This October, Pentimenti Productions is pleased to collaborate with the Ed Paschke Art Center on FREAK SHOW!, a program celebrating the influence of the carnival and freak show aesthetic on the work of the artists affiliated with the Hairy Who & the Chicago Imagists, with a spotlight on Ed Paschke, whose paintings often feature lurid, carnivalesque figures adorned in costumes and masks. A similar emphasis on the outré and grotesque is also notable in the work of fellow artists Jim Nutt and Robert Lostutter, among others.

The event will feature a screening of Tod Browning’s iconoclastic 1932 Pre-code masterpiece, Freaks, which by all accounts left a major impression on Paschke. The film, which casted real sideshow performers, elicited outrage and controversy upon its release, though it later received a cult following and was chosen for preservation in the US National Film Registry.

Freaks will be proceeded by Tom Palazzolo’s short film, The Tattooed Lady of Riverview, a hallucinatory portrait of Jean Furella, an inked folk hero of Chicago’s fabled Riverview Amusement Park. Palazzolo, who was a friend and contemporary of the Imagists, will be joined in a post-screening conversation by Jason Nargis, a Paschke scholar. Please note: some imagery might not be appropriate for children. Free admission.