David Hartt, still from “in the forest,” 2017. 4K Digital Video File, color, sound; 20 min. Courtesy of Corbett vs. Dempsey and commissioned by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.
1 Chicago Architecture Biennial (Chicago Cultural Center and throughout the city) The second edition of Chicago’s biggest architecture celebration—also the largest architecture and design exhibition in North America—ends this month. Go now. (Through January 7)
2 David Hartt: in the forest (Graham Foundation) Last chance to see the mixed-media installation that negotiates the relationships between ideology, architecture and the environment through film, photographs, sculpture, tropical plants, ambient sound and ceramic objects, as artist David Hartt revisits architect Moshe Safdie’s unfinished 1968 Habitat Puerto Rico project. (Through January 6)
3 Second Annual Allure Fashion Show (Drinker Biddle) January is human-trafficking-awareness month and Traffick Free raises awareness with a benefit fashion show celebrating some of the city’s best. Proceeds will be donated to the nonprofit organization fighting human trafficking in Chicago. (January 19, 6pm-9pm)
4 Brendan Fernandes: The Master and Form (Graham Foundation) A nod to his past as a dancer, the Kenyan-Indian-Canadian artist explores notions of mastery and discipline in an installation-performance series that brings together ballet dancers and design objects. (Opening reception, January 25, 6pm-8pm)
5 Randolph Street Market (Plumbers Hall) The first market of the new year features vintage and antique furniture, fashion, jewelry, indie designer accessories and everything in between. (January 27-28, 10am-5pm)
Greek-born Vasia Rigou is a Chicago-based art critic and pop culture journalist, largely on the subjects of contemporary art, design, and fashion. She moved to Chicago in 2013 to study Arts Journalism at the School of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC,) where she was awarded the New Artist Society Merit Scholarship. She grew up to appreciate art after years of carefully planned, culture-filled travel itineraries and museum-hopping around Europe with her family. During this time, she received a bachelor’s in English Literature, in her native Athens; a master’s in Media, in Nottingham, UK; and studied foreign languages—English, German, and Spanish at the University of Salamanca, Spain. Her writing—reviewing museum exhibitions, gallery shows, art fairs, fashion shows, and music festivals among others—has been published nationally and internationally both in print and online. In 2017, she founded and now serves as editor-in-chief of Rainbowed.—an independently published website focused on the visual and performing arts, digital media, and popular culture. When she’s not writing about art or looking at art—wine in hand, she keeps up with Chicago’s creative entrepreneurial and startup community, makes lists for pretty much everything, drinks immense amounts of coffee and takes cross-country road trips every chance she gets.
