Karl Wirsum, “Winsome Works(some),” Chicago Cultural Center

The seminal Chicago artist finally received his due with a lush full-scale retrospective. Wirsum’s bold, graphic paintings, quirky sculptures and puppets of robots, superheroes, villains, snakes and voluptuous women filled the galleries of the Cultural Center with a blaze of color, like a psychedelic freak-show dance party. Opportunities to experience the history of a Chicago art legend shouldn’t be this rare.

Audience Choice
“Speaker Project”
Hyde Park Art Center

Best of Chicago 2007

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

How cool is the MacArthur Fellows Program, aka the “genius grant”? $500,000, no strings attached, awarded to twenty or thirty creators in the arts and sciences each and every year. This program alone makes the $6 billion foundation not only Chicago’s largest nonprofit, but also its most exciting. Of course, “Big Mac” does a lot more with its money: take note of its underwriting of public radio and television when you tune in, or catch its support of documentary filmmaking at the local art-house. Beyond the media and the arts, the MacArthur Foundation pours resources into support for human rights and international justice, global conservation and sustainable development, affordable housing in the U.S. and many, many other admirable areas.
140 South Dearborn
(312)726-8000

Audience Choice:
Hyde Park Art Center
5020 South Cornell
(773)324-5520

Best of Chicago 2007