgrim Baptist Church on Chicago's South Side was devastated by fire in January. His personal vacation bungalow on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina last year.\nAnd Carson Pirie Scott announced last month that it is leaving Sullivan's landmark State Street building, which has housed a department store since it was built more than 100 years ago.\nWell, at least fans of Sullivan, who was born Sept. 3, 1856, in Boston, have a birthday to celebrate. And how many architects get a six-week birthday celebration like the one that is kicking off this weekend in Chicago?\nThe architect who declared "form ever follows function," whose students included Frank Lloyd Wright, will be the subject of lectures, tours, film screenings, classes and symposiums -- all serving as a reminder of the man known for his mastery of designing tall office buildings.\n"It's a wonderful opportunity to really look at Sullivan and his partner Dankmar Adler and their incredible career. Really get the opportunity to rediscover their architecture and look at what great strides were made in the late 19th and early 20th century by their firm and then Sullivan on his own -- marvelous buildings, many of which still stand throughout the Midwest," said Ward Miller, director of the Richard Nickel Committee, one of the groups participating in the celebration.\nSullivan, who spent the bulk of his career in Chicago, played a vital role in making the city a hub for innovative American architecture in the late 19th century. He moved to Chicago while he was still a teenager, drawn by the demand for architects that followed the Great Chicago Fire.\nHe left for a year to study in Paris and travel through Europe. He returned to Chicago and in 1880 joined Adler's firm, being named a full partner three years later.\nAdler solved the engineering quandaries. Sullivan focused on the design -- embracing natural and organic forms for his ornamentation.\nTheir collaboration produced approximately 180 works -- including the Auditorium Building in Chicago (renowned for the acoustics in its theater and once the city's tallest building) and the Chicago Stock Exchange.\nWith its open floor plan and rejection of typical Victorian architecture, the firm's James Charnley House on Chicago's North Side (now called the Charnley-Persky House) is considered a pivotal work of modern architecture.\nIt was designed by Sullivan along with his protege Wright, who later called Sullivan the "lieber-meister" ("beloved master").\nSullivan and Adler had a falling out in 1895, two years after Wright was fired for taking side jobs.\nSullivan's last great commission was received in 1899 for the Schlesinger and Meyer Department Store -- now home, at least until March, to Carson Pirie Scott. (The building is a National Historic Landmark, although some preservationists worry about how future tenants might want to alter the building's interior or entrances for their own use.)
(08/06/06 8:08pm)
CHICAGO - While indie rock band Cursive played one of the nine stages at the Lollapalooza music festival, a nearby air-conditioned tent was packed with people checking their e-mail, updating their blogs and charging their cell phones.\nSome milled about waiting for a laptop with wireless Internet access to free up. Others plopped down on couches and watched satellite television -- or a live feed of Cursive, performing just outside.\nVisitors to this year's three-day edition of Lollapalooza, which began Friday in Chicago's Grant Park, will find technology almost as ubiquitous as the music.\nThey can download the festival schedule and band photos and audio clips to their iPods; create a digital wish list of the bands they plan to see, then share it with friends via e-mail; use their cell phones to play a 21st century scavenger hunt; or follow instructions displayed on the festival's jumbo screens to send politically minded text messages.\nDrew Record, 21, spent much of Friday afternoon playing the Mindfield game. Completing tasks such as a leapfrog contest or telling jokes to a sad-looking clown led to clues that were text messaged to his cell phone and could ultimately lead to various prizes.\nThe University of Arizona student was aiming for a backstage pass to see Jack White's new band, The Raconteurs, but even if that didn't work out, he said he had a good time.\n"When you're standing in line, when you're waiting for a new band to start, you can be texting. It's just kind of fun," Record said. "The whole concept of Lollapalooza is this weird sort of village of people and ideas and music, and this just takes it to the whole next level."
(11/10/05 4:58am)
CHICAGO -- Author Scott Turow's father served as a field surgeon in a medical unit during World War II, but his stories about that experience stopped flowing before his son reached his teen years.\nNow Turow -- whose work as an attorney has often inspired his best-selling legal thrillers like "Presumed Innocent" -- has used his father's conflicted views about war and courage as the jumping off point for his latest novel, a foray into historical fiction called "Ordinary Heroes."\n"My father when he told his war stories, even though he was in my eyes heroic, always downplayed his own heroism -- not only downplayed it, didn't believe in it," Turow said. "And the reason he didn't was because he knew he was petrified. I guess he thought heroes were people who didn't feel fear."\nBefore beginning a tour to promote the new book, Turow, 56, sat for an interview in the Sears Tower law firm where he serves as a partner.\nReturning from an afternoon workout session, he relaxed with a glass of water in the 81st floor conference room that overlooks the amazing expanse of Lake Michigan and the city's other iconic skyscraper, the John Hancock Center. He said his office was too messy for visitors, with boxes full of "Ordinary Heroes" littering the floor.\nTurow, whose dark hair is balding, was wearing a pinstripe suit, but he opted against putting his tie back on again. Friendly and talkative, he often covered his eyes with his hand when composing his answers, especially when talking of his sometimes difficult relationship with his father, an obstetrician who died about seven years ago.\nThe father-son relationship is central to "Ordinary Heroes." Fifty-something former newspaper reporter Stewart Dubinsky, seeking to understand his dead father, sets out to investigate his World War II experiences as an officer with the Judge Advocate General's Corps and subsequent court-martial.\nAlong the way, Dubinsky discovers an account written by his father during his court-martial. The story-within-a-story helps illuminate Dubinsky's father and his life-altering interactions with Robert Martin, a charismatic OSS officer suspected of being a Soviet spy, and Martin's comrade, an intriguing Polish woman.\nBefore writing, Turow read the wartime letters his father wrote to his mother.\nTurow's father agonized that he was repairing soldiers only so they could be returned to battle to risk their lives yet again. He wrote how he stayed up two nights straight trying to will a young medic to live -- the medic died 10 minutes after Dr. David Turow was persuaded by a friend to take a break to get some sleep.\n"There ... was a making peace with my dad that was part of writing this book," Turow said. "This was the one part of my father's life that I regarded as unambiguously glorious."\nThe book is Turow's first real foray into historical fiction in a writing career that started with "One L" -- his account of his first year at Harvard Law School -- and then exploded in 1987 with the blockbuster novel "Presumed Innocent." He's published nine books in all.\nTurow's editor of almost 20 years, Jonathan Galassi, said he was not surprised when Turow told him he wanted to set a novel during World War II, because he's an author who is "always trying new challenges."\n"I think he draws from whatever around him strikes his interest at a particular time. I knew that his father loomed large in his psychic life -- as any father does," said Galassi, president and publisher of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. "I think this was a way of dealing with an aspect of his father's experience that he could not have known."\nTurow began his legal career as an assistant federal prosecutor in Chicago. He now focuses on white-collar criminal defense, pro bono work and serving on various public bodies, including currently chairing the Illinois Executive Ethics Commission.\nThe combination of writing and the law was established early. In 1974, he received a master's degree in creative writing from Stanford University, and he graduated from Harvard Law School four years later.\nDespite selling more than 25 million books, Turow said he enjoys his legal work.\n"I like being in the world. I think I've got a certain fascination with power and how it's used," he said. "It's hard to do that sitting behind the screen of your word processor."\nAnd "Ordinary Heroes" is not the first of his novels to dip into Turow's real-life experiences for inspiration.\n"Personal Injuries" features an investigation into payoffs to judges -- mirroring Turow's work as a federal prosecutor in the Operation Greylord courthouse corruption scandal in the 1980s.\nHe wrote 2002's "Reversible Errors" -- about a man on death row for a triple murder -- after helping to get charges dismissed against Alejandro Hernandez, who served 12 years in prison, three on death row, for a murder he did not commit.\nTurow also was a member of the panel that then-Gov. George Ryan established to study flaws in and recommend reforms for Illinois' capital punishment system after 13 death row inmates were found to be wrongfully convicted.\nFrom that experience, Turow was transformed from what he has described as a "death penalty agnostic" to a firm opponent. But he acknowledges his advocacy work on the issue has lessened, because the death penalty "is the kind of issue that can just suck you up on either side," and it is hard to change minds.\nWhile much of "Ordinary Heroes" occurs on the battlefields of Europe, Stewart Dubinsky lives in Kindle County, the fictional Midwestern metropolis that has been the setting for all of Turow's novels and where characters from past novels often intersect.\nIn real life, Turow lives in a suburb north of Chicago, with his wife of 34 years, Annette Turow, a painter. They have three children together, and Turow said he considers himself as having a "blessed life."\n"When I sit around and speculate, when I was 21 I wanted to be James Joyce. And every now and then I wonder, have I cornered myself with this sort of suspense thing?" Turow said. "But you know, I don't think so. I think I'm a better writer. I think I'm about as good as a writer as I can be, writing that way"
(11/01/05 4:28am)
CHICAGO -- Visitors to the Museum of Contemporary Art's newest exhibit will leave with sand in their shoes.\n"Tropicalia: A Revolution in Brazilian Culture" is the first major exhibit to examine a nearly 40-year-old cultural movement that affected Brazilian theater, film, architecture, music, fashion, advertising, television and the visual arts.\nThe exhibit, which opened Oct. 22, includes both artwork from the late 1960s and early 1970s -- including one major installation on a bed of sand -- and contemporary work commissioned for the show.\nFundamentally, "Tropicalia" was about a search for an identity in an amazingly diverse country. As a former Portuguese colony, the country has strong ties to Europe, but Brazil also includes an indigenous population and a sizable African population because of the slave trade.\nIn many cases, the artists used local and international influences to create works that were uniquely Brazilian, often highlighting the fringes of society. In others, the artists chose to turn cliches upside down.\nFor instance, a centerpiece of the exhibit are the late 1960s works of Helio Oiticica inspired by the country's shantytowns, or favelas. They are individual rooms made up of wooden poles, vibrantly colored pieces of fabric, plastic tarps and other found materials.\nVisitors can wander through a labrynth-like path made up of sand. Scattered throughout are tropical plants and pebbles.\nThe structures are different shapes and suggest a fluid type of architecture in which rooms can serve multiple purposes. The rooms house various items -- a pile of books, a small cot, a tub of water, a stack of newspapers. One "shanty" features two live blue and yellow parrots. At the end of another path is a television.\n"Tropicalia is very much about cannibalism -- about absorbing everything outside and transforming it into something new," said Carlos Basualdo, who served as the guest curator of the show.\nIn fact, one of Oiticica's installations, called "Tropicalia," actually inspired the name of the cultural movement. The name was suggested to musician Caetano Veloso for a song, who also used it as the title of a 1968 collaborative album with numerous other artists.\nThat album went on to be an overwhelming success and why many people, when they hear "Tropicalia," only think of a melting pot musical style.\nAppropriately, the exhibit is heavy on music, including album covers, instruments that double as sculptures and boxes mounted on the wall that play music when their covers are lifted, allowing museum visitors to create different combinations.\nAnother exhibit theme is that many of the works employ common materials available to all Brazilians, such as Lygia Pape's "Book of Creation," which tells the story of the world using geometric forms on colored paper board. And the sculptural musical instruments, for instance, are created of gourds, plastic, plastic foam and spoons.\nAdditionally, many of the "Tropicalia" artists wanted their pieces of work to invite participation and interactivity. There are masks, clothes and goggles that museum visitors can wear, and several tables feature artworks that beg to be played with, such as a plastic bag filled with water and shells.
(05/12/05 2:17am)
CHICAGO -- Sculptor Ruth Duckworth has been creating and selling art for over half a century, and each piece still holds a place in her heart.\nWhen a ceramic wall mural was broken during a move by the architecture firm that commissioned it, Duckworth asked that the mural be returned, restored it and now displays it in her North Side studio. Other pieces that emerged from the kiln with flaws rest on shelves, like an Island of Lost Toys. Duckworth, still working at 86, picks them up when she needs inspiration.\nFor the next two months, she'll be able to visit some of her most famous pieces close to home. A career retrospective, "Ruth Duckworth: Modernist Sculptor," is on view at the Chicago Cultural Center with more than 80 ceramic murals, vessels and sculptures by the refugee from Nazi Germany.\nThe retrospective also features her work in metal, stone and bronze, although Duckworth is most acclaimed for her creations with clay in its fired ceramic form. Her works often include organic shapes resembling eggs, mountains, bones, birds, bulbs and female figures. When they contain colors at all, the hues are subtle.\nDuckworth is a tiny, impish-looking woman who has lived a life to match her daredevil smile.\nBorn Ruth Windmuller in 1919 in Hamburg to a Jewish father and Lutheran mother, Duckworth and her family fled Hitler's Germany when she was a teenager. She studied art in England and picked up odd jobs to support herself, from carving gravestones to creating film sets. She also suffered bouts of depression while working at a munitions factory during World War II.\nArt helped her heal.\n"It was (Rainer Maria) Rilke's poetry, and Rembrandt and Michelangelo and Durer were my three favorite artists," she says. "And I thought, if they can make me feel better, that maybe I can make myself feel better, or even other people."\nDuckworth's early artistic ambitions included painting, drawing and graphic design, but she was drawn to sculpture after visiting the Royal Academy in London in the late 1940s.\n"There was a huge room full of sculptures and another one of paintings and miniatures," she says. "I reacted so much more strongly to the room with the sculptures. And that was it."\nShe married fellow sculptor Aidron Duckworth in 1949. By 1960, she was teaching at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London and had become an important figure in the English ceramics community. In 1964, she was invited to teach sculpture for one year at the University of Chicago. Instead of just a year, she decided to settle in Chicago after receiving a major commission to create a huge mural in the school's Geophysical Sciences Building. She retired from teaching in 1977.\nDuckworth would rather talk about her art than her turbulent younger years, but reminders of her past surround her. On a wall in her home above the art studio, a collage holds pictures of the family home in Hamburg and her siblings dressed up for a walk with their nanny. She speaks lovingly of her older brother who died during World War II.\nShe still returns to England each year to visit family, but she says that staying in Chicago was good for her career -- America was "more stimulating."\n"You have more scope. You can work large or larger or small," she says. "In England, 12 inches is tall."\nThe curator of the retrospective, Thea Burger, said the exhibit demonstrates the diversity of Duckworth's work, with items ranging from diminutive bowls to a larger-than-life bronze work of a couple sitting on a bench with birds on their heads. She hopes it will help illuminate the important influence that Duckworth's early years as a stone carver had on her ceramics.\n"Most ceramic artists begin by throwing clay on a wheel and work building something up. Why Ruth is different is because she takes away in her mind. She takes a block of ceramics and visually and mentally takes away from the work, rather than building it up," Burger said.\nSince the early 1980s, Duckworth has worked and lived in an old brick building she rehabilitated. In her upstairs living space, plants fill ceramic pots she fashioned over the decades. Even the dinnerware and ceramic tiles of her kitchen floor are her creations.\nShe still works five days a week and is planning a trip to the Nile River this year, despite breaking her leg on a 1999 cruise to Antarctica "to see the colors of the ice." She had to wait six days before the bone could be set at a naval hospital in Chile.\nShe is so busy, she hasn't found time to finish a huge bowl she plans to place upside down on her living room carpet to remind her of the mountains she loves. Just getting her to refer to the bowl as a mountain is a change for Duckworth. Most of her works are untitled.\n"I like people to have their own ideas and not my idea of what something is," she says. "Some people are very clever at thinking of intriguing titles. That's not really my cup of tea."\nThe retrospective will run at the Chicago Cultural Center until July 10. It then travels to Sedalia, Mo.; Bloomfield Hills, Mich.; Minneapolis; and Long Beach, Calif. Its final scheduled stop is the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.
(05/02/05 4:38am)
CHICAGO -- Sculptor Ruth Duckworth has been creating and selling art for over half a century, but each piece still holds a place in her heart. When a ceramic wall mural was broken during a move by the architecture firm that commissioned it, Duckworth asked for the mural back, restored it and now displays it in her North Side studio. Other pieces that emerged from the kiln with flaws rest on shelves, like an Island of Lost Toys. Duckworth, still working at 86, picks them up when she needs inspiration.\nFor the next two months, she'll be able to visit some of her most famous pieces close to home. A career retrospective, "Ruth Duckworth: Modernist Sculptor," opens this weekend at the Chicago Cultural Center with more than 80 ceramic murals, vessels and sculptures by the refugee from Nazi Germany.\nThe retrospective also features her work in metal, stone and bronze, but Duckworth is most acclaimed for her creations with clay in its fired ceramic form. Her works often include organic shapes resembling eggs, mountains, bones, birds, bulbs and female figures. When they contain colors at all, the hues are subtle. Duckworth is a tiny, impish-looking woman who has lived a life to match her daredevil grin.\nBorn Ruth Windmuller in 1919 in Hamburg to a Jewish father and Lutheran mother, Duckworth and her family fled Hitler's Germany when she was a teenager. She studied art in England and picked up odd jobs to support herself, from carving gravestones to creating film sets. She also suffered bouts of depression while working at a munitions factory during World War II. Art helped her heal.\n"It was Rilke's poetry, and Rembrandt and Michelangelo and Durer were my three favorite artists," she said. "And I thought, if they can make me feel better, that maybe I can make myself feel better -- or even other people."\nDuckworth's early artistic ambitions included painting, drawing and graphic design, but she was drawn to sculpture after visiting the Royal Academy in London in the late 1940s.\n"There was a huge room full of sculptures and another one of paintings and miniatures," she said. "I reacted so much more strongly to the room with the sculptures. And that was it."\nShe married fellow sculptor Aidron Duckworth in 1949. By 1960, she was teaching at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London and had become an important figure in the English ceramics community. In 1964, she was invited to teach sculpture for one year at the University of Chicago. Instead of just a year, she decided to settle in Chicago after receiving a major commission to create a huge mural in the school's Geophysical Sciences Building. She retired from teaching in 1977.\nDuckworth would rather talk about her art than her turbulent younger years, but reminders of her past surround her. On a wall in her home above the art studio, a collage holds pictures of the family home in Hamburg and her siblings dressed up for a walk with their nanny. She speaks lovingly of her older brother who died during World War II. Duckworth still returns to England each year to visit family, but she says staying in Chicago was good for her career, calling America "more stimulating."\n"You have more scope. You can work large or larger or small," she said. "In England, 12 inches is tall."\nThe curator of the retrospective, Thea Burger, said the exhibit demonstrates the diversity of Duckworth's work- with items ranging from diminutive bowls to a larger-than-life bronze work of a couple sitting on a bench with birds on their heads. She hopes it will shed light on the important influence that Duckworth's early years as a stonecarver had on her ceramics.\n"Most ceramic artists begin by throwing clay on a wheel and work building something up. Why Ruth is different is because she takes away in her mind. She takes a block of ceramics and visually and mentally takes away from the work, rather than building it up," Burger said.\nSince the early 1980s, Duckworth has worked and lived in an old brick building she rehabilitated in Chicago's Ravenswood neighborhood.In her upstairs living space, plants fill ceramic pots that Duckworth fashioned over the decades. Even the dinnerware and ceramic tiles of her kitchen floor are her creations. Duckworth still works five days a week and is planning a trip to the Nile River this year, despite breaking her leg on a 1999 cruise to Antarctica "to see the colors of the ice." She had to wait six days before the bone could be set at a naval hospital in Chile. She is so busy, she hasn't found time to finish a huge bowl she plans to place upside down on her living room carpet to remind her of the mountains she loves. Just getting her to refer to the bowl as a mountain is a change for Duckworth. Most of her works are untitled.\n"I like people to have their own ideas and not my idea of what something is," she said. "Some people are very clever at thinking of intriguing titles. That's not really my cup of tea."\nThe retrospective will be in Chicago until July 10, then travel to Sedalia, Mo.; Bloomfield Hills, Mich.; Minneapolis; and Long Beach, Calif. Its final scheduled stop is the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.
(04/28/05 5:27am)
CHICAGO -- Sculptor Ruth Duckworth has been creating and selling art for more than half a century, but each piece still holds a place in her heart.\nWhen a ceramic wall mural was broken during a move by the architecture firm that commissioned it, Duckworth asked for the mural back, restored it and now displays it in her North Side studio.\nOther pieces emerged from the kiln with flaws rest on shelves, like an Island of Lost Toys. Duckworth, still working at 86, picks them up when she needs inspiration.\nFor the next two months, she'll be able to visit some of her most famous pieces close to home. A career retrospective, "Ruth Duckworth: Modernist Sculptor," opens this weekend at the Chicago Cultural Center with more than 80 ceramic murals, vessels and sculptures by the refugee from Nazi Germany.\nThe retrospective also features her work in metal, stone and bronze, but Duckworth is most acclaimed for her creations with clay in its fired ceramic form. Her works often include organic shapes resembling eggs, mountains, bones, birds, bulbs and female figures. When they contain colors at all, the hues are subtle.\nBorn Ruth Windmuller in 1919 in Hamburg to a Jewish father and Lutheran mother, Duckworth and her family fled Hitler's Germany when she was a teenager.\nShe studied art in England and picked up odd jobs to support herself, from carving gravestones to creating film sets. She also suffered bouts of depression while working at a munitions factory during World War II.\nArt helped her heal.\n"It was Rilke's poetry, and Rembrandt and Michelangelo and Durer were my three favorite artists," she said. "And I thought, if they can make me feel better, that maybe I can make myself feel better or even other people."\nDuckworth's early artistic ambitions included painting, drawing and graphic design, but she was drawn to sculpture after visiting the Royal Academy in London in the late 1940s.\n"There was a huge room full of sculptures and another one of paintings and miniatures," she said. "I reacted so much more strongly to the room with the sculptures. And that was it."\nShe married fellow sculptor Aidron Duckworth in 1949. By 1960, she was teaching at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London and had become an important figure in the English ceramics community.\nIn 1964, she was invited to teach sculpture for one year at the University of Chicago. Instead of just a year, she decided to settle in Chicago after receiving a major commission to create a huge mural in the school's Geophysical Sciences Building. She retired from teaching in 1977.\nDuckworth would rather talk about her art than her turbulent younger years, but reminders of her past surround her.\nOn a wall in her home above the art studio, a collage holds pictures of the family home in Hamburg and her siblings dressed up for a walk with their nanny. She speaks lovingly of her older brother who died during World War II.\nDuckworth still returns to England each year to visit family, but she says staying in Chicago was good for her career, calling America "more stimulating."\n"You have more scope. You can work large or larger or small," she said. "In England, 12 inches is tall."\nThe curator of the retrospective, Thea Burger, said the exhibit demonstrates the diversity of Duckworth's work with items ranging from diminutive bowls to a larger-than-life bronze work of a couple sitting on a bench with birds on their heads.\nShe hopes it will shed light on the important influence that Duckworth's early years as a stonecarver had on her ceramics.\n"Most ceramic artists begin by throwing clay on a wheel and work building something up. Why Ruth is different is because she takes away in her mind. She takes a block of ceramics and visually and mentally takes away from the work, rather than building it up," Burger said.\nSince the early 1980s, Duckworth has worked and lived in an old brick building she rehabilitated in Chicago's Ravenswood neighborhood.\nIn her upstairs living space, plants fill ceramic pots that Duckworth fashioned over the decades. Even the dinnerware and ceramic tiles of her kitchen floor are her creations.\nDuckworth still works five days a week and is planning a trip to the Nile River this year, despite breaking her leg on a 1999 cruise to Antarctica "to see the colors of the ice." She had to wait six days before the bone could be set at a naval hospital in Chile.\nShe is so busy, she hasn't found time to finish a huge bowl she plans to place upside down on her living room carpet to remind her of the mountains she loves.\nJust getting her to refer to the bowl as a mountain is a change for Duckworth. Most of her works are untitled.\n"I like people to have their own ideas and not my idea of what something is," she said. "Some people are very clever at thinking of intriguing titles. That's not really my cup of tea."\nThe retrospective will be in Chicago until July 10, then travel to Sedalia, Mo.; Bloomfield Hills, Mich.; Minneapolis; and Long Beach, Calif. The Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., will be the exhibit's final scheduled stop.
(04/13/05 5:28am)
CHICAGO -- The Secret Service sent agents to investigate a college art gallery exhibit of mock postage stamps, one depicting President Bush with a gun pointed at his head, to guarantee "this is nothing more than artwork with a political statement," a spokesman said Tuesday. The exhibit, called "Axis of Evil: The Secret History of Sin," opened last week at Columbia College's Glass Curtain Gallery in Chicago. The 47 artists designed fake postage stamps addressing issues such as the clergy sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, racism, and the war in Iraq. None of the artists is tied to the college.\nSecret Service Spokesman Tom Mazur said Tuesday that the inquiry started after a call from a Chicago resident. Mazur would not say whether the inquiry had been completed or with whom the Secret Service had spoken, but he said no artwork had been confiscated.\nThe two federal agents arrived at the exhibit's opening night Thursday, took photos of some of the works and asked for the artists' contact information, said CarolAnn Brown, the gallery's director. Brown said the agents were most interested in Chicago artist Al Brandtner's "Patriot Act," a sheet of mock 37-cent red, white and blue stamps showing a revolver pointed at President Bush's head.\nBrandtner did not return a call to his design studio Tuesday. Brown said she referred the agents to the exhibit's curator, Michael Hernandez de Luna, who organized the show and also has several works in the exhibit, including a series of stamps depicting a plane crashing into Chicago's Sears Tower.\nWalking through the gallery Tuesday, Hernandez de Luna said that he thinks the agents were just following protocol. \n"It frightens me," he said, "because it starts questioning all rights, not only my rights or the artists' rights in this room, but questioning the rights of any artist who creates - any writer, any visual artist, any performance artist. It seems like we're being watched."\nFor the past 10 years, Hernandez de Luna has created mock stamps and tried to get them through the mail; his works with real cancelation marks have sold for $2,000. In 2001, he and another artist were suspected of creating a bogus stamp with a black skull and crossbones design and the word "Anthrax"; its discovery shut down part of Chicago's main post office for several hours. Hernandez de Luna won't talk about the incident, and neither artist was ever charged. As for the most recent controversy, he said he is letting his attorney handle all contacts with the Secret Service, and he would not say whether he has instructed his lawyer to turn over information on other artists in the show. He said the exhibit attracted "no hoopla" when it appeared at a Philadelphia gallery.\nThe Secret Service has investigated art exhibits before. Last spring, agents in Washington state questioned a high school student about anti-war drawings he did for an art class, one of which depicted President Bush's head on a stick. Brown, the Chicago gallery's director, said she hopes the government's interest in the postage stamp exhibit will attract more viewers and encourage a wider debate on some of the themes the show addresses. One red stamp has the words "Blood for Oil" under a picture of a sport utility vehicle. Another uses images of naked prisoners from the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal to comprise a grotesque picture of former Attorney General John Ashcroft's face.\n"It's very contemporary, it's current events," Brown said. "I'm always interested in creating a dialogue, whether it's a safe dialogue or a controversial dialogue"
(03/23/05 5:36am)
CHICAGO -- For many of the Illini players and fans, Thursday's NCAA regional semifinal game will be just like a trip home.\nFour of the No. 1 seed's starters are from the Chicago area -- Dee Brown (Maywood), James Augustine (Mokena), Luther Head (Chicago) and Roger Power Jr. (Joliet). \nAlmost 60 percent of the University's students come from the Chicago area, and about 140,000 alumni of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign live in the metropolitan area, along with thousands more who graduated from Illinois-Chicago.\n"Illinois flags are all over the place," said Chicago Alderman Tom Tunney, himself a 1977 UI graduate.\nAsked if he's been following the Illinois basketball team, with its 34-1 record this season, he said, "Who hasn't? It's a national phenomenon."\nMany of the school's famous graduates have ties to Chicago, including Hugh Hefner, who started his Playboy empire here; Chicago-born Dick Butkus, who played for the Chicago Bears; and Robert Ebert, the Pulitzer Prize-winning movie critic who writes for the Chicago Sun-Times and holds an "Overlooked Film Festival" in Urbana each year.\nSome large suburban Chicago schools send more than 100 students from each graduating class to the University of Illinois, which enrolls 28,000 undergraduates and 10,000 graduate students.\nThe university is so popular with Chicago kids it even has a restaurant serving Chicago-style deep dish pizza -- Papa Del's.\n"Chicago is the key city for the University of Illinois, for its natural well-being -- from recruiting students to recruiting student-athletes to identifying alumni," said Vanessa Faurie, a spokeswoman for the Alumni Association. "And it's close enough that mentors and counselors for students in Urbana can be tapped from the Chicago area."\nTerri Egan Lane, head of the Chicago Illini Club, said the basketball team's success this year has been wonderful for alumni morale. Bars and restaurants across the city have been calling her, asking to be endorsed as "official game viewing sites."\nIn fact, Lane said she is getting a bit frustrated by people constantly stopping her on the street, asking if she could find them NCAA Tournament tickets. (She can't, by the way.)\n"What am I, Ticketmaster?" she said.\nOne sign of the demand from Illini fans: Four tickets to see the Illini play Wisconsin-Milwaukee on Thursday were being offered for $1,200 on eBay, with the caption reading "Root the Illini on!"\nAt the Chicago-area Campus Colors stores, which specialize in collegiate apparel, sales of Illini gear are up 400 percent this year compared to last, said Jon Rubenstein, the company's vice president. The store carries gear from 250 schools, but UI is the state's flagship university and it's just a two-hour drive away.\n"Illinois has always been a good school for us, but this year it's kind of crazy," Rubenstein said. "Anything in orange is hot."\nBrothers Adam and Mark Reinhart of Cincinnati spent Tuesday in a downtown store with their parents debating which Illini gear to get. Adam, 12, settled on a jersey and shorts.\nEight-year-old Mark, meanwhile, picked an orange, long-sleeved hooded sweatshirt with "Fighting Illini" on the front. Why?\n"Two reasons. First, I like Illinois," he said. "And number two, I like orange"
(02/16/05 4:39am)
CHICAGO -- The world's first tourists were pilgrims and sages, traveling to sacred and important sites in search of enlightenment.\nToday hundreds of millions of people travel internationally each year for business, for pleasure, to see the masterpieces of the Louvre in Paris or the replica of the Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas.\nA new exhibit has taken over the entire Museum of Contemporary Art, examining art, history and culture from the tourist's view.\nJapanese artist Kyoichi Tsuzuki's photographs depict humorous and bizarre public places, such as a strawberry-shaped bus stop and the giant statues of Easter Island. A group of Dutch architects have created fantastical digital images of cruise ships carrying floating amusement parks, and an American artist has built a model of the Tower of London Bridge with an erector set.\n"The idea of traveling is not just traveling in space and in reality, not just traveling via planes, but traveling inside your mind," curator Francesco Bonami said. "Traveling through the tales of other people, through the experiences of other people and creating an experience inside your head."\nBonami got the idea for the exhibit, called "Universal Experience: Art, Life and the Tourist's Eye," about five years ago while contemplating the Chicago's World's Fair of 1893. The fair drew 27 million visitors over six months, a massive figure in an age before airplanes.\n"I started thinking of an exhibition that should be an experience in itself," Bonami said.\nThe show is the largest ever organized by the MCA, and its permanent collection was stored to create enough space.\nThe exhibit begins before visitors even enter the museum. Outside, a life-sized sculpture gives the impression that a white car pulling a camper trailer has driven straight through the earth and popped up on the museum's plaza, whimsically evoking family road trips.\nOn the fourth floor, orange carpet, mod-looking chairs and televisions hanging from the ceiling create the effect of an airport lounge circa 1970. But rather than planes, the view from the floor-to-ceiling windows is of the old limestone Water Tower, one of the few buildings to survive the 1871 Chicago Fire.\nPhotographer Catherine Opie, who is spending a few years documenting a series of American cities, focused her part of the exhibit on the lighting of Chicago's architecture at night -- and not just the famous buildings. One panoramic photo captures the beauty of a spiraling, concrete parking garage behind the John Hancock Building.\n"What I'm interested in is ideas of specificity of identity of different American cities. How do you identify that city whether you live in it or experience it from the outside?" she said.\nOther exhibits twist reality. One photo depicts Maurizio Cattelan's re-creation of the famous Hollywood sign on a landfill in Palermo, Italy, a project he describes in the exhibition catalog as "like spraying stardust over the Sicilian landscape: It's a cut and paste dream."\nBonami said he hopes those who tour the exhibit will leave with a new appreciation for their role as viewers of art.\n"I would like that they would feel that art, with all its flaws and failures and things, is the last unknown territory ... where you can feel that you're not a tourist," Bonami said. "You can feel that you're finding a land that you have not seen before and that you are there, free to explore it in the way you want.\nAfter closing at the MCA June 5, the exhibit will travel to the Hayward Gallery in London.
(11/29/04 5:03am)
CHICAGO -- City officials hope there are people willing to pay plenty of money to own a vintage Playboy Bunny costume, toss green dye into the Chicago River or throw a dinner party prepared by Oprah Winfrey's chef.\nThe Chicago-related items and experiences -- Playboy Enterprises and Winfrey's show are both based in the city, and turning the Chicago River green for St. Patrick's Day is a hallowed city tradition -- will be up for sale Tuesday through Dec. 16 on eBay, www.eBay.com.\nIt's all part of an effort to raise money for arts and cultural programs as the city faces a $220 million budget gap.\n"(The auction) seems to be one of the most extensive, if not most extensive, (e-Bay auctions) of its kind," said company spokesman Hani Durzy, although with 29 million items for sale at any one time, he said it's hard to say.\nOther cities and states have used eBay to sell surplus office furniture, and school districts have auctioned off entire buildings. Charities regularly use the auction site to sell only-in-your-dreams experiences such as a lunch date with stock market sage Warren Buffett, which went for $250,100 last year.\nThe Chicago sale is unique because the money is being directed back to specific city programs and the city is both contributing items and encouraging residents to donate, Durzy said.\nMany of the items up for auction are specific to Chicago, including a walk-on role at the city's Goodman Theatre, a chance to turn on the landmark Buckingham Fountain for the season, a behind-the-scenes tour of Lincoln Park Zoo and a decommissioned city parking meter.\nThe Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, which is sponsoring the auction, has seen its budget from federal, state and city sources decline from $11.8 million in 2002 to a projected $8.8 million next year, said department spokeswoman Anne Dattulo.\nProceeds will help groups including the Chicago Cultural Center Foundation, which presents free arts programs, and Cultural Grants, which awards funds to hundreds of Chicago artists and arts organizations each year.\nCity officials have not estimated how much they expect to raise from the auction. A conservative guess is $250,000 just for the items for which there are actually estimated retail prices, such as a stay in a hotel's presidential suite, Dattulo said.\nHow much a winning bidder will pay for a one-of-a-kind opportunity like turning on Buckingham Fountain, the centerpiece of lakefront Grant Park, is unknown.\nConsultant Joan Greene, the auction's project director, said she first saw it as a way to sell items donated by businesses, but soon realized there was also a way to create unique, Chicago-specific experiences.\nA city worker in the mayor's office suggested the Chicago River project; Greene said the Chicago Plumbers Local Union 130, whose members dye the river each year, was excited to help out.\n"What we have done is to create a picture album of what is available in the city. It's become almost like a travel experience," Greene said. "We're raising funds, but also we're helping people all over the world get a sense of what Chicago is about. I love that aspect of it"
(09/15/04 4:35am)
CHICAGO -- Pontiac wanted to draw attention to its brand-new sport sedan, and Oprah Winfrey wanted to celebrate the start of her 19th season.\nThe result was a Pontiac G6s for 276 surprised audience members on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" -- and an event that marketing executives say could set a new bar for product placement.\n"Oprah is a celebrity with instant credibility," said Jim Holbrook, president of The Zipatoni Co., a marketing agency. "The power of this is incredible, and incredibly hard to replicate."\nAs advertisers struggle with viewers either tuning-out or fast-forwarding through traditional commercials, product placement has been on the rise.\nBeverage companies make deals to have their brand of soda seen in a television show, consumer products are featured prominently on reality programming like "Survivor," and auto companies make sure their car is driven by a movie's hero.\nWhat remains to be seen from Pontiac's giveaway -- featured on the "Oprah" show that aired Monday -- was whether it will be worth the $7 million in cars the company gave up, said Frank Brady, chairman of the mass communications department at St. John's University in New York.\n"I think the sort of subliminal product placement where you see a bottle of Budweiser on a table is one thing," he said. "This is a little more blatant product placement. One of the questions is, will it work?"\nMedia buyers say a 30-second advertisement on the show sells for about $70,000. But Winfrey spent about half of the show on the Pontiacs -- including a taped visit to the factory where they were made -- and the giveaway was featured all over the media, even referenced on ESPN's "SportsCenter."
(07/29/04 1:07am)
CHICAGO -- "Hi Bob!" could become a popular phrase on Michigan Avenue.\nA statue commemorating comedian Bob Newhart's role as Dr. Robert Hartley on "The Bob Newhart Show" was unveiled Tuesday in downtown Chicago near the office building shown in the TV classic's opening credits.\n"Hi Bob!" was a frequent greeting on the show, which was set in Chicago and ran on CBS from 1972 to 1978. Hartley was a successful psychologist living in a high-rise apartment with his wife, Emily, played by Suzanne Pleshette.\nAs Hartley, Newhart employed his famous deadpan, buttoned-down persona, playing the straight man to a brash receptionist, a needy neighbor and a variety of neurotic patients.\nNewhart, a native of suburban Oak Park, Ill., said he was honored by the statue and viewed it as a "tribute to the writing and to the cast." He said he thinks the sitcom is still being enjoyed because its humor was observational instead of topical.\n"We'd get a script and there would be a Gerald Ford joke about tripping over something, and I'd say to the writers, 'Guys we're going to look silly in 20 years if we're doing Gerald Ford jokes.' So that was kind of intentional," said Newhart, 74. "We'd try to make it as timeless as we could."\nThe life-size bronze sculpture was commissioned by the cable channel TV Land, which shows reruns of the classic show. It depicts Newhart's character sitting in a chair next to an empty sofa.\n"Ooomph!" Newhart said when he sat down on the sofa Tuesday.\n"This may come as a surprise to you, but bronze is not as soft as it looks," he told fans gathered for the statue's unveiling.\nNewhart, who recently was nominated for an Emmy Award for a dramatic role on "ER," followed "The Bob Newhart Show" with "Newhart" in the 1980s and two other sitcoms in the 1990s.\nThe statue will be located until Nov. 1 outside 430 N. Michigan Ave., which was featured in the show's opening credits as Hartley's office. It will then be moved about a mile east to Navy Pier because of concerns about the statue impeding pedestrian traffic.
(04/23/03 6:01am)
NEW YORK -- The painting is beautiful to see -- an orange-striped curtain hangs from a wood pole above a shimmering ocean -- but the title "Separation" hints at another meaning.\nThe curtain painted by Shahla Etemadi represents those put up in Caspian Sea swimming spots in Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution to keep men and women separate.\nThe painting is a part of "Echoes in Blue," an exhibition of contemporary Iranian artists on view through April 29 at The National Arts Club.\nAlthough Iran is in the midst of a struggle between its reform-minded president, Mohammad Khatami, and its hard-line clerical rulers, the exhibit's curators -- both Iranian exiles -- hope to puncture the American stereotype that Iranians are narrow-minded Islamic fundamentalists.\n"If there is a theme to the exhibit, it is the theme of freedom and the desire of the artist, the society at large, for freedom and very much the lack of it in society there," Hamid Ladjevardi said. \n"There is a beautiful side to the people of every country regardless of what their government's rhetoric is or its actions," said his co-curator, Homa Taraji, the president of Paradi, an international fine arts organization based in Los Angeles.\nThe show of 55 paintings from 13 artists working in Iran today was put together with the cooperation of The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. Although the Iranian government requires artists to stay away from sensitive topics, including politics and religion, many of the works demonstrate the struggle of living in a revolutionary state, Ladjevardi said.\nIn "Trapped" by Shideh Tami, a dark hand emerges from the bottom of the painting and wraps itself around the neck of a female face painted in melancholy blues, blacks and grays.\nIn Hossein Khosrowjerdi's "Paper Boat," two men in mud-caked bandages stand in dark water and gaze forlornly at a tiny boat made of notebook paper.\nAnd the highly geometric paintings of Rezvan Sadeghzadeh feature groups of women, their backs to the viewer, wearing brightly colored scarves and floor-length dresses. In some, such as "Nude Woman," one woman is isolated from the group because her head is not covered.\nNot all the works in "Echoes in Blues" are political, however. Four still lifes show sunflowers and wildflowers in vases on tables. And all the works can be appreciated for the skill shown and variety of technique, which includes oil painting, digital images and mixed media.\nBoth curators have lived in the United States for decades, but came about their connection to contemporary Iranian art in different ways.\nLadjevardi's family owned a large Tehran corporation, which was putting together a collection of contemporary Iranian art for its new headquarters when the revolution came. The paintings and building were seized, he said. He had already earned multiple college degrees in the United States and, after the revolution, pursued a successful business career here.\nTaraji moved to California in the 1970s for a master's degree and then went to work in the aerospace industry there. Three days before she was to return home, Iranian students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 52 Americans hostage.\nExcept for one trip in the early 1980s, Taraji did not return to Iran until 2001. Art had always been a hobby, and when she did return she found "an amazing flourishing of contemporary art."\nSince then, Taraji has traveled to Iran several times to gather works for the show and to consult with the curator of the Tehran museum, which received a gold medal of achievement from The National Arts Club last week upon the opening of "Echoes in Blue."\nAs for Ladjevardi, he has not been back to Iran since the revolution.\n"This exhibit is a good way for people of the U.S. to understand that no matter … how much darkness envelopes a country in terms of its art and culture, the light of Iranian art can never be totally repressed," he said.\n"Echoes in Blue" is scheduled to travel to California for a show in late September at the Hedi Khorsand Gallery in West Hollywood.
(01/27/03 4:34am)
NEW YORK -- Some of the artists take the stage shyly, others stride on with purpose, while the judges whisper to each other and take notes.\nThis isn't the latest episode of "American Idol," but the finals of the 2003 Young Concert Artists International Auditions. Instead of splashy debuts on national TV, the winners will receive the keys to a career in classical music.\nYoung Concert Artists Inc., a 42-year-old nonprofit organization dedicated to discovering and launching young musicians' careers, holds a rigorous audition process -- three rounds, nearly 300 applicants and more than a dozen judges.\nAt Friday's last round for this year's 16 soloists and groups, violinist Mikhail Simonyan brought a little drama to the proceedings by announcing a last-minute program change: He would open with the "Porgy and Bess Suite" instead of a sonata by Franck.\n"I'm never nervous. You just have to go on stage and enjoy yourself. There's nothing to worry about. It's my job," said Simonyan.\nHis confidence wasn't shared by violinist Meg Freivogel, 22, playing with a quartet.\n"It's scary. You want to think of it as a concert, but there are people there judging you, deciding which one is better," said Freivogel, from St. Louis. "It's hard to get that out of your head."\nJudges can pick as many winners as they like from the finals, awarding each $5,000.\nAlong with the prize, said founder Susan Wadsworth, the winners receive management services from YCA at no cost -- including the booking of concert engagements, publicity, promotional materials and career guidance -- for at least three years.\n"You become part of a music world that's more than just practicing and playing," Wadsworth said.\nYCA arranges performances at New York's Lincoln Center and Washington's Kennedy Center, and offers advice on everything from upgrading to a better instrument to knowing when a musician should slow down before burning out.\nThe judges chose four winners this year -- a cello player from Romania, a French trumpet player, a French viola player and a bass player from China.\nMany others left the concert hall downcast, and a few in tears.\nAfter calling her parents in Leicestershire, England, flutist Katherine Bryan prepared to head out into the cold but said she might come back next year.\n"You just have to keep competing in these things until you win one," she said.\nFor more information on Young Concert Artists, visit www.yca.org.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
NEW YORK -- Canadian fighters shadowed a New York-bound Air India jetliner over the Atlantic Ocean Thursday after authorities determined that a suspicious passenger was aboard, U.S. government officials said. \nThe commercial plane, flying from London to New York, landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport at about 4:45 p.m. It was believed to be carrying 378 passengers and 19 crew members. \nU.S. fighters had been expected to escort the plane once it entered U.S. airspace. \nIt was not immediately clear what caused the concern about the passenger, but the officials said Federal Aviation Administration authorities had spoken to members of the Air India crew, who were in a reinforced cockpit and indicated they were not alarmed. \nThe jetliner was being shadowed from a distance, not escorted, so the passengers would not see the Canadian fighters, the officials said. \nA government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a screener in London thought one of the passengers resembled someone on a list given to civil aviation authorities of suspected terrorists and others who are not allowed on airplanes. \nThe person in question was traveling under a different name than the one under the picture that looked like him, the official said. The screener mentioned his suspicion to someone else after the plane took off and was interviewed by British law enforcement officials. \nThe North American Air Defense Command -- NORAD -- was monitoring an Air India flight from London to JFK, NORAD spokesman Maj. Barry Venable said. \nFBI spokesman Joseph Valiquette said federal agents would meet the flight at JFK but declined to comment further. FBI officials in Washington said there is a person on board "we want to talk to." \nArlene Salac, a spokeswoman for the FAA's New York regional office, confirmed only the arrival time of Air India Flight 101 and referred all questions to the FBI. \n"There is no problem with the flight," said Lulu Iphraim, an official with the airline in New York. "We've had no official information whatsoever. We've checked, and there's absolutely no news about this"