Results tagged “pablopicasso”

With the opening of its Modern Wing just around the corner on May 16th, The Art Institute of Chicago has decided to tease us a bit with its March 24th opening exhibition, Modern and Contemporary Works on Paper. With an unveiling of 80 drawings that rarely see the light of day in public galleries (literally -- due to light sensitivity), expect to see works by famous modern artists like Pablo Picasso, German School Artist Ernst Kirchner, and Roy Lichtenstein, as well as contemporary additions to the collection by Minimalist Sylvia Plimack Mangold and architect Le Corbusier. The best part? Notational and diagrammatic sheets will be featured along with finished works. Which means that you can see the artists’ drawing process evolve right before your very eyes. And if you’re unable to see this exhibition, not a problem. Major works by many of these artists will be on display in the Modern Wing’s permanent galleries.

What's 50 feet tall, weighs 162 tons, was forged in Gary, Indiana and has no name? No, that's not the start of a really bad joke, it's a description of the statue that Pablo Picasso gave to Chicago in 1967. Many of us local yokels know it as The Picasso. And it just turned 40.

For the 75th anniversary of the Lindbergh kidnapping, Time released what they believe are the top 25 crimes of the century. We must say, we got sucked in and were captivated by the crimes, some of which we were familiar with and some we were completely unawares. Two of the crimes were from the Chicago area. John Wayne Gacy, executed by lethal injection in 1994, murdered 32 boys and young men. Police found 28 of them in a crawl space in his Des Plaines home. The mysteries of the human psyche, the false sense of security in suburbia, the facade of an upstanding citizen — these were all brought to the forefront in an American society that was getting comfortable.

There's that apocryphal statement about the Velvet Underground – attributed to everyone from critic Lester Bangs to Lou Reed himself – that their records never sold a million copies, but everyone who bought one went out and started a band. Thankfully, one of those people was Jonathan Richman, who paid tribute to his idols in the song "Velvet Underground": "They were wild like the U.S.A./ A mystery band in a New York way/ Rock and roll, but not like the rest/ And to me, America at its best/ How in the world were they making that sound?/ Velvet Underground!"