January Art Picks
A list of exhibitions, talks, film screenings, readings, performances, and other events to help you kick of the new year. Our Art Picks are created in collaboration with The Visualist, Chicago’s leading visual arts calendar.
Author: Sixty Inches From Center
Most Read Articles of 2019
In 2019 Sixty published over 140 articles about Chicago’s artists, archivists, writers, organizers, activists, cultural workers, and extended community. This list of Sixty’s most-read articles of the year is a snapshot into the ones that had you lingering on our website throughout the year. Brought to you by writers Amanda Dee, Michael Fischer (with Gretchen Hasse), Angelica Flores, Courtney Graham (with Ryan Edmund), Tempestt Hazel, Yasmin Zacaria Mikhaiel (with Josh Johnson), Chelsea Ross, Sasha Tycko, and Tamara Becerra Valdez, here are our 10 most-read articles in no particular order: _All images taken from their original articles. All photo credit can be found at each link.
December Art Picks
Our Art Picks are created in collaboration with The Visualist, Chicago’s leading visual arts calendar, and cross-promoted through Windy City Times, one of the longest locally-published LGBTQ weeklies with a national reach. Click here to get our Art Picks and latest articles delivered to your inbox monthly. This is a growing list, so check back often for new additions. Sat – Sun, Nov 30 – Dec 1Connect South Shore Arts FestivalJeffrey Mall: 7131 S. Jeffery StreetFree Sun, Dec 1, 10am-12:30pm Drag Queen Story Time and Brunch: Holiday Edition Museum Of Contemporary Art Chicago: 220 E Chicago Ave Free Sun, Dec 1, 12-2pm Sanctuary Sunday | Teshika Silver: Tarot & Intention 6018NORTH: 6018 N Kenmore Ave Free – $40 Sun, Dec 1, 1-3pm Noname’s Book Club Chicago Meet-Up Stony Island Arts Bank: 6760 S Stony Island Ave Free Sun, Dec 1, 5-8pm For the Time Being ACRE Projects: 1345 W 19th St Free Mon, Dec 2, 4:30-7:30pm The Nap Ministry Smart Museum of Art: 5550 S Greenwood Ave Free Mon, Dec 2, 9:30-11:30pm Susan Sontag: Duet for Cannibals Doc Films …
November Art Picks
Our Art Picks are created in collaboration with The Visualist, Chicago’s leading visual arts calendar, and cross-promoted through Windy City Times, one of the longest locally-published LGBTQ weeklies with a national reach. Click here to get our Art Picks and latest articles delivered to your inbox monthly. This is a growing list, so check back often for new additions. Through November 17Terrain Biennial 2019Various Locations + CitiesFree Through December 15Down Time: On The Art of RetreatSmart Museum of Art: 5550 S. Greenwood AvFree Fri, Nov 1, 5-7pm Sin Cinta Previa: Latin(a)x & Queer Archive Video Series 6018NORTH: 6018 N Kenmore Ave $0-40 Fri, Nov 1, 6-9pm Shawn Rowe: V Filter Photo: 1821 W Hubbard St Free Fri, Nov 1, 6-10pm Carlos Barberena: Graphic Resistance Pilsen Outpost: 1637 W 18th St Free Thurs, Oct 31 – Sun, Nov 3SOFA Chicago600 E Grand Ave$20-$35, Get Tickets Fri, Nov 1, 6:30-8pm RaD Lab Fellowship Info Session Threewalls: 2738 W North Ave Free Fri, Nov 1, 7-9pm Lakshmi Ramgopal: Lykanthea Comfort Station Logan Square: 2579 N Milwaukee Ave Free Fri, Nov 1, 7pm …
October Art Picks
Our Art Picks are created in collaboration with The Visualist, Chicago’s leading visual arts calendar, and cross-promoted through Windy City Times, one of the longest locally-published LGBTQ weeklies with a national reach. Click here to get our Art Picks and latest articles delivered to your inbox monthly. The featured image was created by one of Sixty’s incredibly talented illustrators, Kiki Dupont, who is a visual and culinary artist based in Chicago. In her work, she approaches topics of trauma and injustice through a lens of perceived beauty and by reflecting grief’s relationship to healing. Find more of Kiki’s work on Instagram @kikidupontart or on her website. This is a growing list, so check back often for new additions. Tues, Oct 1, 6-7pmNews in Chicago Media, Today and TomorrowNewberry Library: 60 W Walton StFree Tues, Oct 1, 6-7:30pmPark McArthur The Art Institute of Chicago: 230 S Columbus DrFree Tues, Oct 1, 7-8:30pmGrace Talusan: The Body Papers: A Memoir Dominican University: 7900 Division St, River ForestFree Tues, Oct 1, 7:30-8:30pmIn Progress: Roy Kinsey Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago: 220 E Chicago …
September Art Picks
Our Art Picks are created in collaboration with The Visualist, Chicago’s leading visual arts calendar, and cross-promoted through Windy City Times, one of the longest locally-published LGBTQ weeklies with a national reach. Click here to get our Art Picks and latest articles delivered to your inbox monthly. The featured image is from the show Laura Davis and Derrick Woods-Morrow: Thanks for not breeding, which opens on September 6th at Aspect/Ratio. This is a growing list, so check back often for new additions. September Art Picks Aug 30-Sept 2, 201930th Annual African Festival of the Arts African Festival of the Arts: 5100 S Cottage Grove Ave Free Sun, Sept 1, 10am-4pmFamilies Belong Together: Fundraiser for OCAD & RAICES: Yard Sale Comfort Station Logan Square: 2579 N Milwaukee Ave Free Sun, Sept 1, 1pmDead Futures: Artist Talk Heaven Gallery: 1550 N Milwaukee Ave Free Sun, Sept 1, 3-5pm Slow-Res: a Free and Self-Taught MFA Community Read/Write Library: 914 N California Ave Free Mon, Sept 2, 6-8pmThrough A Lens Intimate Comfort Station Logan Square: 2579 N Milwaukee AveFree Tue, Sept 3, 6-7pmOcean …
August Art Picks
Our Art Picks are created in collaboration with The Visualist, Chicago’s leading visual arts calendar, and cross-promoted through Windy City Times, one of the longest locally-published LGBTQ weeklies with a national reach. Click here to get our Art Picks and latest articles delivered to your inbox monthly. Our featured image this month is a photo of an installation by Emily Hermant for the 2015 Terrain Biennial in Oak Park, IL on the front façade of the home of Terrain founders Sabina Ott and educator John Paulett. Join the Terrain Biennial 2019 Launch Party on August 29th at Aspect/Ratio. And if you can’t make it for the launch, donate some dollars to the Terrain Exhibitions Founding Fund. This is a growing list, so check back often for new additions. August Art Picks August 1- December 12, 3:30-7:30(Thursdays) FS Storyfront Youth Ensemble Program Free Street’s Storyfront in Back of the Yards: 4346 S Ashland Ave Free Through September 1 All We Want to See Is Ourselves FLXST Contemporary: 2251 South Michigan Av Free August 1-3, 2019 Design + Diversity Conference Columbia …
July Art Picks
Our Art Picks are created in collaboration with The Visualist, Chicago’s leading visual arts calendar, and cross-promoted through Windy City Times, one of the longest locally-published LGBTQ weeklies with a national reach. Click here to get our Art Picks and latest articles delivered to your inbox monthly. Save the date for The Visualist’s fundraiser, Bake Sale, on Saturday, July 27th, 7-11pm at Read/Write Library Chicago (914 N California Ave). This is a growing list, so check back often for new additions. July Art Picks Fri, June 28, 7-11pm Alternate Space: A Simulated Art Fair Heaven Gallery: 1550 N. Milwaukee Av Free Mon, July 1, 6-8pm Fibers Night and the Wandering Uterus Project Workshop PO Box Collective: 6900 N Glenwood Ave Free Mon, July 1, 6:30-9pm Chicago Design Milestones 1920–2019 150 Media Stream: 150 N Riverside Plaza Free Fri, July 5, 6-9pm B.LEN: CONDUIT 2: A Ribbon in the Sky Blanc Gallery: 4445 S King Dr Free Fri, July 5, 6-9pm Isaac Rafael Galvan: DREAM WORK Humboldt Park Boathouse Gallery: 1301 N Sacramento Blvd Free Fri, July 5, 6-10pm Ricardo Xavier Serment: …
June Art Picks
Our Art Picks are created in collaboration with The Visualist, Chicago’s leading visual arts calendar, and cross-promoted through Windy City Times, one of the longest locally-published LGBTQ weeklies with a national reach. Click here to get our Art Picks and latest articles delivered to your inbox monthly. Although there’s Pride all day, everyday at Sixty, we want to say happy Pride Month! To help you find the queer-loving, LGBTQIA+ events on our calendar, we’ve marked them with a little Pride love, a.k.a. you’ll see a flag flying next to the event information (🏳️🌈). This is a growing list, so check back often for new additions. June Art Picks Through June 14thGoat Island World Premier PerformancesChicago Cultural Center: 78 E Washington StFree Through July 20thAbout Face: Stonewall, Revolt and New Queer Art 🏳️🌈Wrightwood 659: 659 W. WrightwoodFree May 26-June 2, 2019Riverwest FemFest 2019 🏳️🌈Various Locations, Milwaukee, WIFree May 25-June 29, 2019It grows betweenEfrain Lopez Gallery: 1959 W Erie StFree May 30, 2019Performing Queer Femme POC Identities On (& Off) the Page 🏳️🌈Hairpin Arts Center: 2810 N Milwaukee AveFree May …
May Art Picks
Our Art Picks are created in collaboration with The Visualist, Chicago’s leading visual arts calendar, and cross-promoted through Windy City Times, one of the longest locally-published LGBTQ weeklies with a national reach. Click here to get our Art Picks and latest articles delivered to your inbox monthly. This is a growing list, so check back often for new additions. May Art Picks May 1-31, 2019 Jenny Lam (for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month) Bessie Coleman Library: 731 E 63rd St Free May 1-31, 2019 May Butoh Non festival ! Various Locations Various Costs Wed, May 1, 4:30-6pm Vivek Shraya: Trisha The Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality: 5733 S University Ave Free Wed, May 1, 5-7pm Robert Pruitt: Art and Afrofuturism DePaul Art Museum: 935 W Fullerton Ave Free Wed, May 1, 6-9pm Frontier in Body Outerspace: 1474 N Milwaukee Ave $200 Thur, May 2, 8am-5pm Centennial Colloquium on Dewey: Then and Now University of Chicago Laboratory Schools: 1362 E 59th St Free Thur, May 2, 4:15-6pm SAIC Fire Sale Spring 19 School of the Art Institute …
April Art Picks
A long list of exhibitions, readings, talks, performances, and events happening across Illinois as we thaw out and move into spring.
March Art Picks
A fresh list of art openings, talks, screenings, performances, lectures and more to keep you warm this month.
From the South Side to the South and Back: An Interview with Nichole Carter of Bright Star
Creating the right recipe of offerings for the families in your community isn’t an easy task, but that’s what Bright Star Community Outreach works to do everyday in Bronzeville. Providing everything from family service and parent education to workforce development, trauma counseling, and advocacy opportunities, Bright Star takes a holistic approach to their work and wraps their arms all the way around those who walk through their doors for support or service. A born-and-raised Chicagoan, Bright Star’s Nichole Carter moved to Knoxville, Tennessee as a teenager, then, after acceptance into Spelman she moved to Atlanta. After graduation she spent time working in property management, specifically in mixed-income housing. Eventually, what she learned during her studies and work in the South would make its way to the South Side of Chicago through a position as the Director of Community Strategy and Development at Bright Star. As the person at the helm of Bright Star’s community programs, she was the one who took a leadership role when Bright Star became one of seven community hubs for Envisioning Justice, a program initiated by Illinois Humanities …
February Art Picks
A list of openings, events, talks, readings, and more that you can see in between the ice and fog this month.
Most Read Articles of 2018
A look at the articles you spent the most time with over the past year.
January Art Picks
A list of exhibitions, talks, screenings, performances, and other art events that will help you start the year off right.
December Art Picks
A short list of exhibitions, performances, readings, lectures, film screenings, holiday markets, and more to close out the year.
Sixty Exhibition: Artists + Archives: Pilots through Feb 13
Join Sixty and the Chicago Archives + Artists Project for an exhibition revealing commissioned works by Ivan Lozano, H. Melt, and Aay Preston-Myint, inspired by Chicago archives and collections.
November Art Picks
Our Art Picks are created in collaboration with The Visualist, Chicago’s leading visual arts calendar, and cross-promoted through Windy City Times, one of the longest locally-published LGBTQ weeklies with a national reach. This is a growing list, so check back often for new additions. Throughout 2018 we will be highlighting exhibitions and events that are part of Art Design Chicago , a year-long celebration of the unique and vital role Chicago plays as America’s crossroads of art and design, creativity and commerce, organized by the Terra Foundation for American Art. As part of an editorial partnership with Illinois Humanities, Sixty will also be highlighting events that are part of Envisioning Justice , a 19-month project that looks into how Chicagoans and Chicago artists respond to the the impact of incarceration in local communities and how the arts and humanities are used to devise strategies for lessening this impact. November Art Picks Thurs, Nov 1, 11am Art Against the Flow Summit Ace Hotel Chicago: 311 N Morgan St, Chicago, IL 60607 Free Thurs, Nov 1, 2-4pm Chicago New Media Symposium Gallery 400: 400 S Peoria St, Chicago, IL 60607 Free Thurs, …
Snapshot: Tianna Bracey
Snapshot is a Sixty column that takes a quick look at art history as it happens in Chicago. We send artists and organizers a list of short and sweet questions to tell us about what they are doing right at this moment. For the newest installment, we sent our questions to painter, Tianna Bracey, whose work can be seen at the Zhou B Art Center as part of the exhibition, Black Love Matters, through November 9th. Sixty Inches From Center: How would you describe your work? Tianna Bracey: My work explores the subtleties of the painterly and figurative form. It is intended as recognizable snapshots of the female experience, ranging from the pleasurable to the mundane. I employ body language, gesture, movement and expression as narrative tools. Through every piece I aim to celebrate the power and vulnerability of women through portraiture. SIFC: What do you find most challenging about working as an artist? TB: Knowing the difference between when to let go and when to push through is by far my biggest challenge. I have no problem painting over …
October Art Picks
A look at the exhibitions, talks, performances, screenings, and more to see this month.
Meet the Envisioning Justice Residency Team
Envisioning Justice is a 19-month initiative presented by Illinois Humanities that looks into how Chicagoans and Chicago artists respond to the the impact of incarceration in local communities and how the arts and humanities are used to devise strategies for lessening this impact. As part of Envisioning Justice, a selected group of writers, photographers, activists, artists, and organizers are working with Sixty as residents to publish writing and photo documentation of the work happening at the cross-section of art and the criminal justice system across Chicago. Meet the residents: Ally Almore Photographer at Let Us Breathe Collective Website | She/Her Ally Almore is an artist and photographer born and raised in Chicago, IL. She grew up in a low-income immigrant family household in Pilsen that was always full of personality. A documenter for creatives from all walks of life, Ally is not afraid to saturate her images, because they usually accompany saturated narratives. The people she photographs are anything but bland and she believes that it’s her responsibility as a photographer to do them justice. She has always naturally been drawn to photography and the idea …
September Art Picks
A growing list of exhibitions, talks, art fairs, book releases, performances, concerts, celebrations, and more happening during the art season opening month.
August Art Picks
A list of exhibitions, performances, screenings, readings and events to help you through summer.
The Lineup: Chicago Archives + Artists Festival, Art Design Chicago Edition
A look at the complete lineup for the Chicago Archives + Artists Festival: Art Design Chicago Edition at Read/Write Library on July 13-14th.
July Art Picks
A list of exhibitions, performances, screenings, readings and marches to keep you cool this month.
2018 Chicago Archives + Artists Festival: Art Design Chicago Edition
Join us for our second festival around all things archiving and preserving the legacies of Chicago’s artists and culture.
Community Archiving and Volunteer Orientation for the Chicago Archives + Artists Festival: Art Design Chicago Edition
Sun, July 8, 2018 | 12:30-2:30pm RSVP for the Festival Leading up to the Chicago Archives + Artists Festival: Art Design Chicago Edition at Read/Write Library on July 13th and 14th, Sixty Inches From Center will host a community archiving training session for those interested in volunteering for the festival or learning about basic archival and cataloging practices. After our session, you’re welcome to stick around and join their New Volunteer Orientation and Community Open House. This session is a requirement for those who will be volunteering for the festival, but free and open to those who just have a curiosity for archiving. If you’re interested in volunteering, please complete the form below and we will contact you at the end of June with more details. The festival has the following schedule: Friday, July 13th 1-5:30pm: Event set-up 5:30 – 9:30pm: Archive Mixer + Artist Project Reveal Saturday, July 14th 10:30am – 2:30pm: 1st Shift for Festival Volunteers 2:30-6:30pm: 2nd Shift for Festival Volunteers 6:30pm – 9:30pm: 3rd Shift for Festival Volunteers Sunday, July 15th 12pm – 3pm: Event Breakdown
Snapshot: Gather Series at Comfort Station
Snapshot is a Sixty column that takes a quick look at art history as it happens in Chicago. We send artists and organizers short and sweet questions to tell us about what they are doing right at this moment. We sent questions to Allen Moore, Nick Meryhew, and Rebecca Himelstein, the curatorial team behind the Gather series at Comfort Station. Gather is an experimental music series bringing musicians and performers from different scenes, backgrounds, practices, disciplines, and communities together for connection and artistic exchange. For information on their upcoming events, as well as past performances, visit them here. Sixty Inches From Center: To start broadly, what were you envisioning when you started Gather? Can you give us some context for the title? GATHER: We wanted to represent Chicago’s highly active experimental music and performance community by creating a series that highlighted some different approaches to the artists’ chosen medium. For each bill we attempt to bring together artists who might not otherwise be presented side-by-side. We see this as a way of facilitating new audience and artist interactions …
June Art Picks
As the temperature rises, so do your options for performances, exhibitions, talks, film screenings, and more throughout the city.