“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 »

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 »

Independent arts collective Lumpen’s eighth annual Select Media Festival promises to offer four nights of video programming, group exhibitions, performance art, and live music that will shock, blast, and perhaps even use hypnosis to instill art appreciation back into anyone who’s been jaded by too many wine and cheese gallery openings. Read the rest of this entry »

Henry Glover has rhythm from his head to his toes—literally. He lifts up his shoe to reveal a small electrical sensor that is wired to an audio jack in the sole. When the shoes are plugged into an output device, synthesized drum beats correspond to Glover’s tapping foot. Yet as Glover wanders through the fundraiser for the ninth annual Version Festival, a 10-day artistic extravaganza in Bridgeport, his cleverly designed shoes shuffle beneath the crowd’s radar. Ironically, the scene reads like a microcosm of one of Version’s goals: to bring Chicago’s diverse and expansive art scene, much of which slips by public recognition, to the attention of the global artistic community. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

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 »

The Dayglo tones, the Spandex, the artists, the affected Williamsburg-party vibe: Lumpen’s “Return Flight” conclusion to this year’s space-themed Select Media Festival was a lot like the blast-off event a week previous. Beneath the cavernous ceiling, Lumpen impresario Ed Marszewski looked down on the crowd from his loft like the doyen of a mystical space council. The partygoers danced on the floor below just like the geeky white kids they were. All the light-colored clothing aglow from the black light, errant leotards hugging silhouettes and shaking to beats from U.S. Girls, the occasional dry-humping: “Return Flight” looked more like a seething neon jazzercise gangbang than a triumphant return from outer space. 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 »