Events on Friday, February 6

<em>Grow</em> Release Party

Books: Reading

Grow Release Party

Friday 2/ 6 @ New Wave Coffee

Adjusting to green lifestyles can be sort of like holding onto those New Year's resolutions — breaking bad habits takes tremendous... 

The Mae Shi w/ Yea Big + Kid Static and Post Honeymoon

Music

The Mae Shi

Friday 2/ 6 @ Beat Kitchen

Whether spazzing through a straight punker or screeching up a down-and-dirty dance, indie oddities the Mae Shi are pretty much always... 

Ongoing Events

Sigmar Polke: <em>Lens Paintings</em>

Art

Sigmar Polke

Friday 2/ 6 @ The Arts Club of Chicago

One of the giants of post-war painting, Sigmar Polke is an irreverant experimentalist — an artist of many moves whose work... 

Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary

City Gems

Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary

Friday 2/ 6 @ 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... 

McCormick Tribune Ice Rink

City Gems

McCormick Tribune Ice Rink

Friday 2/ 6 @ Millennium Park

A trip to the McCormick Tribune Ice Skating Rink at Millennium Park is quickly becoming a quintessential Chicago winter experience. Presenting... 

<em>Japan Dance Now</em>

Dance

Japan Dance Now

Friday 2/ 6 @ Dance Center of Columbia College

Japan Dance Now is a composite look at a national choreography fascinated with glossy fashion, satirical humor, and the futuristic possibilities... 

<em>If Artists Ran the Media</em>

Art

If Artists Ran the Media

Friday 2/ 6 @ C33 Gallery at Columbia College Chicago

If artists ran the media, would Fox News actually be fair and balanced? And where would the voices of Sean Hannity and... 

UBS 12x12: Curtis Mann

Art: Photography

Curtis Mann

Friday 2/ 6 @ Museum of Contemporary Art

Like a fever dream, Curtis Mann's bleached and altered found photographs seem to drift outside of time. The images often depict... 

Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool

City Gems

Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool

Friday 2/ 6 @ 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... 

Christa Donner: <em>Re:Production</em>

Art

Christa Donner

Friday 2/ 6 @ threewalls

Chicago artist Christa Donner explores human and animal reproductive systems at threewalls' first SOLO exhibition of 2009. Donner employs drawing, animation,... 

<em>Frost/Nixon</em>

Film

Frost/Nixon

Friday 2/ 6 @ AMC River East 21

Showing a human, fragile and, to some extent, remorseful side of the former president for the first time, David Frost's 1977... 

Justin Cooper: <em>Paranormaldise</em> &nbsp;

Art

Justin Cooper

Friday 2/ 6 @ moniquemeloche gallery

Artist Justin Cooper is both a madcap performer and a maker of objects, frequently interweaving the two endeavors. We may not... 

Jim Lutes

Art

Jim Lutes

Friday 2/ 6 @ The Renaissance Society

The paintings of Chicago-based artist Jim Lutes feel at once concrete and obscured, like a distant memory where the missing details... 

<em>Desire Under the Elms</em>

Theatre

Desire Under the Elms

Friday 2/ 6 @ The Goodman Theatre

Set on a rugged New England farm in 1850, Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms stacks up human passions like firewood... 

<em>Altogether Mutable: The Work of Mary Lou Zelazny</em>

Art

Mary Lou Zelazny

Friday 2/ 6 @ Hyde Park Art Center

Spanning nearly 30 years, the skillful paintings in Mary Lou Zelazny's mid-career retrospective center on a cast of weird creatures, shapely... 

<em>Dead Man </em>(1996)

Film

Dead Man

Friday 2/ 6 @ Music Box Theatre

Jim Jarmusch's mystical western suffered an inglorious reception at the hands of a lackluster Miramax marketing campaign and critics expecting hipster... 

Cecil Balmond: <em>Solid Void</em>

Art

Cecil Balmond: Solid Void

Friday 2/ 6 @ Graham Foundation

Labyrinthine hedges of gleaming, die-cast metal fill the ground floor of the Graham Foundation's Prairie-style mansion, like viral arabesques from a... 

<em>Waltz With Bashir</em>

Film: Animation

Waltz With Bashir

Friday 2/ 6 @ Various locations

Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman's version of memory lane is like none the world has ever really seen before. At the beginning... 

Joseph Grigely: <em>St. Cecilia</em>

Art

Joseph Grigely: St. Cecilia

Friday 2/ 6 @ Museum of Contemporary Art

Joseph Grigely's artwork has a definite visual appeal, but sound — or the absence of it — drives his practice as... 

Baby Wants Candy

Comedy

Baby Wants Candy

Friday 2/ 6 @ Apollo Theater

Whether you love or fear musicals, you can delight in Baby Wants Candy, a fully improvised comedy show with song, dance,... 

<em>Abandoned Demolition</em>: New Painting by Andy Paczos

Art

Abandoned Demolition: New Painting by Andy Paczos

Friday 2/ 6 @ Hyde Park Art Center

Once a heavy-industry mecca, now a service-industry hub, Chicago has a changing industrial history that's ripe for artistic examination. Painter Andy... 

<em>The Seafarer</em>

Theatre

The Seafarer

Friday 2/ 6 @ Steppenwolf Downstairs Theatre

If the classic Christmas stories are starting to seem like cloying guests that have overstayed their welcome, The Seafarer at the... 

Robert Davis and Michael Langlois: <em>House of the Rising Sun</em>

Art

Robert Davis and Michael Langlois

Friday 2/ 6 @ Chicago Cultural Center

Collaborative artists Robert Davis and Michael Langlois reconfigure their LA show of the same name for a three-month stint in the... 

Scott Fife: <em>Heads</em>

Art

Scott Fife

Friday 2/ 6 @ Tony Wight Gallery

However you want to describe them — stately busts for a post-marble age; eerie Frankenstein constructions; a poacher's trophies from the... 

<em>Revolutionary Road</em>

Film

Revolutionary Road

Friday 2/ 6 @ Landmark Century Centre Cinema

Despite his apparent disdain for American suburbs, British director Sam Mendes (American Beauty, 1999) has revisited them — in mid-'50s Connecticut,... 

Jason Robert Bell: <em>The Unreasoning Mask</em>

Art

Jason Robert Bell

Friday 2/ 6 @ Thomas Robertello Gallery

Jason Robert Bell's last exhibition in Chicago featured paintings of a yeti-like alter-ego. Since then, the Brooklyn-based artist's oeuvre has both... 

<em>Polaroids: Mapplethorpe</em>

Art: Photography

Polaroids: Mapplethorpe

Friday 2/ 6 @ Block Museum, Northwestern University

The name Robert Mapplethorpe might bring to mind formal photographs of flowers or homoerotic figure studies — or more likely, the... 

<em>America: All Better!</em>

Comedy

America: All Better!

Friday 2/ 6 @ The Second City

The 2008 election may have delivered a ray of hope, but storm clouds still hang above us. That's the uneasy premise... 

Maria Magdelena Campos-Pons: <em>Life Has Not Even Begun</em>&nbsp;

Art

Maria Magdelena Campos-Pons

Friday 2/ 6 @ Glass Curtain Gallery at Columbia College Chicago

Cuban political artist and performer Maria Magdelena Campos-Pons' newest exhibition seeks to uncover hidden truths and secret knowledge with large-scale Polaroid... 

Prairie Avenue House Museums

Get Social

Prairie Avenue House Museums

Friday 2/ 6 @ Glessner House Museum

Chicago's historic Prairie Avenue district — the site of the 1812 Fort Dearborn Massacre — became known after the Great Chicago... 

<em>Vivre Sa Vie</em> (1962)

Film

Vivre Sa Vie (1962)

Friday 2/ 6 @ Music Box Theatre

Starring Jean-Luc Godard's radiant, enigmatic muse Anna Karina, Vivre Sa Vie (My Life to Live) remains one of the director's most... 

Coats for Cubs

Special Event: Benefit

Coats for Cubs

Friday 2/ 6 @ Buffalo Exchange locations

Feeling guilty about the fur-lined gloves, vintage mink stole, or old chinchilla coat hanging in your closet? Fret not, all will... 

<em>Milk</em>

Film

Milk

Friday 2/ 6 @ Various locations

Gus van Sant's highly anticipated biopic of Harvey Milk — the nation's first openly gay man to hold a major elected... 

Von Kommanivanh: <em>You Are Ugly</em>

Art

Von Kommanivanh

Friday 2/ 6 @ Walsh Gallery

In large mixed-media paintings, Von Kommanivanh skewers the lurking evils and cultural convulsions of the 21st century like a hopped-up shish-kabob... 

<em>Chic Chicago: Couture Treasures from the Chicago History Museum</em>

Special Event

Chic Chicago

Friday 2/ 6 @ Chicago History Museum

In this glittering costume exhibition, the Chicago History Museum presents a rarely seen collection of haute couture fashions designed for the... 

Steppenwolf presents <em>Art</em>

Theatre

Steppenwolf presents Art

Friday 2/ 6 @ Steppenwolf Theatre Company

If your best friend spent a fortune on an all-white painting you hated, could you bite your tongue and praise it,... 

Graceland Cemetery

City Gems

Graceland Cemetery

Friday 2/ 6 @ Graceland Cemetery

Hidden away on Chicago's north side, this secret memento of the city's architectural history is a large, rambling Victorian-style cemetery. Filled... 

Art

Criteria

Friday 2/ 6 @ A + D Gallery

Criteria explores contemporary notions of sustainability without limiting itself to a focus on green design and environmental artwork. The show's theme... 

<em>Let the Right One In</em>

Film

Let the Right One In

Friday 2/ 6 @ AMC Loews Pipers Alley 4

A pitch-perfect suspense film from Swedish director Tomas Alfredson, Let the Right One In is that rare bird: a chiller with... 

The Picture Tells the Story: The Drawings of Joseph E. Yoakum

Art

The Picture Tells the Story: The Drawings of Joseph E. Yoakum

Friday 2/ 6 @ Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art

An exhibition of Joseph Yoakum’s visionary landscapes, curated by Mark Pascale, caretaker of Whitney Halstead’s collection bequeathed to the Art Institute...