Events on Friday, September 12
Friday 9/12 @ Harold Washington Library
It took more than ten years, but Junot Díaz finally exceeded those huge, Drown-inspired expectations with last year's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel...
Friday 9/12 @ Gene Siskel Film Center
Before it evolved (or, rather, devolved) into David Blaine's "endurance art" stunts and Criss Angel's gimmicky Las Vegas illusions, magic melded...
Friday 9/12 @ The Empty Bottle
The criminally underappreciated bluegrass experimentalist and philosopher Henry Flynt was the first hillbilly to embrace the space-age hoedown. Single-handedly pushing old-timey...
Friday 9/12 @ Metro
Few bands boast the closeness of the Walkmen: featuring former members of the Recoys and Jonathan Fire*Eater, the five-piece coalition has...
Friday 9/12 @ Subterranean
The bawdily named Holy Fuck are know for their rapturous live performances, tweezing dark Kraut disco from two giant flight-case jumbles...
Ongoing Events
Stan Shellabarger: Walking Books
Friday 9/12 @ Western Exhibitions
Artist Stan Shellabarger repeats mundane actions over and over again, turning them into extreme undertakings. For his second show at Western...
Friday 9/12 @ Landmark Century Centre Cinema
Screenwriter/director Jirí Menzel translates this tale of a Czech waiter working through both the Nazi and communist regimes from a novel...
Friday 9/12 @ Loyola University Museum of Art
Whether critiquing economic injustice, spotlighting social issues, satirizing public officials, or inspiring change, 20th-century printmaking has a long and storied history...
Friday 9/12 @ Apollo Theater
Whether you love or fear musicals, you can delight in Baby Wants Candy, a fully improvised comedy show with song, dance,...
Friday 9/12 @ Garfield Park Conservatory
If the concrete trek and throngs of spectators at Friday's Fourth of July festivities leave you pining for something a little...
Friday 9/12 @ The Seldoms
Like David Byrne's Playing the Building translated into dance, Convergence finds choreographer Carrie Hanson excavating conceptual bedrock in a 15,000-square-foot garage....
Heather Mekkelson: Limited Entry
Friday 9/12 @ Old Gold Exhibitions and Events
At first, it looks as if Heather Mekkelson has left Old Gold's basement gallery in a near-empty state. Gradually, it becomes...
Rashid Johnson: The New Escapist Promised Land Garden and Recreation Center and Cosmic Slops
Friday 9/12 @ moniquemeloche gallery
Rashid Johnson is one of the more promising young artists to emerge from Chicago in recent years, with photographs and sculptures...
Friday 9/12 @ Navy Pier
The Dark Knight might go down as Heath Ledger's final film, but it would be a shame if the actor's tragic...
Chances Are the Comets in Our Future
Friday 9/12 @ Gallery 400
Music may come first for Chicago-based Drag City — the record label has championed singular talents like Bonnie "Prince" Billy and...
Friday 9/12 @ Hyde Park Art Center
Curated by photographer Dawoud Bey, Are We There Yet? is a group show of lens-based work that touches on issues of...
Friday 9/12 @ Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool
Escape the roaring cars on Lake Shore Drive and the crowds at Lincoln Park Zoo by slipping through the unobtrusive entrance...
Friday 9/12 @ Golden
In personal memorabilia, frozen grins tend to dominate — smiling is the Pavlovian response to the appearance of a lens. Chicagoan...
Friday 9/12 @ Museum Campus
Just admit it, you've ogled the sleek modern houses you pass on certain streets and wished you could peek inside. The...
Friday 9/12 @ Stephen Daiter Gallery
In 2002, after finishing his breakthrough series Sleeping by the Mississippi, photographer Alec Soth traveled to Bogotá, Columbia, to adopt a...
Friday 9/12 @ Center for Book & Paper Arts at Columbia College Chicago
This juried triennial exhibition, dedicated to paper preservation and innovation in an increasingly paperless world, opens today at Columbia College Chicago's...
Friday 9/12 @ Hyde Park Art Center
For her interactive sound installation at Hyde Park Art Center, Mónica Herrera transforms the gallery into a giant musical instrument and...
Friday 9/12 @ Linda Warren Gallery
Conrad Freiburg's clever contraptions require audience participation, but viewers' actions can sometimes lead to destruction. The artist's exquisite handiwork doesn't exist...
Friday 9/12 @ Landmark Century Centre Cinema
Herein lies living proof that the French can spin a gorgeous existentialist drama in any genre. Pediatrician Alex (François Cluzet) has...
Friday 9/12 @ The Art Institute of Chicago
You may not have noticed, but the Art Institute's Department of Prints and Drawings has been running in stealth mode —...
Friday 9/12 @ Rhona Hoffman Gallery
You may find this show's title easy to misread, and that's by design — such ambiguity is all part of the...
Friday 9/12 @ TimeLine Theatre
Gore Vidal's cutting political satire Weekend was written (and is set) during the fraught 1968 presidential campaign. Weekend follows a Republican...
Scavenger Constructs: Site-Specific Sculptures
Friday 9/12 @ Glass Curtain Gallery at Columbia College Chicago
Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans turned mass-produced objects into meaningful art. With this transmutability in mind, Scavenger Constructs features five artists...
Joe DeNardo and Aaron Henderson
Friday 9/12 @ Normal Projects
Normal Projects is a new salon-style apartment gallery that spotlights video and works on paper. The space hosts two-person shows by...
Panorama of Modern Brazilian Architecture: From the 1950s to the Present
Friday 9/12 @ Crown Hall
This exhibition provides a thorough visual survey of Brazil's modern architecture. Photographs, drawings, and design concepts profile the work of well-established...
Friday 9/12 @ Chicago Architecture Foundation
Millennium Park has only been open officially for four years, but it's already a Chicago landmark. And like most things in...
Friday 9/12 @ Landmark Century Centre Cinema
In 1976, British oenophile Steven Spurrier (Alan Rickman) hosted a much-ballyhooed blind tasting between France's finest wine and California's — including...
Friday 9/12 @ Museum of Contemporary Art
It's easy to forget that art star and auction darling Jeff Koons made his name as a provocateur. His Made in...
Friday 9/12 @ City Gallery
Bill O'Donnell's color photographs offer a world of spooky little vacation homes, troubling the eye with mixed-up scales and half-focused views....
Friday 9/12 @ The Second City e.t.c.
From the director of the recent hit Between Barack and a Hard Place comes another election-season winner, Campaign Supernova!, performed by...
Light from Inside: Art from Illinois Prisons
Friday 9/12 @ Chicago Cultural Center
For those whose impressions of prisoners have mostly been shaped by watching Oz, this exhibition provides a look at prisoners' creative...
Discarded Paintings by Gifted Amateurs
Friday 9/12 @ Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art
Whereas most found-art exhibitions make aesthetic objects out of forgotten knick-knacks, the focus of this exhibition is, more literally, fine art...
Friday 9/12 @ Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary
If nothing else, taking up birdwatching gives you a convenient excuse to bring terms like "Magnificent Frigatebird" and "Purple Gallinule" into...
