“Little one, I have dreams to sell,” begins one of a parcel of two-part choral songs by Alfred H. Hyatt and E. Markham Lee “especially suited for ladies’ schools, the higher classes in girls’ schools, and well-trained boys’ voices,” purveyed at six for a shilling. “There is tender and genuine feeling in these pieces, and they are calculated to raise the musical taste of all who sing them,” reads the advertisement in the Musical Herald on July 1, 1904. In “The Dream Seller,” a figure entices the listener with the promise of things that sparkle in the night, weaving together notions of self-improvement, consumerism, and a life of ease in the sky. Its refrain, “Silver moon or golden star, which will you buy of me?,” forms the title of contemporary Hong Kong artist Samson Young’s first American solo museum exhibition, at the Smart Museum in Chicago, which considers the danger, wonder, and optimism of the utopian drive as characterized by the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair and experienced in the present day.
Labor Day is the American holiday commemorating the Pullman strike of 1894, which ended with deadly intervention by federal troops and competed with the first Chicago World’s Fair to make our city an international focal point for discovery and democracy. Generally marked by a day off from work and a barrage of exhortations to buy clothes, cars, and electronics at cut-rate prices, this Labor Day, students in Young’s home Hong Kong began a strike following 13 weeks of prodemocracy demonstrations.
Samson Young: World Fair Music Wed 9/18, 5:30 PM Symphony Center 220 S. Michigan 312-294-3000 (free but requires tickets, available by phone only)
“Samson Young: Silver Moon or Golden Star, Which Will You Buy Of Me?” 9/18-12/29 Smart Museum of Art 5550 S. Greenwood
