Serious Play: Design in Midcentury America premieres at the Milwaukee Art Museum
1 Living Architecture (6018 North) A loud and clear response to our current political climate, the multimedia exhibition highlights the impact of immigrant artists in the Chicago creative scene with public programming including performances, tours, workshops and conversational dinners. (Through December 23, Saturday-Sunday, 12pm-5pm)
2 Renegade Craft Fair (Division between Damen and Ashland, Wicker Park) Founded in Chicago in 2003 and growing into the biggest craft-fair showcase in the world, Renegade returns home for a weekend, bringing a wide assortment of artists, designers, makers and entrepreneurs. (September 8-9, 11am-7pm)
3 Serious Play: Design in Midcentury America (Milwaukee Art Museum) The Milwaukee Art Museum brings together more than forty designers to explore the notion of “playful design” in midcentury America through a wide range of media—furniture, toys, textiles, films, posters, ceramics and others. (September 28, 2018–Jan 6, 2019)
4 Bristol Renaissance Faire (Off I-94 at the IL/WI border) Recreating a visit of Queen Elizabeth I to the English port city of “Bristol” in the year 1574, one of the biggest Renaissance festivals in the nation features knights sword fighting, piles of turkey legs, an artisan marketplace, medieval games and rides and more. Dress the part, eat, drink and be merry. Or as they put it, “Party like it’s 1599!” (Through September 3: Saturdays, Sundays & Labor Day, 10am-7pm)
5 Vintage Garage (5051 N. Broadway) This month’s theme is “Vintage Chicago” and the garage-based market, home to thousands of vintage, retro and one-of-a-kind clothes, jewelry, accessories and gifts, features “anything made in Chicago, has a Chicago vibe to it, is about Chicago, or says Chicago on it!” (September 16, 10am-5pm, $5)
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.
