Latest news with #DuSableMuseum
Vogue
04-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Vogue
Chicago Celebrates 50 Years of Mahogany In Style
As many often say, nothing beats summertime Chi. On a cool August evening in Chicago, the city shimmered in sequins, silks, and legacy. People from across the community gathered on the lawn of The DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center—one of the country's oldest African American museums in the country—for Mahogany at 50, a celebration marking the golden anniversary of the 1975 seminal fashion classic Mahogany, starring Diana Ross. But this wasn't just a screening. It was a homecoming—a cinematic, sartorial, and cultural return to the city where it all began. Part open-air screening, part block party, part runway. Spearheaded by co-organizers Dr. Rikki Byrd, Jessica Clark, and Ci Phillips, Mahogany at 50 is a citywide activation honoring the film's legacy and its lasting impact on fashion, politics, community, and Black womanhood. And most importantly, the beauty, history, and influence of Chicago. 'This was our love letter to Chicago,' Byrd told Vogue. 'It was very important for us to bring this film back to Chicago, where it was set, where it started—and we did just that. It was beautiful to see the Chicago community out in their best fashions, celebrating and feeling loved.' Few films have embedded themselves into the fashion canon like Mahogany. Directed by Berry Gordy, scored by a soaring Diana Ross ballad, and costumed brilliantly, the film charts the rise of Tracy Chambers—a retail assistant by day and fashion design student by night from the South Side, who leaves behind the familiar to become a supermodel and designer in Rome. It's high camp, high drama, and high fashion. The movie remains a touchstone for aspiration, agency, and glamour. It's a visual feast of bold silhouettes and technicolor gowns. And that's exactly what Mahogany at 50 was.
Axios
30-05-2025
- Axios
Chicago artists work to preserve Black Lives Matter art
Black Lives Matter murals and public art were all over Chicago after George Floyd's murder in 2020, but five years later, it can be difficult to find some of those works. Why it matters: The protests against police brutality were an inflection point in a city with a complicated history of policing. Artists expressing their feelings about that moment and the larger social justice movement was natural in a city known for its public art. Flashback: As protests wove through Chicago neighborhoods in the summer of 2020, Paint the City founders Missy Perkins and Barrett Keithley connected artists with businesses who wanted to show their support for Black Lives Matter. "It was just a thing where we just couldn't sit back and kind of watch this happen and not do something. We were obviously both feeling like, 'What kind of action can we take?'" Perkins tells Axios. "We know so many artists from all over the place that could go out and create these inspiring murals as a way to help people or as a way to engage in a conversation." Perkins says the group created hundreds of artistic boards across the city. Yes, but: All of those boards are not currently on display to the public. Many were shown in the 2021 exhibition "Resilient Voices," at the DuSable Museum in Washington Park, but Perkins says they're now in storage in need of restoration and a permanent home. Paint the City is exploring funding avenues to make that happen. State of play: Other groups, including the Sounding Boards Garden initiative, created displays that are still open to the public. In a lot behind Harmony Community Church in North Lawndale sits an outdoor gallery of colorful painted boards, including a portrait of Floyd, a large fist with the phrase "Power to the People," and a black cherub wearing boxing gloves and floating in space. Zoom out: George Floyd Square in Minneapolis, where police officer Derek Chauvin killed Floyd, is ensnared in a development battle about what to do with the streets around the memorial created after Floyd's death. Washington, D.C., has dismantled its Black Lives Matter Plaza for what Mayor Muriel Bowser said will instead become an area celebrating America's 250th birthday, which is in 2026. Context: Following the 2020 protests, activists also called for the dismantling of public art and monuments across the country, saying they reinforced white supremacy. Most notable in Chicago was the removal of two Christopher Columbus statues, one of which the city plans to loan to the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans. The city created the Chicago Monuments Project to determine what to do with the other controversial public art. Reality check: The group identified 41 objects that "privilege whiteness, social elites and the powerful above all other people" and recommended that several be placed in storage, but none have been, CBS reported this month.
