Boo! Have an Artful Halloween...
By GINNY VAN ALYEA
We are coming up on a busy weekend of art, but we can't forget that Halloween kicks things off this Thursday. Followed by Day of the Dead on Friday!
Whether you are still looking for artistic costume inspiration, or just want to see Bob Ross costumes three ways, we hope you'll enjoy our summary of artist-inspired looks on the internet, as well as our wrap up of festive exhibitions and art events taking place around Chicago this holiday!
Trick or treat!
Dress up as an artist – Or if you are an artist, pretend to be another one!
• Munch's The Scream
• Bob Ross
You can be Bob Ross, you and a significant other can be Bob Ross at work, or you can just be a canvas for some happy little trees. The possibilities, as always, are truly endless.
Last Halloween marked the 22nd annual Halloween parade in the city of Kawasaki in Japan. 2,000 fish-net clad art lovers dressed as famous paintings. (Via My Modern Met)
• POP! Goes the Costume
Get your own 15 minutes and channel Roy Lichtenstein, or if limiting costumes to your own children is more your speed, go for an Andy Warhol mini me.
Go in Search of Spooky Art
• Pagoda Red is offering a selection of unique and antique spooky finds, from ravens and folk art crows to a portrait of mysterious sisters and a pair of scissors...
• Video Game Art Gallery (VGA) is hosting a special (and ticketed) event where you are invited to rock a costume inspired by your favorite game character and enjoy an evening of art, games, music, hors d’oeuvres, and drinks while supporting exhibitions and programs in VGA Gallery's 2019-2020 season. Winners of the costume contest will be eligible for prizes. This year, VGA is proud to honor artist, professor and curator Jon Cates for his deep and significant contribution to video games and new media art.
• The Block Museum is screening I Walked with a Zombie (1943). The collaboration between RKO producer Val Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur is one of the most celebrated in the history of horror, and I Walked with a Zombie may be the pair’s masterpiece. This subtle and unnerving supernatural tale, inspired by Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, unfolds on a West Indies sugar plantation, where a voodoo curse seems to possess the soul of the plantation owner’s wife. The film’s mesmerizing low-key cinematography conjures an atmosphere of exotic dread and uncertainty, but the darkest shadow cast in this Gothic melodrama is the one cast by the island’s ugly history of slavery and colonialism.
• The MCA celebrates Halloween with a double-feature centered around evil women characters. Watch two historical art house horror films, Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977) and Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession (1981) hosted by Chicago horror drag queens Kat Sass and Siichele.
• This weekend the Snite Museum of Art in South Bend, IN hosts a lighter celebration of Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead). There will be ofrendas (small altars) honoring the lives of those who have passed before us constructed by local artists and organizations. Enjoy music and dancing by local performers. Participate in educational and entertaining children's activities.