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The Place Lab digest is a weekly round-up of pertinent news, opinion, investigations, and explorations of the arts, architecture, and city-building in Chicago and beyond.
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The Chicago School of Theaster Gates
C Magazine's Chris Dingwall examines Gates' social practice and the meaning of practical rebellion
Excerpt: "Gates wields the apparatus of teaching – the slideshows, the podium, the classroom, the archive – no less masterfully than the museum, the school, the library and the state use these tools. Art critics and journalists have devoted their praise and censure to the magic of Gates’ one-man economy: if black art has been valued by markets and museums for seeming to be old and broken, he will sell you that broken object, and use the profit to make something useful and beautiful for actual black communities."
Read more
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What Place Lab is digesting
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The Heavy Hand of Early-20th Century Zoning Codes
Laura Bliis, CityLab
Although the present paper didn’t explicitly analyze how Chicago’s old zoning codes have influenced racial segregation, a companion paper published in July by the same researchers found that the laws drawn up in 1923 were discriminatory: Areas with more black residents were zoned for higher-density housing, and 'neighborhoods with larger populations of blacks or recent immigrants were zoned disproportionately for manufacturing.' Chicago consistently ranks as among the most segregated cities in the U.S....
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Stay up-to-date on Place Lab projects, events, news, and happenings with our dedicated blog, SITE.
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Gentrification along Chicago River worries longtime industrial businesses
John Byrne, Chicago Tribune
They've noticed that dynamic playing out in the fast-gentrifying West Loop, where residents who move into expensive lofts get sick of the stink of the meat packing that's been going on for more than a century. For industries that remain, the loss of the planning rules that protect them is alarming.
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Making space for dragons: Why Chinese Buildings Have Holes
Curiosity.com
Much of Hong Kong's architecture is sharp and modern, but with a peculiar twist. Many of the city's buildings have gaping holes in the middle. No, this isn't an engineering decision, or even an edgy design decision. These holes serve a practical function. According to legend, dragons need an unobstructed path from the hills to the water, so through the holes they go.
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Learn the basics of Feng Shui
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Intimate Photos Show the Power of the African American Museum
Photographs and Text by Ruddy Roye, National Geographic
It is not a one-day museum. The works in the new National Museum of African American History and Culture climb on your back and compel you to wrestle with their realities.
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Italy's 'Cultural Allowance' For Teens Aims To Educate, Counter Extremism
All Things Considered, NPR
The Italian government is hoping the program will educate kids born in Italy as well as integrate a growing population of foreign residents, dissuading alienated youths from following radical Islam. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi first announced the so-called Culture Bonus last November after the Paris massacre, when Islamist terrorists killed 130 people inside a theater and outside on the streets.
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Miss last Friday's edition of the digest? Read it in the archives here.
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At the African American Museum – “I Too am America”
Eileen Cunniffe, Nonprofit Quarterly
In a dedication ceremony that featured several stirring speeches—with longtime Civil Rights activist and Congressman John Lewis of Georgia being perhaps the most poignant speaker of the day—and musical performances by luminaries including Angélique Kidjo, Stevie Wonder, and Patti Labelle—the Smithsonian officially opened the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), a $540 million project that took more than four years to build and nearly a century to authorize.
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Marginalized by media: Poster project addresses queer visibility politics
Heather Schroering, RedEye
The bathroom is this arbitrary physical manifestation of this false gender binary,” Fegan said. “And then it’s also the most private of public space. I love a venue where you may not be wearing pants when you view my work. You’re kind of a captive audience.
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With increased competition from larger banks, Bank Black movement faces challenges
Gail Marks-Jarvis and Becky Yerak, Chicago Tribune
It's high time for black dollars to stay in the community,...At a certain point you have to do what successful other people do: Take control of your community; fight economically. And black banks have been the backbone of black commerce. If a black business doesn't get a loan it can't be successful, it can't hire other black people, and those people can't buy houses and land and send their children to better schools.
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Stung by Critics, St. Louis Museum Will Modify Controversial Exhibition
Brian Boucher, artnet
“Kelley Walker: Direct Drive” depicts images of police brutality, overlaid with images of smeared chocolate and toothpaste. Tempers flared after a September 17 talk by the artist, who is white. Some audience members confronted the artist about the meaning of the works and felt they were met with hostility and condescension.
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A Smartphone Game that Captures the Futility of 'Work-Life Balance'
Carrie Battan, The New Yorker
If you take on too much work and your health drops to zero before you’ve racked up thirty experience points, you lose your job. If you preserve your health rating by working less, you will likely be fired for lack of productivity. This juggling of well-being against work ethic is the toughest, and most futile, aspect of the game; in the world of Don’t Get Fired!, it is all but impossible to fulfill one’s ambitions while staying sane and healthy at the same time.
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Tiny house zoning regulations: What you need to know
Emily Nonko, Curbed
Despite the growing enthusiasm for tiny houses, it still isn’t easy to legally build them for full-time use. Zoning laws and building codes, by and large, require a minimum square footage for new-construction homes, and progress to reduce that square footage is slow...Cities and towns that have started to accommodate tiny homes have typically been pushed by grassroots organizers asking government officials for changes to local building and zoning codes. The result is that tiny house ordinances are "so darn specific," as Stephens says, to the town or city they’re approved in.
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From our bookshelf:
Banker To The Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty
by Muhammad Yunus
Purchase it here
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VIDEOS: MacArthur Foundation winners
Every September, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation selects a new class of MacArthur Fellows, among the most creative and innovative people in the arts, science, and beyond. This year’s winners include art historian and curator Kellie Jones, and bead artist Joyce J. Scott. For both women, the intersection of art, politics and social justice is at the fore of their work.
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"Architects in the past have tended to concentrate their attention on the building as a static object. I believe dynamics are more important: the dynamics of people, their interaction with spaces and environmental condition."
—John Portman
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In the Face of White Male Privilege Run Amok, a Plea for Artistic Responsibility
Damon Davis, Hyperallergic
Now, what if I took pictures from the Holocaust and smeared cream cheese on them and threw them in a frame, and then told you it was a critique of capitalism and an exercise in color and the form of the contemporary modernist landscape? Then the guy who hired me tried to spin what I just told you into a profound analysis about race and anti-semitism? And all this was happening at an art gallery in Germany, not far from the site of a concentration camp. What would the world say? Nothing, because THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN.
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Cleveland's Arts and Cultural Community has Helped Cleveland Shine. It's Time Cleveland Did More
Josh Usmani, Cleveland Scene
Two years ago, a study out of Chicago by the Cultural Policy Center and the National Opinion Research Center found that Cuyahoga County received more total artsfunding from federal, state and local sources in the decade from 2002 to 2012 than the other 12 metropolitan areas included in the study...
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