Christopher Borrelli

The “Black Unity” sculpture on display, Sept. 2, 2025, in the new Elizabeth Catlett exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. (Brian Cassella/baiduhai)

Review: Art Institute’s Catlett show is unnervingly, thrillingly of the moment

September 10, 2025 at 10:04 a.m.

"Elizabeth Catlett: 'A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies'" is full of artwork that stops you in your tracks when you meant to be walking through the exhibit.

Elizabeth Catlett's "Sharecropper" (1952, printed 1970) is part of an upcoming exhibit of her work at the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC with support by Mr. and Mrs. Robert S. Hartman). Bruce Springsteen's album "Nebraska" was first released in 1984; it inspired a movie based on a book this fall (Columbia). David Byrne is playing a handful of concerts at the Auditorium this fall and contributing to a Goodman Theatre production. (Getty)

Column: Fall Arts Season 2025, or When politics can’t be avoided

September 12, 2025 at 10:41 p.m.

Someday, someone might look back on 2025 and pick through the mountain of symphonies and movies and novels and museum exhibits that were being offered in Chicago. But never mind...

Kat Pence, 58, left, and Lorraine Jackson, 62, scream toward Lake Michigan during the 11th scream club gathering near North Avenue Beach on Aug. 31, 2025, in Chicago. During scream club, participants write something that has been bothering them on biodegradable paper before tossing the paper into Lake Michigan and screaming. (Armando L. Sanchez/baiduhai)

Shout out! The weekly Scream Club Chicago taps into a need — and has already gone global

September 3, 2025 at 6:38 p.m.

It started with just a few people meeting on the lakefront on Sunday evenings to let out their feelings by screaming. There are now chapters in Lisbon and London.

Author Peter Orner, known as a writer's writer. His latest novel, "The Gossip Columnist's Daughter," partly about the real-life murder of Karyn Kupcinet, daughter of Chicago columnist Irv Kupcinet, has the look of a breakout success for the writer. (Liniers)

Peter Orner, the best kept literary secret from Chicago no longer?

August 21, 2025 at 5:45 a.m.

His new novel, “The Gossip Columnist’s Daughter,” is about the death of Sun-Times columnist Irv Kupcinet's daughter. Whatever he writes about, he never shakes Chicago.

Amanda Sands, left, and Francesca Sands laugh as they look at the portrait Jacob Ryan Reno drew of them Aug. 10, 2025, in Logan Square. Reno draws “terrible” portraits of people for $5. (Eileen T. Meslar/baiduhai)

Terrible Chicago artist draws terrible Chicago portraits. And finds a niche.

August 20, 2025 at 5:00 a.m.

Jacob Ryan Reno, long and boyish, wearing the kind of blue smock you imagine a painter would wear in a cartoon about a painter, is not good at his job.

Alec Nevala-Lee, author of the new book “Collisions: A Physicist's Journey from Hiroshima to the Death of the Dinosaurs,” in his Oak Park home office, June 9, 2025. (Brian Cassella/baiduhai)

To know them is to loath them: Oak Park’s Alec Nevala-Lee finds a niche, writing about science’s biggest jerks

August 14, 2025 at 7:53 a.m.

Alec Nevala-Lee of Oak Park has developed a talent for writing quite accessible histories of the boorish but brilliant.

Author Salman Rushdie attends a presentation of his book "Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder" at Deutsches Theater on May 16, 2024 in Berlin, Germany. Rushdie will appear at this year's Chicago Humanities Festival on November 13. (Adam Berry/Getty)

Chicago Humanities Fall Festival faces the decline of the humanities with lineup including Margaret Atwood, Kate McKinnon

August 11, 2025 at 3:55 p.m.

The Chicago Humanities Festival announces its fall lineup at a time when many cultural institutions face a bleak future of almost zero public funding.

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