Maggie Sivit

Pilsen and Little Village are cousins—not only because families often extend across the neighborhood boundaries, nor simply because they are both port-of-entry regions for recent Mexican immigrants. These two are a pair, now more than ever, because of a growing exchange between the two.

Pilsen is a neighborhood of cultural juxtaposition. Dimly lit Café Mestizo, filled with studious patrons eating pasta salad, is just across the street from the abuelas watching lurid novellas inside of Gloria’s Tacos. When asked about some of the best places in Pilsen, one woman who works in the neighborhood snapped, “Do you mean real Pilsen or gentrified Pilsen?”

While the gentrification story is accurate, it’s too simple. Yes, affluent twenty-somethings are moving into the neighborhood, driving up rents and pushing rooted Latino families out. And the number of foreign-born residents in Pilsen has decreased dramatically in the last 20 years, but the young, educated children of the American Dream remain steadfastly committed to the barrio. Places like Working Bikes, which treats bicycles not as an ironic symbol but an important vehicle for working men and women, and Simone’s Bar, which has begun to host weekly karaoke nights where Latinos and non-Latinos alike gather to sing classic Mexican pop hits, are bridging a gap between the cohabiting communities.

In contrast, walking across Ogden into Little Village, also known as La Villita, or, half-jokingly, “the Mexico of the Midwest,” can feel like crossing a real border. Quinceañeras dresses fill storefront windows. On the sidewalk, old men push brightly colored plastic carts filled with paletería, while bored teenage boys occasionally sneer at passing “white hipsters.” Though signs in Little Village’s commercial district are almost always in Spanish, many neighborhood restaurants have begun warming up to visitors by offering menus translated into English, following Pilsen’s lead.

Those who worry that the neighborhoods will renounce their titles as the twin centers of the city’s Mexican-American community seem to ignore the fact that many of the area’s transplants are pulled by the ethnic sounds, sights, and smells. And arguably, both neighborhoods are benefiting from the new (bilingual) conversations about what it means to thrive as a community.

Best Fabric Selection 
Textile Discount Outlet
The Textile Discount Outlet is a 75,000-square-foot warehouse filled with shiny fabrics, glittery tulle, and thick polar fleece. No other place in Pilsen, or perhaps the entire city, can offer what this place does all under one roof—materials to make your daughter’s quinceañera dress, to reupholster your couch, or to colorfully decorate a birdcage. The store’s clientele is mixed: young women speak Spanish as they swap gauzy fabric swatches, middle aged men systematically gather stack after stack of seemingly unrelated fabric, and bossy old ladies snap at the the staff to cut just here and there. The stock caters to this wide range of personages and their projects—paper flowers and buttons in varying degrees of ostentation, dozens of tiebacks, and materials for belly-dancing costumes.  The fabric starts at around $3 per yard, and the staff is ready to direct customers to anything they need. 2121 W. 21st St. Monday, 9:30am-7pm. Tuesday- Wednesday, 9:30am-5pm; Thursday, 9:30am-7pm; Friday, 9:30am-2pm. Sunday, 10am-4pm (773)847.0572. megafabrics.com (Cecilia Donnelly)

Best Food from a Factory
Tortilleria Sabinas
When the school bell tolls, children overtake Tortillería Sabinas, the 50-year-old tortilla factory at 18th and Wood, and one of a host of tortillerías that supply the culinary staple of Pilsen and Little Village. The disordered rainbow of backpacks blocks the view, but once inside the big glass windows reveal how to make a perfectly circular corn tortilla. Unfortunately, there are no tours, since their insurance no longer covers the possibility of photo-snapping visitors getting sucked into one of the huge machines and flattened into perfect round circles appropriate for wrapping tacos. Nonetheless, with or without a chance to watch the tortilleros in action, make sure to bite into a hot, soft, almost sweet corn tortilla next time you visit. If you’re in a hurry, definitely pick up a bag of tortilla chips, and if you want a larger meal, the steaming tortillas at Sabinas are said to supply Nuevo Leon right next door. 1509 W. 18th St. (312)738.2412 (Cecilia Donnelly)

Best Cowboy Boot Selection
Durango Western Wear and Almacenes Maria’s
For most of today’s urban fashion boutiques, the art of outfitting the modern cowboy has gone the way of the buffalo. The presence of aging men in oversized sombreros lingering along the commercial strip of 26th Street, though, signals that this place might be your best bet. Entering Durango Western Wear feels like walking into, well, rural Durango, tumbleweeds excluded. They’ve got wide-collared button-ups embroidered with ornate crosses and flowers, and belt buckles as big and heavy as a gold brick. Female mannequins sport Almaneces Maria’s off-the-shoulder mini-dresses, belted blouses, and stretchy leggings. Pairs of disembodied legs, dressed in Wrangers and Levis,  mount overstuffed clothing racks. But Durango Western Wear really stomps out the (admittedly limited) competition when it comes to boots. Colorful ostrich print short boots, soft suede skinny heeled boots, pink painted and heavily bejeweled boots, boots that look like alligator snouts, boots made of glossy eel skin. Buyers beware: the more lavish the adornment, the higher the price. And with some pairs marked upwards of $400, these boots are made for walking, not riding. 4136 W 26th St. Weekdays, 10 am – 8 pm, Sunday, 10 am – 6 pm. (773) 762.2610 MariasChicago.com (Kelsey Gee)

Best Soy Taco
El Faro
Forget the rice and beans, vegetarians. Instead, rejoice at the city’s best restaurant for authentic vegetarian Mexican food. While for some Little Village taquerías the “vegetarian” means a torta filled with turkey or other non-beef meats, at El Faro there are dozens of dishes made specifically for vegetarian and vegan customers. The soy chicken and soy pork tacos are textured and seasoned perfectly, serving as hearty replacements for—if not perfect imitations of—their animal-based counterparts. Not into fake meats? Faro’s nopalitos guisados (a spiced cactus entree) and any of their egg dishes are just as good. The menu extends far beyond vegetarian fare, however, so fear not for your meaty friends. The waitresses are helpful and speak more Spanish than English, and the restaurant is packed at all times of the day with customers from around the city. While you’re there, make sure to say hello to the neighborhood’s sweetest elotero, David, whose van of spicy dried mangoes, candies, and nuts is always parked out front. El Faro, which means “lighthouse,” is a gastronomic beacon indeed. 3936 W. 31st St. Monday-Friday, 5am-11pm; Saturday, 5am-12am; Sunday, 7am-11pm. (773)277.1155. elfarorestaurant.com (Kelsey Gee)

Best Iced Coffee
Café Jumping Bean
“Cream and sugar?” the friendly waiter asks, a question that calls to mind immediate dental rot in a Dunkin Donuts world. At Café Jumping Bean, however, the $2 iced coffee is milky, lightly sweetened, and brewed from high-quality beans. Add a sandwich of fresh veggies and peppery tuna beside a half-cup of warm lentil soup, and your afternoon pick-me-up can become a meal. The café serves up an eclectic mix of Mexican licuados, hot soups, filling pastas, and focaccia-bread sandwiches. The food is as delicious and affordable as the coffee—Jumping Bean is committed to sticking to the neighborhood’s working class roots by keeping all of their meals as cheap as possible. Decorated with the work of neighborhood artists, the room buzzes with life—a middle-aged man talks shop on his Bluetooth; a model-thin student reads for class over a bagel; a curly-haired couple whispers to each other in Spanish; all sit cozily surrounded by the work of neighborhood artists. Your search for a caffeine fix couldn’t take you further from corporate humdrum. 1439 W. 18th St. Monday-Friday, 6am-10pm; Saturday-Sunday, 7am-7pm. (312)455-0019. cafejumpingbean.org (Kelsey Gee)

Best Free Art Classes
Pros Arts Studio
Currently housed within a Park District complex in lush Dvorak Park, Pros Arts is a community art program that runs youth camps all summer and art classes during the school year. The Clay Studio class is free and open to the public on Friday nights—often  visitors get their hands a bit dirty before heading out on a Second Friday art crawl. Pros Arts prides themselves on keeping Pilsen’s Mexican cultural and artistic traditions alive — this season participants in the clay class will make soup bowls for a pozolada cook-off fundraiser this winter. Attendees will enjoy the pre-Columbian soup, even having the chance to take one of the bowls home. But if soup and clay are not your thing, Pros Arts also puts on a Día de los Muertos parade and festival. Though they don’t have a standing gallery, their events showcase the art of all participants and serve as community get-togethers. Dvorak Park. 1119 W. Cullerton. Youth Classes, ages 6-12, Friday, 4pm-6pm. Community Classes, all ages, 6pm-8pm. (312)226-7767. prosarts.org (Cecilia Donnelly)

Paul Hopkin, curator of the Pilsen gallery Slow, embraces these multiple perspectives in Slow’s newest show, “the low down.” The exhibition, a tribute to the subjectivity that colors our lives, features the work of photographers Caroline Allison and Danica Favorito and sculptor Jeffrey Grauel. Their works demonstrate a truth about truth. Which is to say, everyone has a different view of what the truth might be, their own version of the “low down.”

Caroline Allison’s work treats “the low down” with a sensitive grace. Her large color photographs are serene and scenic, and yet their even composition and sharp focus creates a foreboding tension: there is something discomfiting about the tidiness of the subject matter. Take, for instance, the room depicted in “Estelle Faulkner’s Air Conditioner, Rowan Oak, Oxford, Mississippi.” A brief background to the image is given underneath the work’s title (a more literal ‘low down’): “William Faulkner refused to allow air conditioning in his house, Rowan Oak. On July 3rd, 1962, one day after Faulkner’s death, his wife Estelle installed a window unit in her bedroom.” A bedroom window, white-framed with sunlit panes, is central to the photo. An air conditioner seems almost ceremoniously perched on its sill, like a plastic obelisk. While the window unit is consistent with the airy décor and the room’s patterned wallpaper, the background information beneath the image lends it a sinister quality. Because its very presence is contingent upon the author’s death, the unit seems to have replaced Faulkner himself. Marred by the photograph’s eerie back-story, the quaint suburban aura of the photograph is dissolved.

Although she exhibits a similar interest in the transformation of the quotidian to the theatrical, Danica Favorito’s work tends more toward the confessional than Allison’s. Concerning itself with interior dialogue and private longing, her intimate subject matter befits her work’s informal presentation. Allison’s photos are large, vivid, and framed—Favorito’s, on the other hand, are of low resolution, printed on computer paper, and fixed to the wall with strips of masking tape. Luckily, her strong composition can withstand such unconventional packaging. In her photograph “I wish I had a travelling van,” a woman in a parking lot aims a camera at a parked van heaped with furniture. The subject’s desirous gaze seems to lust after a different reality as she seeks to capture it on camera. The title’s adoption of the woman’s voice shortens the subject’s distance from the photographer and the viewer’s distance from the subject. The photographer seems to be expressing the wish of the photographed woman, and we, as viewers of the photograph, are mimicking her prying gaze. The roles of subject, photographer, and viewer are inextricably linked by a desire for a separate reality.

Grauel, the lone sculptor of the three artists, appears to have the group’s best sense of humor. In his piece “She told me she couldn’t see good when she was spinning,” he fashions a small set of venetian blinds from sliced beer cans; perhaps drunkenness is a kind of subjectivity too. Grauel’s work can also be startlingly opaque, as is the case with “Molly and I went to the circus. Molly got hit with a bowling pin. We got even with the circus. We bought tickets but we didn’t get in.” The work is a finely rendered miniature baseball bat hanging from the ceiling, the title of which is written near the door. This sculpture, while visually appealing, seems wholly dissociated from its title. Here we are asked to abandon the notion that art should produce accessible meaning. Instead, we must embrace Grauel’s resistance to easy comprehension, however difficult to penetrate.

During the opening a small boy in a Little League uniform weaved through the room before toying with Grauel’s beer can blinds. His mother chided him and apologized to the curator, who responded with, “Don’t worry about it. We’re the casual guys.” And he’s right—they are. Behind the exhibition space there was a cozy dwelling out from which the Little Leaguer emerged, yelling, “There’s pizza in the kitchen!” People smiled and migrated away from the art and towards the smell of food, a reassuring reminder that—even when viewing a show that exposes differing viewpoints and conflicting truths—there are some things that everyone can agree upon.

Slow, 2153 W 21st street. Through May 28. Saturday, 5-9 pm. (773)645-8803. facebook.com/pages/Slow/157109257009

Courtesy of Cobalt Studio

“The creation of artifacts is inevitable, for all will be remnants with the devouring of time,” writes Leonel Hernandez in his artist’s statement. One of eleven artists contributing to the third show at Cobalt Art Studio in Pilsen, Hernandez touches on a theme running through “Artifice//Artifact.” Curator and co-owner Adriana Baltazar describes the new show in Pilsen as an “inquiry into artifacts and photography as a medium to represent facts or to construct them.”

No part of this inquiry is visible while standing on West 21st Street in the cold. Cobalt Art Studio shares its address with an apartment building, and it takes a few minutes before the space reveals itself. About 30 people are chatting in the brightly lit room, leaving wet boot marks on the cement floor. Bowls of chips and salsa are left mainly to their own devices on the incongruous black kitchen table lounging against one stark white wall.

After reading the curator’s introduction, one wonders how photography can construct fact. Linda Prieto’s photographs of trees seek to capture their emotions. She titled the series “It is what it is,” but her explanation expands “is” to include “might be.” Thelma Uranga, another artist, displays pictures of her family and community in the series “Everything is Inherited.” While the pictures are factual, almost documentary, she explains that she was expressing or constructing her relationship with the subjects through the photographs. She writes that she intended the photographs to display her personal understanding of the subjects, rather than a neutral portrayal.

The representation aspect of photography receives an equally novel approach. On one wall of the exhibition, a spiral of nine photographs is accompanied by a large can labeled “The Secret Jar.” Jackie Orozco invites her viewers to write their secrets down and put them in the jar. She has already collected 52 secrets, and her photographs are representations of some of those collected at earlier shows. As she puts it, she has received “confessions, fantasies, and everything else.” The photographs represent the secrets while referring back to the project at large with visual clues—in most cases, a jar-shaped object inhabits part of the frame.

Antonio Martinez, co-owner of Cobalt Art Studio, confesses that a lot of the set-up work was done at the last minute. He holds a conversation with a friend in equal parts English, Spanish, and laughter, detailing the mishaps that occurred in the last few days before the exhibition. That said, he points out that he and Baltazar have “been around the block and taken notes.” The atmosphere at the opening is chatty and relaxed: when Martinez tries to call Baltazar for an interview but she can’t be pulled away, he shrugs and says simply, “she has a lot of friends.” While the artists in the show are mostly their friends, he adds that as soon as they had a space, “people really came out of the woodwork.”

Cobalt is not-for-profit and Martinez adds that his goal is not to “collect commissions” or “hustle people’s work.” A gap in the gallery walls allows a peek into the studio in the back. A tree made out of junk mail, featured in Baltazar’s series of photographs, stands over Blick plastic bags, art supplies, coats of the in-crowd draped over chairs, and the fancifully painted unisex bathroom door. Martinez explains to someone else that it was a great move to have a space other than his apartment for this work. The studio is in high demand, to the point where Martinez said that after only a few months in the space, he has had to remind those looking for a fundraising venue: “I’m still unpacking my stuff!” The community growing around Cobalt Art Studio and its willingness to take risks point to a bright future for Martinez and Baltazar. In the meantime, they’ve got as many big questions to unpack as they have boxes.

Cobalt Art Studio. 1950 W. 21st St. Show runs through the end of January. Viewings by appointment.

“Are all these for the swap?” a woman asks your confused correspondent.

“I’m moving, so it’s sort of an opportune time,” replies the real donor, appearing behind me with a third box, unaware of my imposture.

“Oh, that’s great. We can take them into the back room.”  Shaking off confusion, the woman turns to me, “So these boxes aren’t yours?”

No, they’re not.  But I did bring two of my own.  Books, not boxes.

All of us (and our books) gathered here for Bibliotéca’s first official book swap. The book swap is just one of many programs offered by the Bibliotéca, whose repertoire also includes tutoring sessions, film screenings, bike workshops, and open mic nights. Every first and third Thursday of the month, Bibliotéca hosts the “Books to Prisoners” program, when event organizers and Pilsen residents gather to prepare selected literature for Chicago inmates. “This place takes down so many different shapes sometimes,” says one patron proudly.

For those uninitiated into book swapping, it’s easy to pick up: bring x number of books and walk away with x number of books, with a start-up cache supplied by event organizers (or overzealous donors). The selection at Saturday’s event ranged from science-fiction authors like Philip K. Dick to German novelist Hermann Hesse to thirteenth-century Persian poet Rumi. A creative writing tutor from the neighborhood placed El Capital on the non-fiction table, and then turned to the fiction selection, finally deciding on a worn Dostoevsky paperback.

The scene was intimate and friendly—a craftsman sold his jewelry across from a small table arrangement of pita, hummus, and fruit—and the quiet furniture towards the back of the room invited patrons to sit down and flip through a book before taking it home. As I settled into a chair by the back wall, a young girl began to pick tentatively at the upright bass propped up against the couch.  I swapped out Machado de Assis for Cervantes and Donald Miller for Faulkner, and though I felt like I was coming out ahead, my old books had been picked up off the table as well.

Depending on turnout and community participation, organizers hope to make the swap a monthly fixture in Bibliotéca Popular’s event calendar.  Either way, for a Saturday afternoon, there’s a lot more going on here than at the Chicago Public Library branch two blocks up the street.

Pasted to the front door of Pilsen’s Casa Aztlán is a handwritten sign that reads, “Donation $15—if unemployed, $5.” Inside the performance space, Benito Juárez and Pancho Villa stare grimly from the mural that covers the walls. Their vibrantly rendered figures are barely visible in the darkened room—every few moments their faces appear from behind a dancing audience member or a community volunteer. The presence of two icons of Mexican progressivism in this makeshift ballroom is fitting: May Day, known as International Workers’ Day outside the United States, is a commemoration of the fight for the eight-hour workday and a reminder of the oppressive conditions that persist for many laborers. In collaboration with Portoluz and Rockotitlan, Casa Aztlán hosts the annual May Day Blast, which celebrates Pilsen’s rich culture while raising awareness of the conditions of migrant workers.

Tonight’s celebration is not a fundraiser for a wider philanthropic project; the donations, according to Portoluz director Marguerite Horberg, will cover the costs of the evening itself. She describes organizations like Portoluz and Casa Aztlán as “sanctuaries for progressive culture.” They are nonprofits with modest means and lofty goals: they aim to promote the arts in Chicago and to provide a space for what Horberg calls their “proclivities.” Proclivities seems to be a euphemism for politics, as made evident by the Zapatista soldier painted on the side of Casa Aztlán itself.

The May Day Blast includes performances by a host of musical ensembles, including Benjamin Anaya & Los Extraños Unidos and Los Vicios de Papa. The crowd consists mostly of well-meaning young adults sitting cross-legged in front of the stage, although a few older patrons dance unabashedly in the back of the room. Despite the leftist philosophy of the event’s organizers, the musical acts themselves are seemingly apolitical, and the drinks being sold at the back of the room suggest an entrepreneurial streak that contrasts with the revolutionary backdrop of the night’s festivities.

The apolitical nature of the musical acts doesn’t disturb Horberg. Portoluz’s mission is centered on the fusion of the political and the cultural, the artist and the activist. According to Chris Geovanis, a former organizer for Hothouse, Portoluz’s precursor, the separation between the realms of culture and politics is an artificial divide created by those she calls “the little capitalist monsters who call the shots.” As she sees it, venues like Casa Aztlán and nonprofits such as Portoluz are “a collective answer to the dearth of access to anything but mainstream pop culture.” But according to Geovanis, even this subversive approach to cultural activity has been corrupted by corporate interest. She believes that visionaries like Horberg remain relatively faithful to Portoluz’s original objective: to serve as “a standing expression of solidarity.”

Earnest patrons clap and shuffle enthusiastically about the room as the night progresses, leaving little room for sermonizing. Despite the serious theme of the event, it is primarily an opportunity for the community to come together and celebrate its often difficult history. As if to distill the spirit of the evening, Geovanis paraphrases the anarchist writer Emma Goldman: “I don’t want to be part of your revolution if I can’t dance.”

untitled (Philip High)

On Friday, April 9, the sound of leather soles hitting the pavement and the booming DJ set at the Chicago Art Department created the pleasurable din that fills Halsted Street during Pilsen’s Second Fridays gallery crawl. While patrons sipped white wine out of plastic cups in some of the neighborhood’s trendier art spaces, a gallery a little further down the block offered viewers a more intimate aesthetic experience. The Logsdon 1909 Gallery’s current exhibition, “Subtext,” features intriguing mixed-media pieces by Lucinda Alston Chapman and Philip High. In addition to the art itself, the nature of the gallery plays a crucial role in shaping and enhancing the viewing experience. Logsdon 1909 doubles as an exhibition space and a personal residence: a real-world example of what it means to live and breathe art.

Lucinda Alston Chapman’s work is mostly three-dimensional and always many-faceted; her intricate sculptures display both technical brilliance and an intellectual bent. She seems to occupy an artistic niche that owes as much to avant-garde architecture as it does to traditional methods of carpentry. Much of her work is composed of wooden rings implanted into and extending out from books that have been cut diagonally and repurposed. A particularly striking example of these formal elements is “MANsion,” an unidentified tome that has been dissected and adorned with playing cards and gold foil. The underlying motif of the piece (its “subtext,” if you will) is the degradation of conventional measures of value. The destroyed book seems to be an indictment on the canonical nature of intellectualism, while the cards and gold foil are overt allusions to luxury, leisure and the power of chance. The title suggests a feminist outlook, although that particular element does not overwhelm the piece as an aesthetic whole. This is art, not politics.

Chapman’s work is not limited to sculpture. “Subtext” features some of her acrylic paintings, which are reminiscent of both impressionist landscapes and pixelated computer art. In “Summer Rain,” her tightly packed clusters of color form a pleasing gradient that has a distinctly calming effect. Indeed, Chapman’s paintings exist in a universe apart from the compositional bustle of her three-dimensional pieces. In her paintings, Chapman favors serenity over technical complexity.

Philip High’s work, although radically different from Chapman’s contributions to the show, provides an interesting complement. High seems to reject the sharp edges and clean lines that make Chapman’s sculpture so distinctive. Instead, his layered, multimedia canvases embrace a roughness of composition and content that makes “Subtext” such an interesting exhibition. For example, his “Structure 2071-E8B632X5A” bristles with a grimy urbanity that is fundamentally different from the other pieces in the show. This particular tableau features coarsely rendered geometrical objects and graffiti-like scrawling overlaid on multiple layers of paste and paper. Linear figures add a human element to what is otherwise an abstract and impersonal work. The sense of alienation evoked by High’s canvases, when presented alongside Chapman’s warmer works, paints a stark and disturbing image of 21st century life.

Logsdon 1909’s intimate exhibition space is essential to the overall success of “Subtext”; gallery-goers were intrigued by the opportunity to explore a gallery that doubles as living quarters. Ultimately, however, the quaint nature of the exhibition space was a secondary aspect of the whole viewing experience. Whether the patrons were appreciating the complexities of one of Chapman’s glorious constructions or getting lost in the thick layers of Philip High’s enigmatic collages, it was clear that Friday’s opening was all about the art.
Logsdon 1909, 1909 S. Halsted St. Through May 8. Saturday noon-5pm, or by appointment. (312)666-8966. logsdon1909.com

(courtesy of the artist)

With roots in the world of Chicago printmaking, No Coast’s core group of working artists has toes reaching into different waters, from more fine art-oriented projects, to those more music- or craft-oriented, allowing the collective to straddle and synthesize different niches of Chicago’s sprawling art scene. No Coast’s recently launched series of monthly shows, “Exhibitions and Editions,” has so far reaffirmed their belief, as stated on their website, that “creative practice is a social act.” Each show that goes up in No Coast’s gallery space is accompanied by editioned works which are available for purchase at an accessible rate and is fore-fronted or ended by some kind of performance that diversifies and expands the gallery’s patronage. Marvin Astorga’s “This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things,” which opens April 9, promises to follow suit.

The show will consist of collage and mixed media work, presenting quotations from the artist’s extensive collection of printed ephemera. Astorga, who is based in Pilsen and is also a musician and administrator at the Old Town School of Folk Music, strikes a balance between found and constructed images. Faces, objects, and bodies composed of magazine cutouts are combined to form new creatures. Densely layered compositions of people cut out of magazines and periodicals become impromptu and mangled crowds and totems. In a few pieces, the organizational schemes seem to map out constellations of relationships, hierarchies, and idols. Frequently in Astorga’s collages, animal heads appear on top of human costumes, adorn people’s skin, or sit opposite human heads, as if in conversation. There is an element of playfulness in Astorga’s iconography, as well as an obscure sense of the religious. As Young Joon Kwak, one of No Coast’s group of six core artists, explains, Astorga’s work reveals a “complicit and contingent” relationship between the mass-availability of image and consumer culture and the medium of collage. In this sense, Astorga’s work is founded in the fundamental appeal of the medium; his evident interest in collecting reflects this.

In addition to a series of Astorga’s collages and collections, the show will also feature large-scale digital prints, and an elaborate mandala installation that will extend the motifs and process found in the collages into other media. A zine printed by the artist in a small edition will also be available for sale, and a closing performance on Friday, May 7 will feature the performance group Acephalous, a Chicago-based troupe who will offer “a playful poke at death and the spirit world through the tragicomic unfoldings of a live radio drama.” The events bookending “This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things,” much like the show’s printed works, promises to present an eclectic and intriguing experience.
No Coast Collective, 1500 W. 17th St. April 9–May 7, opening reception Friday, April 9, 6-9pm, closing reception and performance Friday, May 7, 5-7pm. (312)850-2338. no-coast.org

(Julie Schabel)

The POST Pilsen gallery’s monthly market, featuring vendors selling items from hot sauce to vintage clothing to tapes, is not a typical craft fair. Natasha Ryan and Bojan Jovanovic, who operate the gallery and organized the market, intend the monthly fair to be “an eclectic group of people…a fusing of different ages, different ideas,” according to Ryan. She and Jovanovic have hosted a variety of musicians, artists, and other performers in their Racine Avenue apartment gallery since they moved there last November. The two work together at a booking agency for musicians, and their work inspires them to organize events in unusual venues: “We want to have uncommon events at a gallery-slash-home,” Ryan says.

The POST Pilsen Fair was inspired by the Renegade Craft Fair, an arts and crafts market held yearly in five cities across the United States that features a wide variety of artists and vendors. Ryan and Jovanovic envisioned their Pilsen gallery as the home of a similar but smaller-scale enterprise. They held their first fair in February, a lively but somewhat crowded event with a total of 30 vendors. In March, they scaled back to 20, and followed it with a dance party featuring Database, a band from Brazil.

March’s POST Pilsen Market featured a diverse mix of vendors and crafts. On display in the gallery’s front rooms were vintage clothing from Pilsen store Knee Deep, embroidered cushions and painted cards by local amateur artist Rachel Wallis, photography by Andersonville photographer Becky Nixon, and jewelry from Purple and Lime, a brand by fashion designer Rebecca George. In what is normally Ryan and Jovanovic’s living room, Brian Starr, a DJ and musician as well as an amateur cook, sold his brand of organic, vegan, homemade soup. In the apartment kitchen, a selection of hot sauces was for sale, as well as CDs and tapes from Moss Tapes, a Chicago-based music label. Some of the vendors are neighbors and friends of Ryan and Jovanovic, while others heard about the event through mutual friends or advertisements on Craigslist and Facebook.

Several of the vendors had sold their items at February’s market and were pleased enough with its success to return in March. Most comment that they are drawn by the event’s atmosphere as much as by the opportunity to sell their crafts. Starr declares: “It was the people that brought me back the second time. I watch people. They come in here with a straight face…everyone turns that frown upside-down. There’s music, food, beer. It’s a really beautiful scene.”

Some of the vendors are less positive. Wallis says that she is “still in the wait-and-see phase” as far as her continued participation in the monthly event. She explains that a fair like this has to be financially worthwhile to warrant artists’ continued participation, as it is difficult for people who both create art and work full-time jobs to spend an entire day selling their items.

Purple and Lime’s proprietor, Rebecca George, and her friend Dana Rochelle, an actress and hand model, are attracted to the event by more than the opportunity to sell goods: it allows them to connect with other artists around Chicago. “When you’re an artist, you have to support other artists…It’s motivating to talk to other people, to network,” explains Rochelle.

Ryan and Jovanovic charge no fee to vendors who want to sell their wares at the market, and provide free food, beer, and music for all who come. The atmosphere at this month’s fair was relaxed, with a crowd ranging from teenagers to the middle-aged. For April’s fair, Ryan and Jovanovic intend to open their backyard, where they have an organic garden, and add a small farmer’s market to the event. Some vendors will move outside, and Ryan and Jovanovic expect to grill out back. The two hope the market will continue indefinitely, as Ryan puts it, “connecting people who wouldn’t necessarily get to be in the same place at the same time.”

(courtesy of Dream Theater Company)

Included in the Dream Theatre Company’s mission statement is the wish to “shatter the barrier between actor and audience.” In their latest production, “Agamemnon”, it was a small barrier to shatter. Only two players act in the tragedy onstage, and last Saturday, only five that people sat in the audience. The lack of attendance may have been the evening’s greater tragedy, because “Agamemnon”, in addition to being superbly written, is a genuinely well-acted production.

“Agamemnon”’s action unfolds over the course of the eponymous Greek king’s return from Troy. The program reads, “The play which you are about to see does not retell the events from Aeschylus, but of the unknown events in between the Trojan War and Agamemnon’s return home.” Agamemnon, played by Jeremy Menekseoglu, is accompanied by Cassandra, played by Courtney Arnett, the unwilling Trojan princess whose prophecies are fated to fall upon deaf ears. The majority of the plot concerns Cassandra’s feelings of alienation, initia­lly from her brutish Greek captors, but ultimately from humanity itself.

Menekseoglu, who wrote, directed, and plays the title role in the piece, makes a fine Agamemnon. Throughout the play, he grapples with the immorality of his siege upon Troy, his abduction of a 16-year-old girl, and other past wrongs. Menekseoglu seems to inhabit his character completely, equally comfortable sneering at the precocious Cassandra and howling helplessly into the dark eaves of the performance space.

Menekseoglu’s co-star, the girlish and supremely talented Courtney Arnett, provides the perfect complement to his on-stage volatility. Her measured speech ticks like a fateful metronome against the background of the dialogue; Arnett’s ability to capture the innocence of her character is crucial to the escalation of tension within the work. This doesn’t mean that she can’t belt out a hoarse cry when required—some of the most poignant moments in “Agamemnon” are brought to life by her desperate wails and teary-eyed pleading.

“Agamemnon”’s direction and set design feature a few charming anachronisms that elicited a chuckle from the audience members. In one scene, the two characters throw back flutes of wine as a static-laced radio play about the life of Heracles plays in the background. In another, Cassandra impresses the king with her jazz dancing, showing off the Susie Q she “learned from the Oracle at Delphi.” These devices are not employed for purely comedic purposes, however. The blurring of the lines between past, present, and future are critical to the work, lending it a challenging metaphorical dimension. This is manifest in the resistance of Cassandra and Agamemnon’s relationship to conventional categories: they are neither friends nor lovers. Indeed, even Cassandra’s ostensible ill will toward Agamemnon is suspended for a few humorous scenes.

The action onstage is often interrupted by Cassandra’s prophetic visions, which propel the play’s plot and serve as a showcase for Arnett’s stellar acting. Seeing her go misty-eyed as she foresees the downfall of Agamemnon is a jarring reminder to the audience that the characters in the play are playing by the fatalistic rules of Greek myth, a fact that is easy to forget given the relatively modern presentation of the work.

Dream Theatre’s “Agamemnon” boasts excellent writing and moving performances, both of which seem to hinge on Jeremy Menekseoglu’s manifold artistic prowess. The ease with which the actors transcend their humble set and stride among the audience is a skill that was wasted on the twenty-four out of twenty-nine empty seats in the theater.
Dream Theatre, 556 W. 18th St. Through April 11. Thursday-Saturday, 8pm. $15. dreamtheatrecompany.com.

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?