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Articles by Coco Picard
Paying the Recipes Forward
Nimba 3252 S. Morgan 708-517-3547 lanimba.com Take a bite out of Chicago's delicious food scene. Guava is a bridge between past and future for immigrant cafe and bakery owners For Colombian, Puerto Rican, Mexican, Venezuelan, and Cuban cooks, the fruit allows the memory of home to live on. Rohingya roots take hold in West Ridge Through festivals, gardens, and groceries, this southeast Asian community in exile weaves itself into Chicago’s food fabric.
E. Saffronia Downing on her new show, “PRESSED FLOWER”
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Beizar Aradini cooks Kurdish for Co-Prosperity
Bridgeport’s nonprofit cultural center, Co-Prosperity, is hosting a series of artist-led meals called Community Kitchen Dinners: Recipes for Survivance. Each dinner features food and storytelling inspired by a country compromised by U.S. foreign policy. The Kurdish people are the world’s largest stateless nation, with more than 40 million people living in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and around the world.
Lee ShinJa’s Handwoven Portals
Comics — 1 min read Comics Lee ShinJa Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
The legacy of America's traqueros
Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with cocurator Ismael Cuevas about the exhibition “Rieles y Raíces.” Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability. When working as Amtrak’s government affairs manager, Ismael Cuevas regularly took the passenger train along midwestern passenger routes to attend meetings and visit railroad museums.
“All That Life Can Afford” Explores Class Dynamics Through the World of Elite Test Prep
Take a break from the news We publish your favorite authors—even the ones you haven't read yet. Get new fiction, essays, and poetry delivered to your inbox. YOUR INBOX IS LIT Enjoy strange, diverting work from The Commuter on Mondays, absorbing fiction from Recommended Reading on Wednesdays, and a roundup of our best work of the week on Fridays. Personalize your subscription preferences here.
“The Book of Disappearance” Explores a Fictional World Where Palestinians Vanish
Take a break from the news We publish your favorite authors—even the ones you haven't read yet. Get new fiction, essays, and poetry delivered to your inbox. YOUR INBOX IS LIT Enjoy strange, diverting work from The Commuter on Mondays, absorbing fiction from Recommended Reading on Wednesdays, and a roundup of our best work of the week on Fridays. Personalize your subscription preferences here.
Failing up - Chicago Reader
Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with author Alex Higley about his latest novel, True Failure. Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability. Alex Higley’s latest book, True Failure (Coffee House Press) follows the deceptions of characters failing upward in their bid for the American dream. Ben Silas loses his accounting job but doesn’t tell his spouse, Tara.
Welcome to Zhegagoynak
Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with many of the artists and organized involved in the exhibition “Woven Being: Art for Zhegagoynak/Chicagoland,” on view at the Block Museum of Art. Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability. There are many histories and cultures that constituted the midwest prior to and concurrent with a settler’s industrial conception of wide shoulders.
Walking with Baudelaire
Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with artist Zachary Cahill about his latest book, Unicorn Death Moon: Paris Guidebook. Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability. Interdisciplinary artist Zachary Cahill’s fourth book Unicorn Death Moon: Paris Guidebook (Red Ogre Press) continues the artist’s long-standing inquiry into social contracts that gird imagination.
In "Scaffolding," Extramarital Sexual Pleasure is the Antidote to Patriarchal Structures
Electric Literature Urgently Needs Your Help For the 15,000 people who visit our site every day, reading Electric Literature costs nothing. And yet Electric Lit is not free. We need to raise $25,000 by December 31, 2024 to keep Electric Literature going into next year. If the continued existence of Electric Literature means something to you, please make a contribution today.
vanessa german on her Logan Center exhibition
Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with artist vanessa german about her new solo exhibition, “At the end of this reality there is a bridge—the bridge is inside of you but not inside of your body. Take this bridge to get to the next _______, all of your friends are there; death is not real and we are all dj’s.,” on view at the Logan Center Gallery. Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability.
Moshe Zvi Marvit discusses his debut, "Nothing Vast" — A Comic by Coco Picard - Chicago Review of Books
Moshe Zvi Marvit’s work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Nation, the New Republic, Dissent Magazine, In These Times, the American Prospect, the Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere. Marvit lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Nothing Vast is his debut novel. FICTION Nothing Vast by Moshe Zvi Marvit Acre Books Published October 15th, 2024 Tags Coco Picard comic Fiction Interview moshe zvi marvit nothing vast
vanessa german on her Logan Center exhibition
Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with artist vanessa german about her new solo exhibition, “At the end of this reality there is a bridge—the bridge is inside of you but not inside of your body. Take this bridge to get to the next _______, all of your friends are there; death is not real and we are all dj’s.,” on view at the Logan Center Gallery. Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability.
vanessa german on her Logan Center exhibition
Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with artist vanessa german about her new solo exhibition, “At the end of this reality there is a bridge—the bridge is inside of you but not inside of your body. Take this bridge to get to the next _______, all of your friends are there; death is not real and we are all dj’s.,” on view at the Logan Center Gallery. Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability.
"Elevator in Saigon" Disguises Itself As a Detective Novel To Tell the Story of a Rapidly Changing Country
Take a break from the news We publish your favorite authors—even the ones you haven't read yet. Get new fiction, essays, and poetry delivered to your inbox. YOUR INBOX IS LIT Enjoy strange, diverting work from The Commuter on Mondays, absorbing fiction from Recommended Reading on Wednesdays, and a roundup of our best work of the week on Fridays. Personalize your subscription preferences here.
Yoko Ono’s Quiet Destructions
As our Freaknik celebrations of the 1980s and ’90s showed, if there’s one thing this city knows how to do well, it’s how to throw a party.
‘America needs to hear more Palestinian voices’
“Life for artists in Gaza has never been easy,” says Chicago-based Palestinian designer and visual artist Linda Abdullah. Illustrating this point is Abdullah’s latest curatorial endeavor, “Landscapes From Under the Rubble,” which opens Friday, October 4, at Co-Prosperity.
Hương Ngô on the hidden labor behind technology
Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with artist Hương Ngô about her new solo exhibition, “This Space Is for Lose Time,” on view at Tiger Strikes Asteroid-Chicago. Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability. In her latest exhibition, artist Hương Ngô continues to expose memory’s residual effect on the present.
Daniel Borzutzky on his latest book of poetry
Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with writer Daniel Borzutzky about his new poetry book The Murmuring Grief of the Americas, out now from Coffee House Press. Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability. Daniel Borzutzky’s seventh book of poetry, The Murmuring Grief of the Americas continues his decades-long investigation of the ways in which invisible power affects the human body and the lyric voice.
Escaping the Malevolent Structures that Trap Us
Take a break from the news We publish your favorite authors—even the ones you haven't read yet. Get new fiction, essays, and poetry delivered to your inbox. YOUR INBOX IS LIT Enjoy strange, diverting work from The Commuter on Mondays, absorbing fiction from Recommended Reading on Wednesdays, and a roundup of our best work of the week on Fridays. Personalize your subscription preferences here.
Alberto Aguilar on the act of discovery
Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with Alberto Aguilar about the exhibition “Grid Luck,” on view at the Cleve Carney Museum of Art. Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability. Known for creating art from the fleeting intersection of mundane materials, Alberto Aguilar makes the “grid” into a muse in his solo exhibition, “Grid Luck,” at the College of DuPage’s Cleve Carney Museum of Art.
Artist Edra Soto creates ‘La Casa de Todos’
Editor’s note: Coco Picard interviewed Edra Soto about the exhibition. Text from the comic has been edited for clarity and is transcribed here to assist readability. In 2012, Edra Soto began Graft, an ongoing series inspired by the rejas of Puerto Rico’s homes, windows, porches, and fences, which allow the circulation of air while delineating public and private space.
Language is a Power Broker in the Hong Kong Thriller “Tongueless”
Take a break from the news We publish your favorite authors—even the ones you haven't read yet. Get new fiction, essays, and poetry delivered to your inbox. YOUR INBOX IS LIT Enjoy strange, diverting work from The Commuter on Mondays, absorbing fiction from Recommended Reading on Wednesdays, and a roundup of our best work of the week on Fridays. Personalize your subscription preferences here.
Street corner activations with SpaceShift
Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with Asad Ali Jafri, Melissa Munira Jafri, and Tulika Ladsariya of the nine-person artist collective SpaceShift about its latest projects. Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability. The artist collective SpaceShift’s first project began when Asad Ali Jafri and Melissa Munira Jafri passed empty storefronts in the Devon neighborhood during the pandemic.
For the labor of art made transparent
Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with Tony Lewis, Devin T. Mays, and Ellen Rothenberg about their group exhibition “WORKS BY.” Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability. Tony Lewis, Bethany Collins, Devin T. Mays, and Ellen Rothenberg consider labor, effort, and value in the group show “WORKS BY” at the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society from May 1 to July 14, 2024.
For This Mexican Writer, Magical Realism Is a Craft Tool for Dissecting the Drug Wars - Electric Literature
Take a break from the news We publish your favorite authors—even the ones you haven't read yet. Get new fiction, essays, and poetry delivered to your inbox. YOUR INBOX IS LIT Enjoy strange, diverting work from The Commuter on Mondays, absorbing fiction from Recommended Reading on Wednesdays, and a roundup of our best work of the week on Fridays. Personalize your subscription preferences here.
Selva Aparicio on 'In Memory Of'
Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with Selva Aparicio about the exhibition “In Memory Of,” on view at the DePaul Art Museum. Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability. Selva Aparicio’s solo show, “In Memory Of” at the DePaul Art Museum from March 14-August 4, 2024, alters the museum’s architecture with labor-intensive signs of domesticity, inflecting DPAM’s institutional presence with the private signs of a household and the violence it bears.
A Communal Space of Writing
Take a break from the news We publish your favorite authors—even the ones you haven't read yet. Get new fiction, essays, and poetry delivered to your inbox. YOUR INBOX IS LIT Enjoy strange, diverting work from The Commuter on Mondays, absorbing fiction from Recommended Reading on Wednesdays, and a roundup of our best work of the week on Fridays. Personalize your subscription preferences here.
Mark Rothko’s Emotional Self-Portraits
How Do Artists See Themselves? Self-portraits by Van Gogh, Francis Bacon, and more explore not just how these artists saw the world but also what “selfie” culture says about us.
Dr. Emmanuel Ortega on redefining ex-votos
Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with Dr. Emmanuel Ortega about the exhibition “Contemporary Ex-Votos: Devotion Beyond Medium,” on view at Gallery 400 and the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability.
Being with Lilith
Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with Candace Hunter about her exhibition “The Alien‐Nations and Sovereign States of Octavia E Butler,” on view at the Hyde Park Art Center. Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability.
Rhonda Wheatley on 'There are universes . . . '
Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with the artist about her exhibition “There are universes . . . ”, on view at Columbia College’s Glass Curtain Gallery. Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability. Multidisciplinary artist, energy worker, and educator Rhonda Wheatley’s current exhibition, “There are Universes . . .
Nevada Archives
Viewing the Colorado River: Between Art and Actuality The decline of the Colorado River through drought and other factors has prompted artists to call attention to this event. Does art have the power, though, to mitigate the crisis? By Hikmet Sidney Loe
When a Box is More Than Just A Box
Take a break from the news We publish your favorite authors—even the ones you haven't read yet. Get new fiction, essays, and poetry delivered to your inbox. YOUR INBOX IS LIT Enjoy strange, diverting work from The Commuter on Mondays, absorbing fiction from Recommended Reading on Wednesdays, and a roundup of our best work of the week on Fridays. Personalize your subscription preferences here.
A multisensory sculpture of life and death
Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with artists about their project Untidy Objects, on view outdoors at adjacent to the Logan Center for the Arts. Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability. Just south of Hyde Park’s Logan Center for the Arts, an acre of land hosts Untidy Objects, a dynamic multispecies community sculpture with plantings, enriched soil, a pond, and two bioswales that filter polluted groundwater.
Ben Aleck Exhibition Honors the Great Basin and Celebrates Native Resistance
Ben Aleck’s Nevada Museum of Art exhibition looks at thirty years of work by the artist and Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe member who has witnessed key Native American political moments.
J. Kent on feelings, fragrances, florals
Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with artist J. Kent about their exhibition “mille tendresse-mille fleurs,” on view at Roman Susan. Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability. The UnGala is back! Click here for the ticket link for this year's celebration at Epiphany Center for the Arts on Oct. 18. J. Kent’s (she/they) solo exhibition, “mille tendresse-mille fleurs” (Roman Susan, October 6-22, 2023) uses secondhand clothes to interrogate the social performance of gender.
The Life and Times of Patrociño Barela
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Anne K. Yoder on the artist-centered approach of Meekling Press
Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with Chicago writer and publisher Anne K. Yoder about corunning Meekling Press and the importance of independent publishing. Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability. Anne K. Yoder worked as a part-time unionized pharmacist for years. The experience inspired The Enhancers (Meekling Press, 2022)—a hyperreal novel about teenagers growing up in a techno pharmaceutical world and centered her interest in independent publishing.
For artist Ruby Que, spoons are a metaphor in life and in their practice
Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with Chicago artist Ruby Que about their exhibition “Holding” at the outdoor project space Bird Show. Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability. Furthering Chicago’s long-standing tradition of artist-run apartment, outdoor, and itinerant exhibition venues: welcome to Bird Show, a seasonal gallery of juried contemporary art shows on writer and cultural worker Erin Toale’s porch.
We are nature - Chicago Reader
Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with Polish American artist Olga Ziemska about her exhibition “Of the Earth,” on view at the Morton Arboretum, and the nature of environmental artworks. In her latest exhibition, artist Olga Ziemska installed five large-scale, site-specific sculptures around 1,700 acres of the Morton Arboretum.
'One beautiful action won't magically change the complex problem'
Editor’s note: Coco Picard spoke with Chicago artist Amanda Williams about her art project “Redefining Redlining” and how art can help inspire action. Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability. In October 2022, artist Amanda Williams organized a massive community tulip planting event, in which volunteers planted 100,000 red tulips in vacant spaces where 21 homes once stood in Washington Park.
Stormy Daniels and the Sidekicks in The Case of the Missing Ball
The news you should know in the city you love. Outfucked The abrupt closure of Outfox, parent company of Foxtrot and Dom’s Kitchen, put thousands of workers out of a job with hours’ notice. Swappin’ Boots proves country has always been queer The Queer Social Club’s popular two-step night is a safe space for hooting, hollering, and meeting friends from every corner of Chicago’s queer community.
Queer Coming-of-Age Graphic Novel Under the Shadow of Church
RAVE, Jessica Campbell’s new coming-of-age graphic novel, opens in a church during a sermon. “I was enslaved to masturbation!” a pastor cries before shifting focus to his very pregnant teenage daughter, Amber. She becomes an example of what not to do, a sign of how insidious temptation can be, for, her father suggests, Satan even managed to creep into a pastor’s home and seduce his most innocent child.
How ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ Explains the Mushroom’s Appeal Original
The humble mushroom has a lot to teach us, but what we’re learning right now is how easily even a plant can be appropriated for the purposes of capitalism. My Instagram feed is currently riddled with mushroom advertisements.
’Art is the fuel for all things’
Editor’s note: for this issue, Coco Picard talked to Chicago artist and professor Nick Cave about his art practice and work, as well as his exhibition “Forothermore.” Edited text from the comic is transcribed here to ease readability. The artist, activist, and educator Nick Cave’s first retrospective, “Forothermore,” is on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago through October 2.
Listening to Ghosts: 7 Metaphysical Experiments for Writing Support
Writers are often inspired by some ghost—a lingering feeling or charge, whether attributed to one’s own inner psychological state or an honest-to-god spirit. I think of William Butler Yeats, for instance, who relied heavily on the automatic writing of his spouse, Georgie Hyde-Lees, or Gisèle Prassinos, discovered by and published alongside the surrealists at age 14.
9 Novels That Don't Fear the Reaper
Both of my parents died when I was in my early twenties. I was still immersed in their friend group at the time, as well as close with my extended family and two siblings, so I saw a range of reactions firsthand. It was as if the deaths happened differently for each of us. I found our experiences difficult to reconcile. Grief lay on the far edge of language, mirroring the different facets of intimacy that my parents cultivated with others.
Beyond the Anthropocentric: When Plants Become Literary Characters
Coco Picard Recommends Elif Shafak, Sheila Heti, and More In Learning to Live (Aprendendo a Viver), Clarice Lispector calls for “patience to observe the flowers, imperceptibly and slowly opening.” As plant philosopher Michael Marder points out in his essay, “Lispector and the Seeds of Time,” Lispector calls for a type of patience that would make one still enough to observe a plant’s movement: Marder invites us to find ways within our lives (and literature) to get outside anthropocentric...
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