Wendy Wei, author at Chicago Reader

On the wall in the background, a grid of 12 boxes of sharp wooden nails protrude from the wall. Near it are two feminine hands extending from the wall, with long, threatening pink fingernails. In the foreground is a beige sculpture on a plinth of a deity with long fingernails.

Public and private politics in Vietnamese art

by Wendy Wei November 30, 2023December 1, 2023

Subtly evoked or explicitly referenced, reclaiming individual narrative is a major subject for the Vietnamese artists whose work is on view in dual exhibitions at the John David Mooney Foundation: “A Village Before Us” and the Albert I. Goodman Collection of Vietnamese Art. The Goodman collection is one of the most complete collections of Vietnamese […]

A family crosses a wet city street at night. The street is light red from a stoplight and blue and green from the neon lights of businesses.

Arts & Culture

An art project visualizes the migrant crisis

by Wendy Wei October 18, 2023October 20, 2023

Oscar B. Castillo and Wil Sands’s ongoing project “BordersCruzadas: A Collaborative Story,” on view at the new Community Engagement Hub on Columbia College Chicago’s 600 S. Michigan campus, forces viewers to confront ingrained assumptions about American exceptionalism. Part photography, part archival material, “BordersCruzadas” features Castillo and Sands’s documentarian work completed over the past year as […]