IML, Gay & Lesbian

Photo: RJV studios

International Mr. Leather Weekend Chicago's tribute to the leather lifestyle has grown into a full-blown global event attracting leathermen and fetish enthusiasts from around the world to both compete in the International Mr. Leather contest and also to partake in a weekend of meet-and-greets, workshops, parties and so much more (just hanging around the hotel can make for a wild afternoon). The price of a weekend package is stiff (pun intended), but tickets to the Leather Market and most of the parties can be purchased individually. Most events take place at Chicago Marriott, 540 N Michigan Ave. May 24–27, 11am. Weekend packages $175–$205.

Electric Daisy Carnival The biggest brand in EDM festivals plants its stake in Chicago (well, Joliet) for the first time. Does a metropolis with the Spring Awakening and Wavefront festivals truly need another massive electronic tent? Well, each has its own shade of untz. EDC leans hard on trance, the tried and true sounds of Europe, as opposed to the more dubstep and underground flavors of the other two, respectively. Case in point: The big guns here are millionaire fist-pumper Tiësto, French simple-pleasures man David Guetta and precocious luxury-goods-pimper Avicii. The rest of the bill is short on such major names, but there are gems, such as DJ Koze, a far more nuanced and weird technician whose latest, Amygdala, arrived as an immediate techno classic. Whether he's worth sleeping at a racetrack for, well, that's up to you. Chicagoland Speedway. May 24–26, 5pm. 3-day pass $175, 3-day pass with camping $295, 3-day VIP $299, 3-day VIP with camping $419.

ART & DESIGN
"Theaster Gates: 13th Ballad" As an extension of his 12 Ballads for Huguenot House, coproduced by the MCA and exhibited at Documenta 13, Gates takes over the MCA's front atrium, installing a wooden, neon-lit double cross containing objects from Huguenot House (the abandoned South Side building he has worked to restore), alongside repurposed pews from the University of Chicago’s Bond Chapel. They function as seating for three performances that are part of the project, and places for R&R&R (rest and relaxation and reflection) during non-performance times. Museum of Contemporary Art. 10am–5pm.

CLUBS
Mayhem at the Mid: Qbert + Shortkut + Zebo Scratching, breakdancing, crooked baseball hats. Old school hip-hop heads, B-boys and connoisseurs of Electric Boogaloo should flock to the Mid for another edition of Mayhem at the Mid, an evening flashy turntablism and crew dance battles. What, no graffiti exhibition? San Francisco veterans and scratch icons Qbert and Shortkut cut it up on the decks. Crew registration begins at 8:30pm. R.S.V.P. at bit.ly/YkEZjf. The Mid. 9pm. $10.

Theaster Gates, 12 Ballads for the Huguenot House, 2012. Installation view, Documenta 13, Kassel, Germany.

Photo courtesy of Kavi Gupta CHICAGO | BERLIN

 

FRIDAY

"Theaster Gates: 13th Ballad" As an extension of his 12 Ballads for Huguenot House, coproduced by the MCA and exhibited at Documenta 13, Gates takes over the MCA's front atrium, installing a wooden, neon-lit double cross containing objects from Huguenot House (the abandoned South Side building he has worked to restore), alongside repurposed pews from the University of Chicago’s Bond Chapel. They function as seating for three performances that are part of the project, and places for R&R&R (rest and relaxation and reflection) during non-performance times. Museum of Contemporary Art. 10am–5pm.

Mayhem at the Mid: Qbert + Shortkut + Zebo Scratching, breakdancing, crooked baseball hats. Old school hip-hop heads, B-boys and connoisseurs of Electric Boogaloo should flock to the Mid for another edition of Mayhem at the Mid, an evening flashy turntablism and crew dance battles. What, no graffiti exhibition? San Francisco veterans and scratch icons Qbert and Shortkut cut it up on the decks. Crew registration begins at 8:30pm. R.S.V.P. at bit.ly/YkEZjf. The Mid. 9pm. $10.

The Criterion Collection released a 4K digital restoration of Medium Cool on May 21.

Haskell Wexler had already won the first of two cinematography Oscars (1966's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and '76's Bound for Glory) when he decided to return to the place of his birth, Chicago, and direct his first fiction feature, Medium Cool (1969). Written by Wexler, then 46, the counterculture classic remains a vibrant hybrid: characters (many of them non-actors) are put in the midst of real events, most famously the chaos of the '68 Democratic National Convention riots in Grant Park. Wexler himself was tear-gassed during filming.

Against that backdrop of social and political unrest, a hard-bitten television news cameraman pursues an Uptown Appalachian woman and awakens to a number of insights about the media, namely that the electronic eye dehumanizes its subjects, keeping TV producers and viewers at a dispassionate arm's length from the impact of the events captured. Speaking directly into Wexler's lens, an African-American activist schools the movie's cameraman, John Cassellis (Robert Forster)—and, in turn, the audience: "When you come in here and you say you've come to do something of human interest, it makes one wonder whether you're going to do something of interest to other humans or whether you consider the person human in whom you're interested."

Yesterday, the Criterion Collection released a restored 4K digital transfer of Medium Cool, along with extras including a commentary track from Wexler, excerpts from the documentary “Look Out, Haskell, It’s Real!” by historian Paul Cronin and "Medium Cool Revisited," a short film essay by Wexler comparing what he saw in '68 to the demonstrations during last year's NATO summit in Chicago.

We phoned the 91-year-old—whose cinematography résumé includes In the Heat of the Night and Days of Heaven—at his Los Angeles office to talk about the making of Medium Cool, his beloved hometown and how Studs Terkel became "Our Man in Chicago."

Read the interview in Film.