Arts & Culture
Improvising Milwaukee and Jazz
Milwaukee’s actually representative in many ways of jazz in other cities. “It’s probably no different than any other Midwest city.... you have these smaller midsize, Midwest cities like Columbus, Ohio, and Milwaukee, and Cleveland. They have this great history, but it’s largely unacknowledged by the greater folks that are interested in jazz.”
Botticelli in the Burgh
All of these paintings, the originals in Tuscany, are also viewable down to the most granular detail, by the most strict parameters of verisimilitude, in an Italianate building of white granite and red terra cotta roof in the middle of Pittsburgh.
The Year Ceramics Took Cincinnati
Cincinnati is one of the best places in America to be an artist now because of a combination of low cost of living and a vibrant arts community.
Maxo Vanka’s Radical Gaze
If a focus on workers tied Vanka with New Deal artists, he diverged by drawing on Catholic spirituality and forcefully critiquing capitalism.
St. Louis Brick by Brick
To understand the history of St. Louis’s bricks is to unearth systems of power, economy, dispossession, decline, and manifest destiny; the storybook decorative brickwork we see today becomes a tale as complex—and as sinister—as American history itself.
Unlocking the Gateway to the West
My city has also not been particularly adept at acknowledging its sins, past or present, let alone attempting to atone for them.
A Love Supreme
Artists and activists continue to organize as Keith LaMar’s November execution date draws near.
Reweaving the Stories of Our Public Art
How does public art limit (or extend) what we can know about the past, present, or future? How can art support us in telling a new story, a shared story about who we are?
The Secrets of a “Homeless Influencer”
Huck Finn had his river, Kerouac his road, Ishmael his sea. Sham has his abandoned buildings. All 21 of them. Eighteen abandoned, two under construction, one still operational. Ten cities. Thirty-five hours of exploration.
Color Bursts – The Utopian Art of Avery Williamson
Williamson struggled with processing the emotional weight of living in what seemed like relentlessly unprecedented times. "At the time, I was thinking about them as... a place to capture competing, strong emotions."
Midwest Arts and Culture
Get the latest stories from around the region sent straight to your inbox.
Get the latest stories from around the region sent straight to your inbox.
Support independent, context-driven regional writing.