At first glance, a casual visitor might not expect Bridgeport to be an emerging hub for Chicago’s art scene: streets are stark, shops are scattered, and the wind chimes that dangle from residential houses break the silence. But lo and behold, on the southeast corner of 32nd and Morgan is the Co-Prosperity Sphere, one of the motors behind Bridgeport’s art renaissance. Read the rest of this entry »

In 2006, the Salem Baptist Church in Pullman hosted a “Night of Terror”—one of those Halloween events some religious groups have to scare the crap out of kids. Only the things they use to scare them aren’t skeletons or ghosts, but abortions and homosexuals—because getting the former or being the latter presumably means you’re going straight to hell. You don’t even have to attend to take part in the horror.

This year, I hoped the event would once again take place—so that I could write about it in disgust, not because I actually support it—but alas, apparently negative publicity and public outrage have convinced the church to pull the plug (I don’t know for sure those are the reasons behind the move, but I’d like to think so). This left me without an article to write, but in retrospect, it’s much better this way. Read the rest of this entry »

Historically, Bridgeport has been known both as a working-class Irish neighborhood and a home to well-connected politicians, including both Mayors Daley. However, there is another side to Bridgeport: a diverse, artistic neighborhood that welcomes outsiders without losing its strong community feel. A study, conducted by the Chaddick Institute at DePaul University, ranked Bridgeport the fourth most diverse neighborhood in the city. In addition to the Polish and Lithuanian communities that have quietly coexisted with the South Side Irish for decades upon decades, Bridgeport is now home to Chinese, African-Americans, and hipsters. Mayor Daley has moved out, and the neighborhood has moved on. Read the rest of this entry »

Leave the pearls and Lily Pulitzer at home: Thursday evening, the Version festival begins at Country Club, a gallery in Wicker Park. According to the festival’s website, “Version is an annual springtime convergence that brings in hundreds of artists, musicians and educators from around the world to present some of the most challenging ideas and progressive art initiatives of our day.” Space 1026, a Philadelphia-based artist collective named after the address of their building in Philly’s Chinatown, will host Version’s opening show on Thursday evening. On Friday night, Version moves to the South Side’s Co-Prosperity Sphere for “The Dark Matter Group Show.” This former warehouse in Bridgeport was gutted and restored to reveal beautiful high copper ceilings, hardwood floors, and a fairly vast and, once preparations are complete, appealing contemporary gallery space. Music and theater performances are held in the basement, and an apartment complex occupies the second floor. Read the rest of this entry »

March 22 marked the end of the “Radar Eyes” exhibition hosted by Seripop and Reuben Kincaid, two Canadian printing hotshots, in the Lumpen art collective’s Co-Prosperity Sphere. This Canadian print duo sought to harbor a good portion of experimental printmakers’ works, which “depict distortions of perception” and “altered states of awareness.” On the whole, the concept seems pretty promising. After all, who wouldn’t want to experience drugs without having to actually pay for them? In relation to a select few of the prints, the artists’ work depicts what could be some of the best acid trips of all time. Cascades of bright colors highlighting arrangements of fantastical people and places emerge from the silk screens once used to promote shows by artists like Ben Kweller or MGMT, whereas others simply wash the brain over with color, generating a source of aesthetic elation. At other times, things just get bizarre. Read the rest of this entry »

The abandoned mental asylums in Shawn May’s photographs are filled with rusted gurneys, exposed pipes, cracked paint, and bird droppings, but May wants viewers to take away more than just a sense of awe at the magnificently decaying vistas. He wants to cast a light on “a part of U.S. history that’s being lost”: the history of treatment for the mentally ill. Unlike other dark chapters in our history such as slavery, May explains, the often horrific conditions at mental hospitals have received little attention and are rarely given more than a footnote in history books. Read the rest of this entry »

Depending on how naïve you are, calling a dance party celebrating gay life in Bridgeport the “Snow Ball” is either seasonally appropriate or disturbingly indecorous. Lumpen, the party hosts, probably intended the title to be both, but it indicated neither, since there was no snow on the ground last Friday night and a decidedly demure scene taking place inside the Co-Prosperity Sphere, Lumpen’s headquarters. What the Snow Ball provided was what any Lumpen event demands: randomness. There were no fewer than four “main” events taking place, all unrelated. For guests, there was dancing, air hockey, a home-style food buffet, and a trip to Party Planet, a simulated Space Shuttle ride leftover from last year’s Select Media Festival. (The “Party Planet” turned out to be Earth, albeit an Earth that looks a lot like Brazil during Carnival.) Read the rest of this entry »

It’s not normal to hear the words “don’t take any pictures until I turn on the blacklight” be taken seriously, but, seconds later, I was standing in front of a gigantic space station, lit up entirely by blacklight. Yes, strangely enough, hidden on the corner of 32nd and Morgan inside an old warehouse is a huge interstellar complex yet to be launched, CPS1 (Co-Prosperity Sphere 1) to be exact, art collective/magazine Lumpen’s beta test for its first intergalactic space colony. Read the rest of this entry »