It's a nightmare, packing for the Jaipur Literature Festival: five frenetic days that kick off next week, from January 20 - 24, on the edge of Rajasthan's Thar desert, which means it's hot and dusty while the sun is up, then cold and clear at night. Think L.A....

Public art gets a bad rap, often with good reason. In parks, medians, and open spaces across the country, sculptures are plopped down seemingly overnight with neither "public" input nor consent. In some miraculous cases, they become beloved local icons or, better yet, tourist magnets. In the worst scenarios, they're...

Russia did it. So did Africa. Even India pulled it off, along with London. Now, it's Chicago's turn to inspire a hefty new issue of Granta, the esteemed British literary journal which, when spied on a coffee table, seems to instantly confer upon the subscriber a mantle of elevated intellect,...

My summer social life languishes in the doldrums. What became of the beach parties? The yachts? The swanky lawn soirees with elegant cocktail attire? In a terrible case of cosmic disconnect, my mind is saying The Great Gatsby while my life is saying The Road.

But Facebook is unexpectedly...

In case you missed it, the winner of the 2009 Richard H. Driehaus Prize for Classical Architecture was announced back in November - a prize that features a whopping $200,000 cash award. The recipient? Abdel-Wahed El-Wakil.

"Who?" you ask? Don't be embarrassed, but do get in line behind everyone...

With the C.I.A. in the news, Obama's Iraq exit-strategy on the table, terrorism in India and brutality on the rise seemingly everywhere else, the exhibition Jenny Holzer: PROTECT PROTECT at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art is timely indeed. Not to mention alarming. Even sickening. Here, the atrocities confronting...

It's been well over a week since Obama's victory, and while 99.9% of me continues to thrill, peevishness has crept into the mix. Actually, to be completely honest, the peeve-ratio has expanded exponentially over the past few months, like one of those "Just Add Water!" gimmick toys that bloat to...

It seems like the end of an era: Chicago's own art-collector and bon vivant Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman died last week at age 94.

Newman was a vanishing breed on several fronts: a woman who met and partied with the Abstract Expressionists in New York City when they were...

Late August is slow-as-mud in the art world while many galleries are closed and saving their juice for the big September kick-off. Sure, you can gawk for a few more weeks at the Jeff Koons exhibition at the MCA - rumored to be the most expensive ever mounted there, and...