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On one level, it’s thrilling to see that several Chicago folks made it into this year’s Whitney Biennial. Among them are Brendan Fernandes, whose practice is comprised of graceful negotiations between sculpture, ballet, and black history, and Derrick Woods-Morrow, a multimedia artist who frequently combs through memory and queer narratives. TL;DR: A few of the city’s queer artists of color received some of the international recognition they so deserve, in a major show curated by two women....

Baby, it’s cold outside—but there’s plenty to get out and do in Chicago this week. Here’s some of what we recommend: Mon 12/11-Thu 12/14: Around this time of year, Los Angeles resident Andrew Bird brings his whistling songs and violin back to the city where he first took flight. This year he’s migrated to Fourth Presbyterian Church (126 E. Chestnut) for a four-night residency. 8 PM, sold outTue 12/12: Just What I Needed author and Reader contributor John Corbett comes to the Hopleaf (5148 N....

When is a compilation of one-off tracks and previously unreleased material more than just bait for superfans and completists? When the artist releasing it is exceeding himself so consistently that he seems about to hit escape velocity, for one. That’s the case with Untitled Unmastered, which Kendrick Lamar dropped with no warning late Thursday night. As a comp, the new album predictably lacks the thoughtful cohesion of the seismic, sprawling full-lengths Good Kid, M....

For some filmmakers—Bernardo Bertolucci, Lina Wertmüller, Dušan Makavejev—sex and politics are inextricably linked. The ways their characters engage with each other sexually mirrors how they engage in the body politic, with individual sexual liberation representing the first step in larger social change. Canadian writer-director Bruce LaBruce (No Skin Off My Ass, The Raspberry Reich) is one such filmmaker. For three decades he’s made movies that combine explicit sex with radical political rhetoric, arguing that opposition to repressive social structures goes hand in hand with breaking sexual taboos....

It was a sad day last September when Jonathan Ory announced that he was closing up Bad Wolf Coffee, his Lakeview bakery that sold, among other things, the best kouign amann in Chicago, and moving to Charleston, South Carolina. Fortunately, Val Taylor, who worked with Ory during his last six months at Bad Wolf, has stepped in to fill the void. As its name implies, Loba Pastry + Coffee is not Bad Wolf Part II, but rather its own entity, with some of the same DNA....

Lizzo’s single “Truth Hurts” dropped in September 2017, but it didn’t hit number one on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart until this month. That sleeper-hit narrative fits her: ever since her first album, 2013’s Lizzobangers, the singer and rapper has been slowly but steadily growing her following thanks to her incredible bops, celebratory music videos, and high-energy live performances, where she sometimes incorporates her first instrument, the flute. Why did it take mainstream pop so long to catch on?...

Marcus “Mixx” Shannon has been making house music since the mid-80s, when the style was the beating heart of Chicago nightlife. In 1987, Farley “Jackmaster” Funk of the famous Hot Mix 5 played Shannon’s very first release, the 12-inch single “I Wanna House!,” on one of the crew’s hugely influential WBMX radio shows. Original copies of Shannon’s early records now provoke bitter squabbles among hard-core collectors—a compilation he made in 1989 has sold for as much as $500—but none of the money changing hands makes it to him....

As I wandered the aisles of the Chicago Independent Spirits Expo a couple weeks ago, I came across something unusual: two rums from North Shore Distillery, both aged between four and six years. Rum is still relatively rare among local distillers, who tend to focus on vodka, gin, and whiskey instead; if they branch out from there it’s likely to be into liqueur or brandy. CH Distillery makes an unaged rum, and Tailwinds Distilling Company in Plainfield has built its brand on Taildragger, a lineup that includes a white rum, an amber rum aged for at least two years, a coffee rum, and an overproof dark rum....

One important measure of any musical scene is whether it sustains its energy and depth. The Chicago jazz and improvised music scene has endured plenty of defections in recent years, such as guitarist Jeff Parker decamping to Los Angeles or cornetist Rob Mazurek relocating to Marfa, Texas—serious blows to the community here—but things keep rolling on even as tastes shift. A steady stream of new players has long been crucial to giving Chicago its artistic potency, and the best of those players inject enough personality and creativity to push things in new directions....

It all began in 2015, when Olivia Lilley made a deal with the devil. So she persisted. In fact, Lilley could play the avant-garde game so well that three years later Brün offered her the position of artistic director at Prop. She and I met there one night to talk shop. “Five or six years into it, the lady punks began doing their stuff in the space,” Lilley continues. “I wish I was there to see it, but it sounded very sexual and incisive and ritualistic....

Limited-edition prints of this week’s poster will be sold at the show, with all proceeds donated to KIND, a nonprofit that provides legal representation to unaccompanied immigrant children in the U.S. ARTIST: Jon Gronberg SHOW: Dethwarrant, Rad Payoff, Time Thieves, and Post Child at Reed’s Local on Sun 9/22 MORE INFO: Jon Gronberg

courtesy the artist “Mutual Regard,” a new exhibit of work by French photographer Jean-Luc Mylayne that opens Friday at the Art Institute and the Arts Club of Chicago, is the result of a series of collaborations: between Mylayne and his life and work partner, Mylène Mylayne; between the Art Institute and the Arts Club, which are cosponsoring the exhibit; and between Mylayne and the birds that have been his primary subjects for the past 40 years....

On Monday at 9:30 PM, Doc Films will present a 35-millimeter print of Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist (1970). One of the greatest-looking movies ever made, it’s easily the most important revival screening in town this week. It remains a career best for cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, who also shot Apocalypse Now and Warren Beatty’s Reds. The Conformist features rich, deep colors and lots of gorgeous and precise camera movement; you could watch it with the sound off and it would be no less impressive....

Scarecrow Video is one of the largest video stores in the world, with more than 132,000 titles. It began in the confines of a small Seattle storefront back in December 1988 and only survived to see its pearl anniversary because the community around it understood the cultural value of its collection. In 2014, Scarecrow’s second-generation owners considered selling off the store’s videos following years of financial struggles—simply put, fewer people were renting from them year after year....

“Most people in the midwest don’t know this, but aronia berries grow in the midwest.” That was the word from chef C.J. Jacobson one evening at Intro, a Lettuce Entertain You restaurant that will rotate in a new notable chef and new menu every three months or so, even if the space itself—formerly home to L2O—doesn’t change much. That’s why he could get away with bits of creamy avocado and radish among bites of glistening fresh fluke, all bathing in an intensely green liquid infused with Douglas fir needles and dotted with droplets of Korean chile paste that somehow tasted as if they weren’t there at all....

You’ve heard of going through the looking glass? The Chicago Magic Lounge takes you through the laundromat. That’s where you’re headed if you seek the wonders of prestidigitation in store behind the bank of washer-dryers stacked floor to ceiling in the Uptown venue. As cover-ups go, it’s not quite as convincing as the industrial dry-cleaning machinery fronting the meth lab in Breaking Bad. But it’s a good introduction to the surprises in store....

For decades the greatest film by French writer-director Philippe Garrel has been one of the hardest to see. Garrel completed L’Enfant Secret in 1979 but didn’t exhibit it until 1982, because, according to legend, he couldn’t afford to pay the lab that had processed the film. Despite winning France’s prestigious Prix Jean Vigo (an annual award for movies exhibiting an original vision), the film has seldom been screened and was released on DVD only in Japan (even there it’s been out of print for a while)....

Toronzo Cannon’s 2016 breakout debut album for Alligator is titled The Chicago Way, but it doesn’t include a song of the same name. Since that release, the homegrown bluesman has become so enamored with the phrase that he wrote a song around it in time for his next album, The Preacher, the Politician or the Pimp (2019). “The Chicago Way” is a fast-paced boogie in the John Lee Hooker tradition, but it only hints at the depths of Cannon’s vast repertoire....

Animals Out of Paper This 2008 play by Indian-American writer Rajiv Joseph concerns three emotionally fragile people: Ilana, a reclusive origami artist, holed up in her studio and blocked by depression following the collapse of her marriage; Andy, a determinedly optimistic high school teacher and origami fan with a crush on Ilana; and Andy’s student Suresh, a smart but troubled teenager with uncanny and untrained skill at turning blank paper into animal figures....