American Negro Exposition, 1865-1940. Poster, 55 x 35 cm (21 5/8 x 13 inches). Ryerson and Burnham Archives, The Art Institute of Chicago/Photo: Robert Savon Pious
1 Open House Chicago (Around the city, check Chicago Architecture Foundation website) Your annual chance to explore the city’s most iconic buildings—more than 200 landmarks, theaters, hotels, residential spaces and private clubs—and learn their architectural and cultural stories. (October 13-14)
2 Modern by Design: Chicago Streamlines America (Chicago History Museum) Founded in 1856 to study and interpret Chicago’s history, the museum stays true to its mission by highlighting the city’s role in bringing cutting-edge modern design to the American marketplace. (October 27–December 2)
3 Vintage Garage (5051 North Broadway) It’s the garage-based market’s season finale and the city’s one-stop destination for all things vintage, retro and one-of-a-kind promises a Halloween-themed day—blow molds, witches, jack-o’-lanterns and more fright props for this year’s trick-or-treaters. (October 21, 10am-5pm, $5)
4 African American Designers in Chicago: Art, Commerce, and the Politics of Race (Chicago Cultural Center) A range of media—graphic design, illustration, cartooning, sign painting, product design—showcases how African-American designers and artists remade the image of the black consumer and help shape American advertising and consumer culture. (October 27–March 3)
5 Keep Moving: Designing Chicago’s Bicycle Culture (Design Museum of Chicago) An exhibition that looks at bicycle design and manufacturing in Chicago and explores the city’s contribution to the early popularity of bicycles in America at-large. (October 27-March 3)
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.
