Art or Idiocy?
Chicago: City on the Verge of What?
Written and Illustrated By Erik Wenzel
When I was a kid in Minnesota and then here in the suburbs, my dad and I
would go on walks and he would point out signs of spring: little buds at
the ends of branches, flowers beginning to sprout, and the return of
birds gone south for the winter. It's spring now and so I am reminded.
The art scene here in Chicago is a lot like that. We are always looking
for signs of spring, hoping that Chicago is ready to blossom into an
important art center.
Thanks to its infamous gangsters, Chicago has the
distinction of changing Europe's picture of America from a bunch of
cowboys and indians to a game of cops 'n' robbers. But today it seems
that Chicago is no longer all that prominent. In the art and culture
scene, its heyday was, perhaps, when the innovative talents of the
Bauhaus, lead by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, selected Chicago as the site
for the new Bauhaus, the Illinois Institute of Technology, and the
headquarters for an architectural revolution.
Indeed, a lot of famous
artists have come through here. Our school has been host to the likes of
Leon Golub, Elizabeth Murray, Claes Oldenberg and Jeff Koons as
students, to name a few. Even Robert Storr, senior curator at the MoMA
and author of many books and essays, was a grad student here. Sadly,
Chicago has never really been a place for artists to stay-at least as
far as the art world is concerned. It is more often a place where
artists are from or have spent time.
Everyone's favorite scathing quip
to make about Chicago: It came in third place, behind New York and L.A.,
in a contest where only first and second place count.
There is a
national attitude that Chicago is a wannabe art center, following on the
coat-tails of those two cities. But Chicago seems more pragmatic than
that. Artists and galleries making a go of it here seem quite aware and
accepting of their"lower" status in the art world. Others claim that
people in Chicago are always searching for little scraps of significance
in an otherwise dull and lifeless scene. That's not really true either.
Artists in Chicago are refreshingly supportive and always on the lookout
for others making noteworthy achievements. There are a lot of important
things beginning to happen here-signs of spring, if you will.
First of
all, the number of dealers and galleries is growing, and they are a lot
more friendly and approachable here than in New York and L.A.,
especially for younger artists and students. I'm not saying you can walk
into Zolla/Lieberman with a painting under your arm and walk out with a
show. But the galleries will talk to you and give you advice and
support.
Probably the most notable thing to happen recently is the
growth of the West Loop Gate gallery district, located around Halsted
and Peoria streets near Greektown. In recent years, galleries like
Vedanta and Peter Miller were joined by Bodybuilder & Sportsman, and
today this part of town is well established.
Other upstarts, like
Apartment 1R in Pilsen, have recently emerged in the public eye with
regular shows and ads in The New Art Examiner. These younger, more
cutting edge artists and gallerists are fighting tooth and nail to
launch a new gallery district in this area.
Perhaps the most important
piece of local news to mention is that the MCA's Manilow senior curator,
Francesco Bonami, has been selected to curate the 2003 Venice Biennale.
That's a big deal, kids. We're not talking head curator of the U.S.
Pavilion, we're talking curator of the whole fucking thing. That's a
tremendous shot in the arm, as they say in the business world, for
Bonami of course, but also for the MCA and Chicago in general.
Further,
an extremely important show in Europe and its recent press coverage not
only revisit the Chicago Imagists of the past, but giving rise to new
trends in art theory. This groundbreaking show, Eye Infection, featuring
the works of R. Crumb, Mike Kelly, Peter Saul, Jim Nutt and Horace
Clifford Westerman has long since concluded, but it is only now that its
impact is being felt. First, due to the arrival and prominence of its
lavish catalog in the U.S., with an essay by the aforementioned Storr
and, more recently, from Artforum's cover feature on the show (March
2002). Eye Infection is an amazing collection of (primarily) drawings,
making an important case for comparing straight-out comic art like
Crumb's with the simple drawings of Kelly and Westerman, as well as
broader trends in art and popular culture. Eye Infection is an important
benchmark for the return of visual art that promotes content, narrative
and aesthetics alongside formal and conceptual concerns -an idea long
since banished by the powers that be in New York and L.A.
Plainly, the
Chicago art scene has always been about art and the people making it. It
is less concerned with fashion, trends and status than substance and
artistic and personal achievement. Chicago is a much greater place to be
yourself and to make the art you like, compared to those art centers
where everything is cut-throat, fast-paced and 15 minutes short.
Interestingly enough, today the art that goes against the establishment
engages in the pleasure of making, the pleasure of seeing and the
enjoyment of content. Given its embodiment of these ideals, Chicago is
ready to elevate its status and gain notoriety on an international stage.
|
