Chicago museum launches audio series with Mexican artist

CHICAGO – A Chicago museum will kick off a year-long series later this month by a Mexican audio artist called one of the “living masters of political theatre.”

The show featuring Guillermo Gómez-Peña starts Jan. 27 and will stream twice each month, according to a news release from University of Illinois at Chicago where the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum is located.

The content, both live and archived programs, will be available through a partnership between the museum, the Public Media Institute and the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art.

“UIC is honoured to be in dialogue with Guillermo Gómez-Peña, one of the living masters of political theatre and theatrical criticism,” Rebecca Rugg, dean of UIC’s College of Architecture, Design and the Arts, said in a news release. “We are thrilled that through this programming, his voice, excellence and repertoire will be available to our students and the Chicago community.”

The artist, who won a McArthur Foundation “genius grant” in 1991, has described the work as delving into “the multiple pandemics of racism, sexism, xenophobia and neo-colonialism,” particularly in the years President Donald Trump has been in office.