This American Television
"It feels exactly like the radio show--except it's TV," says Ira Glass, when asked what a television version of Chicago Public Radio's "This American Life" radio program will look like, now that it's set for air on Showtime in the fall. "For one story, people had old video footage which we will use for the series." But why take a public radio program to Showtime--paid cable television, no less--and not to public television? "Showtime came to us," says Glass, adding that public television is also notorious for proposing projects that they can't fund in the end, "and I've done enough fundraising in my career." Despite the excitement around the new series, Glass makes certain to emphasize that this won't affect the radio show. "If there is one thing I want to stress it's that the radio show is staying on the air. In fact, the entire production schedule was shot around making the radio show."

Pole Position
The removal of "dangerous" art has an uncomfortable precedent in Chicago--who can forget the "arrest" of a student painting of the recently deceased mayor Harold Washington in women's underwear in the late eighties? So when reports surfaced of an art removal at UIC last week, culture-war nightmares were conjured up. "The UIC police were responding to reports that came to them through the public and they were witness to several almost-accidents. So they were concerned about safety issues," Lorelei Stewart, director of UIC Gallery 400 says, in explaining the problems with the dummy impaled on a flagpole. The flagpole is the site for Philip von Zweck's project "Temporary Allegiance" in which people are invited to hoist a flag of their choice for one week at a time. "Philip's project has been established and has been functioning so that the public has a way to respond to it. It's a really interesting venue for a voice, so that a number of people can express themselves through the flag," Stewart says, who helps to facilitate von Zweck's project while maintaining a distinction between it and Gallery 400. Artist Michelle Maynard contributed the macabre mannequin--"she wanted to fly a flag in conjunction with her show," Stewart explains. Maynard is currently in a collaborative exhibit with Teena McClelland called "Death By Design, Co. TM" at Gallery 400, in which the general public can star in the staging and filming of their own horror-movie death scenes. After several UIC policemen arrived one morning to assess the situation and witnessed several near-accidents, the dummy was taken down by Maynard and a gallery staff member. "In my position, I had to talk to several different departments and figure out a way to put up the flag to mitigate traffic concerns," Stewart explains. The flag was replaced in time for the opening that evening. "What I had to do was negotiate with [the administration] that we could have [the flag] up and meet those safety issues. Part of the reason was that we hadn't gotten those answers and I was over-eager." The dummy resumed its perch at half-mast and controversy persisted the next day when "it was taken down by members of facilities management who hadn't gotten confirmation that all the safety concerns had been addressed. Since the thing was permanently drilled around the pole they had to pull it apart. So they pulled it apart and broke the wooden structure on the inside." Although hoisted flags are not insured as artwork, Maynard will be compensated and "Temporary Allegiance" will continue as planned. "It comes with the territory," Stewart adds, commenting on the reaction to the unconventional nature of the work. "When we do that the other side of the coin is that one of our responsibilities is to educate people who aren't so familiar with work of this kind."

Broad poetics
Northern Illinois University has teamed up with The Poetry Center of Chicago to present a new "Necessary Angel," a broadside exhibition that pairs famous poets with visual artists. "I'm pretty excited about having it out here in DeKalb," says Pete Olsen, the curator of the exhibit. "When The Poetry Center of Chicago has someone read in their Reading Series, that poet is offered to make one of these broadsides. You have the text of the poem and in almost all instances it's a poem that was previously unpublished. It's produced as a memento to commemorate this public reading," Olsen continues. "We have seventeen pieces--each is an artist and a poet together." Among others, there is a poem of Lawrence Ferlinghetti with an Ed Paschke image, Lucinda Williams and her father Miller Williams teamed up with a designer called Rocket, and Andrei Codrescu worked with Amy Rowan to create his broadside. "This is meant to make [poetry] a more visual experience and to sort of allow for more possibilities. The main difference is the case of your context. You're standing in an art gallery reading on a wall--you have a different relationship with a book on the train--this [exhibit] allows for it to be a little more public and a little more accessible. We never had an obvious way to mix poetry and art--it would seem disconnected and pretensions, but you know now we have an exhibition of poetry so it really crosses the boundary."

(2006-01-24)

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