“Every year we have the same intention. We want to widen the networks and nodes of various groups so we can grow a multiplicity of milieus in the art world,” explains Ed “Edmar” Marszewski. He’s talking about the Version Festival, an annual eleven-day arts festival that he founded and co-curates, which celebrates social and activist art in Bridgeport and on Chicago’s South Side. The theme of this year’s festival, “Infrastructure and Territories,” is appropriate to the history of the festival and the community that has grown up around it. Read the rest of this entry »

Light and noise spill out from the Zhou B Art Center onto a dark street lined with vacant brick factories, hinting at the warmth and activity inside. Cross the threshold and the eerily quiet street life is replaced with a different kind of urbanism. Hulking marble sculptures lay about like ancient ruins. Young cosmopolitans talk art and politics, wine-filled cups in hand. One floor up, a brood of children breaks away from their parents and runs circles around an installation art piece, and in another corner a spectator comments, “I just don’t get it—are those condoms?” “Finger condoms, actually,” artist Connie Noyes chimes in. “Chefs use them.”

It’s Third Fridays in Bridgeport, and on this night every month, the underground arts scene comes out to play. Read the rest of this entry »

If you want to pay lots of money in exchange for being asked increasingly obscure and intellectual questions that will leave you hunched over the bar counter, drunk, broke, and brainless, Hyde Park is the place you’re looking for. The University of Chicago Pub, in the basement of Ida Noyes (1212 E. 59th), hosts an intensely competitive trivia night every Tuesday at 8pm that requires participants to draw upon their knowledge of Malaysian geography, Romantic novelists, and theoretical physics, as well as the trivia standards of one-hit wonders and Bears scores. The rewards are high—a cash prize for first place, in addition to random free appetizers and Pub merchandise—but they come at a price: each participant must pay $3 to enter, and the bar is open only to University affiliates and their guests after buying a $10 membership or paying a $3 cover. Read the rest of this entry »

The Reverend Stitch Jones leans over the counter at Augustine’s Authentic Spiritual Goods and addresses the woman sitting before him.

“So, do you meditate?” He is surrounded by semi-filled bottles of different colored oils and powders labeled with names like Love, Dragon’s Blood, and Peace.

“Is there any particular type of Buddhism you’re interested in?” His subject mentions a few names, and they are greeted with hearty recognition by Reverend Stitch. Candles ($19.95 each), a couple of books, a package of incense ($5.95), and some bath salts lie between the two individuals. Reverend Stitch is trying to explain to his customer how she can empower herself to feel better. Read the rest of this entry »

In the United States, the prevailing notion of Iran is one of religious fundamentalism and political oppression. “Iran” conjures up images of veiled women, state-sponsored terrorism, and nuclear weapons; rarely is it connected with contemporary art. “Dialogue,” a new exhibition of collaborative U.S.-Iranian art, opens January 29 at the Co-Prosperity Sphere in Bridgeport. The show presents a very different reflection on Iranian culture and its relationship with the United States. Read the rest of this entry »

Lines are being blurred in the Chicago art scene. As demonstrated by last Saturday’s Artist Run Spaces Tour, organized by the Hyde Park Art Center, the divisions between artist and curator, studio and gallery, office and home really aren’t so defined after all. The Artist Run Spaces Tour represents HPAC’s contribution to the year-long Studio Chicago project, a collaborative project that seeks to celebrate methods and places of artistic production. Read the rest of this entry »

The art of icon writing is one that traverses many cultures. From Buddhism, to Orthodox Christianity, to Islam, the practice is as widespread as religion itself. Katherine de Shazer teaches a weekend class on this historical art form in the Byzantine Russian tradition at the St. Mary of Perpetual Help Church in Bridgeport. “The idea of icons in the Orthodox faith is that this is actually a prayer,” de Shazer explains. “You are painting a prayer, it’s just rendered in color instead of words.” The sixteen-hour “spiritual retreat” is spread out over the second weekend of every month, and is comprised of instruction in artistic technique as well as in the relevant theology and symbolism. At the end of the class, students can expect to have “a liturgical icon for use in churches or in private homes.” Read the rest of this entry »

Bursting with art studios and galleries a few years ago, Pilsen’s stretch of South Halsted Street now features flyers advertising the potential of empty storefronts. Crowds continue to pack the street on the district’s monthly Second Friday event, but they find fewer open galleries and openings than in past months. A good portion of the studios in the Podmajersky artists loft complex were vacant as of mid-November, and even fewer opened to the public on Second Friday. Although some galleries continue to put out new monthly exhibitions, the vacancies signal a shift in Pilsen’s once-thriving art district.

A few miles south, Bridgeport’s former industrial district has become the quiet home of an underground art scene. Read the rest of this entry »