Video: Tour Chicago's Art Scene Without Once Visiting The Art Institute

By Mae Rice in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 15, 2016 5:36PM

In the latest installment of PBS Digital Studios’ video series The Art Assignment, the hosts took viewers on a lush video tour of the Chicago art scene. It was so rigorous the even drove up to to visit the Elmhurst Art Museum (in pouring rain!).

Typically, the series hinges on video interviews with artists, who discuss their work and give viewers accessible art assignments (ex: take a thoughtful close-up photo). However, making those signature videos require travel, and recently, the show’s hosts traveled to Chicago to interview sculptor and photographer Assaf Evron and interdisciplinary artist Maria Gaspar.

They put together a slick, beautiful video of their two-day trip. Reasons to watch include:

* They have immersive footage from inside Stony Island Arts Bank, Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, and other spots on our list of lesser-known Chicago art spots.

* They get a giant donut (like, human head-sized) at Nuevo Leon Bakery.

* Evron has a money quote that frames the whole video, though no one will put it on a Chicago tourism billboard anytime soon: “When everybody asks me why I’m in the Midwest, I say like, ‘Because of the boredom!’... Boredom is very interesting, and a very productive environment.”

* The narrator explains what a “gastropub” is once and for all, while describing Dusek’s: it’s “really just a term for a bar that serves food that isn’t bad.”

* Most impressive of all: They never visit the Art Institute.