Hi, well, everyone else is introducing themselves and their blog, so I’ll do the same. I’m Kathryn Born, founder and Editor-in-Chief of Chicago Art Magazine and 3 other Arts & Culture websites that are connected to it.  I’m here to talk about weekly art news, and that means I’m sunk, because news about Tony Tasset’s Eye is everywhere – even on this blog!  The coverage is as massive as the eye itself.  So you know what I’ll talk about instead, you finks? The Cardinals. Yes, the other part of Tasset’s installation, the part that doesn’t look like a Pixar Caucasian monster, rising from the ground, ready to take over the city.

Anyway, the Cardinals – 156 street banners of the state bird flying in closer and closer– designed to work like a flip book in perfect conditions (those conditions being driving fast on a traffic-free State Street (route)) which would create the effect of a red bird against a blue sky, with white clouds, coming further into the frame.

What else happened this week? Not too much. Nothing opened last weekend because of the holiday. However, this weekend we compensate, and everyone’s going to be out and cooking in the heat. West Loop,  River North, all the indie spots. There are about 40 events this weekend, many tonight (Friday night)  So, since I love you, I made a handy, printable guide, (based on chicagoartmap.com’s awesome technology, which you can use to sort venues based on a Google map software) and now we can all hit the streets as one. If gallery-going has always been a depressing, lonely experience, fear not this eve –  this is the July Gallery Mardi Gras, as next month will be the tomb-like Lent of Art Deprivation known as “August”, when all the gallerists shutter their galleries and go on vacation for the rest of the summer. Well, many of them anyway.

And I’m … well, I’m getting started on foursquare, if I remember, I’ll be “checking in”. Maybe I’ll become a mayor of something. Maybe late at night I’ll cruise down State Street, with the wind blowing in my hair, and watch a red bird come my way.

-Kathryn Born

Kathryn is the Editor-in-Chief of Chicago Art Magazine, which includes a network of additional websites about arts and culture. She is a conceptual artist and writer, whose work has appeared on Chicago Public Radio, Time Out, RedEye and Chicago Tribune. She has three books due to be published, the first being The Lovers, the Death, and the Crimes, published by StepSister Press due for release on September 23, 2010.

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 9th, 2010 at 9:15 am.