Signs of the Apocalypse / Rapture: Look Around You?
The economy might still be in the toilet, the Acropolis is in meta-ruins, and a 13-mile commute home last night on one of corrupt Chicago's most beloved infrastructures took well over 3 hours: what sort of reckoning, this publicist wants to know, is at hand?
I sure hope it's the sort espoused in Signs of the Apocalypse / Rapture, a visually stunning compilation of art and culture at the crossroads by the native Chicagoans at Front 40 Press. Recently selected by David Ulin of the Los Angeles Times as one of their "Favorite Books of 2008" (no small achievement in this time of media panic and reconfiguration), this timely connection includes work perfectly suited for your interpretation of the End of Days, be it filled with rapture (Julie Heffernan's Self Portrait as Not Dead Yet, dead bunnies and sparrows aside, is a personal favorite) or apocalyptic foreboding (as in Ed Ruscha's spot-on Untitled [The End diptych]). Tucked in the middle of this panorama of contemporary art are transcripts from Chicago Public Radio's Worldview segments on "The End of the World," a week-long exploration of how our community, culture, and even our universe, might meet its end. If public radio's not to your taste, then save your ears for the 2-disc audio collections (you guessed it: one for Rapture and one for Apocalypse) accompanying the volume, which include some amazing tracks running the gamut from ambient to noise rock by well-known bands like Sonic Youth and sunn0}}}, as well as more obscure gems from Lichens, Birdshow, and Sao Paulo Underground.
Says Ulin, "The secret draw here is the writing. . . . reminding us that all cultures have their visions of the end times, that apocalypse and humanity go hand-in-hand."
Says I, "Baby, it's cold outside. I like neither the looks nor the sound of that."