May Artist News

published: April 28, 2023

NEWS:

AVERY R YOUNG (2012 3Arts/Merrill Lynch Awardee)

avery was recently announced as the Inaugural Chicago Poet Laureate, a new program launched by the Chicago Public Library, DCASE, and the Poetry Foundation. The program “aims to increase awareness of Chicago’s historic contributions to the literary arts while also celebrating and honoring the efforts of Chicago’s working artists.” The Chicago Poet Laureate serves a two-year term and is awarded a contract of $50,000 ($25,000/year) for the commissioning of new poems and for the creation of a public program series, including programs for youth and students. The Poet Laureate serves as an ambassador for the city’s literary and creative communities.

 

MEAGAN MCNEAL (2020 3Arts/Walder Foundation Awardee) and JUMAANE TAYLOR (2019 3Arts/Stan Lipkin & Evelyn Appell Lipkin Awardee)

Meagan and Jumaane are two (of three) new Artist Corps Fellows at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival. In additional to including financial stipend, Artist Corps provides opportunities for mentorship in producing and programming, and helps generate collaboration with other neighborhood initiatives focused on elements of community health. With the support of the Festival, Artist Corps Fellows produce a series of free performances in neighborhood settings across the south/west sides of Chicago between June and September 2023.

 

Events: 

ZAKKIYYAH NAJEEBAH DUMAS-O’NEAL (2022 3Arts/Gary & Denise Gardner Fund Awardee)

Now through May 15, zakkiyyah presents a new body of video and photography work in a solo exhibition entitled The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born at the Arts Incubator. A past artist-in-residence with Arts + Public Life, zakkiyyah shares new that focuses on “notions of embodiment, alternative modes of movement, imagining technologies, intimacy, and collectivity in physical and digital spaces.” Free and open to the public.

 

SYDNEY LYNNE (2020 3Arts/HMS Fund Awardee)

Now through May 21, Definition Theatre presents the Chicago premiere of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, Fairview, featuring scenic design by Sydney. “Fairview is a searing examination of families, drama, family dramas, and the insidiousness of white supremacy.”

 

STEPHANIE ALMA (2022 Bodies of Work Fellow) and TOMMY CARROLL (2021 Make a Wave Artist)

On May 5, as members of the Spanish rock band, Raro, Stephanie and Tommy perform for a year-end celebration as part of UIC’s Disability Cultural Center programming. Stephanie is the lead singer, with Tommy on percussion, joined by DC (bass) and Marcos Rios (guitar). Free and open to the public. 

 

MARIAM PARE (2020 Bodies of Work Fellow)

Opening May 5, Chicago Fine Art Salon presents a solo exhibition by Mariam. The exhibition features “a diverse collection of work, including paintings created entirely by mouth, and powerful and emotive compositions that explore themes of identity and the human experience. Paré invites viewers into a dreamlike world imbued with symbolism and unexpected juxtapositions that invite the viewer to delve deeper into the meaning behind the art.”

 

TATSU AOKI (2010 3Arts Awardee), RICHARD COSTES (2019 3Arts/Walder Foundation), and YOSHINOJO FUJIMA (aka RIKA LIN) (2017 Make a Wave Artist)

During May 5 -7, these artists are among several participants and/or performers at the 2023 APIDA Arts Festival, celebrating the creativity of Asian, Pacific Island, and Desi Americans in Chicago. Taking place at partnering venues around downtown, the three-day festival aims to be a showcase and a place to connect for APIDA artists. On May 5, Tatsu and Richard join others in a panel discussion focused on “Art as Unifier” (7:45pm CT) and Rika performs a live dance with Shalaka Kulkarni (5:30pm CT), both at the Claudia Cassidy Theater at the Chicago Cultural Center.

 

WINIFRED HAUN (2022 3Arts/Walder Foundation)

On May 5-6, Winifred Haun & Dancers will perform LIGHT IN SPRING at Unity Temple, Oak Park with music by Barry Bennett. The event will feature a group work for the entire company, a solo titled “Bench” featuring choreography by Lonny Gordon, and a workshop and performance series with the Young Dancers Project.

 

BARAK ADE SOLEIL (2016 3Arts/Denise & Gary Gardner Awardee)

On May 6, Barak premieres a new work at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago entitled SHIFT, which amplifies the presence of Black neurodiverse and disabled bodies by occupying the museum’s spaces both digitally and physically. SHIFT is a new commission comprised of a video installation in one of the MCA’s public stairwells (on view May 2 through June 18), accompanied by a live performance on May 6. In the dreamlike video installation, “the presence of Black neurodiverse and disabled bodies infiltrates a spiral stairwell within the museum, where they are shown from many angles and at multiple scales, both at rest and as they shift.” In the live event on May 6, “a promenade of performers traverse inaccessible staircases, recalibrating the flow of activity within the museum and challenging simplistic depictions of Black disabled bodies in real time.” On May 2 (6:00pm CT), barak will participate in an artist talk with Northwestern University’s Black Arts Consortium. 

 

REVECA TORRES (2022 Next Level/Spare Room Awardee & 2020 3Arts/Chandler Family Awardee) and ROBBY WILLIAMS (2021 Bodies of Work Fellow)

On May 13-14, Reveca and Robby are collaborating on Scale, a new dance work created by Maggie Bridger at High Concept Labs. This multifaceted performance uses and reimagines pain through the creative process. Reveca is contributing visual art, lighting, and costume design, and Robby is a dance collaborator. 

 

LYNNE JORDAN (2021 Make a Wave Artist)

On May 16, Lynne performs a one-night set with her band, The Shivers, at City Winery. “Not only do her soaring vocals dip effortlessly into blues, jazz, funk, rock, and even country, but her bawdy personality wins over any crowd. Her talent so dazzled the Second City that the late Chicago film critic Roger Ebert declared her his ‘favorite diva.’”

 

RONNIE KULLER (2013 3Arts Awardee)

On May 19, Ronnie and collaborators present a work-in-progress showing of Her Only Light: Songs of Connie Converse at Constellation, funded through a 3Arts Project. Considered a lost musical voice of the 20^th century, Connie Converse wrote songs ahead of her time in an era when her male counterparts more easily achieved fame in the nascent Greenwich Village folk scene. At the age of 50, she wrote goodbye notes to friends and family and vanished, never to be heard from again. Connie’s life story and her disappearance are the backdrop against which the audience is invited to explore her art songs, including excerpts from her mysterious and breathtaking Cassandra Cycle. These songs will be performed as interconnected chamber theatrical works, featuring vocalist Emmy Bean, and arranged by composer and music director, Ronnie Kuller for a 6-piece ensemble of strings and winds from the 5th Wave Collective.

 

DERRICK WOODS-MORROW (2021 3Arts/Gary & Denise Gardner Fund Awardee)

From May 19 – August 5, Derrick will show new work in his first major solo exhibition, entitled Gravity Pleasure Switchback, at Gallery 400. “Wavering between life and death, rest and the hustle of everyday life, the exhibition is grounded in the exploration of the body as a place of boundless possibility. Woods-Morrow engages everyday materials to accentuate the vast shine, grit, and tangible labor being performed in private domesticity. Moreover, he expands on the perverse demand for Black folx to limitlessly power the public sphere.”

 

KEYIERRA COLLINS (2020 3Arts/Walder Foundation Awardee)

On May 19 and 20, as part of the Take Some Leave Some collective, Keyierra is co-curating two new immersive performance evenings in Pullman Park and at Links Hall, respectively. The performance at Pullman Park, Tati’s Butter Joint is an immersive house party in a home in the Pullman neighborhood that includes performances, a live DJ, and food from local Black vendors. Following Tati’s Butter Joint is “The Shwang Out, an intimate, experimental gathering at Links Hall that gives "a-call-to-your-girlfriend-before-going-out" and "playing-in-your-grandmother's closet”. This is an offering to Black women in the community to commune with others in preparation for the “get down” at Tati’s.”

 

NORMAN TEAGUE (2019 3Arts/Denise & Gary Gardner Awardee)

May 20 through Nov 26, 2023, Norman is one of five architects/designers chosen to represent the United States at the 2023 Architecture Biennale held in Venice, Italy. The U.S. State Department selected Spaces, a Cleveland-based nonprofit art gallery to organize new commissions by the five artists that will be installed at the Biennale. The gallery’s theme is Everlasting Plastics, involving sculptures and installations that “invite visitors to reframe the overabundance of plastic detritus in our waterways, landfills, and streets as a rich resource.” Norman joins four other artist-designers, Lauren Yaeger (Cleveland), Xavi Aguirre (MIT), Simon Anton (Detroit), and Ang Li (Boston). 

 

CAITLIN EDWARDS (2021 3Arts/Walder Foundation Awardee), KRISTA FRANKLIN (2017 Make a Wave Artist), SHANTA NURULLAH (2021 3Arts/SIF Fund at The Chicago Community Foundation Awardee), and AVERY R YOUNG (2012 3Arts/Merrill Lynch Awardee)

On May 26, Caitlin and members of the D-Composed ensemble present D-Composition: Love Is...as part of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s LookOut series. The concert will use the music of Black composers to breathe new life into poetry and the written word. Performers include the D-Composed string quartet with poetry and storytelling by Shanta Nurullah, Jamila Woods, avery r. young, Krista Franklin, Raych Jackson and Davon Clark, and compositions by Sharon Udoh, Florence Price, Jessie Montgomery, Carlos Simon, and Ahmed Al Abaca. Featured throughout are audio and visual vignettes of footage from the South Side Home Movie Project.