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| a gushing endorsement.. RAH RAH |
This article will include: Beer at it's beginning
This article will include: JPEG's (but it will not accept slides)
This article will include: A dedication to the work and commitment of Lynne Warren (it will say after great length, Thank you Lynne)
This article will include: Analysis of the narrative surrounding the network of interchanging cultural spaces that were active in Chicago from, 1970 until May, 2004. This article will examine the motivations of these spaces social, economic, and aesthetic developments. It will be argued within that while formal concerns in the visual arts were somewhat flexible during this period the motivations for starting and maintaining spaces such as these remained somewhat fixed throughout. That the aesthetic, and sociological positions within an increasingly decentralized international art community contributed to the development of multiple levels of financial speculation that eventually served to erode the cultural trust, the institutional model of stewardship, and the complex symmetries necessary to justify or maintain modernity's esprit de corps. It is in the examination of the limitations of these spaces and their individual models along with their context that we expect to find that the adversity, utility and speculations of philosophy and form contributed to the creation of a multitude of regional networks that existed in tandem with a deeply entrenched institutional apparatus. These much smaller and more chaotic networks were easily divested of any inherent resources and therefore fundamentally short lived. However briefly they might have been active these interchanging spaces with their inter-connectivity contributed greatly to the longevity of 2 essential and long lasting cultural hubs, The New Art Examiner and the Chicago Art Exposition. Both of which existed more or less congruently in the time period that we will be reviewing. The importance of these hubs as staging grounds for strategic interventions intended to disarm or upset the ongoing entrenchment of institutional hegemony should not be understated. Nor their ability to provide stability, legitimization, and validity to the work of cultural spaces that existed beyond the reach of the institution. Still the primacy of all of these cultural spaces, both great and small were much diminished in capacity, utterly retired, or dismantled and reorganized in the face of economic and social threats from principles comprising the nascent yet increasingly radical elements of a growing neoliberal cultural backslide. By 2004 the New Art Examiner was lost while the Chicago Art Exposition had begun it's final descent into financial and organizational disarray. The appellation of end of an era, or it's vicinity is justifiable as the upset and ultimate failure of the existing networks to continue to propagate a continuous organizational presence, consistent internal communication, and a complex relational dialogue beyond the regional sphere of influence became more pronounced. This article will attempt to isolate a few of the most prominent factors that contributed to this systemic breakdown and its last gasp.
This article will include: Paint, a small tin of spirits, two brushes, and some encouragement.
This article will include: An examination of the relationship that exists between the independent space and the academic institution. (tentative heading, But Decay Smells Sweet).
This article will include: 2 photographs of the Art Institute of Chicago.
This article will include: This sentence, "The Renaissance Society, the Chicago Cultural Center, and the Hyde Park Art Center can do this repeatedly precisely because they are not museums."
This article will include: Analysis of a philanthropic model side by side the analysis of a for-profit model (charts might be color coded for clarity)
This article will include: Materials as fact.
This article will include: the borrowed VCR from Meg's last show.
This article will include: An examination of the small institutional models active in 1970. A non profit is considered to be any non stock-issuing corporation that does not distribute its surplus. There are 29 types of not-for-profit organization outlined in the United States Federal tax code. In particular this article will examine the more contemporary not-for-profit status, 501(c)3. Then it will pit each of the others against it in an broken down arena of DOOM (or vast judgments).
This article will include: An understanding that any models or resources developed in Chicago do not stay in Chicago.
This article will include: Chicago, and all of it's neighborhoods.
This article will include: Site specificity.
This article will include: Architecture because it's a must.
This article will include: at least 2 days to change the light bulbs.
This article will not include: An adjunct teaching position, a part-time art handling position, or free passes to the show in question.
This article will include: An archive of local art publications, broadsides, or magazines that might include, Ten by Ten, Cakewalk, New Art Examiner, FGA, Project Post, Coterie, CACA Newsletter, F student newspaper, CAC Newsletter, and maybe some Lumpen's.
This article will include: The Chicago Reader in a section titled, Dirty Hands and Validity (these hands are actually dirty and not corrupt)
This article will include: Examinations of the Federal, State, and Local government agencies that have provided funding for the visual arts and their recipient cultural press.
This article will include: The New Art Examiner again.
This article will include: Labia.
This article will include: Resistance to a critical voice since 1970.
This article will include: It's own work in it's next show (ethics, under the table and making it up)
This article will include: A developmental history of the Chicago Art Exposition at Navy Pier from its inception through the development of the Stray Show by Thomas Blackman Associates.
This article will include: Nothing new or revealing about the motivations of an art fair.
This article will include: Disdain for systems that fail at an individual level.
This article will include: The names of many people that have left Chicago.
This article will include: The names of some people that have returned to Chicago
This article will include: A deeper sense of meta than its readers might be comfortable with.
This article will include: Art listings, postcards, mailers, email blasts, BB's, LISTSERV's, and websites, but still may never be reviewed.
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