Almost Summer in the City

​Just finished up a really intense legal project that was supposed to be 8 weeks but went into 11 weekends (i.e. working 7 days a week  - last weekend’s Holiday was on standby included). Got the word late last Friday. 

How did yours spend this (would have been) the 12th weekend?! The first day, Saturday, slept in and stayed in and truly relaxed for the first time in months; did nothing except binge watch our latest extras series and research play time options for the foreseeable future.

Caught some sights and sounds today, including the closing weekend of Matisse’s “Jazz” “Rhythms in Color” @ The Art Institute of Chicago, which was fabulous. #ArtHealsTheSoul #Jazz! Got lots of new great photographs in our almost summer in the city photo shoot of Michigan Avenue.

Stopped by Stan’s Donuts and had one of their  glutenless blueberry frosting donuts. (Theirs are actually good!) And caught a freebie advance movie screening of “Power Ballad” … it was okay but not like the WOW! of “DWP2,” so won’t write about it too much here.

LOOKING FORWARD …

WE hit the press preview for the O Center this week; use up our “Hamilton” anniversary lottery won tix in The Big Apple; and enjoy family time there too at a celebration of a member’s another time around the sun. 

Hit me up if you want to do EATS… or a movie or a show or a day trip somewhere R&R… rest of June is lookin’ GOOD! #EnjoyLife

(SP/Photos by/Copyright 2026 Rieny G. Cualoping - May) via cell cam

ENERI News Blogger

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​“Martin Wong: Chinatown USA” Major Exhibition Sheds New Light on the Art of Martin Wong On View at Wrightwood 659, April 17, 2026 – July 18, 2026

​“Martin Wong: Chinatown USA”

Major Exhibition Sheds New Light on the Art of Martin Wong

On View at Wrightwood 659, April 17, 2026 – July 18, 2026

By Rieny G. Cualoping

Wrightwood 659 hosts exhibitions on socially engaged art and architecture, on issues facing LGBTQ+ communities, and on Asian art and architecture. Located in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood in a building transformed by Pritzker Prize winner Tadao Ando.

Yesterday (April 16, 2026), I was treated to a Preview of the fantastical new Wrightwood 659 exhibition, “Martin Wong: Chinatown USA,” which opens to the public April 17, 2026. Located at beautiful 659 West Wrightwood Avenue, in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood, the exhibition focuses on “an underexplored through-line in the practice of visionary Chinese American artist Martin Wong (1946-1999): his fascination with Asia through Chinatowns as personal, mythical cityscapes.Wong explored these spaces—filled with Asian art and architecture as adopted in the United States amid the explosion of street culture in San Francisco and New York in the late 20th century—as amalgams of memory, identity, and queer and pop-culture narratives.” 

The first U.S. museum exhibition devoted to Wong since 2017, “Martin Wong: Chinatown USA” is curated by Yasufumi Nakamori, PhD, with Ashley Janke, Assistant Curator, Wrightwood 659. Nakamori is an experienced museum leader, curator and noted scholar of modern and contemporary Asian art from cross-disciplinary and transnational perspectives.

Presented by the Halsted A&A Foundation, the exhibition takes it title from the artist’s 1993 exhibition at the downtown Manhattan gallery P·P·O·W, which still represents the artist’s estate today. Only six years later, Wong died of an AIDS-related illness at the age of 53. Since then, his reputation has continued to grow as a queer painter and poet who traversed identities and sampled a dizzying array of cultural references. Critical attention, however, has largely focused on his paintings of the Lower East Side, and the artists, poets, and immigrants in this neighborhood. Far less recognized are the Chinatown- and Asia-inspired paintings, drawings, and sculptures he created throughout his career. 

Chinatown USA features more than 100 paintings, drawings, ceramic works, and photo collages, complemented by videos and artifacts, among many other subjects of interest.

“Martin Wong: Chinatown USA” is on view atWrightwood 659, April 17, 2026 – July 18, 2026.

For more information about this and other exhibitions at Wrightwood 659, please visit 

https://wrightwood659.org

Wrightwood 659 is open Fridays, 12 noon-7 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m .- 5 p.m. Tickets are $20, available online and by advance purchase only. https://tickets.wrightwood659.org/events

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OH Art Foundation Presents “Altars,” A Solo Exhibition by Carina Vargas-Nuñez October 17th, 2025 – November 16th, 2025

OH Art Foundation 

Presents “Altars,”

A Solo Exhibition

Featuring Works by Carina Vargas-Nuñez

October 17th, 2025 – November 16th, 2025

Got a wonderful chance to do a gallery visit 1:1 with the talented Carina Vargas-Nuñez. Her work is intense and colorful, grounded in family stories, sad and happy.

ENERI News Blogger 

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“ “Altars” is a commemoration and celebration of those who have passed, the exhibition itself existing as its moniker. But Carina Vargas-Nuñez aims not to entrap memories; rather, they pay homage to them—honoring generational stories and traditional practices while allowing new narratives to emerge from their explorations. 

Just as trails of thread and swaths of paint lead the viewer’s eye from one motif to the next, pathways embody the nature of diaspora; neverending, they entwine culture, history, and family together. 

The artist embroiders devotional portraits in the same manner their foremothers did, honoring the lives of those who passed down such knowledge, culminating in a profound tribute aptly titled “Altars.”

Vargas-Nuñez’s work is imbued with deep veneration and respect for those who came before them—and, despite it all, reveals the persistence of life, which endlessly and reverently carves itself from loss. 

(Source: OH Foundation Website)

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About the Artist 

Carina Vargas-Nuñez is a multidisciplinary artist who employs paint and textiles to delve into the tapestry of identity, disability, and family history. 

She has used artistic expression from a young age to process their experience with disability, and envision worlds outside of the constraints imposed by their complex health challenges. This world building has continued into their practice today, where the artist uses bright colors and defined lines to illustrate narratives aimed at better understanding their sense of self.

 

Through elements of symbolism and magic realism, the images she constructs are crafted from stories of their family’s migration from Cuba, their journey with queerness, and their history with cultural mythology and spirituality. 

Carina Vargas-Nuñez is currently based in Chicago, Illinois.

Source: https://www.carinavargasnunez.com

@cari_na_vn

OH Art Foundation
“Altars” Solo Exhibition 
Gallery Visit With 
Carina Vargas-Nuñez (Pictured Center)
at The Zhou B Art Center, Chicago, Illinois 
November 2025
(Photo 2025 by Rieny G. Cualoping) via cell cam

OH Art Foundation

“Altars” Solo Exhibition 
Gallery Visit With 
Carina Vargas-Nuñez (Pictured Below, Center)
at The Zhou B Art Center, Chicago, Illinois 
November 2025
(Photos 2025 by Rieny G. Cualoping) via cell cam

(Photos 2025 by Rieny G. Cualoping) via cell cam

OH Art Foundation Presents
“Altars,” A Solo Exhibition 
Gallery Visit With Artist Carina Vargas-Nuñez (Pictured Left), with Irene (ENERI/Rieny) Cualoping, Managing Partner, ENERI Communications at The Zhou B Art Center, Chicago, Illinois 
November 2025 (SP/ Photo by 2025 Rieny G. Cualoping) via cell cam