What were advertised as “erotic drawings,” done in black paint on a huge piece of paper, stretched the length of the left side of the room. The subjects, every possible combination of men and women doing unprintable things to one another, were life-size or bigger. Beyond this wall sat whimsical wooden cutouts painted bright colors. One was immediately recognizable as two mermaids kissing. It took a moment to realize the other was a diving penis.

Lumpen’s sex magazine itself, the reason behind all this excitement, was half-ironic and half-old-school, much like the attendees. The fifty or so people in the gallery were usually either hipsters or leftover free lovers. Even though the party advertised free entrance for those who came “EXTRA SEXY,” practically no one did. One woman stood out in heels and barely-there shorts.

Some people giggled over the raunchy artwork, but most were there to listen to music and drink $1 beers. Once in a while a few wandered over to the corner where the sex magazines were sprawled on a table, undifferentiated by year. The photos were of varying graininess, but the articles all had that seriously joking tone: “I was an upper-middle-class escort (good girl gone bad!),” “I screwed up the pill every possible way but the worst,” “I turned gay to get girls.”

The event description had promised “a very sensual and wild evening with all kinds of festivities… [and] every intention of enticing a proper start to your Valentine’s weekend,” but no one seemed to be thinking of Valentine’s Day until the closing group took the stage. Calling the crowd back from the magazines and artwork, the androgynous girls in the audience danced wildly around the lead singer of the band Hotchacha. Perhaps this was in part because she was an air sex champion (air sex: like air guitar, but not). Regardless, Hotchacha took the sexy theme of the evening seriously: strategically repositioning her shirt, the lead singer showed off first her breasts, then her scars—“That’s sexy, riiiight?”

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

Setting up for Version 9 at the Co-Prosperity Sphere; Ellis Calvin

“We’re here to amplify the activity that’s going on here and show it to the rest of the world,” says Ed “Edmar” Marszewski, producer of the Version Festival and head of the Public Media Institute, a nonprofit arts organization. The boldness of his statement works well with the theme for this year’s festival, “Immodest Proposals.” Edmar explains that he and his co-organizers try to keep the theme “wide open, just to see what kind of submissions we’ll get.” The title is a play on Jonathan Swift’s satirical text, “A Modest Proposal,” which recommended that poor families sell their children as food to the rich in order to ease the economic hardships of 18th-century Ireland.

So what is an immodest proposal? Edmar is quick to elaborate: “Look, we’ve just reset America, we’ve reset the 21st century with getting Obama elected, getting rid of the Bush administration. And now…what kind of crazy, awesome, weirdo project or idea do you have? How do want to live your life? Regardless of the budget, regardless of any expenses.” Much of the Version Festival is achieved through generous donations of space, time, and money from artists and larger institutions. However, financial limitations are a reality, and so certain projects—like building a life-size model of an ancient colossus on the shores of Long Island, New York—must remain, at least for now, in their proposal form.

The realized proposals themselves are nothing short of extraordinary, including a vast assortment of musical performances, art installations, curatorial endeavors, walking tours, and category-defying artistic experiments. In addition to an exhibition of European artists, a group show entitled “The Audacity of Art,” and an information/artistic tradeshow called the NFO XPO (pronounced “info/expo”), Version will feature a series of 12 alternative forms of shelter, workshops, and classes provided by the Free University and an imaginary government-funded cultural program called the Bridgeport WPA. The festival culminates with the first-ever Chicago Art Parade in the West Loop. The variety of frameworks through which an artist can choose to submit work enhances the productive communication encouraged by the festival. “People might start out with only one idea,” says Edmar, “but they’ll see that there is such an array of platforms already engaged in making weird stuff that their original idea already fits in somewhere.” Such connections occur on the level of the art, but also on the level of the artist. Perhaps one of the most positive aspects of the Version Festival is its ability to create permanent relationships, despite lasting only 10 days out of the year. A stable community evolves from a temporary event.

Certain programs, like the Bridgeport WPA, hope to maintain their presence in the Bridgeport community after the festival ends. Inspired by the cultural programs under the Works Progress Administration of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, the Bridgeport WPA reflects on the extensive funding directed to the arts during the Great Depression. Founder Emily Clayton explains, “[The WPA] employed musicians and writers and visual artists and all kinds of people to document social welfare and what was going on at the time.” The Bridgeport WPA was created as a proposal for the upcoming Version Festival, and has since grown into a viable organizing and mobilizing force within the larger event. Clayton describes it as a “theoretical social experiment that asks, ‘What if funding for the arts had been part of the stimulus package that just passed? What if they did what they did for artists in the ‘30s, and what if they did that now?’” Clayton smiles. “It would be incredible.”

On Thursday night, the Bridgeport WPA kicks off the Version Festival with a poster show inspired by the posters from the ‘30s that supported everything from education to sanitation. Clayton hopes that the posters will increase people’s awareness of the continued importance of art, but also of more general issues. “In a time where everyone’s struggling, we can still focus on positive things. What can you do within your community and in your lives to better yourself and better your neighbor?” The show features 20 to 25 artists who have been commissioned to print a series of 40 posters, one of which will be displayed at the show while the rest are placed throughout the neighborhood. The poster campaign is complemented by several public sculptures and murals installed throughout Bridgeport.

While Version is primarily an arts festival, it becomes clear, especially when considering programs like the Bridgeport WPA, that many of the people involved see art as a means towards a greater end. Change, communication, and progress are recurring themes that buzz in the artistic atmosphere even if they are not directly expressed in the works themselves. The dizzying range of artistic media at play in the festival is overwhelming: from performance artists to puppeteers, every species of musician and visual artist is represented.

The NFO XPO, which takes place on Saturday and Sunday at the Benton House (3052 S. Gratten Ave.), is described on Version’s website as a “trade show for experimental art, emerging spaces, and radical exchange.” It will provide a unique opportunity to see such artistic variety in a single location. Outside of the House, one can witness the temporary structures of the Shelter Corps in the 100-year-old lot next door. Over 24 artists have come together in this collective to create 12 conceptions of “shelter” in a show that is sure to expand one’s notion of the word, while maintaining a very practical relevance, in light of the ever-present need to generate ideas for alternative, sustainable living structures.

One often forgets that curating a show can be an artistic process as well. One category of “Immodest Proposals” strives to bring this to mind, allowing individuals and groups to administer full creative control in their conceptions of various exhibitions. Material Exchange, a group that is concerned with updating the value of used objects, has organized a carnival on the Midway Plaisance to take place during both weekends of the Version festival. King Ludd’s Midway Arcade will feature games reminiscent of those found in the World’s Fair of 1893. The Eastern Expansion gallery is hosting “Unbescheidene Angebote!!” (German for “Immodest Proposals”), which will display the work of artists from Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands, as well as the United States.

A third curatorial project, entitled “That’s What She Said,” is being organized by Chicago artist Jeriah Hildwine. It features the work of female artists exploring issues of sexuality and violence. Hildwine will also have a booth at the NFO XPO that displays his artwork, while “That’s What She Said” will show at the Benton House. He initially became involved in the festival through his wife, photographer Stephanie Burke, who encouraged him to look into Version’s numerous platforms for creative projects. Hildwine is one artist who seems to see art as serving multiple purposes within Version’s larger context. His booth at the NFO XPO is not primarily for selling his artwork, but rather for making others aware of it. “I mean, I guess it’s always for sale,” Hildwine explains. “But it’s more about just getting it out there.” Hildwine’s goal echoes Version’s intention of bring local Chicago artists to the forefront of the international community of artists and art enthusiasts alike.

Elise Goldstein, a performance artist in “That’s What She Said,” shared her theory of how the entirety of the immense variety of work presented at Version relates to the festival’s aggressive, if intentionally ambiguous, theme. “We’re in a recession, so no one is going to buy art,” she states matter-of-factly. Strangely, that’s no cause for alarm. “When art isn’t about selling and commodification,” she continues, “you can say whatever you want.” Whether this is an (im)modest proposal or a call to arms, the Version Festival has challenged its artists to think outside the box, and the result will challenge all who attend to rethink art’s potential in society.

AIDS Wolf; photo courtesy of Flickr user Pamela Willis

Noise rockers AIDS Wolf is Chloe (vocals), Yannick (drums), Myles (guitar), and Alex (guitar). Now on the second night of their latest tour, they’re criss-crossing North America. This week, they’ll be joining up with psych-folkers U.S. Girls and local noisemakers Cacaw and Mayor Daley for a Chicago show at the art collective Lumpen’s venue, the Co-Prosperity Sphere. Hailing from Montreal, AIDS Wolf (named after a very hard-to-pin-down urban legend), clawed its way onto the scene in 2003 and has been bitching and cursing ever since. Abrasive as noise-rock gets, its embrace of the hate might be too much for some. But don’t let the screaming fool you; it’s hard work. In fact, when newest member Alex joined, instructional DVDs had to be made to teach him the Nine Principles of AIDS Wolf.

The AIDS Wolf way is a lot more intense than you might think. With experience in bands since high school, these former Concordia University art students have a unique approach to their music. Their sound is brash and unapologetic, and Chloe says that from the start AIDS Wolf has been working to escape from convention. (Principle #9: Remember when punk was weird and weird was punk. Become the weird punks.) In order to achieve their raw, unsettling sound, the band employs the late-life Matisse approach to art: cut and paste. The method involves a jam session where the players record everything, and then later go back to chop up and collage the recording with ProTools. Once they get the sound they like, the group then goes back and starts the arduous process of replicating their musical concoction. This manner of composition can be rough; putting complex polyrhythms and band-specific tonalities to paper is challenging even with formal musical training.

Ambitious as all get-out, Chloe reveals that on their current tour two-thirds of the material will be from their latest album, “Cities of Glass,” while the rest will be brand-spanking new. To explain the shift in sound from the band’s previous work on “The Lovvers,” Chloe cites further venture into the realm of “twentieth-century classical music,” specifically that of the great leader of the Second Viennese School and master of twelve-tone technique, Arnold Schoenberg. Following the life aesthetic, the band immerses itself in the music as Chloe reports that they are all in the process of reading Alex Ross’s “The Rest is Noise,” the immensely popular, if tome-like, survey of modern music.

And the sound moves forward. If creation is a journey, the members of AIDS Wolf know where they’ve been and where they are heading. For her vocals, Chloe is taking inspiration from ‘70s experimental French vocalist Albert Marcoeur, pushing her to hold notes and vowels outside their normal limits. Overall, the band is working on new material that they hope to record later this year, and have plans for a concept album. The subject is the “Right Honourable” William Lyon Mackenzie King, the tenth Prime Minister of Canada and a national source of hilarity and absurdity. Chloe explains that the cautious King was Canada’s longest-serving prime minister and is now remembered for his foray into occultism with an odd affinity for a ouija board when making national decisions. AIDS Wolf is currently seeking a grant for hiring a chorus to imitate the howling of King’s politically savvy Irish terriers (all named Pat).

So what came first: the scene or the music? When asked how the band responds to the various critically ascribed labels, Chloe herself could not quite pinpoint their sound, instead simply replying, “We’re all just really big nerds.” This prompts the eternally nerdy ethnomusicological question: Is this just noise? I’ll leave that opinion up to the reader, but if we accept John Blacking’s definition of music as “humanly organized sound,” what else would we call the painstaking oeuvre of AIDS Wolf?

My first refuge was a studio glaring bright in the middle of a row of closed businesses. Inside was Ray Emerick in his workspace, standing among his paintings up for show. The silence of the frigid night extended into the studio, where snowy boots squeaked and the artist calmly explained a few pieces and their intersection with his personal life, all the while amazed at the boldness of anyone venturing out in such cold.

After setting such a tranquil tone to the quiet winter night, stepping into the Co-Prosperity Sphere’s “Young Polish Artists” group show revealed a buzz of activity hidden from the street. Clusters of people weighed down by their winter gear tried to maintain an air of artistic festivity, bouncing around each art piece to the beats of a DJ. The meaningful explanation of the art in relation to the artist, as was so present in the previous gallery, was confined to some typed up comments on sheets of computer paper tacked to the wall. More important, it seemed, was an aesthetic interaction with the art in the context of collective festivity.

An installation comprised of a series of grocery bags taped to the wall did not, however, seem to capture the full attention of most attendees. Instead, the full-sized wooden outhouse seemed to be a favorite, if only for the fact that chipper patrons could go inside of it, peek out at their friends, and joke about using it as an actual toilet. While some of the featured young Polish artists did put up what seemed to be more traditionally serious art pieces, this was definitely the more festive, perhaps even trashy, side of Third Fridays. While the cold ultimately put a damper on the spirit of the event in general, those who did venture out swarmed together and demanded a celebration.

The Co-Prosperity Sphere, an experimental cultural center that showcases all types of artists, hosts an array of events from art installations to festivals to performances. This 5,000-plus square foot gallery is the home of the Lumpen Media Group, a seventeen-year-old arts collective whose mission, according to their website, is to “create distribution outlets for critical countercultural entertainment, news, analysis and opinion.” Lumpen publishes the bimonthly Lumpen magazine, organizes the Select Media Festival in the fall and the Version Festival in the spring, and runs its own in-house internet radio station, WPBR.

On Friday, November 14, Select Media Festival 7 will kick off and will continue until November 22. Since its inception in 2001, the Select Media Festival has been an occasion for promoting and exploring eclectic and modern art, media, and ideas. Each year a festival committee cooks up a theme for the artists’ work; this year, that theme is “Infoporn.”

“It’s a way we digest USA Today graphs on everything,” participating artist Ryan Murray explains, “It’s the eroticism [behind] the graph and the chart.”

The Co-Prosperity Sphere website defines Infoporn as “a visual explosion of these [data] points and paths, these executions and exercises and maps. We want to put these moments on display, to measure them out. We want to understand and appreciate; be enraged, enlightened, amazed by them. We want to feast.”

Still baffled? Imagine, Murray describes, a USA Today article with a plethora of graphs, charts, histograms, diagrams, etc. Now, suppose you see one graph, or multiple graphs, that captivate you: not because you care about, or comprehend, the data, but because it’s aesthetically pleasing; it “turns you on.” That’s Infoporn, and what’s so great is that you don’t have to show ID or pay $20 per month to spark your libido.

On November 21, the Co-Prosperity Sphere’s new storefront space on 31st Street, the Eastern Expansion, will make its debut. The new gallery will feature a single artist’s work at a time, something Lumpen founder Ed “Edmar” Marszewski has wanted for some time. “I believe Edmar wanted [the space] to start doing solo projects in,” says Murray, “so a single artist will come in and have a cozy space to set up…something.” One of the great aspects about the new space is that the main window faces directly out to the street, allowing the passersby to glance in and see the art. “You can enter the space, but you don’t have to,” explains Murray.

Murray will be the first artist to display his art at the Eastern Expansion. He is an award-winning artist from Pittsburgh who now lives just a few blocks away from the Co-Prosperity Sphere. He creates paintings, installations, videos, and performances that mainly deal with the “connection and disconnection between science and mysticism.” Murray worked with the Co-Prosperity Sphere for about two months and displayed his paintings at one of their shows when Edmar asked him to hold the inaugural exhibition at the Eastern Expansion. For this show, Murray will create an installation of a “panacea potion shop,” in which he will use his sculptures of potions, elixirs, and liquid paint in “apothecary glassware and scientific lab glassware.”

Following the opening of Lumpen’s new addition, there will be an afterparty at Go-Go Town, a loft venue at 3117 S. Morgan Street at 11pm. Not only will this party be celebrating Eastern Expansion, it will also be hosted by the Bridgeport Art District, Lumpen’s other newest project. As a “commonwealth” of all the artists’ spaces around the Bridgeport community, B.A.D. is both an organization and event.

In order to avoid the lonely fate of separate art entities trying to “keep their heads above water,” B.A.D. will bring these artists together to organize neighborhood-wide events and performances. November 21 will be the first night of B.A.D., and on the third Friday of every month from then on artists, galleries, and local businesses will open their doors to the public to commune in the art scene of Bridgeport. Different art venues will hold events all throughout Bridgeport starting around 6pm.
“The more non-profit, community driven formats are more capable of showing more eclectic work that doesn’t necessarily have to bend to the fashions of the time,” states Ryan. “I think there is something totally exciting about spaces that don’t have to [adhere] to the regular issues of galleries and museums … These impromptu festivals can be very exciting.”
Select Media Festival: Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219 S. Morgan St. November 14-22. selectmediafestival.com
Bridgeport Art District: Third Friday of every month, 6-11pm. bridgeportartdistrict.blogspot.com

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. Because, even if the event was still going on, it’s not like the organizers would be waiting eagerly by their telephones, anxious to discuss it with the press. And I’m not sure I’d be able to maintain my journalistic integrity and remain objective while reporting about it anyway. So hey, now the event is off, sparing the mindsets of countless children, and I still got to sound off on what a terrible idea it was. It’s the best of both worlds!

Anywho, since it seems there are no other “Nights of Terror” going on on the South Side (although I could be wrong—if anyone knows of one, be sure to send it a rotten pumpkin with a “Go to hell, bigoted fear-mongering assholes!” carved into it for me), we’ve decided to present you with a list of fun Halloween events taking place in the area instead. Granted, none of them will be as scary as Salem’s “Night of Terror” was, but that’s probably a good thing.

Anna, in the Darkness
According to Dream Theatre’s website, “the audience are never merely spectators, but instead are actively invited into the dream world of the play where possibilities are endless, nothing is out-of-bounds, and the fourth wall does not exist.” It’s an ethos that’s practically made for spooky Halloween performances, and “Anna, in the Darkness” takes full advantage of it. The play, by Jeremy Menekseoglu, focuses on a young teacher trapped in her living room while angry mobs gather outside to kill her—and the audience is right there, watching and waiting with her inside. The Chicago Tribune calls it “a chilling experience.” No doubt it should also be good fun.
Dream Theatre, 556 W. 18th St. Through November 2. Thursday-Saturday, 8pm and 9:30pm; Sunday 7pm and 8:30pm. (773)552-8616. $12 online, $15 at the door. dreamtheatrecompany.com

Coffin Bangers Monster Mash Party
Reggies celebrates Halloween with an extravaganza of the most twistedly appropriate variety. Dwarves (the band, not actual dwarves, although the latter would fit right in) headline the night, laying snarling punk vocals and lots of shredding over three-chord progressions of the punk and garage varieties, albeit with much more polish. But the real treat lies in some of the openers, which include the self-described “High Priestess of Pleasure and Pain,” Miss Maya Sinstress; the Nu Ethix Suspension group; the ambiguously-gendered Pain-Kurst Girls; and Tomas the Geek Magician, who’s opened for such acts as Insane Clown Posse and Cypress Hill. Now there’s one hell of a frightening Halloween line-up.
Reggies Rock Club, 2109 S. State St. October 31. Friday, 8pm. $20, 18+. reggieslive.com

I Know What You Did Last Summer: The 2008 Residency Show
Spend the night at your favorite Co-Prosperity Sphere, hanging out with the Lumpen gang and this year’s residents at the Harold Arts organization. The Harold Arts Residency features artists and musicians, and they’re celebrating the whole week with “Harvest,” a series of gallery openings and concerts to celebrate their collective efforts, including the release of their third compilation album, “Harold 2008,” and the unveiling of “HARQ,” their brand-spanking new quarterly. The special Halloween gathering includes the work of 31 artists, performances by Slow Horse, Arctic Circle, and Lesley Flanigan, a costume contest with “celebrity judges” (what that means, only Lumpen knows), and a haunted labyrinth—which, if it’s anything like their infamous cardboard-box rocketship ride, will surely be worth the trip in itself.
Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219-21 S. Morgan St. October 31. Friday, 6pm-6am. $6

Best Co-Prosperity Sphere
Lumpen’s Co-Prosperity Sphere
There was a time when Bridgeport was not home to the crazy political art collective known as Lumpen (you know, like lumpenproletariat—get it!), but that was in the past, man, and now we’re in the future…kind of. After all, Bridgeport has been christened “The Community of the Future” by the Lumpen guys and gals, so it must be true. And let me just say, if the future looks anything like the Co-Prosperity Sphere, then count me in. It’s way better than that other, Asian thing (which was also very much in the past)—this Sphere involves crazy art shows with spacey lounges and cardboard box rocketship rides and people in costumes and free PBR. The Lumpen folks live upstairs, and downstairs they host a myriad of cultural festivities, like art shows and concerts and film screenings and general fun-having. If that’s the future, man, count me in. I love culture and space and beer and the future. And beer. Co-prosperity beer. 3219-21 S. Morgan St. 773-837-0145. www.lumpen.com/CPS (Gavin Fox)

Freshest Art Gallery
32nd&Urban
Now approaching its second birthday, this small storefront gallery at 32nd and Halsted retains a noticeably youthful feel. Although the space isn’t large—it used to be a barbershop—it managed to accommodate works by 59 artists for the recent show “Framed,” where curator Peter Kepha gave out wooden frames of different sizes with instructions to create “great, affordable art.” The result was a group of works ranging in price from $25 to $400. Right now the gallery has works by five female artists up, and next month Joey Potts will exhibit “Quest for the Cyclops Pyramid,” a series of whimsical-yet-badass paintings opening on October 18. The gallery’s creators are Bridgeport natives and maintain strong community connections amid the burgeoning local arts scene. This fall the gallery hosts a “Screen Printing 101″ course for all levels of experience. 3201 S. Halsted St. Friday, 6-9pm, Sat, noon-5pm. (312) 846-6569 (Sam Feldman)

Best Hot Dog Stand
Maxwell Street Depot/Morrie O’Malley’s (tie)
Bridgeport is a hotbed of high-quality hot dog stands (one of the best things the White Sox have ever produced, 2005 World Series title aside), and I couldn’t bring myself to choose between Maxwell Street Depot and Morrie O’Malley’s as the best because they both serve different purposes. Depot is bare-bones, but it does its job very well. A time-honored favorite of University of Chicago and IIT students, the 24-hour stand serves up hot dogs, burgers, polishes with masses of grilled onions, and their signature pork chop sandwiches to legions of drunk students and graveyard-shift workers at all hours of the night. Tip: Ask for the pork chop sandwich without the bone. If you’re looking for a slightly-less-greasy dog with more options at a reasonable hour, check out Morrie O’Malley’s. O’Malley’s specializes in char-grilled meat (but you have to ask for it) and ridiculous amounts of toppings—his signature dog comes with mustard, relish, chopped onion, sport peppers, a kosher dill pickle spear, a cucumber spear, tomato slice, and celery salt on a poppy seed bun. Just don’t walk in there with a Cubs jersey if you value your life. Maxwell Street Depot: 411 W. 31st St. Open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. (312)326-3514. Morrie O’Malley’s: 3501 S. Union Ave. Monday-Friday 10:30am-8pm. (773)247-2700 (Katie Buitrago)

Best Place to Spontaneously Inject Your Body with Ink
Bridgeport Tattoo Co.
For many years, Bridgeport stood as a bastion of working class, blue collar life—and then Lumpen moved in and made it into an artsy hangout for the college-aged crowd. Okay okay, maybe that’s a little too simplistic a rundown, but the end result is the same. Case in point: the Bridgeport Tattoo Co. After all, can you imagine any of the older, Irish inhabitants that originally made up so much of the neighborhood’s traditional population indulging in such reckless, spontaneous behavior? I mean, have you seen the ink stretch on the saggy skin of the post-sixty crowd? It’s not a pretty sight—but I digress. For those more interested in living in the here and now, the Bridgeport Tattoo Co. can help ink all the snakes, lions, skulls and, of course, big-breasted women you want on your biceps, triceps, quadriceps, and whatever-other-ceps you’re interested in marking. Just look to the walls for inspiration—they’re covered in images of ‘em. Oh and ladies, while you’re there, make sure to hit up Jeannete for all your nail and eyelash extension needs. 3527 S. Halsted St. noon-10pm every day. (773)523-8311. www.myspace.com/bridgeporttattooco (Sean Redmond)

Best Place to Let Your Inner Nerd Run Free
Monster Island Toys
I’ll admit it: I’m a pretty big nerd. I love video games, and I used to collect action figures like they were going out of style. But judging by the stock of Monster Island Toys, you’d think that action figures were the hottest shit since the pink Power Ranger. The place has got shelves of everyone you could ever imagine shrunken down and molded into plastic—and while that may be a slight exaggeration, it still carries both KISS action figures AND multiple versions of Cher dolls. Also, shelves and shelves of different colored Godzillas and Ghidorahs. For movie and/or remorseless slaughter buffs, there’s Scarface and Kill Bill figurines! And old school GI Joe! The rabbit with big, pointy teeth! MADBALLS! But even non-nerds may find reason to rejoice—at least if you’re either a Bruce Lee or Boris Karloff fan. The former can enjoy the great selection of Bruce Lee tees, and the store carries stock of both Lee and Karloff DVDs. In fact, the selection of B-grade horror films is pretty mind-munchingly amazing. The Invisible Man? Check. Bride of Frankenstein? Check. Japanese versions of Godzilla vs. Mothra? Check. You may have reluctantly entered adulthood, but that doesn’t mean you have to let your inner child die—and hey, now you get the best of both worlds, because children aren’t allowed to enter the store without their parents! Suckers! 3407 S. Halsted St. Monday-Saturday 11am-6pm. (773)247-5733. www.monsterislandtoys.com (Sean Redmond)

Best Place to Hear the Delta Blues
Bridgeport Coffee House
Bridgeport, for all its quirky, diverse charms, is pretty rough around the edges. The neighborhood’s rundown facades belie interesting nooks and crannies, from old-school diners to vinyl shops, new age grottos and other peculiar institutions. But smack dab in the middle of it all lies the Bridgeport Coffee House, which fits in perhaps solely due to the fact that, with all its cream-colored upscale upholstery, it’s so different from its surroundings that it matches the neighborhood’s whole mismatched, hodge-podge feel. Not that that’s a bad thing. The coffee shop’s moderately-priced sandwiches and simplistic-yet-delicious milkshakes make it a sight for sore eyes (and taste buds) in the midst of Bridgeport’s vast hot dog and cheap-eats desert. And on Wednesdays at 6pm, you can catch Jimbo-Delta, aka “Jim Parks,” playing his unique blend of contemporary delta blues for the crowd. Oh, and the café also offers free wi-fi—just don’t be rude and use it while you’re getting your dose of Southern blues. 3101 S. Morgan St. Monday-Friday 6am-9pm; Saturday 7am-9pm; Sunday 8am-7pm. (773)247-9950. www.bridgeportcoffeecompany.com (Sean Redmond)

Best Way to Get Some God into Your Life
The Orphanage
It’s Sunday: the Lord’s day, the day of rest. But at 7pm in Bridgeport, in the First Lutheran Church of the Trinity’s former school building, up the 100-year-old staircase and into the old gymnasium/auditorium, one finds a different type of spiritual experience: the Orphanage. It is an institution that “pulls all the art orphans together,” explains one of the founders, Mark Wardo. It is a place to perform, a place for art, and a place to eat. (can you name me three finer pleasures in life?) Every Sunday for $10 flat from 7pm to 1am one can enjoy anywhere from four to six musical acts, a vegetarian meal and great coffee and tea, in an atmosphere that is both welcoming and fantastically funky. Upon entering, one is transported to a jungle of stick-trees balancing atop motley tables, their branches frosted with colorful gauze and Christmas lights and dripping with colors of braided string. Stained-glass windows and rotating artwork cover the wall and the stage is topped with a disco ball. The music performances range from folk to rock, indie to jazz, generally hovering on the more serene end of the spectrum. There are occasionally Saturday shows reserved mainly for the “screamo more hardcore bands”—God forbid we should be subject to such racket on His holy day. But the mix is eclectic and the setting an experience in itself. Bands and artists submit via MySpace or word of mouth; the Orphanage is always encouraging submissions from musicians and artists. 643 W. 31st St. Sundays, 7pm-1am. (773)807-5157. www.theorphanagechicago.org (Morgan Moroney)

Chris’s zine is called “Slightly Depressing,” and it’s true to the title’s word—it’s not the most pleasant read. Chris (who asked that his real name not be used) confesses that he was “really baring it all” in writing up the small sixteen-page publication. “Slightly Depressing” is a perzine, or “personal zine”: its pages relay how it feels to suffer from social anxiety and depression, and how it felt growing up with parents who used to “scream at one another night after night.” The tales take on the shape of conversations with an alien named 21.5, personal recollections, and poems; interspersed throughout are little vignettes such as “Why aren’t Hindus ever depressed? Because they have that Hin-can-do attitude”—small asides probably meant to lighten the mood, but which serve the curious counter-purpose of making the material seem that much sadder. Of course, lines like “why am i so scared” and “why am i so fucked up” don’t help much, either.

“Slightly Depressing” can only be found at Wicker Park bookstore Quimby’s, where it lies on a shelf in the “local zines” section next to countless other self-bound books of various sizes, with titles like “Phone Phrantic,” “Lion in a Teacup,” “The Dick Pig Review,” and “Sniffing Drainpipes.” They run the gauntlet of possible topics: the sixth volume of “Caboose” revolves around the theme of “Health and Recreation,” but next to it lies the first volume, from 2002, in which author Liz Saidel (now Mason) related stories of how she was known as “the barfer” and explained “how Breathe Right strips rock my world.” One zine, “AdHouse Trashcan,” doesn’t have any sort of story to tell—its pages display images of summaries of accounts, computer screen snapshots, advertisements, and other cultural riffraff, scribbled over and deconstructed in various ways. That’s all there is on every page.

As different as “AdHouse Trashcan” may seem from something like “Slightly Depressing,” both would probably fall under the “perzine” categorization. In fact, it would be difficult to definitively discern, but perzines most likely make up the majority of zines being published today—thanks to their ambiguous definition, any sort of “personal” statement, whether it be opinion or observation, anecdote, or even commentary on advertising culture (which “AdHouse” seems to provide) can fit the mold. But they are hardly the only type of zine out there. Next to Quimby’s local zine section lie the “fanzine” shelves. Fanzines, as the name suggests, differ from perzines in that they tend to focus around a certain subject or topic, of which the writers and readers are all fans. Their origin lies in an unlikely source: science fiction. As zine enthusiast and sometime Chicago resident Anne Elizabeth Moore explains in an article in the Fall of Autumn Quarterly, “When the genre first appeared in the 1920s, a group of people coalesced and something remarkable happened; either early science fiction was of such horrendous quality that it seemed instantly accessible to those who came across it, or it was an invention so late in coming that the audience’s personal abilities had surpassed it already. Regardless, science fiction fans started creating their own science fictions almost immediately, photocopying them, mailing them throughout the country, trading them with each other, writing each other letters, printing those letters with addresses in subsequent issues,” etc. etc. It was in one of these sci-fi fanzines that the name “fanzine” was first coined, by Russ Chauvenet in 1940. The name would eventually be shortened to “’zine” and, finally, “zine,” simultaneously expanding in breadth to include perzines and other types of self-made (and often self-Xeroxed) publications.

Today, fanzines are most often found associated with music, boasting long interviews and recounted experiences by fans and for fans. Some of the more well-known examples include punk publications “Maximumrocknroll” (started in 1982) and the recently-folded “Punk Planet,” which had been based in Chicago and co-edited by Moore. These also represent more typically magazine-like examples: full-sized, with professional binding, sometimes with glossy pages, etc. Despite the commercial appearance, however, they remain zines at their core: while the homemade aesthetic may be more prevalent, it’s the nature of the material and the process of creation that unifies them in “zine” status with their smaller, self-constructed contemporaries.

In “Hey Kidz! Buy This Book,” Moore writes, “Making your own book or zine is the only way to exercise true freedom of the press.” And surely this has been true—for many zine creators, self-publishing has been necessary to disseminate political views that would not go over so well with traditional media outlets. It also allows for the publishing of material that, for whatever reason, does not fit in with the traditional publisher’s profit-reliant layouts. Just ask the guys behind Lumpen and Roctober, two South Side-based zines that deal directly with these two issues, respectively. Lumpen, an eponymous long-running zine created by Bridgeport’s Lumpen Media Group, presents readers with a mix of culture and politics; its ardent left-wing perspectives would make it an unlikely candidate for the more PC, capitalist world of commercial publishing. Roctober, on the other hand, published by South Shore resident Jake Austen, offers a mix of underground comics and music coverage, much of it focused on obscure, mostly-forgotten bands and artists of past eras.

Started in 1992, when Austen was still a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, Roctober emerged from a very particular situation: Austen had recently conducted an interview for a punk magazine, but the issue in which the interview would be published was never to come out. “We had this great, great interview and we didn’t have a place to publish it,” Austin recalls. So he created a zine of his own; and after graduating later that year, he flew out to Chicago and brought the publication’s future with him. “At the time, it was a Xeroxed zine, and I wasn’t thinking about advertising or anything”—but Roctober quickly grew, as labels sent him promotional copies of albums, advertisers came knocking, and writers lined up to create stories and drawings for the zine. Austen soon found he could no longer manually create the zines himself—“once you’re doing hundreds of issues, to staple all those pages!” he laughs—so he turned to professional publishers, who helped him put together the tri-annually released publication. Now on issue 45, it costs a few thousand dollars to put together a few thousand copies, which are then distributed to a number of places throughout Chicago’s North Side, such as Quimby’s, Reckless Records, Loop Distro, and Dusty Groove America. With ad sales, he’s just able to cover the cost of printing—the profits are razor-thin, if they exist at all.

Still, Austen and his group of approximately sixty contributors continue to produce issue after issue. As he sees it, there are plenty of reasons to continue—and plenty to continue with the zine format. “The nice thing that you can do with a zine, [you] can make an article that’s ten thousand words [long],” he explains, describing an upcoming article about Sun Records’ former studio saxophonist, written by a music industry expert who’d once written a book on Elvis’ backing band. It’s the kind of thing that probably wouldn’t fly with professional publications, with more limited word counts. He also emphasizes the lack of deadlines, which are a boon for zine writers—usually, “you talk to someone just as long as you need to” in order to get the story done on time, he says of the world of mainstream publications. And, although he doesn’t sell to any places in his South Shore community, Austen doesn’t mind going where he needs to in order to find an audience (or, as economic circumstances dictate, a distributor). As he puts it, “It’s always been about going up to Wicker Park.”

But in today’s world, that isn’t necessarily the case. With the internet, a zine maker doesn’t theoretically have to go anywhere—he can just publish the material online. And plenty of e-zines do exist, of both the fan- and per- variety. In fact, zine review sites have even sprung up, such as www.zinethug.com, in which Portland, Oregon’s Marc Parker, a zine maker in his own right, writes short paragraphs describing the good and bad of the zines that he’s been reading lately. The catch? He’ll only review paper zines—wrap your head around that one.

But as bizarre as it might seem to start a website dedicated explicitly to reviewing only paper zines, it does say something about the value of the tried-and-true paper publication. As Austen profoundly puts it, “There are certain situations where reading print is superior…[such as] reading while you’re sitting on the toilet. That’s a way people read zines.” Potty humor aside, plenty of support still exists for the paper zine, from anti-technology DIY groups to those who like to lie down and read in bed without a hot laptop burning into their chest. And, as the Hip Lit Fair at the Museum of Contemporary Art proved on May 17, the paper zine allows for the building of a community among writers and readers that just isn’t possible when dealing with strangers online. Packed into a small backroom on the first floor of the building, zine makers and independent publishers gathered with fans to mingle and spread their wares as a DJ innocuously spun tunes in the back. As Austen puts it, “You can network easier with MySpace now but you don’t get the deep bonds” that come with constructing actual material pieces and sharing them with actual people.

And yet, a community isn’t necessarily needed to validate the efforts of the zine maker. Chris was not one of the writers in attendance at the MCA’s Hip Lit program; “I don’t really fit in with the hipster scene,” the high school teacher admits, and he might not have wanted to take credit for his creation even if he did. “The zine I recently made and the one I am working on now are incredibly personal,” he confides. “High school parents don’t always take that the right way.” But he is pleased with his creation nevertheless: “When I was younger, I wanted to write poetry and fiction, but depression and anxiety issues fizzled away any talent I might have had. Zines represent a way to publish, to tell stories, without having to go through the agony of writing a book. At this point in my life, a zine is doable; a memoir is not. I wish it were, of course. [But I] wanted to have a product—a piece of my own writing I could touch, I could look at…Actually having a copy of it gives me a feeling of accomplishment.” And perhaps that’s what zine culture is all about: not a matter of what’s being said, or who it’s being said to, but simply being able to go out and say it.