“Kartemquin to me is like a giant tree in the middle of the documentary world,” says Amir George. “I want to just keep watering that tree and help it grow and expand.”

It’s a gray Chicago day when George—a local filmmaker and programmer who was recently appointed the new artistic director of Kartemquin Films—makes this verdurous proclamation at the offices of the storied nonprofit documentary film organization. Inside, however, is aflush with color, from the array of movie posters decorating the walls of the stairwell to the enviable assemblage of memorabilia that adorns the workplace. 

In the washroom, for example, there’s this framed quote from Britney Spears: “Sundance is weird. The movies are weird. You actually have to think about them when you watch them.” 

Less humorously but much more impressively, the six Emmy Awards that Kartemquin has won over the years are collected atop a shelf (to say nothing of the four Academy Award nominations their films have garnered), while Camera #1 peers out through French doors from an adjoining office. 

This was the camera used by the early Kartemquin filmmakers to shoot their very first films, like their founding endeavor Home for Life (1967), following two retirees in their first months at an old-age home; and Inquiring Nuns (1968), in which Kartemquin filmmakers Gordon Quinn and Jerry Temaner document two nuns who they conscript to go around Chicago asking people if they’re happy, à la Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch’s Chronicle of a Summer. 

Upon hearing George’s remark, Quinn points to a robust topiary dominating the interview tableau. 

“My parents sent us some plants for this building [in 1971],” he tells us, “and this is a remnant of that plant. It’s the same tree that’s been watered all these years.” 

Quinn founded Kartemquin in 1966 along with fellow University of Chicago graduates Stan Karter and Jerry Temaner (parts of each of their surnames make up the organization’s name), and until just recently, he served as its longtime artistic director. He has been the most consistently integral figure in its over 50-year history.

“We had this idea about how documentary film, particularly vérité documentary film, could play a role in democracy,” he says, referring to the mode of nonfiction filmmaking distinct for its unaffected and often low-budget qualities. “I think we had some naive ideas about holding a mirror up to society, and if you did that, people would change.”

Though it’s difficult to identify when a piece of art accomplishes that, Kartemquin has inarguably succeeded in the herculean task of reflecting society back on itself with such films as: Trick Bag (1974), in which community members from factory workers to those involved in gangs discuss various forms of oppression; Quinn and Jerry Blumenthal’s The Last Pullman Car (1983), about the closing of the Pullman-Standard Passenger Car Works in Chicago (the last factory in America to manufacture subway and railroad passenger cars) and the long fight by the United Steel Workers Local 1834 to try to prevent it; Steve James, Frederick Marx, and Peter Gilbert’s Hoop Dreams (1994), which centers on two Chicago-based high school students with aspirations of playing pro basketball (Roger Ebert called it “[t]he great American documentary”); and, most recently, films such as Bing Liu’s wildly successful Minding the Gap (2018) and Jiayan “Jenny” Shi’s true-crime adjacent breakout Finding Yingying (2020).

“I was about seven years old when my brother brought home Hoop Dreams,” George, a native Chicagoan, recounts of his earliest experience with the organization. “I was like, what, what is this? You know, you never saw just kids growing up in Chicago and a story about them as a film. That was something that really was inspiring. It’s a memory I haven’t forgotten.” 

A local entity in his own right, George is an accomplished filmmaker and co-curator of Black Radical Imagination, a now-dormant annual touring short film series. He has recently programmed for the Chicago International Film Festival and True/False, a documentary film festival based in Columbia, Missouri. As artistic director he will work closely with executive director Betsy Leonard, who joined Kartemquin in 2021 after 29 years at Heartland Alliance.

“The opportunity to work for Kartemquin—I just saw that as building on the work I’ve been doing throughout the years,” George says. “To be in a more advanced position to serve the overall community in Chicago as well as abroad.”

About the decision to hire George, Quinn explains, “We really wanted someone we felt was going to help transform us into what the next iteration of Kartemquin would be.” He expands on how crucial the ideas of change and progress are to the organization’s success: “We’re over 50 years old. Why did we survive? Because we didn’t keep doing the same thing. We changed enormously over the years, both in our vision and our mission, and how we made our money.”

One thing on everyone’s mind is how Kartemquin can help filmmakers sustain themselves through their practice. For example, “The other thing that there’s a lot of interest in, that we’re looking at now, is what’s the next step for people who come out of Diverse Voices?” says Quinn (who will stay on as a senior advisor, though going part-time at the beginning of the new year), referring to the Diverse Voices in Docs mentorship and development program. Founded in 2013 and organized in collaboration with the Community Film Workshop of Chicago, the program specifically serves documentary filmmakers of color. The evolution of that program (in which George previously participated as a mentor) is but one of the many things that he hopes to continue expanding upon in his new role.

Kartemquin Films1901 W. Wellingtonkartemquin.com

“It’s definitely an ongoing thought process as I learn more about Kartemquin and about the films that we’re currently working on,” says George. “Growth is what I’m interested in. Growth within the community and beyond to the places that Kartemquin hasn’t been yet. Inviting new audiences to experience Kartemquin, building those audiences, and creating spaces for people to have access to films, to have access to learning more about filmmaking, and to becoming better filmmakers.”

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The Museum of Contemporary Art is synonymous with joy and expression. But some people don’t realize that, along with being one of Chicago’s top cultural destinations for its expansive galleries, cutting-edge exhibits, and carefully curated events, it’s an excellent place to find the perfect gift for the creative spirits and art lovers in your life.

This holiday season, visit the MCA Store in person or online to check out their wide assortment of eye-popping fashions, gorgeous housewares, brain-twisting games, and stocking stuffers. Whatever your budget, we’ve got you covered, and there’s always a discount for MCA Members.

So make your list, check it twice, and take a look at our fantastic gift ideas for the naughty, the nice, and everyone in between.

For the world explorer

Illustrated by Mart? Guix?, this 3D globe highlights the parts of the world where Mother Nature reigns, including scarcely populated deserts and jungles, and freshwater lakes, and glaciers. Use the colorful pins to mark where you’ve been or to plan your next escape.

Retail: $42.00

For the home entertainer

During his lifetime, Italian designer Alessandro Mendini was revered for his contributions to Italian, postmodern, radical design. These fanciful corkscrews are a “design self-portrait” of the master artist that will help you celebrate his legacy along with the holiday season.

Retail: $65.00

For the artsy technophile

The Lumio Teno speaker fits in the palm of your hands and “breaks” in half to reveal a warm light and powerful speaker. Having won multiple awards for its functional and beautiful design, it may just be the most aesthetically pleasing piece of technology you could ever own.

Retail: $300.00

For the punctual (or those who aspire to be punctual)

SPGBK (pronounced “spring break”) is a Black-owned company based in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and each of their designs pays homage to a local school or community area. Made with stainless steel and soft silicone, and available in four bold, vibrant colors, these watches demand attention.

Retail: $79.99

For the MCA superfan

Do you think about art all day, every day? If so, you’re a lot like us! Let the world know what’s on your mind with an MCA “Art Everyday” hat.

Retail: $39.00

Find these items and more at the MCA Store at 220 E. Chicago or online at mcachicagostore.org.

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David Skidmore couldn’t even begin to count the number of instruments he’s played. As a member of Grammy Award favorites Third Coast Percussion (most recently nominated for Perspectives, released earlier this year), Skidmore could plausibly play instruments from all six habitable continents for any given performance–plus the odd metal scrap, surgical tube, or squeaky toy.

“I like to say that a percussion instrument is anything you ask a percussionist to play and they say yes,” he jokes.

But on November 15, at the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, even Skidmore clocked a first. Before an invite-only audience of professors, students, and staff, he played an instrument for the first time in decades. The last person reported to have used it was its dedicatee, the iconoclastic composer La Monte Young.

The unique object–a freestanding aluminum ball inside a narrow, open-face aluminum box, wired with contact microphones–was created for Young in 1966 by Walter De Maria, a conceptual artist and minimalist who became a leading exponent of the land art movement. (His Lightning Field, erected in 1977in Catron County, New Mexico, remains one of its most prominent exemplars.) In the intervening years, De Maria’s nine copies of Instrument for La Monte Young have become f?ted works in his catalog, exclusively displayed as artworks. However, the copy currently on display as part of the Smart’s “Monochrome Multitudes” exhibition, on loan from a private collection, is believed to be the only one Young actually played.

“As these instruments are moving into museums or private collections, people are treating them as sculptures, which means nobody wants them to be touched, let alone played by a musician who is not an art handler,” says “Monochrome Multitudes”co-curator Christine Mehring, a professor at the University of Chicago’s art history and visual arts department. “I felt this was probably going to be one of the last opportunities to create a recording, for perpetuity, of what this instrument actually sounded like.” (Visitors to the exhibition can listen to Skidmore’s performance in its entirety.)

David Skidmore performing Walter De Maria’s Instrument for La Monte Young at the Smart Museum of Art. Credit: Claire Rich

The instrument was a clear fit with the exhibition’s focus on 20th- and 21st-century works engaging with monochrome literally, materially, and conceptually. And Mehring, who describes herself as a “huge Third Coast Percussion nerd-fan,” knew she wanted to have a member of the celebrated quartet involved in any recording.

An accomplished percussionist and composer himself, De Maria was deeply embedded in the same 1960s musical avant-garde that produced Third Coast’s core repertoire. He dedicated an early sculpture to John Cage and performed with Young on multiple occasions, often alongside fellow minimalist Terry Riley. Later, De Maria played drums in The Druds, Andy Warhol’s short-lived band, and The Primitives, Lou Reed and John Cale’s precursor to the Velvet Underground.

De Maria’s Instrument for La Monte Young is one of a series of works he created in the 1960s and 70s with moveable balls. He first began toying with the concept with Boxes for Meaningless Work (1961), which directs audiences to interact with an assemblage of balls and boxes while remaining “aware that what you are doing is meaningless.” But the Instrument shares most of its DNA with De Maria’s subsequent aluminum works: the triptych Channel Series: Triangle, Circle, Square (1972) and a controversial series he designed in evocative shapes: in a crucifix, in a Star of David, in a swastika.

“There’s a moment in 60s sculpture when industrial metals–copper, aluminum, stainless steel–become an important minimalist vocabulary, which is monochrome, as well,” Mehring says.

By all accounts, including the composer’s own, Young didn’t commission Instrument for La Monte Young, despite its name: De Maria simply dropped it off at Young’s loft one day. (Young, now 87, did not respond to pre-performance queries from the Smart nor the Reader.)The fact that Young had no input in its design at least partly explains why it didn’t interest him much.

“Although it looked very beautiful as a work of visual art, I found it very difficult to make it sound worthwhile,” Young said, recounting the experience after De Maria’s death in 2013. “It was nowhere near up to the level of the kind of sound I was interested in . . . Therefore, I never performed it in public.”

It’s practically a given that no recording exists of Young playing Instrument. Only in the past couple years has the composer authorized non-bootlegged, commercial releases of his music. However, Young experimented with it enough to develop a preferred performance technique: “I never allowed the ball to strike the ends of the instrument. This made a sound that was very static yet at times mesmerizing, like the wind.”

Skidmore heeded Young’s directive for his Smart Museum performance, nearly 60 years later. That said, it’s much harder than Young made it sound for the ball to avoid making contact with the sides of the Instrument. In fact, it’s just about impossible, says Skidmore and Mehring. Skidmore decided to embrace those moments of impact as part of the performance, albeit unintentional ones.

“There’s really only one way to play it, and only two sounds: the sound of [the ball] rolling back and forth, which is the desired sound, and the sound of it knocking against the sides, which is the less desired sound,” Skidmore says.

True to the theme of “Monochrome Multitudes,” Instrument for La Monte Young wasn’t designed for acoustic variation. It has no differences in density along its length that would create a variation in pitch as the ball rolls, for example, and a felt layer on its underside acts as a buffer between the Instrument and whatever surface it’s set on. (Skidmore performed it standing, propped on a table; photos show Young playing cross-legged on the floor of his loft.)

Therefore, the instrument sounds largely as you’d expect: like a heavy metal ball rolling along a dense, smooth surface, punctuated by muted clacks akin to the sound of a giant Newton’s cradle. When the ball rolls slowly, Young’s wind comparison is pretty spot on. When it picks up speed, the sound intensifies and hardens, like the sound of planing wood.

The logistical parameters of the Smart’s performance and recording precluded exploring those limited sonic materials on a monumental, Youngian scale. So, to vary his 20-minute improvisation, Skidmore turned to electronics–always part of his practice but which became a full-blown “obsession” during the pandemic shutdown. When Third Coast’s gig calendar was swept blank, Skidmore busied himself collecting analog synthesizers and learning the finer points of music production. With the help of an arts technology specialist at the University of Chicago, Skidmore was able to boost the signal from the Instrument‘s internal microphone system–left intact since its creation–with a pre-amp, then connect it to a Synthstrom Audible Deluge, an all-in-one synthesizer, sampler, and sequencer.

“If Christine had reached out to me three years ago, I might have said, ‘You know, I’ll try it, but the performance will be short,'” Skidmore says. “As soon as she reached out to me, though, I knew that there would be this incredibly harmonically rich sound produced at a very quiet dynamic level that I could bring to life through electronics.”

Donning rubber gloves, Skidmore began his performance at the Smart by showcasing the Instrument‘s naked, unprocessed sound, rolling the ball at varying speeds and lengths. He then began to loop the live audio in three layers, applying low-pass filters to each one by one. In other words, highlighting discrete frequencies within the recorded noises. Eventually, he stopped rocking the ball back and forth to shift to manipulate the sound further with reverb and delay. The output transitioned from retro boops and perky, woodblock-like pops to a lusher, teeming soundscape, some of the processed tones now sounding like the cries of frogs.

Skidmore ended the performance as he began: The electronics fell away, gradually at first, then all at once. All that was left was the subtle, unassuming sound of this most misunderstood of instruments.

“After walking through the exhibit, it finally clicked for me. You’ve only got one sound, but there’s a whole world that lives inside that one sound,” Skidmore says. “There are infinite possibilities as to how an artist will react when they have just one color in their palate.”

“Monochrome Multitudes”Through 1/8/23: Tue-Sun 10 AM-5 PM, Smart Museum of Art, 5550 S. Greenwood, 773-702-0200, smartmuseum.uchicago.edu. Free admission.

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Five weeks into the 2022-23 NBA season, the Utah Jazz still have the most wins in the Western Conference. But the topsy-turvy standings fun doesn’t end there, because now the red-hot Sacramento Kings are gaining ground with a seven-game winning streak.

In between the world-beating Jazz and Kings, the Phoenix Suns, Denver Nuggets and LA Clippers are starting to meet expectations, but none have managed to separate from the pack.

Then there are the teams that boast two of the best players in the NBA so far this season in the Luka Doncic-led Dallas Mavericks and Stephen Curry-led Golden State Warriors. Dallas and Golden State haven’t quite fully wasted the MVP-caliber performances of Doncic and Curry, but they definitely haven’t capitalized enough so far as both teams hover around .500.

The Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks still look like the two primary contenders in the Eastern Conference. Meanwhile, just when it looked like the Brooklyn Nets might finally have the look of a real challenger, they dropped a game to a short-handed Philadelphia 76ers team that was playing without Joel Embiid and James Harden. Still, with Kyrie Irving back on the court for Brooklyn and Ben Simmons starting to find his form, the Nets could have a chance to get back into the conversation.

See where the East’s elite, the West’s surprises and all 30 teams stand this week.

Note: Throughout the regular season, our panel (Kendra Andrews, Tim Bontemps, Jamal Collier, Nick Friedell, Andrew Lopez, Tim MacMahon, Dave McMenamin and Ohm Youngmisuk) is ranking all 30 teams from top to bottom, taking stock of which teams are playing the best basketball now and which teams are looking most like title contenders.

Previous rankings: Week 1 Week 3

While on tour in 2018, I played a show in a dusty Philadelphia warehouse with locals They Are Gutting a Body of Water, a ragtag four-piece of young shoegaze revivalists. They really connected with me: they looked awkward and out of place, and they played beat-up old gear, but they put so much heart and beauty into the layers of their sad but massive hooks that I immediately bought their first tape, Gestures Been, and still listen to it regularly today. TAGABOW continue to play loud, heavy shoegaze, but over the past few years they’ve also toyed with more experimental sounds and flourishes. On their brand-new Lucky Styles (Smoking Room), they smash their influences and interests together to create a weird, fun record that doesn’t sound like anything I’ve heard a shoegaze band do before. The album crashes lush Loveless worship into oscillating samplers, spaced-out synths, and crispy trip-hop. Its second track, “Kmart Amen Break,” starts out fuzzy and dreamy before breaking into an alien-sounding pitch-shifted vocal bridge, while “Behind the Waterfall” could be a rock band playing the score to a Zelda game. Best of all, even when They Are Gutting a Body of Water throw a curveball, it isn’t at the expense of the kind of stuff that hooked me back in the day: catchy, heavy nugs of forlorn rock for the weirdos.

They Are Gutting a Body of Water Modern Color headline; They Are Gutting a Body of Water, Soft Blue Shimmer, and Mofie open. Fri 11/25, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont, $17, 17+

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While on tour in 2018, I played a show in a dusty Philadelphia warehouse with locals They Are Gutting a Body of Water, a ragtag four-piece of young shoegaze revivalists. They really connected with me: they looked awkward and out of place, and they played beat-up old gear, but they put so much heart and beauty into the layers of their sad but massive hooks that I immediately bought their first tape, Gestures Been, and still listen to it regularly today. TAGABOW continue to play loud, heavy shoegaze, but over the past few years they’ve also toyed with more experimental sounds and flourishes. On their brand-new Lucky Styles (Smoking Room), they smash their influences and interests together to create a weird, fun record that doesn’t sound like anything I’ve heard a shoegaze band do before. The album crashes lush Loveless worship into oscillating samplers, spaced-out synths, and crispy trip-hop. Its second track, “Kmart Amen Break,” starts out fuzzy and dreamy before breaking into an alien-sounding pitch-shifted vocal bridge, while “Behind the Waterfall” could be a rock band playing the score to a Zelda game. Best of all, even when They Are Gutting a Body of Water throw a curveball, it isn’t at the expense of the kind of stuff that hooked me back in the day: catchy, heavy nugs of forlorn rock for the weirdos.

They Are Gutting a Body of Water Modern Color headline; They Are Gutting a Body of Water, Soft Blue Shimmer, and Mofie open. Fri 11/25, 8 PM, Beat Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont, $17, 17+

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