Over this past weekend, I made the hundred and some mile trek from Champaign to Chicago for two separate road trip-worthy affairs—the Star Slinger/Shlomo/Shigeto show at Lincoln Hall and the Chicago segment of the International Expositions of Sculpture Objects and Functional Art, more commonly known as SOFA.
Star Slinger @ Lincoln Hall
I’ll admit early on that this review will be somewhat biased, as I’ve been an avid Star Slinger superfan since late 2010 when I first heard the title track off Star Slinger’s first band-camp released album Volume 1, entitled “Mornin’.” Try listening to this song in its entirety without at least breaking into an involuntarily head bob; I’m convinced its impossible, assuming the absence of paralysis or some other dance-encumbering medical condition.
Anyways, back to the basics: Since his 2010 debut, Star Slinger has delivered solid remixes of Gold Panda, The Morning Benders, Washed Out, and Foster the People, to name a few. The Manchester-based beatsmith frequently hails J Dilla as one of his most notable influences, though his wide-range talent draws on multiple genres, including hip hop, modern soul, and R&B.
Though Shigeto and Shlomo both pulled through with solid performances last Friday night, Star Slinger stole the show, in my opinion, playing a flawless blend of old and new Star Slinger favorites. If you haven’t had the chance to check out Star Slinger, float back into a summertime state of mind here.
SOMA @ Navy Pier
Honestly, I hadn’t heard of SOMA until I checked Metromix for cheap-ish events to fill my time in Chicago over the weekend, but it ended up being completely worth the $15 single-day entrance fee and the long walk in the cold and very windy Chicago air. Tack on the $9 cup of white wine and a few similarly overpriced hors d’oeuvres I opted out of buying, and I’d still say it would have been worth the journey and deep-dish-pizza-in-visually-unstimulating-venue opportunity cost.
The event is a three-day long sculpture extravaganza, complete with exhibitions by sixty artists from all over the world, lectures, special exhibits, book signings, and demonstrations. Though “functional art” constitutes half of the exposition’s title, most of the pieces were far from functional in a utilitarian sense, aside from a few ultra-chic benches.
It was the exquisite beauty and mystique of the pieces that got me. Ambling through a series of spaces perfectly adorned with incomprehensibly complex morphs of glass, ceramic, wood, and fiber left me feeling carelessly lost in a remarkably enticing labyrinth of distinct worlds. As I walked, I felt myself compelled to continue past half walls to the next exhibit to discover its own unique feeling of otherness.
The downside? There were a few instances in which a jewelry-adorned mother in a fur coat broke my awed trance with a loud whisper regarding where the $50,000 glass vase should go (“We can’t put it in the foyer with little Emerson and his game-playing!”) or something of the like, reminding me again that even the cheapest object for sale would cost a year’s worth of my Illini Media income, plus some.
Even so, the $15 entrance fee was insignificant enough for me to justify a day of indulging in expensive eye candy for artistic inspiration. The exposition is a staple of the city’s art scene and resurfaces each year. Artists and gawkers alike, acquaint yourself with this longstanding Chicago tradition here.
