Chicago dive bars inspire new Lincoln Park art exhibit
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"Holiday Club Forever" by Amanda Reeder. Photo: Carrie Shepherd/Axios
A new art exhibit in Lincoln Park features works inspired by the community gathering spot affectionately known as the dive bar.
What to expect: Paintings of popular haunts like Lakeview's L&L Tavern and The Hideout, to memorializations of places that have closed, like Uptown's Holiday Club and Exit in Goose Island, fill the gallery.
- More personalized works include "All the Girls Waiting for a Line in the Bathroom" by Anna McVey, a vertical mirror outlined with polaroids of the artist's friends, beer bottle caps, empty cigarette packs, phone chargers and other ephemera you might find, or request, in a bar bathroom line.
What they're saying: "Every dive bar has its own story. Everyone who goes to a dive bar has their own story, and these stories get compounded, and they create this part of what is essentially the Chicago lore," Katrina Miller, one of the show's curators and artists, tells Axios.
- Miller's work pays homage to her favorite dive, Small Bar, by creating a menu board of her favorite cocktails at the Avondale spot, including a Hamms and bourbon (shot) and a pickletini (martini with pickle juice).
If you go: "Cash Only: An Ode to Dive Bars" runs through Aug. 14 at Art City, located at 1400 N. Halsted St.