S Nicole Lane

The nation’s oldest and longest-running college film society is located right under our noses on Chicago’s south side at the University of Chicago. In 1932, a group of film buffs living in International House—a nine-story Gothic building—began screening films in the dorm.
In 1940, they would move into Cobb Hall, which had a more traditional theater, where they gained their name “Doc” based on the films they were showing—”documentaries.” As time moved on, the group expanded their screenings to...

Reclaim your time by taking a break from your smartphone and truly connect with yourself and others.
When Amber*, 24, went on a phone break for only a few days, her friend panicked.
“I wanted time for myself, didn’t really feel like talking to anyone, and just didn’t feel like being on my phone,” Amber explained. “It was stressing me out a little bit, having to talk, reply, etc. I wanted to read and write, not be on my phone all day.”
But her friend didn’t appreciate the silence. “He left me ...

Hungarian writer and activist Karl Maria Kertbeny coined the term “homosexual” in 1869. While queer folks have existed forever—as well as queer art—this new language created an avalanche of same-sex fine art across all mediums and all over the globe.
The exhibition “The First Homosexuals: Global Depictions of New Identity, 1869-1930” takes viewers through an international historical maze of drawings, paintings, prints, photographs and films of the “first homosexual” artists. With more than a ...

In Her Hands starts 19 months before the fall of Kabul in 2021, when the Taliban—whose territory surrounded the capital of Afghanistan—captured the city where 4.6 million people live.
Tamana Ayazi and Marcel Mettelsiefen’s film centers on Zarifa Ghafari, the female mayor of Maidan Shahr, and her efforts to bring light to women’s rights and keep girls in school. The documentary, produced by Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, is a bold portrait of the youngest mayor in Afghanistan. We see her cry in ...

“Monochrome Multitudes” at the Smart Museum reimagines the ways and methods in which color and monochrome can be translated to the public. Red can be seen as rage, blue can be gendered and all color can be heard. The exhibition groups 120 works various sections and alcoves around similar themes. One grouping is self-reflective, another about monochrome sound, another looks at urban spaces, and one focuses on the body. While the themes are the same, the works range in material, color, context ...

Each piece in “Enter the Mirror” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago reflects on a trauma, an injustice, an unfortunate demise or a loss of life. The artworks in the show range from the 1970s to the mid-2010s, and include installation, video, sculpture, film, photography and painting. The truth of the works in the exhibition is difficult to face—it’s an entire room full of mourning.
Many works in the exhibition are drawn from the MCA’s collection and focus on the reality of our society ...

From pyramids to barefooting, water ski clubs have been a Wisconsin family tradition for sixty years.
In late August, I drove from Chicago to Twin Lakes, Wisconsin for the appropriately named Cornfest, where the $5 entrance fee earns you all-you-can-eat corn as well as legendary water performances. Propped up in folding chairs, a good friend and I sat amongst a group of around a hundred folks on the last day of the event. The three-day festival had already kicked off two days before—and as we...

The shores of Lake Michigan have a long, violent past. It was on the South Side of Chicago in 1919 that Eugene Williams would drift into the white swimming area of a segregated beach. Angry white swimmers began hurling rocks at Williams, drowning him. In response to Williams’ death, the worst race riot in Illinois history would occur for a week-long period, during which 23 Black people were killed.
Chicago’s deal in 1851 pronounced the lakefront as “forever open, clear, and free,” however thi...

The niche, grassroots sport has a global presence, but it was born in the Rust Belt
In 2015, I was sitting in the bleachers somewhere in North Carolina as I watched a driver, low to the ground, rip around a dirt track with a checkered flag. The crowd roared and wiped the sweat from our brows. I remember my thick straight bangs sticking to my forehead thanks to the relentless Carolina humidity. It was the dirt, it was the mud, it was the grit: it was the niche, rowdy sport of lawn mower racing...

While living alone in the woods of northern California at the start of 2020, Lilli Carré started learning chess. Like many folks deep into the pandemic, she took up a new hobby. While trying to draw inspiration for her work, she incorporated her new vehicle for communication when all touch and connection were lost.
Carré’s fourth solo show at Western Exhibitions, “Arrangement in the Steps of a Horse,” opened March 12. The show’s title comes from a classic move in chess where the knight touche...

Your guide to the best lesbian sex toys — from vibrators to dildos and non-anatomical pleasure aids — plus tips from a sex and relationship coach to help you find the right sex toy for you
Sex toys are no longer something that you hide in the back of your underwear drawer. In fact, statistics published in the Journal of Sex and Marital Theory show that 52.5% of women in the United States now use some kind of vibrator — and for good reason.
Sex toys can enhance intimacy between you and a partn...

The long-running porn festival HUMP! Fest (organized by Chicago Reader sex columnist Dan Savage) made its way to the Music Box last weekend after being canceled last year.
Crammed into the theater, kinksters, queers, and film buffs once again had a rip-roaring raunchy time while fisting, needle play, and clown sex was unveiled onscreen through genres of comedy, horror, and animation.
What makes HUMP—which kicked off its 17th year—so thrilling is, of course, watching porn on the big screen, bu...

Recently, I was propped up on a beach somewhere in the South. It was my friend's bachelorette party weekend, and I had taken a few days off work and was bathing in the sun before heading back to Chicago, where the cold would whip my face.
I was reading a book, content with the empty shore surrounding me. "Not a soul in sight," I texted my friends in our group chat. Behind me was a small wooded area and in front of me was the ocean. I was there for a little more than an hour, eyes sluggish and...

There’s a young person smiling, posing—hand on their hip—in front of a lit-up sign that reads: “EMPOWER WOMEN.” It intermittently flashes to include ED, making it “EMPOWERED.” The photo is snapped, the couple walks on. I’ve just entered Andrea Bowers’s retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.
Since the 90s, Bowers has been making work that nods at activism, joint action, and change on the west coast. In the exhibition catalog, curators Michael Darling (former chief curator at ...

Skin and stone, organic and sterile, hard and soft: juxtapositions aren’t new in art. This push-and-pull tactic has been done, and done again, but it’s not always executed well. New York-based artist Hannah Levy manages to push and pull her viewers in the right direction for her new solo exhibition, “Hannah Levy: Surplus Tension,” now on view at the Arts Club of Chicago. Levy exaggerates form—into curves and lumps—as well as challenges our ideas of modern design. The large-scale sculptural wo...