Stony Island Arts Bank 6760 S Stony Island Ave
Once the home of Ebony and Jet magazines, the historic Johnson Publishing Building on South Michigan Avenue is currently being transformed into rental apartments. Meanwhile, the building'south iconic interior fixtures are beingness shipped out across the urban center to keep the Black publishing house's legacy alive.
Created by Chicago-based publisher John H. Johnson in the mid-twentieth century, Ebony and Jet were two of the nearly influential publications to gloat the Black experience in the U.S., and they played a key role in shaping Black culture around the globe for decades. The magazines were headquartered in an International Way South Loop high-rise; designed by Blackness architect John Warren Moutoussamy, it contained 11 floors of elaborately furnished office spaces.
Columbia Higher Chicago, which planned to use the building equally its library before aborting the projection due to financial troubles, sold the Johnson Publishing Building to 3L Real Estate for $10 million in Nov 2017. Around the same time, City Council designated the building a urban center landmark.
Since landmark status protects but a building'southward exterior—and building permits issued in May and last Nov show that 3L is embarking on a multimillion dollar rehab and complete gutting of the building—Landmarks Illinois and the Rebuild Foundation take stepped up to ensure certain interior fixtures find permanent homes in museums or other learning institutions.
Just in the nick of fourth dimension, Landmarks Illinois, which advocates for historic preservation across the country, salvaged Ebony's test kitchen, where editor Charlotte L. Lyons invented recipes for the magazine's monthly feature, "A Date with a Dish." The DuSable Museum of African American History in Washington Park was ready to acquire the kitchen, merely could not beget for the deconstruction or find a way to have the deconstruction piece of work donated, according to Lee Bey, who served as the DuSable's Vice President of Planning, Education, and Museum Experience at the time. "Nosotros bought the kitchen for one dollar under the status that we would move everything out in ii weeks," Bonnie McDonald, president and CEO of Landmarks Illinois, told the Weekly.
Landmarks Illinois documented the kitchen in its original state before embarking on an "exciting and arduous" disassembly procedure, McDonald said. The unit of measurement is currently stored in a climate-controlled space paid for by the nonprofit while an informational panel helps the organization decide its adjacent home. "We are essentially the bridge to future preservation," McDonald said. The advisory panel will concur its first meeting at the beginning of August to start discussing potential repositories from which they volition solicit proposals. "When nosotros have a location, we'll transfer its ownership to another organization," McDonald said.
McDonald hailed the kitchen every bit an icon of Blackness excellence, and said her arrangement has a vision for reinstalling the kitchen in a museum or school "where its integrity and legacy tin be appreciated, either here in Chicago or elsewhere."
The Johnson headquarters opened in 1972 and its colorful, modernist interiors remained generally unchanged throughout the decades, as Johnson himself ensured that all the rug, furnishings and wall coverings were replaced over time with the aforementioned exact materials.
While the building'south interiors accept now been gutted, many of the furnishings that once made information technology unique are on brandish at the Stony Island Arts Bank in an exhibition curated by Theaster Gates. "A Johnson Publishing Story," which opened June 28 and closes September 30, features some of the 15,000 books, periodicals, ephemera, paintings, and sculptural works previously donated by JPC to Gates's Rebuild Foundation, too as "original effects and interior pattern elements custom-designed for JPC'southward downtown Chicago offices past Arthur Elrod," according to Rebuild'south website.
Outside of Chicago, the Johnson legacy is as well making an impact. At an exhibit currently on brandish at the Kunstmuseum Basel in Switzerland, Gates has curated a Black Madonna archive out of JPC'south photography collection. The archive showcases thirteen,000 photos of Blackness women published in Ebony and Jet and explores the "political, aesthetical and metaphorical power" of representations of the Virgin Mary with dark skin.
The Stony Island Arts Banking concern show, part of the Terra Foundation for American Art's yearlong Art Design Chicago project, takes a look at the ways the Johnson Publishing Company'southward unique aesthetic helped to further Black culture throughout the nation and the world in the mid-20th century. There's a wooden credenza from John H. Johnson's office on display, alongside couches reupholstered with alligator leather trim for the exhibition. The second floor of the Arts Banking company has been transformed into the "The Johnson," a lounge where the museum plans to host a variety of public programs from interviews to small concerts.
To design and manage the exhibition, Gates tapped artist Devin Mays, who has previously worked in Gates's studio. According to Mays, a major goal of the exhibition is for viewers to reexamine the spaces they occupy. "It was not but about the luxurious textures, colors and patterns in the headquarters but also [Johnson] wanting to show his team how much he cared about their work and its importance to the African-American community and the earth…. What does it mean to work in a infinite that feels thoughtful?"
"[For Linda Rice Johnson, John's daughter and the current CEO of Johnson Publishing] to entrust Theaster to be a caretaker and shepherd of her parents' things means a lot," Mays said, adding that the exhibition has encouraged visitors to donate some of their own Johnson-era relics. "It's prissy seeing people of colour finding value in this experience and finding a reason to preserve the things they thought had not much value exterior of their room or a family reunion."
The very existence of the Johnson Publishing headquarters is meaning for Mays as an creative person. "I tin simply imagine the naysayers in 1971 saying yous can't have 11 floors of a edifice on Michigan Avenue endemic and designed by a person of color, but [Johnson] did it…. The fact that information technology existed means I can give myself permission to believe in the possibility of what art can do, and build on the legacy that JPC has created."
The Johnson Publishing Company Building remains the only high-rise office building in Chicago's downtown designed by an African American. Moutoussamy, the building'south architect and a native South Sider, was the first Blackness person to go a partner in a major Chicago architectural firm. A student of Mies van der Rohe at the Illinois Constitute of Technology in Bronzeville, Moutoussamy designed several large-calibration buildings in Chicago, including Regents Park in Hyde Park and Truman College in Uptown.
The building's architecture is a cadre slice of JPC'southward legacy, according to McDonald. " Information technology was so important to have a building on Michigan Avenue for and by the Black customs," she said. "We're excited to take a function in celebrating the legacy of Johnson Publishing and see where it volition go along to live."
Both McDonald and Mays expressed mixed feelings about the transformation of the part spaces into apartments.
"If I expect at it as a historian, I would say it's sad to run into the Johnson Publishing Company legacy non in that building," McDonald said. "Only beyond that I am very pleased that the building is seen as having value."
"The matter that does brand me a fleck hurt is that the edifice, 820 Southward Michigan, is—was—the outset and concluding building of its kind on Michigan Artery in that particular business district," said Mays. "Knowing that the land was purchased and the building was built from the ground up by designers of colour, artists of colour, architects and owners of color, specifically African Americans…information technology does sadden me to think information technology [simply] lasted for approximately [twoscore] years."
Mays also likened the renovation to the closing of Jet's impress edition in 2014, a decision that led his own father to purchase subscriptions to the magazine for each of his family members. "This is my version of my dad'south sense of urgency. How can I be a steward of these memories fifty-fifty if the building isn't operating every bit information technology one time did? How tin can I help preserve the spirit of what was one there?"
Bey, now a freelance architectural photographer, said he is grateful that the building will enjoy a new use along with its landmark status. "Given the ascent prices of real estate forth that stretch of Michigan Avenue, and that you can build a new tower five times the height [of the] Johnson Publishing Building on that site, this whole thing could've had an ugly finish."
Because of the building'south landmark condition, the iconic Ebony/Jet sign volition remain on the building'southward roof. A mix of 150 studio, one- and ii-bedroom units will exist available for rent between $one,200 and $2,700 per calendar month starting next year.
" A Johnson Publishing Story. " Stony Island Arts Bank, 6760 S. Stony Island Ave. Open through September 30.
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Bridget Gamble is a contributor to the Weekly and communications specialist. She final wrote for the Weekly in May about the South Side Home Movie Project .
Source: https://southsideweekly.com/saving-a-black-aesthetic-johnson-publishing-company-stony-island-arts-bank-theaster-gates/
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