These calling cards from a variety of Chicago gangs in the ’70s and ’80s proves that the toughies of the time were fiercely protective of their neighborhoods and always down for hanging out. The Insane Freaks, Insane Lady Vigilantes, and other old school gangsters used these low-fi cards to stake their claim. As Teenangster points out, the imagery is entertaining, but there was unnecessary violence used to back up these surly words. We’re looking at these from a design angle, solely. We Are Supervision shares that the symbols and fonts were usually stock or hand drawn, with amusing images like unicorns, stoner iconography, and claw marks. The ballpoint pen additions are a nice touch, and note the awesome slew of names like Stubby, Snow White, and Tarzan. Hit the jump for a better look.
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[Editor's note: While your Flavorwire editors take a much-needed holiday break, we'll spend the next two weekends revisiting some of our most popular features of the year. This post was originally published on April 27, 2011.] Before A Clockwork Orange, Lolita and Dr. Strangelove, director Stanley Kubrick worked as a photojournalist for Look magazine, supplementing his wages by hustling chess at Washington Square Park. A poor student and a talented photographer, Kubrick brushed off his forced experience with formal education and went for the goal. He freelanced for Look while still in high school before being hired on permanently. In the summer of 1949, the magazine sent Kubrick to the Windy City to shoot for the story “Chicago City of Contrast.”
Contrast is what he delivered, from the racial context of the economic divide to the rigid feminine and masculine roles in the workplace to changes in transportation. Flip through a bittersweet gallery of young Stanley’s dramatic Chicago.
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Last week we started a semi-regular feature wherein we look at how different cities have been immortalized in song over the years, from celebratory anthems to warts-and-all depictions of seedy urban underbellies and the dark corners where good folks just don’t venture. We got some excellent suggestions and feedback from our readers when we started the idea right here in New York City, and this week we head to the Midwest to choose our five favorite songs about Chicago. Let us know your suggestions after the jump! Read More »
Pedestrians throng the streets, the El twists down the tracks, beach-goers wade and sunbathe, and boats swim through the harbors in an impressive, new tilt-shift timelapse video of Chicago. Created by local TV station WGN, it captures the vibrant diversity of a city that’s always in motion, from the tense traffic patterns of a morning commute to the luxurious relaxation of an evening spent in a rooftop garden. Watch one of our favorite tilt-shifts to date after the jump.
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Ross Ching’s newly refurbished ‘Running on Empty’ video, a time-lapse fabrication of an LA with no cars, has gotten a lot of hype in the past few days in conjunction with the whole ’Carmageddon’ fiasco in LA. Even though Carmageddon turned out to be a dud, Ching’s video is a beautiful ode to Los Angeles, worth watching no matter where you live. To our minds, the time-lapse video is something akin to watching a city fly by in a cab — it can feel removed and relaxing, touching and surprising, and is a pretty, easy way to experience something huge. To that end, ‘Running on Empty’ inspired us to gather a collection of other lovely time-lapse-based odes to the world’s most fascinating cities, from Berlin to Seoul to Abu Dhabi to New York. Sit back, relax and immerse yourself in somewhere else.
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Yesterday morning, the long-awaited giant figure of Marilyn Monroe was unveiled on the Magnificent Mile in Chicago. The famous (New York) scene from ‘The Seven Year Itch’ has gone up in steel, to reign sexily over the citizens of Chicago until next spring, lacy panties and all. Click through for a few more photos of residents having fun with the statue and workers adding the final touches.
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In another sign that the publishing-industry narrative could use a rewrite, Chicago’s sixth annual Printers’ Ball — one of the country’s most wide-ranging free literary showcases and a venerable celebration of all things print — is embracing its inner HTML this weekend, taking the theme “Print <3 Digital” (their emoticon) for this Friday’s gala. Like Amazon’s announcement last week that e-book sales had surpassed those of hardcovers for the first time over a three-month period, the turn is less of a death knell for the tactile, and more of an honest (and exciting) reflection of the mixed space in which publishing and printmaking now live. After the jump: exclusive previews and behind-the-scenes videos.
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American Gothic, Grant Wood’s portrait of a farmer and his unwed daughter in the agrarian Midwest, is one of America’s most famous paintings. The dour visages and stark, Northern Renaissance-influenced style ushered in the Regionalist period later parodied through the ages of pop culture. And now, it’s back, this time not just spoofed, but completely ripped off in a three-dimensional version called “God Bless America” in Chicago’s Pioneer Plaza. Whether you see Wood’s original painting as a satire of repressed Midwestern society or a glorification of its moral virtue, we doubt any of the visitors posing for pictures aside the sculpture are analyzing it much at all. Though perhaps, in the grand scheme of public art, that’s not such a bad thing. Read More »
Chicago’s Millennium Park is being besieged by sculpture-climbing ruffians, the Chicago Tribune reports (via ARTINFO). The latest casualty? Ben van Berkel’s centennial pavilion, which opened just three months ago and is already being closed for repairs. The Tribune puts on its best frustrated mom voice and asserts that the sculpture has incited Lord of the Flies-esque pandemonium. Skateboarders leaving track marks! Grown men and women climbing to the top! “The pavilion had to be shut down lest anybody fall off and crack a skull,” the article notes. Meanwhile, an art historian/voice of reason chimed in.
“Why is this a surprise to anybody?” said Harriet F. Senie, an art history professor at City College in New York and the author of several books on public art. “The first thing people do with public art is they climb on it.”
After the structure is repaired, there are plans for increased security, and possibly signage. Does that include round-the-clock security guards? If so, we salute this inventive use of public money. Our stimulus package: creating stuff for Americans to guard, one public art project at a time.
Edward Lifson’s Hello Beautiful! blog features pictures of Chicago’s changing architecture landscape. Between condos like the one featured above (which we think these guys would find tempting) and Zaha Hadid’s long-delayed plans for Millennium Park, it’s a good time to be a design junkie in Chicago. [via Chicago Tribune]
