Jane Fentress

Pleasant House Bakery was utterly charming. A chalk sign on the wall advertised pasties, royal pies, and “bangers and mash.” The entire kitchen, where two men were busy rolling dough and filling pies, was visible behind the counter. On a nearby table, a sprig of purple-blossomed chive rested in a small glass.

The British bakery, now in its third week of existence, specializes in sweets, homemade sodas, and royal pies. The name “royal pies” is a misnomer—these pies are peasant food in the best sense. Warm and simple, they’re meant to be comfort food, not haute cuisine. So my dining companion and I jumped right in, ordering a chicken balti pie, a steak and ale pie, homemade sodas, a chocolaty lace cookie, and a garden salad.

While we were waiting, the chefs were busy scooping a thick filling into prepared pie dough and pressing the crust on top. I asked the lady behind the counter if the owners are British; she said, “We are the owners!” and pointed to herself and the man filling pies. The two cooks, Art and Chelsea Jackson, are both American. But Pleasant House Bakery can lay claim to British roots—Art’s parents are from England.

The couple grows the restaurant’s veggies in a nearby urban garden. When the salad came out, Chelsea pointed out its many different leaves—spicy arugula, delicate lavender chive flowers, and pristine icicle radishes. The salad was exactly the sort of dish that someone would make from their own backyard plot: cut a few different leaves, pull up some radishes, toss it with oil and vinegar. It was a simple salad. That’s all it had to be.

We drank homemade ginger ale and tropical soda flavored with hibiscus tea. The ginger ale was fantastically fresh, with  the right amount of bite. The tropical soda’s sweetness, however, hid the fruit flavors. The accompanying lace cookie was wonderful: sweet, crisp, with just a thin smear of chocolate in the middle.
Next it was time to try the king and queen of the meal. First, the chicken balti pie, sprinkled with oniony Nigella seeds. My fork sank into the browned top and the smell of curried chicken and buttery crust wafted upward. It was tasty, but I had expected more heat. The accompanying coriander chutney helped: made with cilantro and jalapenos, it brought a welcome kick of fresh, herby flavor to the dish. If the color green had a taste, it would be that chutney.

After generously dipping the crust into the chutney, I sampled my friend’s steak and ale pie. The inside was like a hearty stew with chunks of beef and vegetables. But, like the tropical soda, it lacked a bit of flavor. Also, the crust was tough on both pies instead of light and flaky. My companion didn’t seem to mind the thickness of the crust and praised its “girth.”

Both pies were satisfying, if not spectacular. It would have been the prudent time to take a break, but the mushroom and kale pies had just come out of the oven. We had to order another pie, and also a boozy biscuit trifle for good measure.

Some kind of alchemy made the vegetarian pie, stuffed with mushrooms and kale in a creamy Parmesan sauce, just as filling as the meat pies. In the delectable trifle, delicate pink syrup from tart rhubarb bled into white layers of sweet whipped cream; next was a layer of thick, fresh vanilla custard. On the bottom, brandy-soaked scones added some devilish boozy depth to the otherwise pure and innocent dessert. That dark edge in the trifle might have been the boldest of the flavors in the restaurant’s offerings. Yet the bakery’s charm is in its simplicity: every dish felt comforting and wholesomely homemade.

964 W 31st St. Tuesday-Thursday, 11 am – 9 pm; Friday and Saturday, 11 am – 11 pm; Sunday, 12 – 8 pm. (773)523-7437. pleasanthousebakery.com

The recently revamped bar and liquor store is currently featuring five cocktails inspired by five mayoral candidates. A press release from the bar explains: “Each signature cocktail has been carefully concocted by Maria’s expert mixologists and political insiders to reflect the essence of the individual candidates; their manner, background, temperament and qualifications.” One drink, one vote.

Although the results of the election will remain secret until Election Day, CW has learned from a source that there is a tight race at the bar between the classic “Rahm and Coke”, and Miguel Del Valle’s “Sticker Shock” – a combination of red rum, simple syrup, cranberry, and lime juice named in recognition of the high vehicle license fees during Del Valle’s tenure as City Clerk of Chicago. Our endorsement goes to the third in the line-up, “The Ambassador”, mixed in honor of Carol Moseley Braun. Along with cream soda and a lemon wedge, this delicious candidate features Absolut vodka infused with black tea from Ambassador Organics, a branch of Braun’s company Good Food Organics. Gery Chico’s working class roots were the inspiration for the only non-mixed drink competing in the field; “Chico & Da Mayor” features a shot of Jim Beam and a can of Modelo. The fifth candidate is a friend to the bar: Cynthia “Plaster Caster” Albritton became iconic as a rock & roll groupie when she cast Jimi Hendrix’s penis in a plaster mold after his appearance at the Auditorium Theater. Albritton is running an apparently satirical campaign (her website emphasizes that she is “hard on crime”), but her cocktail, “The Screw Driver,” is a serious classic.

Since a Bridgeport native has been mayor for all but 13 of the last 78 years, the bar has machine politics in mind. Says the press release, “Using Chicago’s long history of loose voting ethics as a template… every drinker/voter at Maria’s is free to buy as many votes as they like or can possibly handle.” While maybe not the best model for choosing a mayor, Maria’s fluid approach to voting is a good way to whet your political appetite. Cheers.

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

Modeled after Second Fridays in Pilsen, Third Fridays is part of a larger trend to revive struggling arts communities. The economic downturn has hit art districts hard, and staying relevant has proven to be an even more demanding task than staying afloat. To bring in new viewers—and potential buyers—art district commissions and gallery owners have taken to organizing monthly gallery crawls. Free drinks and refreshments are offered as bait, but the real draw is the opportunity to mingle with art enthusiasts of all different stripes and wallet sizes.

Martin Bernstein, a jeweler and mixed-media artist who rents gallery and studio space in the Zhou B Center, says he values the face-time Third Fridays allows him with people interested in art. “[At most normal gallery events,] I can show people my work on white walls, but as an artist, you like to immerse yourself in the work. [On Third Fridays] I’m able to show people the process I’m going through, and they can see for themselves how the thoughts evolve and how the works themselves take shape.” Bernstein likens Third Fridays to a craft bazaar, where the very personal, “visceral experience” of art becomes a social encounter. “When people come to events like this…it is like an arts fair. It’s like channel surfing—you can go from one room to the next, one piece to the next. And my works unfold into one another, and [the energy of the night] feeds us. And…of course, if that could lead to sales down the road, that would be wonderful.”

It remains to be seen whether these events actually pay off for the artists, galleries, and communities that invest in them. The concrete results of buzz-generating events like Third Fridays are difficult to measure; hard numbers don’t exist, and success is judged by vibe alone. According to Robin Rios, an artist and director of the 4Art gallery in the Center, “Nine times out of ten, people coming for Third Fridays don’t buy art [that day]…With the economy, it’s tough.” However, she adds, “We’re artists. For us, it’s always this kind of economy. We’re used to it.”

Though the value of the gallery crawl may not be directly quantifiable, Third Fridays has a ripple effect that artists are confident will generate revenue down the line. According to Zulema Covarrubias, the office manager of the Center, the monthly event creates interest in the art, which eventually brings in customers. “There’s just a buzz around the city about us,” she says. “We have a lot of people who come in and buy art, for sure. That’s why we have a full house [of artists], and so many people want to rent studios here. They know we get a lot of traffic.” Noyes, the artist who created the finger condom piece, is a case in point. Working out of a studio on the third floor since January of this year, Noyes says she moved to the Center specifically because of Third Fridays. “The exposure this brings is great.” But she admits, “It’s hard to say if I’ve [gotten customers from the event], since I haven’t sold a piece since January.”

Ultimately, though, immediate financial gratification isn’t as important as the artists’ desire to get their name and work out into the open. Asked why she bothers with Third Fridays when it hasn’t brought in any new buyers, Noyes shrugs cheerfully, “Whenever I put my art out there, something comes back. It’s an energy thing.” Bernstein agrees. “It’s important to get feedback and a response [from your audience],” he says, “it’s a conversation…You make art to show it.”

Bridgeport’s Schaller’s Pump (3714 S. Halsted) strikes a balance, with a $1 entry fee but questions cooked up behind the bar. The problem is that it’s a once-a-month event, on the third Tuesday (of course) at 7pm. And Buffalo Wings and Rings (3434 S. Halsted) has computerized trivia, but—much like the beer—why go for that when you can have the real thing?

(Mehves Konuk)

“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.

“I’m going to tell you the truth. I’m trying to not feed into the negativity,” he says. The friend that brought her to Augustine’s, as it is affectionately referred to by its staff and customers, practices Hoodoo herself. An African-American system of folk magic with European and Native American influences, Hoodoo is just one of the many kinds of spiritual systems supported by the supplies available at Augustine’s. Reverend Stitch explains that many of the people who come to Augustine’s already follow practices such as Buddhism, Herbalism, Santería, and Mexican magick, but most come for help with a loving attitude.

Although one can find the Reverend Stitch behind the counter most days, Augustine’s is really the work of Reverend Carolyn (both reverends are non-denominational). Reverend Stitch describes her as “a down-to-earth lady with four children who is quite spiritually brilliant.” She also practices Hoodoo, and has owned Augustine’s for about seven years, although it was open before that under different management. Reverend Carolyn agrees with Reverend Stitch about the mission of the store. “It’s a place of empowerment, and that’s what we teach—we want to help people to get in touch with their inner power, to get in touch with their truth. We seem to attract people who are ready to grow, and that’s the community we draw from,” she explains. Reverend Carolyn accounts for the path of the store by saying that she stocks it according to her customers’ wants and needs. “When I want something, I tell my Oversoul God-mind what I need and it usually walks through the door.”

Felicitously, this method has been pretty successful so far. Augustine’s stocks a wide variety of goods, and their customer service is meticulous and focused. They even offer classes, with titles as intriguing as Basic Crystals and Candle Reading, and Northern European Shamanism. Assuredly, many would greet the staff and customers of Augustine’s with a cocked eyebrow and a doubtful expression. But whether one subscribes to the beliefs touted by the shop or not, the attempt offered by the staff to help their customers is genuine. Though Reverend Stitch admits that you could use the oils sold at Augustine’s as perfume or to scent your house, he says, “The joke is that we really are a serious store and deal with serious stuff. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun!”

“I make sound effects to make it all more mystical,” he clarifies while raking his customer’s palms—a process he hopes will help change her negative energy.

All jokes aside, Reverend Carolyn makes it clear that Augustine’s is not about hokey nonsense. “Augustine’s is different [from other spiritual goods stores] because we base our teachings on truth. We don’t tell people what to do—we want them to talk to their Oversoul God-mind. It’s about getting power from and control over your own mind.” Reverend Stitch adds to this statement with his own round-up of the store’s strong points: “We’re a great mix of hands-on folk magic and things that work. We’re really honest, our grasp of humanity is wiser [than many New Age stores], and we’re pretty down-to-earth.”
Upcoming Classes: Talking to the Spirit, Basic Mediumship; Introduction to Tarot part I, Major Arcana; Basic Crystals and Candle Reading part I; Healing with the Chakras; Northern European Shamanism.
Augustine’s Authentic Spritual Goods, 3327 S. Halsted St. Monday-Thursday 11-7pm; Friday-Saturday, 11am-6pm; Sunday, noon-4pm. authenticspiritualgoods.com

The two hundred paintings, drawings, photographs, and videos that comprise “Dialogue” are the culmination of a year of communication and collaboration between twenty artists from Iran and the United States. The exhibition was initiated and coordinated by Iranian artist Morehshin Allahyari, who came to the United States after completing a B.A. in Communications and Media Studies in Tehran. As an art student at Denver University she devoted herself to clarifying common misconceptions about her home country. After she gave a talk on Tehran’s underground art scene in 2008, students from the Denver artist cooperative Kinda Collective (now called Creative Pockets) approached her about “the possibility of working around the concept of underground art in Iran to confront the misconceptions between our cultures,” according to the exhibition’s website. Soon after, the IRUS (Iran-United States) Intercultural Collaborative Art Project was founded in order to create dialogue through collaboratively produced works of art.

“It is so weird that anytime the name of Iran comes up, many people in America think political not cultural,” Allahyari wrote on the IRUS project blog. “I started IRUS project because I was frustrated with the one-sided, dark image of Iran that American media continues to promote. I wanted to break down the cultural barriers and help to give a more balanced view to Iran.”

In the spring of 2008, Allahyari assembled a team of ten American artists, musicians, and performers, and contracted illustrator Negin Ethesabian, a friend from her studies in Tehran, to head the Iranian team. Thus began the year-long collaboration. Each artist started a work of art and then shipped it to a co-artist in the other country for completion. The exhibit debuted in Denver at the end of March 2009.

While the internet allowed for easy communication between the two teams to coordinate and plan the pieces, physically transporting them was difficult. Because no mail service exists between the U.S. and Iran, works had to be shipped via Istanbul. Allahyari relied on friends and relatives living in Iran to move works across borders, and artists in Iran had to deal with customs scrutiny and avoid attracting attention from Iranian authorities.

Although “Dialogue” seeks to unseat stereotypes, the works that comprise the collection skirt issues of religion and politics, focusing instead on cultural similarities. Andrew Blanton worked with M. Moin Samadi to create a sound sculpture blending Persian and American folk music and poetry, and Richard Burges worked with Vana Nabipour and Shabnam Khoshdel to create a pop-up book illustrating the games and social activities that are popular in each country. In addition to pair-works addressing a variety of cultural themes, the exhibit includes a wall with visual comparisons of Scheherazade and Mark Twain. Early in the project, the Iranian team suggested producing works in response to Scheherazade because the story is a “symbol of peaceful dialogue in Persian culture,” Allahyari said in an email. The American team came up with Mark Twain as the American voice of peace and dialogue.

The works in “Dialogue” also testify to differences in the meaning and practice of art in each country. “In the process of the collaboration, I think Iranian artists were more collectivist and the American artist were more individualist,” says Allahyari, adding that “most of the artworks of the Iranian artists are very symbolic, and that’s not necessarily the case in the West. Artists in Iran are much more limited to express themselves.” But if Iranian artists are more restricted in what they can convey, citizens in both countries are limited in what they can see, hear, feel, and understand about the world. “Dialogue” is a step towards loosening those limits.
Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219-21 S. Morgan St. January 29-February 4. Opening reception Friday, January 29, 7-10pm. Discussion panel Saturday, January 30, 5-7pm. irusart.org

The program for the day included five galleries in Pilsen and Bridgeport: the Chicago Art Department, Ben Russell, Pentagon Gallery, Co-Prosperity Sphere, and Second Bedroom Project Space. Along with two traditional gallery spaces, bereft of signs of private, domestic lives, the tour included exhibition spaces located in artists’ bathrooms and living rooms. Glimpsing potted plants, spice racks, and collectable figurines personalized the experience of viewing art and revealed the convergence of two seemingly opposing worlds: home and work.

Ben Russell, co-curator, owner, and exhibiting artist at the Ben Russell space, consciously highlighted this aspect of his exhibition space. In each room, the visitor experiences the confusing duality of home and work. A museum bench sits in the middle of the photography/drawing room, yet glass doors reveal a kitchen. The “sculpture garden” is filled with brown leaves and old furniture, decayed from rain, next to a series of metal statues. Ben Russell explicitly omits the word “gallery” from the space’s name, thus obscuring its purpose and his relationship to the space. Is he the artist, curator, or owner? In this case, all three.

Second Bedroom Project Space, located in a small apartment, provides two exhibit spaces: one, an empty room just off of the sparsely furnished living room; the other, a medicine cabinet, located in the apartment’s only bathroom. The stipulation that all works in the bathroom incorporate the Medicine Cabinet perfectly embodies the same confusion of the creative process, home-life, and exhibition that marked the Ben Russell space. On display in the second bedroom is a collection of “objects left behind,” remnants of past shows and openings. Standing there in a home full of fragments, it was a refreshing reminder that art does not exist inside a bubble, but is in constant communication with both the personal and the public.

Iconography students begin by following the steps of iconographers of the past. “We are basically following traditions, and as with any artist, when you start, you copy a master,” says de Shazer. Her students begin by copying and tracing traditional icons of the saints, and are prepared to devote a long time to this laborious, yet potentially rewarding process: according to de Shazer, completing “an icon of the Archangel Michael will take 36 to 40 hours.”

In continuing this ancient religious tradition, de Shazer utilizes techniques that are “centuries and centuries old.” She paints with egg tempera, which was the primary medium of painting before oil paints were popularized in the fifteenth century. De Shazer’s icons are created in the fashion of early iconographers: an egg yolk emulsion is colored with different natural pigments made from organic material and minerals. The resulting paint is applied in alternating layers, creating a unique effect. While enthusiasts of art and/or history may be interested in this process, participants should be aware that de Shazer’s instruction addresses a significant and living historical tradition in the Orthodox faith, and demands a fair degree of devotion and respect.

St. Mary of Perpetual Help Church, 1039 W. 32nd St. February 12-14, March 12-14, April 9-11, continuing on the 2nd weekend of every month. Friday, 6-9pm; Saturday, 8am-5pm; Sunday, 8am-12pm. $10/hour, all materials included except for gesso board. (773)927-6646. stmaryofperpetualhelp.com

Halsted Street in Pilsen (Mehves Konuk)

A few miles south, Bridgeport’s former industrial district has become the quiet home of an underground art scene. Over the past three years, the area has seen the opening and expansion of studios, artist-run project spaces, and exhibition megacenters. Shan Zuo and Da Huang Zhou, China-born artists now internationally recognized for their collaborative paintings and sculpture work, moved to Bridgeport in 1986 and transformed an abandoned 85,000-square-foot warehouse on 35th Street into an exhibition, event, and studio space in 2004. Named the Zhou B Art Center, the brothers’ space is currently filled to capacity, and according to center director Oskar Friedl, it may soon expand into another warehouse space the brothers recently purchased.

Ed Marszewski, director and founder of alternative art collective Lumpen, purchased an abandoned warehouse on Morgan Street in Bridgeport in 2006 when rent rose at the Flat Iron Building in Wicker Park. At the same time, many artist spaces along Milwaukee Avenue were relocating or closing. The former warehouse, dubbed the Co-Prosperity Sphere, functions as a community center and exhibition space. Another warehouse, East Bank Storage at Racine and 35th Street, has been partly transformed into an artist community housing over twenty studios.

These new spaces have brought a diverse range of artists and art practice to historically blue-collar Bridgeport. The range in size and cost of spaces in the Zhou B Art Center allow new MFA recipients’ start-up studios to operate beside well-established galleries. And the Co-Prosperity Sphere’s program of countercultural video installations and non-traditional work provides an alternative to the more mainstream, commercial spaces in the Zhou B Art Center.

Although Bridgeport has been scattered with studio and gallery space since the mid-’90s, events put on by its up-and-coming formal art communities are drawing a wide range of visitors to the area for the first time. In addition to regular exhibitions, the Co-Prosperity Sphere hosts two yearly multi-day festivals that draw dozens of local and international artists to the area. The artists of East Bank host regular events and semi-annual open gallery nights, and the Zhou B Art Center’s monthly open studio night alone includes more artists than those on Pilsen’s Second Friday gallery crawl.

In light of the increasing number of vacancies on Pilsen’s gallery strip, the success of these new developments leads one to ask: is Bridgeport becoming the new Pilsen? And is Bridgeport’s development complicit in Pilsen’s decline?

Brazilian painter Dagmar Bruehmueller moved into a small studio in the Zhou B Art Center in November after two years of operating a large, street-front gallery in Pilsen. Pilsen, Bruehmueller says, “has changed. So many galleries closed, and people don’t pay attention anymore.”

“It’s a 360-degree turn around,” says Robin Monique Rios, a digital photography artist who moved her gallery, 4Art, from Pilsen into the Zhou B Art Center in September. Rios describes her experience operating in Pilsen as a constant struggle, and was on the verge of closing her studio after six years in Pilsen when she was invited to rent space in the Zhou brothers’ new center.

Marco Logsdon, founder and director of Logsdon 1909 Gallery in Pilsen, believes most of Pilsen’s innovative, successful galleries continue to thrive, and says that Second Friday events are as well-attended as ever. He attributes the recent increase in vacancies to the changes introduced when John Podmajersky III, son of the couple who initiated the neighborhood’s transformation, took over business management in 2003.

The Podmajersky family, art collectors and residents of Pilsen since 1914, began purchasing warehouses and stores on Halsted between 16th and Canalport in the ’60s, converting them into art spaces, and renting them to local artists, and effectively transformed East Pilsen’s full-fledged art district by the late ’90s. Podmajersky currently owns hundreds of apartments and 250,000 square feet of studio and gallery space in Pilsen.

“The parents are the one who really set up the area. Particularly the mother, who collected ceramics, was very into the arts,” Logsdon says. Art lovers, the Podmajerskys kept rental rates far below market price and did everything they could to keep artists in the district. “Sometimes [Podmajersky II’s wife] would let them trade works for rent, and was just very supportive. The son is not in the same. He doesn’t have the same mentality. He’s a businessman,” Logsdon says.

In addition to organizing the district’s publicity efforts, Podmajersky III began standardizing rent rates in 2003, raising prices for many long-time occupants. Part of what Podmajersky III called a “cleaning house” in a December 2003 interview with the Chicago Reader included rent hikes and required open exhibition hours, which pressured artists who underutilized storefront spaces to move out. (Chicago Weekly was not able to reach Podmajersky by press time.)

Although a number of artists have relocated from Pilsen to Bridgeport, it would be inaccurate to say that gallery and studio closings in Pilsen are fueling Bridgeport’s growth. Rather, according to a Reader article published last summer, most closures are the result of galleries moving to long-established art districts on Chicago’s North Side or simply shutting down. And Bridgeport’s studio complexes are filling with artists from across the city and nation.
What can be said, however, is that differences in location, physical amenities, leadership, community structure and organization, and economic trends have shaped the divergent paths of the two neighborhoods.

Pilsen’s Halsted Street is primarily composed of low-rise store-fronts and apartment buildings. Close to the South Loop and only a half-mile north of the Orange Line Halsted stop, Pilsen is a prime candidate for the type of residential gentrification that has inflated rental prices and pushed artists out of Wicker Park during the past decade.

Recent development efforts, including the $700-million University Village project just north of the Chicago Arts District, have pushed up real estate values in the area. Rent in Pilsen is still lower than in North Side art districts, but Podmajersky tenants do face yearly increases. Unlike Pilsen, parts of Bridgeport are far from the Loop and the nearest El line, lack amenities, and are full of highly industrial structures that don’t fit well into the yuppie low-rise brick apartment aesthetic. But the abandoned industrial complexes that detract from Bridgeport’s real estate development appeal are ideal spaces for large-scale studio and exhibition complexes.

Prior to becoming director of the Zhou B Art Center, Oskar Friedl ran galleries in the River North district and the Flat Iron Building in Wicker Park, in studio art complexes that stood at the center of each neighborhood’s art communities. Alternative art districts in the ’80s and ’90s, “both areas went bust or they gentrified too rapidly to really allow for a development of the arts,” Friedl says. Friedl believes that the “possibilities [in Bridgeport] are tenfold what they were in River North…You can create ten times more with ten percent of the effort,” offering artists and art developers spaces where they can “operate almost on the museum level.” Bridgeport, Friedl says, “feels like it’s the most authentic of any of the communities that I’ve worked in and lived in.”

The type of project spaces and mega-centers opening up in Bridgeport create a professional, high-level version of the art school studio complex, especially appealing to artists who crave interaction with other artists and want to cut costs on gallery operation in light of the current economy. Furthermore, Bridgeport’s development is artist-driven, while Pilsen’s arts district is primarily the creation of a real estate developer. Podmajersky under John Podmajersky III maintains strict control of gallery promotion efforts and operation practice. Pilsen’s leadership structure, Rios believes, restricts and leads to the constant “roadblocking [of] people wanting to bring new ideas to the district.”

In contrast, the new art centers surfacing in Bridgeport are owned and managed by artists or individuals active in the art community. Already involved in art, individuals like Marszewski and the Zhou brothers have a greater stake in Bridgeport’s prosperity and are better able to attract artists and draw crowds to the neighborhood. East Bank Storage, like Pilsen’s gallery district, is not artist-owned. But the center’s corporate managers’ hands-off policy differs from Podmajersky’s approach and leaves space for tenant activity. Artists of the East Bank, a community of studio occupants, manages promotion for and organization of semi-annual gallery events and more regular exhibition activity.

In comparison to Pilsen, Rios says the Zhou B Art Center sees many more “international visitors, a more high-end clientele…I think the majority is because the brothers are so famous.” On the other end of the spectrum, Marszewski’s Lumpen Magazine and the long-running Version and Select Media festivals he runs have established an alternative following for events put on by the Co-Prosperity Sphere.

All this said, Logsdon does not see Bridgeport’s development as a threat to Pilsen. The two art districts are “different—they’re just different,” he says. Bridgeport’s isolated, one-stop art centers may supplant Podmajersky’s studio loft complexes, but are incomparable and will never compete with Pilsen’s dense storefront gallery district, Logsdon says. “The thing that’s nice about Pilsen is that they’re very inviting spaces, and they’re unique, they’re not the cookie-cutter renovation. A lot of times people enjoy seeing the spaces as much as seeing the art,” Logsdon says. “The areas that I’ve been to [in Bridgeport]—nothing is as unique as the Pilsen spaces.”

Recent work by Juan Angel Chávez, who will be exhibiting at Select Media Festival's group show (courtesy of the artist)

This year’s festival, titled “Super Bad Ass,” will be held November 19 to 22 at various locations in Bridgeport and Wicker Park. According to the website, the event will be “short and sweet. We have no filler, no excuses and no doubts.” Opening with video screenings at Wicker Park’s Heaven Gallery, the Festival closes in Bridgeport with an audience hypnosis experiment by artist Jacob Hammes.

The opening night program is an eclectic, highly accessible mix of straight-up cartoon comedy, art film, and documentary work. It will include everything from new comic works by Adult Swim animators Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, to documentary clips of past Lumpen events, to a video cover of “Like a Prayer” which reinterprets Madonna’s role as a “depression era scamp.”

The festival’s centerpiece, a twelve-person group show, will open on Friday at the Co-Prosperity Sphere, Lumpen’s experimental exhibition headquarters in Bridgeport and one of the largest alternative art spaces in Chicago. The show brings together live music, experimental interactive pieces, and visual art, and will give visitors the opportunity to trade anything but cash for painter Justin B. Williams’ favorite personal works and browse through inexpensively-priced new work collected by local artist Hui Min Tsen through national Craigslist open call ads. The latter is part of a larger project called the Seeking Art Bargain Basement, which began last spring as a part of Lumpen’s Version Festival.

Equally lively, non-interactive works featured in the exhibition include a functioning cardboard jet engine, part of a larger project by David Castleman inspired by the crash landing of a US Airways flight in the Hudson, a gargantuan wood-acrylic sculpture by Juan Angel Chavez, delicate yarn and felt pieces by Montgomery Perry Smith, and twenty-six pieces by graphic artist James Quigley that Ed “Edmar” Marszewski, Lumpen founder and festival director, described in an interview as “freakily beautiful.”

The organization of this year’s festival differs significantly from earlier formats. In past years, the festival oriented itself around an often explicitly activist theme. For example, in 2005, “Experimental Cultural Zone” filled the storefronts of a quiet, post-industrial street in Bridgeport with alternative bookstores and galleries to examine, according to Marszewski, “what happens when you put these innovative art projects in a zone that’s never seen this before.”

By contrast, “Super Bad Ass” is introspective. Instead of exhibiting art that draws attention to social or geopolitical issues, the festival brings together exemplary, innovative works in an attempt to question art practice in Chicago and address issues of conformity and the potentially mechanical output of the city’s art community. Described in Paper Magazine as “king of Chicago’s Underground Art Scene,” Marszewski has been active in the scene as publisher of Lumpen, an alternative zine, since the early ’80s. He believes that “people in Chicago are pretty lazy, it’s pretty sleepy.” Despite the diversity and talent of Chicago artists, Marzewski thinks that there is “less sense of urgency here” than in other American cities. Instead, he is worried that “some artists are just making work that will fit in these apartment galleries.”

In 2005, “Experimental Cultural Zone” created what Marszewski refers to as a “community of the future” based in his image of what could happen if a blue-collar neighborhood were seeded with innovative art practice. Similarly, “Super Bad Ass” will model an “art community of the future,” the four-day realization of Marszewski’s vision for what Chicago’s art scene can become. Whether it is geared toward artists or toward a larger, city-wide audience, “Super Bad Ass” will offer participants an enthralling, alternative art experience that is worlds away from the standard gallery hop.
November 19-22. Thursday-Sunday. selectmediafestival.org