“Unfinished Business: Arts Education”

Unfinished Business

I’m continually amazed at Jane Addams’s legacy, specifically the people she invited to stay or teach at her Hull-House residence. Now a preserved house-museum, Hull-House hosts “Unfinished Business: Arts Education,” an exhibit that chronicles art teachers involved with Addams’s Hull-House, including Viola Spolin—renowned theater educator and mom of Second City originator Paul Sills. In the exhibition, Chicago artists and teachers with little relation to Hull-House are also explored, to a much lesser effect. A few interactives—including a printing station and a handmade loom—didn’t make me feel like creating on the spot, but they do attempt to continue Hull-House’s legacy as a cutting-edge arts-class purveyor by doling out how-tos from some of this city’s hippest artists.