: : : P O L V O : : :

Archives: 2004

2011-08-26T12:44:00.000-05:00

Una perspectiva de la felicidad
13 de agosto, 2004
Peggy Carranza, HOY NEWSPAPER

Chicago -- Desde el 6 hasta el 28 de agosto se estará exhibiendo en la Galería de Arte Polvo la obra "In Pursuit of Happiness" del artista cubano Hugo Michel-Hernández. La muestra consiste en una instalación interactiva compuesta por 500 barcos de papel: 250 construidos con el diario "Granma", el órgano oficial del partido comunista de Cuba, y el resto con páginas de libros para colorear de Walt Disney. Un contraste que cuestiona la condición del inmigrante y lo que para éste representa la felicidad.

Hugo Michel-Hernández se crió en la Florida, lugar donde desde muy pequeño comenzó a mostrar interés por el dibujo y la pintura. Hace 10 años se residenció en Chicago para estudiar una maestría. Durante sus estudios tomó un programa de arte interdisciplinario en el cual tuvo la oportunidad de mezclar el arte, la literatura y las ciencias políticas.

Por otra parte, la galería, continuando con su objetivo de prestar sus espacios a artistas emergentes que tengan propuestas alternativas y contemporáneas, también presenta la mini exhibición "Obras en papel" de un colectivo español llamado "functionvariable". La misma es producto de un intercambio entre el grupo español y el colectivo Polvo que permitirá al grupo de Pilsen presentarse el mes de noviembre en Barcelona.

Tuvimos la oportunidad de hablar recientemente con Michel-Hernández sobre su obra:

¿Por qué escogiste la Galería de Arte Polvo?
Me gustan los espacios alternativos y porque está en la comunidad. Me gusta lo que es el espacio "underground". Polvo se está moviendo mucho. Yo los conocí a través del internet, los contacté y les hice la propuesta.

¿Por qué eliges la figura del barco para tu obra?
Yo como inmigrante llegué en barco. El barco para mí significa mucho como caribeño, como cubano. Es algo que se ve a diario viviendo al lado del mar. Inconscientemente es una imagen que utilizo con frecuencia, sea en un dibujo o, en este caso, en barquitos de papel.

¿Dónde obtuviste los ejemplares del "Granma"?

El "Granma" lo conseguí en Cuba. Allí estuve en julio y noviembre del año pasado porque participé en la Bienal de La Habana. De ahí me traje los que pude, le pedí a todo el mundo que me los regalara porque ya tenía este proyecto en mente. Me traje una bolsa tan grande que todavía tengo muchos.

¿En qué consiste "In Pursuit of Happiness"?

Es una comparación conceptual. De un lado están los barcos hechos con el "Granma" colocados sin un orden en específico, lo que constituye mi llegada como inmigrante. Del otro lado están los barcos hechos con las páginas de libros para colorear de Walt Disney ya ordenados, en representación de lo que significa los Estados Unidos, lo que terminó siendo para mí la vida en este país y lo que le da al inmigrante en realidad, que en cierto modo es una fantasía. Yo lo comparo con ir a Disney World, el cual es el sueño de muchos inmigrantes aunque parezca patético.

¿Podrías decir que tu obra es irónica?

Sí, es irónica. Uno sale de los países latinoamericanos por problemas económicos no por otra razón. Estoy cambiando todo lo que muestra este periódico por esa fantasía que te va a traer felicidad en lo económico, que te va a traer abundancia, más nada.

¿A quién va dirigido este mensaje?

Va dirigido a muchas personas: a la mayoría de los inmigrantes, a los cubanos, a mucha gente que viene, que abandona todo lo que tiene por venir aquí y tener simplemente esas cosas que para mí son artificiales. A todo aquel que por tener un poquito más de dinero y cierta comodidad abandona todo lo que para mí es más importante. Aquí uno alcanza muchas cosas pero definitivamente no lo es todo.

¿Estás tomando una posición política con tu obra?

Personalmente, apoyo el sistema socialista en Cuba en muchos niveles. Trabajo mucho con el país, defiendo la ideología y de alguna manera lo estoy haciendo con mi obra. Precisamente en este momento que se acaba de vivir una guerra, me doy cuenta de muchas cosas y lo defiendo aún más.

GUIA CUANDO:Hasta el 28 de agosto 
DONDE: Polvo Art Studio, 1458 W. 18th St., 1R 
HORARIO: Sábado, 12-5pm o por cita.

Archives: 2004

2011-08-25T21:01:00.003-05:00

The other artists' colony

Chicago Artists' Months offers a behind-the-scene peek at Pilsen's ascendant art scene
By Lauren Viera
Photography by Todd Judge, Stuart-Rodgers Photography
(from The Chicago Social magazine October 2004)

Robin Rios and Jerod Schmidt of 4Art Inc.

Despite soaring property values and gentrification, Pilsen has preserved itself as an artist colony largely untouched by the commercial exploitation that's robbed the Wicker Park art scene of much of its former autonomy and innocence. During the city's ninth annual Chicago Artists' Month in October, Pilsen welcomes intrepid art lovers to the doorsteps of more than 100 studios and live-work dwellings.

The month is bookended by a pair of free weekend events that showcase two sides of the neighborhood's artistic prowess. East Pilsen hosts its venerable 34th annual Artists' Open House on October 1-3, while West Pilsen presents its second annual Pilsen Open Studios on October 30-31. One might assume that a neighborhood seemingly divided, albeit for the purpose of real estate zoning, would suffer civil competition. But in this case, the art, artists and ethics vary so dramatically within Pilsen that comparisons are practically moot.

The East Pilsen event falls under the aegis of the recently christened "Chicago Arts District," which--according to representatives of Podmajerksy Management, Inc., the third-generation, family-owned real estate company that owns many of the buildings in the neighborhood--encompasses an area along Halsted Street from 16th Street south to Cermak Road. The Podmajerkskys have long fashioned themselves as advocates of rehabbing vintage buildings and storefronts into studio/loft spaces ideal for artists. Artists' Open House was first organized in the summer of 1970 by developer John Pdmajerksy, Jr.'s wife, Annelies, who by that time had helped establish a successful artists' community of lofts and studios within a 12-square-block area.

Vespine Gallery

"There's been a lot of art going on here for a long time," says Artists' Open House director Cynthia West. "The Podmajerskys wanted people around the city to discover the artists here, but they wanted to do it in a way that was intimate and would make people feel welcome."

Encompassing the neighborhood and its gardens (lush attractions in their own right), the Artists' Open House has grown to include as many as 120 established and emerging artists. The event also includes galleries along Halsted (who welcome visitors to show openings year-round on the second Friday of every month) and communal gallery spaces reserved for artists whose studios lie just beyond walking distance from the strip.

Though a handful of progressive East Pilsen galleries--Meat Yard, Fleur, Drivethru Studios and Bucket Rider Gallery--have recently closed or relocated, newcomers have sprung up along Halsted. 4Art Inc. was opened last October by Illinois Institute of Art graduate Robin Rios and business partner Jerod Schmidt, and the two credit the open house event for increased traffic. "A lot of people are starting to come around and see what's going on here," says Rios, adding that, since her gallery's debut, she's noticed a different type of crowd. "At first it was just gallery-hoppers and after-hours partiers. But now people are looking to buy art."

Dubhe Carreño

Dubhe Carreño, a Venezuelan-born ceramicist and an instructor at the School of the Art Institute, is opening a gallery on Halsted this month. She plans to show contemporary ceramic art bye emerging and mid-career artists from the United States and abroad. The gallery's first show will feature new works by Venezuelan sculptor Mariana Monteaguado. "I had been a visitor at the Artists' Open House before, and was amazed at how many people came and how much energy there was in the area," Carreño says. "I'm here because I hope the area will become more gallery-oriented." Other recently opened galleries on Halsted include Opposite Gallery, Vespine Studios & Gallery, Sally Ko Studio and Pilsen Photo Group.

West on 18th Street, a slightly more intimate, grassroots crowd sets the scene for the Pilsen Open Studios event. Its participating artists' studios are tucked into the predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood centered around the stretch of 18th Street from Ashland west to Damen. Community centers, cafés and the exemplary Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum will also show works by local artists. Free shuttle vans will be on hand to ferry visitors from one cluster of participants to another.

The seeds of this event were sown last October, when Pilsen muralist Hector Duarte was chosen as one of 12 artists spotlit in Chicago Artists' Month, a citywide visual-arts initiative coordinated by the Department of Cultural Affairs. Duarte, who has deep roots in Pilsen, was asked by the city to help organize what became the first annual Pilsen Open Studios.

Hector Duarte

Duarte got the ball running in a hurry. "In one wee, I reached 13 to 14 studios. After two weeks, I had about 20," he says. Ultimately, 26 venues, including both artists' studios and public spaces, signed on, and Duarte's wife, Daily Southtown reporter Linda Lutton, was brought on in to handle planning and media logistics for the event.

Salable works are not the point in West Pilsen, says Duarte: "it's not a business, it's a small town. It's more important that people come to see your space and what you make. It's not like, 'How did you make that? Why did you put an image of a heart in your work?' And we answer, 'It's part of the Mexican culture."

Miguel Cortez of Polvo Art Studio

Miguel Cortez, a founding member of Polvo Art Studio, helped to rally the first Pilsen Open Studios and will participate again this year. Polvo, which also puts out a politically charged arts publication of the same name, has occupied four different spaces over its eight-year existence and the current space doubles as Cortez's living quarters. Both the physical gallery space and the publication support conceptual and political multicultural arts, with and emphasis on work by latino artists.

Artists with diverse backgrounds are drawn to the neighborhood for both its Mexican culture and the rawness of its buildings, Cortez says. Polvo's modest 700-square-foot space is located in an old building on 18th Street, and the center of its floor is warped like a speed bump.

The studios provide a telling glimpse of how intrinsic art is to the lifeblood of this community. They're clustered in colorful storefronts and in converted basements, often in buildings that predate the Chicago Fire of 1871. These private spaces, such as the joint studio of Jeff Abbey Maldonado and drawing/text artist Diana Solis, and painter/sculptor Mark Nelson's self-deprecatingly named "Gringolandia" studio, are strewn with vibrant works and ideas in the process of being brought to life.

"It's definitely less glossy here," Cortez says. "I don't have track lighting, and for most of the artists who have studios, it's similar. But with this event, they're opening their doors to the public so people can see where they work, how they work, and what they produce.

Archives: 2004

2011-08-25T20:52:00.000-05:00

Polvo studio brushes the 'dust' off controversial art
By Rochelle S. Russo
Columbia Chronicle - Staff Writer

In the midst of the Chicago art community, Polvo Art Studio offers more than just wall space.

Polvo, or “dust” translated in English, is an alternative art studio in the Pilsen neighborhood that presents contemporary art, installations, new media, and performance mediums.

Located at 1458 W. 18th St., Polvo was created by Miguel Cortez, Jesus Macarena-Avila and Elvia Rodriguez-Ochoa due to the lack of alternative art spaces in Chicago.

“The majority of the galleries were restricted to wall space showing paintings or drawings as opposed to installations and alternative art,” Cortez said.

In search of an outlet to advance the alternative art community, Polvo was created in 1996 and recently moved into its new space in August of 2003.

Displaying somewhat controversial exhibits such as those in the current show,—“Under” by Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud, which is thematic to life and death, and the previous exhibit “Tu Casa Es Mi Casa” which was based on gentrification —fit into the untraditional realm that Polvo originates from.

Cortez said when he curates shows he looks at content. As long as they’re pushing it and it’s not just traditional art. I want something new, fresh and different.”

“Under” reflects the Haitian phrase “anba dlo” meaning “under the waters” that symbolizes water separating the living from the dead.

The first part of “Under” includes photographs of large-scale drawings of water-filled holes covering the earth. In addition to Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud’s images she will include a participatory piece entitled “nlangu,” which means “separated by water.” Members at the gallery are asked to place any item to represent their living self on one side and an item symbolizing the dead on the other side.

Polvo recruits a lot of its artists by using both the Internet and people off the street. There are usually one or two group shows a year held at Polvo such as the previous exhibit, “Tu Casa Es Mi Casa,” which explored the terrain of the gentrification process in hopes of awakening awareness within the Pilsen community.

“Gentrification is happening so fast to the Pilsen community people don’t have time to react,” said Hugo Michel-Hernandez, a Columbia faculty member and an artist whose work was previously on display at Polvo.

The purpose of “Tu Casa Es Mi Casa,” which ran March 19 through April 10, is to bring awareness to the people in the community.

“The people walking around the streets may not be aware of what’s happening. But they’re aware because they see the different crowd coming in slowly,” Cortez said. “The show is about awareness, because how can you stop gentrification?”

Some pieces from “Tu Casa Es Mi Casa” that document the gentrification process are Jesus Macarena-Avila’s series of real estate cards mimicking those of Century 21 Real Estate with Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s headshot and text that reads, “Rich Daley 18th TIF [Tax Increase Financing] Specialist.”

Jaime Mendoza had an installation of a coffee cup dispenser with an image on the cup of a running family that represents the minority’s displacement due to urban renewal and text below the image that reads, “Invading one Barrio [neighborhood] at a time.”

Miguel Cortez was inspired to create a sticker of 25th Ward Alderman Danny Solis that reads “Pilsen for Sale” after he read an article about a plan to build a high-end housing project in Pilsen.

Alderman Danny Solis and Concord Homes Inc., were collaborating to build 132 two bedroom, two bathroom condominium units within 13 buildings along 16th to 18th streets on Peoria Avenue that cost as much as $280,000.

“It was obvious who the target was for those condos; it wasn’t the labor families,” Cortez said.
The six-figure housing project was stopped due to the Pilsen Alliance which was able to attract 200 community resident protesters against the project.

Hernandez said it is a common theme for artists to be blamed when a neighborhood is gentrified. Artists seeking cheap rent are notorious for making the neighborhood hipper and safer.

“You see the changes really close to Pilsen,” Hernandez said. “When you get around UIC ... one week something’s knocked down and the next week something is up. Artists have always been blamed for this sort of phenomenon, but there are other issues around it.”

Hernandez said he fears all of the Chicago neighborhoods eventually turning into the same thing based around Starbucks and Dominick’s.

“Chinatown is next I think,” Hernandez said. “I went to school and I can make decent money. But some of these people can not do that, so where do they go?”

Besides opening receptions for new exhibits, Polvo is open for public viewing every Saturday from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. and by appointment. For more information or to schedule an appointment, call (773) 677-1914.

from the 2003 Polvo archives

2011-08-25T20:43:00.000-05:00

Duct tape as art of war
By Michael Hirtzer
Columbia Chronicle, A&E Editor

Duct tape, the all-purpose silver tape, is finding its way into a surprising amount of art as of late. In response to the government touting the tubular tape as a precautionary measure against biological weapons, artists have incorporated it and other unusual items into their work.

The heightened state of awareness toward war and terrorism, both home and abroad, has no doubt inspired the work; after all, war probably ranks second only to love as a source of artistic muse.

At the Polvo Art Studio, a small gallery in Pilsen at 1257 W. 18th St., an exhibit entitled “Terrorist Art: Protesting War,” which runs through Saturday, April 19, displays a variety of works, all adverse to the war with Iraq.

Some of the works are comical, like Juan Compean’s “Terrorist, Death and Freedumb Fries,” a chalk-and-charcoal drawing over a screenprint on brown craft paper with three degenerative portraits of President George W. Bush. The first shows a funny-faced Bush saying: “Hey! Who sprinkled anthrax on my freedumb fries?”

The second has Bush wearing a suit and a cowboy hat saying: “Yee-haw! I’m gonna git me a terrorist.” And the final drawing has Bush dressed as the grim reaper, scythe and all, saying: “I am the angel of death.”

Miguel Cortez’s “Homeland Security Trifold Wallet,” is an actual brown leather wallet offering free duct tape inside. Cortez, a former student of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Columbia film student who designs packaging and belt wallet presentations for the Chicago-based Humphreys Accessories, said, “I’m just trying to be absurd about protecting my money from terrorists.”

Columbia photography instructor Jno (pronounced like Jon) Cook’s “Four Rivers” is a holdover from the early 1990s. It was made in response to the Persian Gulf War. Referring to the four rivers in the book of Genesis, signifying the location of Eden, Cook wrote in his artist statement: “We are about to bomb Eden back to a Paleolithic Age.”

Other works in the exhibit include a digital collage titled “Pax Americana” by Tomas Sibley depicting a human skull with old pocket watches as eyes and a large bomb as a body and Jesus Macarena-Avila’s work, which is simply the word “Protect” spelled out on the gallery wall in duct tape.

“The Homeland Insecurity Variety Show,” one of the many events included as part of Version 3, a multimedia festival held at several venues throughout Chicago at the end of March, aimed at exploring “current performance platforms and the theme of reclaiming intellectual property rights and appropriation.”

The variety show included performances by the Evolution Control Committee, which was basically a gray-haired man dressed in a white lab coat mixing breakbeats with samples of the rock band AC/DC and the voice of CBS news anchor Dan Rather saying words like murder and disease.

The show also included a session on how to avoid terror. Utilizing retro iconography, the session informed audience members about the proper steps to take during a biological attack or nuclear winter.

Likewise, the new government website, www. ready.gov, utilizes iconography inspired by airline safety procedure cards. The website, launched in February, coincidentally corresponds with the publishing of the book, Design for Impact: 50 Years of Airline Safety Cards.

The mission of the website—part of the Tom Ridge-headed U.S. Department of Homeland Security—is to prepare for disasters; “For Americans, preparedness must now account for man-made disasters as well as natural ones,” the website states. “Knowing what to do during an emergency is an important part of being prepared and may make all the difference when seconds count.”

And while the website, created by a division of the New York public relations firm Ruder Finn Inc., more often than not states the glaringly obvious (one informs people not to walk into burning buildings), the low-tech graphics are visually appealing.

Perhaps war-inspired art—for all its worth—is best summed-up by an exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Running through May 18, the exhibit is named after the soul singer Edwin Starr’s song “War.” The song’s refrain repeats: “War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.”

Polvo on 18th and Allport, Feb 2003

2010-09-29T19:02:00.000-05:00

polvo @ NFO Xpo - Version 08

2008-04-07T15:34:00.001-05:00

http://www.versionfest.org/nfoxpo.html

NFO XPO DIRECTORY

April 19 & 20, 2008

NFO XPO
Viaduct Theater
3111 N. Western (link)

Hours: 1pm to 3am on Saturday
1pm to 2am on Sunday
$8 ($10 for 2-day pass)

Polvo @ NFO XPO

Participating artists:
Miguel Cortez Edra Soto Jaime Mendoza

Miguel Cortez will be showing an ongoing project of mixed media artworks dealing with the concept of "recycling" that began in 2006. I am taking this idea and creating multi-media works, such as digital photos, computer drawings, Flash animation, business cards, and bumper stickers. In April part of this project will be shown at the Krannert Museum in Champaign IL in a show titled "Landscapes of Experience and Imagination: Explorations by Midwest Latina/Latino Artists". For more info on this series go to: http://recycle-ideas.blogspot.com/

Edra Soto will exhibit her "Greatest Companions(series)

Alternative Art Spaces Panel Discussion

2008-04-03T19:48:00.002-05:00

Chicago Alternative ArtSpace Panel
Wednesday, April 2, 2008. 6 pm

A lively panel discussion with a fantastic line up of speakers will give you a new perspective of the "alternative space" scene from the 80's to the present day. Learn about Chicago's rich history of alternative space and how that feeds what is happening today!

Included in the panel:
Elizabeth Chodos of Three Walls will moderate. Elizabeth is a graduate student at SAIC, Director of Public Programs at 3 Walls and on the selection committee at Green Lantern.

Peter Taub, Director of MCA Performance Program and former Director of Randolph Street Gallery.

James Yood, Theory and Criticism and Art History Faculty SAIC and Regional correspondent: Artforum; Art and Auction, tema celeste; GLASS magazines.

Elvia Rodriguez of Polvo: Member of the Polvo artist collective, Elvia is a strong advocate for local artists.

Salem Collo-Julin of Temporary Services and Mess Hall. Salem works in collaboration to create socially dynamic situations and spaces for dialogue.

Betty Rymer Gallery
280 South Columbus Drive
Chicago, IL 60603

DOWNLOAD MP3: 127mb
LISTEN TO IT ON "THE INTERNET ARCHIVE"

Polvo Magazine compilation

2007-12-27T13:39:00.000-06:00

I made a compilation of some of the content from past Polvo Magazine issues from 2003-2006 and placed them on lulu.com . If you'd like a copy you can purchase it HERE.

Twine @ Polvo

2007-12-10T18:58:00.001-06:00

Friday December 14, 2007 from 7pm -9pm
FREE ADMISSION

Join Twine for an evening of “Basant”: A celebration of the metaphor of spring in the cold of December in Chicago. We invite you for an evening of art, film, storytelling, and dialogue dedicated to building awareness about choices in art, craft, and design in relationship to nature and humanity.

-Viewing of “Basant” a sculptural piece inspired by the visual language of Sufi Basant that integrates fiber, natural dye and video to explore the process of resistance to destructive monocultural values through personal narrative and metaphor.

-Screening of “Basant” a short documentary about the Sufi Basant in India created by Delhi Based Filmmaker, Yousuf Saeed:. www.ektaramusic.ek

-“Why I went to Lubbock Texas” a presentation by Twine director, and Chicago based artist: Amy Mall, about her research in Sustainable Dye and Fiber. Amy has been researching the ecological and social concerns linked to cotton in India, where the rate of cancer and suicide in Punjab is growing. She recently traveled to Lubbock Texas, the center of the US cotton Industry, to visit with the Texas Organic Cotton Marketing Cooperative and try to gain a broader perspective of this global issue. www.twinenfp.org

-“What do handbags have to do with the Iraq war?”: Presentation by co-collaborator of Noon Solar, Marianne Fairbanks, about the start of her solar powered handbag company with Jane Palmer and the ecological and social motivations behind their careful material choices: www.noonsolar.com
-the evening will conclude with a conversation among all who attend. Please Join Us!

Twine, NFP is dedicated to the intersection of Art, Ecology and Social Justice Internationally.

POLVO
1458 W. 18th St., 1R(entrance on Laflin St.)
Chicago, IL 60608
www.polvo.org

Goin' Mobile opening

2007-11-17T00:42:00.001-06:00

===

article in culturalchicago.com

2007-11-07T05:55:00.000-06:00

“We felt that Pilsen needed a contemporary cultural space,” says Polvo co-founder Miguel Cortez, “where artists could be free to experiment.” Among the most long-running artists’ organizations in the Chicago area, Cortez formed the Polvo conglomeration over a decade ago, in 1996, with the assistance of partners Jesus Macarena-Avila and Elvia Rodriguez-Ochoa. The three met in the early 1990s through their mutual affiliation with alternative artist spaces Casa de Arte y Cultura/Calles y Sueños and Taller Mexicano de Grabado. Through these affiliations, the three recognized a void in the local art scene of the time in its lack of outlets for contemporary Latino art; such artists were typically relegated to commercial Latino galleries or the Mexican Fine Arts Museum while the art which interested Cortez and his partners was too experimental to gain recognition at such venues.

The group’s first action was to begin a zine in 1996 to publish the art they found interesting as well as bilingual poetry. This venture led to the opening of Polvo in storefront gallery form three years later, establishing a venue for the collective to showcase the sort of avant-garde Latino art they hoped to promote in the Pilsen community. Faced with financial difficulties, the gallery was forced to close soon after and the group instead focused on developing a noticeable presence on the internet and promoting their zine. The success of these ventures resulted in the opening of the current Polvo space in 2003, which has shown a continuous stream of exhibitions since.

For their gallery, Polvo’s founders logically chose Pilsen, Chicago’s nexus of Mexican-American culture. They were drawn to the neighborhood due to its mutually supportive combination of working class families and artistic community. Additionally, Pilsen’s rich history over the past century—including, Cortez cites, artistic subcultures from the Bohemians to the Mexican muralists—made the location a unique setting for the sort of organization into which he and his colleagues hoped Polvo would develop.

Cortez describes the second show in Polvo’s current venue as a turning point in media coverage for the space. “We were the first space/gallery in Chicago to organize an anti-war show against the Iraq War,” he states. “Our show opened the week that the US started bombing.” The critical attention and dialogue earned by the exhibition set the course for Polvo’s agenda in the years since; the collective has exhibited thematic group shows by artists who deal with such politically charged issues as gentrification, the environment, and surveillance.

Despite the increasing attention Polvo has received in past years, Cortez, Macarena-Avila, and Rodriguez-Ochoa still aim to exhibit work by emerging artists, to serve as a springboard for the career of such local and international figures. The work of such practitioners is complemented by work by more established artists from such locales as South Africa, Australia, and Mexico. They are likely attracted to Polvo due to the space’s focus on diversity. “I don't mean ethnicity but also types of media and art making,” explains Cortez. “We needed a space where artists could be free to not just hang 2-D work on the walls.” Artists exhibiting at the gallery have shown work of a variety of media including new media and installation art, among others.

On November 16, an exhibition entitled “Goin’ Mobile,” curated by Kimberly Aubuchon and dealing with the theme of travel will open and run through December 15. The show will be the last in Polvo’s physical space, which will close at the end of 2007 and, instead, exist primarily as a webspace and curatorial endeavor. (Britany Salsbury of www.culturalchicago.com)

polvo is showing in a christian college?

2007-10-20T09:24:00.000-05:00

"Polvo: since 1996"

Elvia Rodriguez-Ochoa
Miguel Cortez
Jesus Macarena-Avila

Opening Nov. 15, 2007 @ 7pm

Trinity Christian College
6601 W. College Drive
Palos Heights, Illinois 60463
1.866.TRIN.4.ME
The Art Gallery is located in the Jennie Huizenga Memorial Library.

Trinity Christian College is a four-year liberal arts college located in Palos Heights, Illinois, a suburb 20 miles southwest of Chicago. Since its founding in 1959, Trinity has provided students with an excellent Christian higher education in the Reformed tradition, offering majors in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, as well as pre-professional programs.

Goin' Mobile

2007-10-17T19:35:00.000-05:00

Goin’ Mobile

Out in the woods or in the city
It's all the same to me when I'm driving free
The world's my home
When I'm mobile
Going Mobile, The Who

Inspired by The Who song of the same name Goin’ Mobile is an on-the-road inspired traveling exhibition that investigates the literal sense of travel—point A to B, beginning to end, start to finish, back and forth, one way and dead ends—Goin’ Mobile ventures in every direction to guide the viewer on a trip to those familiar and unknown places along our traveled and explored routes.

Featured Artists:
Adam Blumberg (New York, NY)
Min-Tse Chen (Beijing, China)
Mark Hogensen (San Antonio, TX)
Michele Monseau (San Antonio, TX)
Tao Rey (Miami, FL)
Mark Schatz (Houston, TX)
Ethel Shipton (San Antonio, TX)

Curator:
Kimberly Aubuchon, Founder and Director, Unit B (Gallery), (San Antonio, TX)

Adam Blumberg’s photographic works explore travel by way of bicycle. Traveling back roads, Blumberg doesn’t take for granted the road less traveled. Min-Tse Chen’s drawings wander down roads and pathways that suggest no end but only a contemplation of what is. Mark Hogensen’s vibrant paintings are abstract views of rural roads and highways as architecture. Michele Monseau’s video walks you along a residential street passing by the passers by. Tao Rey’s street signs provide friendly reminders on the crowded highway known as life. Mark Schatz gives miniature sculptural examples of various routes via arranged childhood travels. Investigating the history of highway systems, Ethel Shipton’s wall sculptures entertain how these systems serve our needs and how motion dictates the shape of our landscapes.
Paying special attention to the driver’s seat view of landscapes in our daily and worldly travels, Goin’ Moblie is a memoir to places we expect to know.

Also this month's Mini-Exhibit: Amy Mall

Opening Friday November 16, 2007 from 6pm-9pm
November 16 – December 15, 2007

Polvo, www.polvo.org
1458 W. 18th St., 1R Chicago, IL 60608
773.344.1940
info(at)polvo.org

feature in centerstagechicago.com

2007-10-15T19:31:00.000-05:00

Living the Art Life, Literally
Five gallerists tell all about living and working in one small space.
Friday Oct 12, 2007
By Alicia Eler

The adage says you shouldn't combine work with pleasure, but sometimes it's best to buck the establishment and do your own thing; in this case, we're talking about opening an art gallery in the space where you live. Despite saving big bucks, this venture is risky business, sometimes making it impossible to find privacy or peace of mind. We tracked down five gallerists who "live their art" on a daily basis to find out if they'd do it all over again.

Britton Bertran of Gallery 40000
The gallery-filled building at 119 North Peoria Street in the West Loop usually empties out around 6 p.m., but one guy hangs around. No, he didn't get locked in; he lives there. Behind Britton Bertran's cube-like gallery space, filled with cutting-edge work by local and national artists, sits a bedroom littered with contemporary art. "It's a necessary thing if I'm going to give this gallery thing a go," says Bertran. Problems arise mostly during openings, when people want to use his bathroom, but he says the positives, like the fact that his room can serve as a VIP place for artists to relax during stressful showings, trump the negatives. His five-year plan is to eventually move into a separate space, but for now he goes with the flow, trying not to work on Sundays and Mondays. "I literally cover my eyes when I walk through the gallery," he says about his days off.

Dubhe Carreno of Dubhe Carreno Gallery
When Dubhe Carreno came to Chicago in 1999 to complete an MFA in ceramics at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she never envisioned opening her own space dedicated exclusively to that art form. But after she found a great live-in/work space in Pilsen, everything just clicked. Large white platforms display hand-crafted ceramic vases, and Carreno greets patrons from behind a front desk. She says that the positives of her living situation heavily outweigh the negatives. "With sculpture, [most] people [don't really know] how to live with it," she says. "They have [this] assumption that you need a pedestal or something to elevate it. It really helps when they see my home space [in the back], which is full of sculptures."

Lisa Flores of All Rise Gallery

It's not easy transforming a once-adolescent art co-op, aptly named High School, into the mature All Rise Gallery, especially when the entire loft building used to be hipster party central. Owner Lisa Flores admits the past two years have been hard. But visitors who climb three flights of rickety stairs to her Wicker Park space (that's easily twice the size of most galleries) could never tell she did a massive overhaul. Today, All Rise is finally gaining notoriety, thanks in part to Flores being uniquely connected to artists all over North America. Living at your workspace isn't easy, though. "It's hard being tied down to the space everyday…and it feels like I'm always working," she says. But on the up side: "It's great because there's always so much to do. And if I need to hang a show all night long, I can work until 3 a.m. without interruption."

Marco Logsdon of Logsdon 1909 Gallery & Studio
Marco Logsdon moved to Chicago from Kentucky a few years ago and opened a gallery and studio space for his own work. But in September 2006, after a few successful shows, he decided to start showing other artists' pieces, too; he now rotates exhibits (mostly mixed-media, drawings and paintings) in the front and shows his work in the back. In line with the nature of most Pilsen galleries, Logsdon's space is only open on Saturdays and the second Friday of every month. With slim to none walk-in traffic, he's able to have some privacy though, "[I've always] got to be ready for people, so I can't be a slob," he says. Though keeping tidy isn't very fun, drawing a curtain at the halfway point of the gallery ensures his privacy.

Miguel Cortez of Polvo

For the past four years, Miguel Cortez has displayed challenging installation, new media and performance art in his gallery/home space, with white walls, wooden floors, TVs showing experimental video work and a kitchen right in the open. "The only downside is my loss of privacy; it's a minor inconvenience," says Cortez. But since living and working in the same space means only paying one rent, Cortez says it's "easier and cheaper to keep things going." It's been a while since he took a vacation, so after hosting a few more shows in 2007, he's going to take a well-deserved six-month break. Although Cortez juggles running Polvo on the weekends and working as a graphic designer during the week, he's received a tremendous amount of acclaim that many full-time gallerists could never live up to.

photos from oct 12 opening

2007-10-15T19:20:00.001-05:00

Harold Mendez

2007-10-01T20:00:00.000-05:00

No better, no worse, no change
Harold Mendez

Also this month:
Mini-exhibit: Brandon Alvendia and Derek Chan

Opening Friday October 12 from 6pm-10pm
October 12 - November 10, 2007

Taking the notion that silence is an expression of something, Harold Mendez presents No better, no worse, no change, his second solo show at Polvo. Mendez´ large drawings and sculptures depicting barren landscapes, conflicted sites and borders circumscribe space into place by searching politically charged sites with significant histories as they address conventions of place and humanity where something has seemed to occur.

Sifting through the everyday, politics, literature and criticism, Mendez forges iconic forms and spaces into a socially familiar here and now. With references to past events, using memory and photography’s ability to index history, he employs stark and haunting compositions; open to interpretation, delicately juxtaposing disparate media including black silicon carbide, marking chalk, popcorn, natural dyes, reflective beads and other transient materials.

A serenely muted river, central to the exhibition, offers little or no recognizable evidence of either historical incidents or recent conflict. Hinting towards the sublime, Mendez´ fossilized sculpture Winter in America leads us to bring our collective knowledge and experiences between place and loaded landscape with human experience to find emptiness of an exposed history. A drawing of an eroded interior with a window reflects the sentiment that something has occurred, and nothing has occurred, nothing at all.

Gloom and beauty make recognition difficult.

Harold Mendez received his MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2007. He recently exhibited with Western Exhibitions in a two-person show and will be participating in Consuming War, an upcoming group exhibition at the Hyde Park Art Center in November. He's been included in group shows at the Commerce Street Warehouse in Houston, vuspace in Australia, the University of North Umbria in the United Kingdom and the University of Science & Technology in Ghana, West Africa.

Brandon Alvendia and Derek Chan’s first collaborative project will consist of a sculptural installation investigating the sites of contestation inherent in spaces of heterogeneous populations. Questioning the promises offered by the developing built environment, Chan and Alvendia locate a moment in the cycle of renewal, stasis, and decay.

Brandon Alvendia completed his MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2007. Since 2004, under the guise of artLedge, Alvendia along with co-curator Caleb Lyons has facilitated the work of upwards of 150 emerging and established Chicago artists, in venues both nationally and abroad. He is currently planning an independent curatorial venture entitled Peso Neto that will be exhibited overseas at Quartair Contemporary Art Initiative, The Hague. He was recently appointed to sit on the advisory board of the Chicago public art initiative Hammer and Chisel. Alvendia’s own practice is concerned with the relationship of the individual to material and societal architectures.

Derek Chan recently received his MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2007. Challenging the conventions of representation and abstraction Chan's paintings investigate the constructs of place as tied to the self. He has been included in group exhibitions in Los Angeles and Chicago.

Polvo, www.polvo.org
1458 W. 18th St., 1R (entrance on Laflin St.)
Chicago, IL 60608
773.344.1940

installation

2007-09-26T16:52:00.000-05:00

invasion of the after pods
installation of cardboard file folders with text
Polvo Collective 2007

The flimsy boxes represent the new ugly buildings that are being built allover the city including Pilsen. They are cheaply done, using materials that will not last long. These units are then sold to the publlic at outrageous prices. Profit and capitalism is what drives initial gentrifiers like the pods and other realtors.

installation for the Podmajersky Show

THE PODMAJERSKY SHOW

2007-09-24T18:01:00.000-05:00

Polvo is participating in this art exhibit!

THE PODMAJERSKY SHOW
Opening Friday, September 28th
5pm - 9pm

(Special presentation and discussion at 7pm)

In an unofficial collaboration with the 'Pisen East Artists Open House', the Plaines Project proudly presents the first annual "Podmajersky Show". For several decades the Podmajersky family (East Pilsens most powerful landlords and coordinators of the open house event) have largely been responsible for the social and economic changes that have occured in East Pilsen. Though there are many who praise the Podmajersky family for cultivating a community that is centered around the arts, the Podmajerskies have also been widely criticized for displacing the predominantly working class residents of the neighborhood by capitalizing off of real estate that is marketed exclusively to middle class artists. Currently operating under the slogan of "building Soho in Chicago", the Podmajerskies as a social force provoke many questions of the use (or abuse) of artists as catalysts of for such forms of urban development.

In this exhibition, The Plaines Project seeks to use the Podmajerskies as a point of departure for a broader investigation of gentrification as a phenomenon that is conditioned by global capitalism, and to pose challenging questions regarding what role artists, as a social category, tend to play in this process.

This exhibition includes solo and collaborative installations by Amanda Gutierrez, Andreas Warisz, Polvo Collective, and Soni-Gram, as well as a presentation from guest lecturer Laura Schmidt.

The Plaines Project
1822 S. Des Plaines.
Chicago, IL

Urban Recline: new work

2007-08-27T19:09:00.001-05:00

Urban Recline:
new work by

Adriana Baltazar
Miguel Cortez

Opening Friday September 7 from 6pm-10pm
September 7 - October 6, 2007

Polvo begins the fall schedule by showcasing 2 local artists, Adriana Baltazar and Miguel Cortez. Even though their styles are different they find common ground in the influence of the urban environment, its surroundings and how this affects them.

Adriana Baltazar
A sincere goal of mine as an artist is to celebrate and document my time and surroundings in an effort to record history in the making. The late 18th c. French writer Sebastian Mercier recorded life in the streets of Paris in his day to day existence and has given the world a priceless view of a time and place we did not have to live in to know. He captured the type of things that slip out of the pages of history books. With our faces and digits fumbling over one of the plethora of gadgets available to us, I fear we put ourselves at risk as always to lose track of some irreplaceable gems. I feel compelled to record those things which we will undoubtedly miss only after they are finally gone. - Adriana Baltazar

Born in southwest Chicago, Adriana Baltazar has grown up to be a near hermit. By night, she is drawing away and by day working in an office to pay off art school debt. She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2004. As a child she searched for stray pets to nurture and now it appears she is the stray. Find her wandering streets and woods seeking sublime inspiration and escape in vacant lots or other plots of dirt overridden with trees and foliage.

Miguel Cortez
Several years ago I did a series of paintings that dealt with imaginary aerial landscapes. With this new series of work I go to the opposite end and imagine microscopic environments plus imaginary abstract forms and shapes. For inspiration I looked at decaying textures that I came across such as found rusted and cracked objects, paint peeling off walls and buildings, oils stains on the pavement and other examples of urban/nature decay. - Miguel Cortez, August 2007

Miguel Cortez is an artist living in Chicago and born in Guanajuato, Mexico. He has studied at Columbia College and at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Miguel also has exhibited his work for more than a decade in Chicago and elsewhere. Recent exhibitions include a show in Dallas at Mighty Fine Arts Gallery, also in Austin at Studio 107 Gallery, Pool Art Fair in Miami, Milwaukee International Art Fair, "Lo Romantico" at Glass Curtain Gallery and "Lies that Bill Gates told me: Exploring the Digital Divide" at VU Space in Melbourne, Australia. Miguel is also one of the founders of Polvo.

Polvo, www.polvo.org
1458 W. 18th St., 1R Chicago, IL 60608
773.344.1940
info(at)polvo.org

ArtLies review of Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud

2007-08-21T18:52:00.000-05:00

Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud showed a video earlier this year @ Polvo and ArtLies Magazine from Texas reviewed it in one of their past issues. I found the review online and pasted it below as well as a link to her video on google.

/MC
--------------------------

Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud: Goofer Dust @ Polvo
- by Leah DeVun from ArtLies

Goofer Dust, an installation/performance by Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud at Diaspora Vibe Gallery in Miami in 2006, is now on display as a documentary video at Polvo in Chicago. For the original performance in Miami, Mccloud constructed a square box of earth in the center of the gallery. Computer projections, video and a troop of live roosters intersected the performance space; Mccloud also invited audience members to join her in a session of collective dreaming.

Participants lay face down on the floor, their bodies oriented toward the earthen box. According to Mccloud’s statement, she intended to evoke the spiritual—even supernatural potential of collective dreaming through which dreamers can predict the future, heal their bodies and escape the mundane nature of reality. The title of the work, as well as Mccloud’s emphasis on collectivity and dreaming, are a nod to the aesthetics and sensibilities of Voudou, a diasporic religion practiced predominantly in Haiti. Goofer dust is an ingredient in certain spells.

The staging of Mccloud’s installation brings to mind the visual structure of Voudou ceremonies, which organize adherents around a similar spatial focus—the poteau mitan or traditional peristyle—and a shared altered consciousness. The chickens that moved through the gallery represent the sacrificial food of the lwas, divinities in Voudou. They transmit the dream experience from one participant to another. The ritual composition and intensely theatrical nature of Voudou ceremonies lend themselves readily to performative adaptation, and Mccloud’s effort and ability to capitalize on such imagery and its meanings is impressive.

As a stand-alone video, however, Goofer Dust does not hold up quite so well. The camera offers a restricted and unsteady view of the space, making it difficult to see the projections that accompanied the performance. The piece is strictly a document rather than an interpretation of the event; as such, it takes little advantage of video as a medium. Even so, Goofer Dust manages to convey what a treat the original performance must have been. It also provides some insight into themes Mccloud has been exploring for several years now—a logical extension of earlier projects, which also draw connections between the human body, the natural and the supernatural.

Mccloud often borrows from Voudou, particularly through her use of vévés, traditional symbols of the lwas, which the artist removes from their ritual contexts. In Damballah Study, for example, she writes the snaky lines of a vévé onto a grassy field; in both Delete/Borrar/Efase and Crossroads, she constructs installations using vévés for specific lwas. In this respect, Mccloud follows a number of artists who have incorporated the ritual imagery of Voudou, Santería, Palo Mayombe and other diasporic religions into their artistic practice. Her performances and installations also resemble those of Juan Boza and Angel Suarez-Rosado, whose recreations of Santería altars similarly blur distinctions between ritual and artistic space, arguing for a suffusion of the spiritual into all aspects of life. Other recent works highlight the body as a potential site of physical and metaphysical movement.

In Walking, Mccloud’s body slowly vanishes into the spare landscape of a beach, suggesting the passage from one world to another. Emphasis on the transformative potential of the body brings to mind the photographs of Marta María Pérez, which unite Pérez’s naked body with orishas and firmas—Santería versions of lwas and vévés. Mccloud is also indebted to Ana Mendieta’s well-known work, which combines earthen mounds, Santería-inspired markings and the artist’s body to powerful effect. Mccloud’s methodology, however, suffers in one important respect: the symbols she borrows are not always sufficiently transfigured. One wishes that she would keep pushing form as much as gesture as she does successfully in Sky Crosses, which reinvents the Voudou crossroads by means of string stretched through treetops. But Mccloud seems well aware that merely tracing out vévés is no longer enough: her recent work represents a welcome effort to inject physicality and personality into projects that still convey spirituality and transcendence. In this regard, Goofer Dust documents a wonderful progression in an ongoing body of work.

from Flavorpill

2007-08-21T17:14:00.000-05:00

ECHELON is thought to be a worldwide government-run intelligence network — the big Big Brother. This group exhibition, on the other hand, is concerned with the unscrupulous, grainy, and creepy kind of digital spying available to governments and artists alike. Some use video directly, as in Patrick Lichty's "wristcam" prints of security sites at LaGuardia airport, as well as Gretel Garcia's brilliant, sculptural wall installation of small dome cameras arranged to spell "hope" in Braille. Others evoke the malevolent implications of a Patriot Act-era regime, including Annette Barbier and Drew Browning's floor-projected examination of library searches, and T.W. Li's documentary about an innocent man wrongly suspected of involvement in the 2005 London terrorist attacks. (AM)

http://chi.flavorpill.net

Echelon in Chicago Reader

2007-08-16T19:25:00.000-05:00

Critic's Choice: Echelon: Who Is Watching You?
from the Chicago Reader

This show about surveillance opened the day before the U.S. House of Representatives approved expanded information-gathering powers for the executive branch. Among the sculptures, photos, drawings, and other works on exhibit is a beautiful, disturbing rug conceived by local artist Noelle Mason and woven by Mexican artists Jose Antonio Flores and Jonathan Samaniego. Made of red and green wool, Ground Control takes its dynamic pattern from a map of the U.S./Mexican border generated by Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer technology. The red denotes the patchwork of cultivated agricultural areas, most clustered in this country, while the green, mostly on the other side of the border, indicates arid, undeveloped land. Though the rug is lush, it depicts the site of much conflict and suffering based on economic inequality (Mason paid the two weavers the amount of money it would take for a Mexican family of four to cross the border illegally). This challenging work questions the boundaries between the aesthetic and the utilitarian, the decorative and the subversive. Another standout is a witty, engaging installation by Annette Barbier and Drew Browning in which the viewer is tracked by a motion-sensing camera while reading the titles of “suspicious” books projected on the floor. Among the other artists in the show are Elvia Rodriguez-Ochoa, Patrick Lichty, Gretel Garcia, and Finishing School. Through 9/1: Sat noon-5 PM or by appointment, Polvo, 1458 W. 18th, 773-344-1940. —Janina Ciezadlo

‘The Whole World is Being Watched’

2007-08-16T19:06:00.000-05:00

Exhibit expands on the art of surveillance, how it affects today’s world

by Jessica Del Curto
Extra News
Posted on 08-16-2007

When a number of crime cameras began popping up around Pilsen, Miguel Cortez, director of Polvo Art Gallery, found his idea for his latest exhibit.

“I thought I would reach out to other artists and have them react to what is going on,” he said.

The latest exhibit, “Echelon: Who is Watching You,” consists of various art pieces that relate to surveillance, both on a local and international level.

He said all of the artists portrayed surveillance as a negative thing in society.

One piece, created by Drew Browning and Annette Barbier, shows a list of library books projected onto the floor of the studio. These books have been flagged by the government at the Harold Washington Library. As the viewer walks past the artwork, an infrared camera picks up his or her image, placing it behind the text, and tracks whether he or she goes left or right.

Artist Noelle Mason paid Mexican artisans José Antonio Flores and Jonathan Samaniego to create a 6-by-8-foot rug that is a map of the California-Mexico border. Mason paid the artists what it would cost to bring a family across the border. The point, Cortez said, is to show that satellite tracking is also in existence. “You can access any point on Google Earth and access any building. The whole world is under surveillance,” he said.

Cortez said audience members can take with them what they like from the exhibit.

He hopes people at least gain some awareness of the fact that they are being watched everywhere they go. “They can analyze the good and bad of that,” he said. “It may solve crime in some cases, but you also lose your privacy.”

As far as Cortez is concerned, George Orwell got it right in his book 1984. “He predicted it too soon. Now it’s actually happening,” he said.

photos from tonight's Echelon opening

2007-08-04T00:10:00.001-05:00

"echelon" installation

2007-08-02T13:39:00.000-05:00

Drew and Annette installing their computer/video interactive installation

Dustin Klare came into town from New York to install his piece.

Time Travelers on Rhizome.org

2007-07-09T20:31:00.000-05:00

From Rhizome.org

Time For Some Art Speak
July 6, 2007

Time-based art has a long history and its pulse continues to tick, as they say. As diverse as time-based media may now be, it tends to lack much mystery (afterall, time--like space--is something we humans have studied... forever), except in the occasional narrative reliance on 'mystery' as a structuring element, and as such the medium is ripe for problematizing. This is precisely the accomplishment of Time Travelers, an exhibition and major spectacle of a panel discussion curated by Amelia Winger-Bearskin at Polvo, a Chicago-based alternative space founded by the Polvo artist collective. Winger-Bearskin's curatorial statement stakes out the show's territory, in declaring, 'Time Travelers recognizes that NEW MEDIA has incorrectly been identified as the repository for all art technologies utilizing a video camera, a computer, and an electrical outlet, but insists that as artists, first and foremost, we can use any f*&%@!’n media we want!' Included in the exhibition are emerging artists Artur Augustynowicz, Christopher Borkowski, Dietmar Krumery, Donata Napoli, and others, including the curiously-named artist(s) Haircuts by Robots and Universe of Junk. Last week, the space hosted a discussion on the present themes, which paradoxically predetermined, 'Each time a loaded art word is used, two or more universes will be created in which differing ideas become the dominate paradigm.' [Sic.] The self-described 'ridiculous blend of word-salad artspeak' no doubt dribbles over into the Free Manifestos advertised on Polvo's website. Look into the exhibition any time between now and July 28. - James Petrie

http://www.polvo.org/july07.htm

photos from today's panel discussion

2007-06-30T18:56:00.000-05:00

echelon: who is watching you?

2007-06-30T07:13:00.000-05:00

echelon: who is watching you?

Opening Friday August 3 from 6pm-10pm
August 3 - September 1, 2007

"One cannot use spies without sagacity and knowledge, one cannot use spies without humanity and justice" - Sun Tzu

"It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself—anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face… was itself a punishable offense."
- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 5

US surveillance began centuries ago with the concept of slave passes, which allowed slave-owners to monitor and control the mobility of their "chattel." Yet the slave pass system was sometimes subverted by the rare slaves who could write, such as Frederick Douglass. These literate slaves could create their own passes and might thus gain freedom for themselves and other slaves. Trafficking in passes and "free papers" soon became a burgeoning business, one that the slave system grappled with for nearly two centuries.

From slaves, the history of surveillance next turns to the infamous Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which restricted Chinese immigration to the United States. All Chinese laborers were forced to register with the government and subject themselves to being photographed and fingerprinted. A whole apparatus of surveillance was created.

In the 1920s, government surveillance spread to political radicals, especially workers trying to organize union activity. J. Edgar Hoover headed this government surveillance unit which would later become the FBI. As the 20th century advanced, computer technology proved a powerful enhancement to the regime of surveillance. This allowed most devices and databases to be monitored and evaluated, including automobiles, Your car can be tracked by GPS, and your spending habits can be gleaned from accessing your credit card records. Internet and email are monitored in the workplace and cameras are just about everywhere.

For this show artists will explore the history of surveillance and how this affects us at this present time. They will in turn create work dealing with this theme which will include 2D work, installation, and new media.

ARTISTS PARTICIPATING:
Anni Holm
Drew Browning and Annette Barbier
Dustin Klare
Elvia Rodriguez-Ochoa
Finishing School
Gretel Garcia
Ian Simmons
Jesus Macarena-Avila
Noelle Mason
Patricht Lichty
Tom Sibley
T.W. Li
Venia Bechrakis

Polvo, www.polvo.org
1458 W. 18th St., 1R Chicago, IL 60608
773.344.1940
info@polvo.org

photos from tonight's opening

2007-06-29T23:09:00.000-05:00

Mandorla Magazine

2007-06-28T20:39:00.001-05:00

Mandorla magazine graciously offered an ad spot for Polvo on their next issue. Below is info about the mag and the ad I designed.

First published in Mexico City in 1991, Mandorla emphasizes innovative writing in its original language--most commonly English or Spanish--and high-quality translations of existing material. Visual art and short critical articles complement this work.

The name of the magazine--mandorla, describing a space created by two intersecting circles--alludes to the notion of exchange and imaginative dialogue that is necessary now among the Americas.

Mandorla is a member of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses.

Elvia on News Hour PBS 6-18-07

2007-06-19T18:34:00.000-05:00

Churches Providing Sanctuary for Illegal Immigrants

Transcript from the News Hour with Jim Lehrer
June 18, 2007

--->See the streaming video
---->Hear the mp3

Churches and other faith-based groups in Chicago are providing housing and other resources for illegal immigrants in defiance of federal laws. The NewsHour reports on how these churches are part of a larger sanctuary movement in America.

WALTER "SLIM" COLEMAN, Chicago Activist: No child should have to go through this kind of pressure.

JIM LEHRER: Every weekday afternoon for the last nine months, longtime Chicago activist and minister Walter "Slim" Coleman has driven 8-year-old Saul Arellano home from school. Saul's home during this time has been a two-bedroom apartment on the second floor of Coleman's storefront church, Adalberto Methodist in Humboldt Park on the city's near west side.

Saul and his mother, Elvira, have lived here ever since she defied deportation orders last August. In this country illegally since 1997, Arellano was convicted in 2003 for using a false Social Security number, and deportation orders were issued. She was granted three extensions in order to treat her son's hyperactive medical condition, but when the last expired, instead of reporting to immigration authorities, Arellano took sanctuary in the church apartment.

Surveillance monitors are mounted in the living room in case the church is raided. Arellano has not left the church once since she arrived.

ELVIRA ARELLANO (through translator): When I arrived at this church, they opened their doors to me. They made me feel welcome to become part of this church, and the most important thing is, they gave me space to be able to continue to struggle to be able to stay here with my son.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The Arellanos' experience at Adalberto Church has helped inspire a larger sanctuary movement across the country. Last month, a coalition of faith-based organizations from five major cities, including Chicago, announced it would shield undocumented immigrants from deportation, offering legal help, financial support, and, if needed, sanctuary.

MARTHA PIERCE, Chicago Metro Sanctuary Alliance: It's a big thing for a congregation to take on, because we regard it really as a real commitment to supporting these people and walking with them in whatever happens with them.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Martha Pierce of the group Chicago Sanctuary is helping coordinate church involvement in the new effort. At a recent meeting, several local religious representatives discussed the need to step in where they think the nation's immigration laws have failed.

MICHAEL MCCONNELL, American Friends Service Committee: Mexico, tremendous hospitality to us coming there. Why can't we have that same hospitality here for people who are forced to leave their country, in this case, economic refugees, rather than political refugees?

SIDNEY HOLLANDER, Kam Isaiah Israel Synagogue: Welcoming the stranger in the Hebrew Bible really refers to welcoming, you might say, resident alien, the foreigner who lives in your midst, in our midst. And this applies absolutely precisely to the undocumented immigrants we're talking about now.

Dangers of providing sanctuary

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: But harboring undocumented aliens is a crime, and current and former federal immigration officials we talked with say these churches and activists are traveling down a very dangerous road. Brian Perryman is the former federal immigration director for the Chicago region.

BRIAN PERRYMAN, Former Immigration Official: I think that they need to consider the fact that they might place themselves in jeopardy, in terms of violation of federal law, and I'm not talking about misdemeanors. I'm talking about felonies. So I think that congregations need to think long and hard about that. If they have a person that they believe should be assisted, then they need to pursue every provision of the law to try to get their situation corrected under the law.

KIM BOBO, Interfaith Worker Justice: We believe what we are doing is really calling forth a higher law, which is really God's law, of caring for the immigrant.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Activist Kim Bobo, of Interfaith Worker Justice, connects immigrants in fear of deportation with those churches providing sanctuary. On her office patio outside Edgewater Presbyterian Church on Chicago's north side, Bobo declared that the notion of providing sanctuary is rooted in American tradition.

KIM BOBO: Throughout our history, when systems and laws have been so broken, the religious community has challenged those in some public ways. So under slavery, we saw congregations being a part of the underground railroad; during the civil rights movement, we saw congregations challenging the laws; and so again today, and also in the '80s, we saw congregations stepping forth and providing sanctuary for immigrants and refugees coming in from Central America.

Chicago's sanctuary program

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: In fact, Chicago was a central front in a sanctuary movement in the mid-1980s, when churches and synagogues helped resettle refugees fleeing civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala. Five hundred congregations across the country sheltered some 1,000 people who had been denied political asylum in the United States.

Many of those asylum-seekers protected by the '80s movement are still in the country today.

JOSE OLIVA: My dad literally had to sell blood, sometimes on a weekly basis, just for extra cash because we didn't have money to buy clothes or we didn't have money to pay the gas bill and that kind of thing.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Jose Oliva was a 13-year-old in 1985, walking the north side streets of Albany Park, searching for work and food with his father. His family fled war-torn Guatemala after government forces threatened Jose's mother with death for trying to improve the learning environment in the school where she taught. Unable to get political asylum in the U.S., the family entered on a tourist visa and stayed.

Today, Oliva is a permanent resident and one of Kim Bobo's staffers at Interfaith Worker Justice. He credits the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation, or JRC, on Chicago's north side, for providing his family with invaluable support.

JOSE OLIVA: When we came here and we lived in this building, we actually didn't have enough money to buy food every week, so my parents got most of the food that we got donated through a variety of different congregations that were part of the sanctuary movement. The JRC was particularly important in connecting us, both with an apartment that we could afford, and with other individuals that were able to support us.

New sanctuary movement

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Today, many of those who stand to benefit from the new sanctuary movement likely will come from the Hispanic-dominated west side neighborhoods of Pilsen and Little Village. Taquerias and food vendors dot the landscape here, as do colorful murals painted by a growing number of local artists.

Many small, unmarked art studios have popped up, including this one, called Polvo, "Dust" in Spanish. Elvia Rodriguez Ochoa is a teacher-activist and an artist who shares space here. She said several neighborhood raids by machine-gun-toting immigration agents in recent months have startled the community and sent many into hiding.

And so news of a new sanctuary movement has been celebrated on the streets here, where the number of undocumented immigrants is unknown, but estimated to be very high.

ELVIA RODRIGUEZ OCHOA, Teacher-Activist: A lot of these families felt very afraid and felt that there was nobody they could turn to that would understand what they were going through. And with the sanctuary movement surging, then all of a sudden, it's like, "Oh, well, I can go to this church. They're trying to help out. They're trying to understand."

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Though Elvira Arellano is the only person in sanctuary here whose case is publicly known, activists estimate there may be as many as 100 others being sheltered here as part of this new sanctuary movement. Arellano said she and her son, Saul, will stay in hiding for as long as necessary, that God is on their side.

That's not how former immigration official Brian Perryman sees it.

BRIAN PERRYMAN: I think she's exploiting her son. And I think that she really has -- and most immigration experts will tell you -- that she has absolutely no chance at prevailing in litigation. And, In fact, she has attempted to prevail in litigation and lost. So I don't really see her as a sanctuary person, per se. She's a person who is trying to use her son to protect herself from removal.

ELVIRA ARELLANO (through translator): Why would I take him to a country that he doesn't know, that is not his country? This is his country, and here is where he'll have the opportunities that don't exist in my country.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Arellano, who only goes as far as her back garden, could be arrested at any time, according to immigration officials, but they consider her a low priority. It remains to be seen how the authorities will react if more undocumented immigrants choose to follow Elvira Arellano's lead and seek sanctuary.

Time Travelers @ polvo

2007-06-13T17:27:00.000-05:00

There only needs to be one Time Based Art Show, you can set your Time Machine’s Coordinates to the following event:

Time Travelers: Time Based Art Show and Panel Discussion
Curated by [Amelia Winger-Bearskin]
June 29 - July 28, 2007

Opening June 29th at 6pm - 10pm, Live performances begin at 7pm
Panel Discussion Saturday June 30th at 3pm followed by an encore sound art performance

Time Traveler’s is a holistic look at pre-apocalyptic, post-feminist, trans-structuralist, and post post-modern misadventures. Time Traveler’s celebrates misanthropic investigations of human relationships, subversion, and mayhem of any variety; we are actively against describing ourselves anything as simple as avant-garde. Time Travelers recognizes that NEW MEDIA has incorrectly been identified as the repository for all art technologies utilizing a video camera, a computer, and an electrical outlet, but insists that as artists, first and foremost, we can use any f*&%@!’n media we want!

Artists Featured:
Donata Napoli
Dietmar Krumery
Universe of Junk
Haircuts by Robots
Bidzina Kanchaveli
Artur Augustynowicz
Joseph Winchester
Bailie Duncan
Guiniviere Webb
Per Erihsson
Michael Una
Christopher Borkowski

Also this month:
flatsceen DVD by Marina Zurkow

At 3pm on Saturday june 30th we are holding the Time Travelers Panel discussion:

Each time a loaded art word is used, two or more universes will be created in which differing ideas become the dominate paradigm [Everett-Wheeler Graham Theory of Branching Universes]. The following panelists will be but may not be in attendance [Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle]:

Suntek Chung a well known Performance Artist and Photographer
Christopher Borkowski co-founder of the video portal [PAM] Perpetual Art Machine
Guiniviere Webb a time based art educator.
Patricht Lichty a Professor of Interactive Arts and Media at Columbia College Chicago

The most contentious art movement since the Dadaists, this Time Traveler community discussion on time, space, art and possibilities will occur. Due to the implications of Bell’s Therom, it will link listeners at a Quantum Level across n-dimensional Hilbert Space. WARNING: This panel may be outrageous, and may use utilize a ridiculous blend of word-salad artspeak. Please, a special request to time travelers: check in before teleporting during the panel.

Free Manifestos available at Polvo

Download PDF POSTCARD

Patricht Lichty bio:
For much of the past ten years, much of Patrick Lichty's performance has involved issues including presence/anonymity and critical personae, collaborating with Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Fluxus, Annie Sprinkle, and RTMark. For this panel, Patrick will appear as the shape-shifting Second Life performance artist, Man Michinaga. Man will take part in the discussion and "respond" from his virtual padded room. What part does public persona have to do with the artist as object? Here, What You See is What You Get. Patrick Lichty is a technologically-based conceptual/performance artist, writer, independent curator,
co-founder of Second Front, the first performance art company in Second Life, animator for the activist group, The Yes Men, and Editor-in-Chief of Intelligent Agent Magazine in NYC. Venues in which Lichty has been involved with solo and collaborative works include the Whitney Biennial as well as the International Symposium on the Electronic Arts (ISEA). He is currently Professor of interactive Arts and Media at Columbia College Chicago.

flatsceen DVD: Marina Zurkow

THE SPACE INVADERS (2005)
single channel animated video

See Quicktime video ONLINE HERE

Marina Zurkow works with character and narrative in animated cartoons, interactive installations, print and pop objects.

Zurkow's recent projects include The Space Invaders, a site-specific single channel video for WNET/PBS in New York; and the seven channel animated installation, Nicking the Never, which premiered at FACT in the U.K. in 2004. She's created the award-winning episodic cartoon Braingirl, chronicling a mutant-cute girl who wears her insides on the outside; Pussy Weevil, or How I Learned to Love the War, a vile cartoon persona who reacts to a viewer's proximity; and PDPal, a public art project for screen, web and mobile devices that allows a user to ìwrite her own cityî (with architect Scott Paterson and technologist Julian Bleecker). Zurkow's icons and characters have been incorporated into films, hotel design, lightboxes and clothing.

Upcoming projects include Karaoke Ice, a truck with a persona that stages karaoke battles for ISEA/ZeroOne, the San Jose Biennial in 2006, and Funnelhead, which will be realized as a graphic novel and as an animated, sculptural installation.

Zurkow's work has been exhibited at Sundance, the Rotterdam Film Festival, Ars Electronica, Creative Time, The Kitchen, the Walker Art Center, the Brooklyn Museum, SFMoMA, Eyebeam Atelier, and bitforms gallery, and has been broadcast on MTV, Fuji TV and PBS. She is a 2005 NYFA Fellow, a 2003 Rockefeller New Media Fellow, and received grants in 2005 from the New York State Council on the Arts, and in 2001-2002 from Creative Capital, the Jerome Foundation and the Walker Art Center. She teaches at NYU's Interactive Technology Program (ITP) and lives in Brooklyn.

Polvo, www.polvo.org
1458 W. 18th St., 1R
Chicago, IL 60608
773.344.1940
info@polvo.org

experimental music from tonight @ polvo

2007-06-10T04:34:00.000-05:00

Pilsen festival

2007-06-10T02:22:00.001-05:00

video from the opening June 1, 2007

2007-06-07T21:31:00.001-05:00

Arthur Trace @ polvo

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Photos from opening June 1, 2007

2007-06-07T21:05:00.000-05:00

"Pilsen to Pilsen" Festival

2007-05-19T07:46:00.001-05:00

Researcher and art critic Lenka Dolanova organizes this festival which combines and analizes the history of Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood and Plzen city in Czechoslovakia.

Saturday, June 9, 2007

Program:

10-11 A.M. Busker - "Pilsen to Pilsen" streaming performance + Mexican band
11 A.M. Busker - "It's Fun to Be Bohemian" documentary stereo-premiere
1-4 P.M. Czechoslovak Heritage Museum (Oakbrook) - Opening panel discussion, exhibition "Czechs in America"

4:30 P.M. Busker - Presentation of the documentary about Pilsen by Amanda Gutierrez
6 P.M. Polvo - Lecture by Dominic Pacyga (Chicago's Czech Past: A Look at Pilsen and Czech California)
6:30 P.M. Polvo - Lecture by Kenneth Corrigan
7 P.M. Polvo - Discussion with the members of local communities
8:30 P.M. Polvo "There is No Place Like Home" video screening by Czech students and professors

Venues:

Busker
2159 W. 21st PL
Chicago, IL 60608
See MAP

Polvo
1458 W. 18th St., 1R
Chicago, IL 60608
See MAP

Czechoslovak Heritage Museum
122 W 22nd St
Oak Brook, IL 60523
(630) 472-0500
See MAP

Pilsen, one of the most popular neighborhoods in Chicago, is located southwest of downtown. Czechs and Slovaks (who used to be known here as Bohemians) began to settle in this location in the 1870s while some sparse settlement existed there before (the first inhabitants were reputedly Irishmen in the 1850s). The neighborhood gained its name Pilsen (alias Plzen which is a city in the Czech Republic) after the pub called “At the city of Pilsen” which used to be here. Soon after its founding, Pilsen became the largest Czech settlement not only in Chicago but also in the USA. Today it is the center of the local (mostly) Mexican community.

Lenka Dolanova (1979) comes from the Czech Republic and is a Ph.D student in Art History at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague. During 2005-2006 she was a Visiting Student Researcher at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago

contemporary magicians

2007-05-10T22:14:00.000-05:00

Cabinet of Wonders
Curated by David London

Artists:
Billy Roberts
Jen Besemer
Ian Sklarsky
Doug Travis
Drew Fernando

Special opening night performances by Chicago magicians Arthur Trace and Benjamin Barnes

Opening Friday June 1, 2007 from 6pm-10pm
June 1 - June 23, 2007

Also this month
mini exhibit : Aimee Moreno

In the 16th century, those who could, collected objects that seemed amazing and other worldly, and displayed them it in a special cabinet. When they felt like their lives needed a touch of magic, they could visit their Cabinet of Wonders and be re-infused with the state of wonder generated from these objects.

In today's modern society, this need for a Cabinet of Wonder is greater than ever. As the gallery walls themselves become the cabinet, a visit to this exhibit, which features objects stemming from the deepest mysteries of the human mind as well as the earth we live on, will infuse its viewers with the awesome power of possibilities.

Polvo, http://www.polvo.org/
1458 W. 18th St., 1R
Chicago, IL 60608
773.344.1940
info@polvo.org

from New CIty 2005:

The Magical City
A new generation of magicians mesmerize Chicago
by Jamie Murnane

Fifty years ago, Chicago was a magical city. Literally. It was the bustling center of magic in the United States and the unlikely birthplace of what would become known as close-up magic, in which magicians would mesmerize and mystify viewers in lounges and restaurants, stepping off the stage and right up next to their captivated spectators.

Home to many magic bars and numerous restaurants that featured magical performances nightly, not to mention a plethora of downtown magic shops that were located within blocks of one another, there was definitely magic in the Windy City air.

Today, magic is often seen as a dying art form; a form of trickery using simple sleight-of-hand tricks that often incorporate playing cards, rubber balls and paper cups, linking rings or--most notably--rabbits being heaved out of hats much too small to hold them and the shouting of nonsensical words like "Abracadabra!" For many, magic is a simple, quirky form of entertainment that's best left to kids' birthday parties.

But a small group of serious magicians is trying to revitalize the Chicago magic scene, turning the city back into the enchanting environment it once was. They view magic as an art form that you're never too old for. These magicians want to remind magic buffs that they're still out there and they don't plan on going anywhere anytime soon--except maybe the suburbs.

Eugene Burger is perhaps the most eminent Chicago magician. The bald, bearded 64-year-old teaches and performs magic all over the world, but has always called the city home. He's been around long enough to remember when you could see a magic show downtown any night of the week. A magician collective, the Chicago Magic Roundtable, acted as a sort of secret society for magicians to gather and share actual tricks of the trade.

"In those days there were nightclubs and the hotels like the Hilton and Palmer House that had shows all the time," says Burger. "There were many magicians in town who would come to perform at these shows. Then, people started moving to the suburbs and things all changed."

But all the magicians did not head for the 'burbs. David Parr, magician and co-host of the recently reinvented Chicago Magic Roundtable (held on the last Thursday of every month at the Green Door Tavern on Orleans Street) says while it may not seem like it, there are still quite a few talented magicians living in the city.

"The trouble is they find their work mostly outside the city," Parr says. "It would be nice to have people like Eugene Burger and some of my other friends and magicians in the city actually perform here more to represent Chicago."

Parr, who coincidentally lives a block from the one-stop magic shop Magic Inc. on Lincoln Avenue, feels that it's entirely possible for Chicago to become a major magical player again. He says just because the venues that once featured magic are no longer around, it does not mean interest in the art form has waned. He says magic gives people something they're not able to get anywhere else.

"Movies and television are passive forms of entertainment," Parr says. "We sit there and we are spectators. Magic is a participatory form of entertainment. It's happening to you personally, not to somebody else on a television screen. I think people have always been hungry for that experience, it's just that now they don't know where to get it."

While Parr says he's been looking for a venue in the city to perform for the three years that he's lived here, two other locals are performing pretty much wherever people will let them.

Arthur Trace specializes in the Chicago-born close-up magic. He performs tableside magic for diners at Schaumburg's Chicago Prime Restaurant every Tuesday night. And in the city, the mid-thirties magician puts on more performance-art magic shows at galleries. Trace, the first magician featured on Fox's "30 Seconds to Fame," is gearing up for a two-week stint at Hollywood's prestigious Magic Castle.

If all the magicians in Chicago felt the way Trace does about the craft, perhaps magic would still be as popular today as it was in the forties and fifties.

"To me, it's very important that magic be an art," he says. "If a magician doesn't have some kind of context behind what he's doing, he's just doing myth. That's magic without substance. I mean, it's entertainment, but magic can be so much more. It's my passion and I try to make it what it can, and what I think it should be, which is an art form."

And if magic has something to say and is done well, Trace thinks people--not just in Chicago, but worldwide--would again become more interested. At the same time, they'll be entertained and mesmerized.

"Too many times, you see magic being on a very low side of the entertainment scale," Trace says. This is probably where the images of a white-faced performer "magically" creating balloon animals at childrens' parties comes to mind.

"A lot of times, people describe us as just entertainment for kids," he says. "Many adults don't think magic can be entertaining for them because many magicians in the past haven't realized the full potential of what magic can be."

And what magic can be, other than whatever the creator wants it to be, is an intelligent art form and an unusually productive mode of expression. "If you have something to say and you're a magician, I think you can say it through magic," Trace says.

In fact, many magicians' routines have underlying messages.

"Not that we're trying to sell an audience on politics or anything," Trace says. However, it's common for magic performances to convey emotional, metaphorical messages. And sometimes, it can simply be an abstract expression, allowing spectators to interpret it as they wish.

Trace's signature performance outside the realm of tableside magic, for example, usually takes place in a bare gallery. Nothing on the walls and only one abstract painting in his hand, Trace amazes the viewers by manipulating the shapes and colors of the painting--right before their eyes.

Twirling the painting around while roaming the gallery, Trace pulls shapes out of the painting, changes their hues and thrusts them back into the canvas. But that's just the beginning. Trace then takes off his signature black, thick-framed glasses and turns them into yet another aspect of the painting, which, in turn, has become an abstract self-portrait. But Trace isn't the only young Chicago magician focusing on the artistic side of the métier.

David London is a filmmaker/magician and self-proclaimed "tour guide for the unknown." And, he's just 22 years old. The magician side of London focuses even more on magic as art than Trace. Of course, all magicians and artists must have their own panache to stand out among the rest. Most recently, London has awed art and magic lovers with his magic-art performance piece "Dream Garden," which was part of "Magic Show: Returning to the Organic" held at the Polvo Gallery in Pilsen this month.

"Dream Garden" started with London constructing paper roses and planting them in dirt boxes as the crowd filed into the South Side gallery. Suddenly, the room went dark, except for two flames in London's hands. He then lit a paper rose on fire that burned in an instantaneous flash. There were no ashes in his hand, but one real, radiantly red rose. To finish the piece, the actual rose was planted in the dirt in the middle of the 150 paper roses.

According to Trace, who met London at the Phoenix Gathering, a magician convention in Baltimore, London is a name that's going to be big for Chicago magic. The fact that he's so young helps.

"I think he's doing some of the most interesting and the most relevant stuff that's really out there right now," Trace says of London.

London, who caught the magic bug around 9 or 10, said he began focusing on magic as an art form when he was around 15.

"I was just disappointed with it and knew there could be something more," he says. "So I started searching for those answers and read everything there was on magic theory until I ran out of things to read." Then London decided to collect things to publish and started a magic magazine, Behind the Smoke and Mirrors, which discusses the theory of magic and magic as art--a long way away from the stereotypical Hocus Pocus we imagine magic to be.

It seems that London takes after his idol, Burger, who says, "Magicians are the only people in the world who can lie to you and get applauded for it."

"Magic is the perception of the unperceivable," London says. "You're perceiving what I'm allowing you to perceive, but there's also this knowledge of this whole other world going on that you're not perceiving."

London applies this theory to his one-man traveling magic show "Art of Dreams," in which he also uses magic as a way to understand dreams. London says dreams are similar to magic in the way that we're experiencing oddities and illogicalness while we sleep and the irrationality surrounding them is accepted as normal until we wake up. With magic, spectators accept what they see as truth until they're reminded otherwise. But that's a whole other concept best left to Behind the Smoke and Mirrors.

As far as trying to be a serious magician, London says it's often hard for people to take it seriously. In all honesty, many just think it's strange.

"I had one adult tell me she was too old for magic," London says. "I didn't comment, because I didn't think it was appropriate, but what I wanted to say is that if you think you're too old for it, it's probably perfect for you. The belief that you're too old for things that are imaginative is a scary thought to me. Imagination never dies. We may sort of cover over it, but it's always there. So, to believe that you're too old is to further dig yourself in the hole of excluding yourself from that ability that we all have."

Getting audiences to appreciate magic again is the challenge facing local magicians now. As Trace says, one of the many hurdles for magicians to overcome is really winning people over. As he says, only so many magicians really stand out. And, those who do, really do. Prime examples are Penn & Teller, whose contextual magic has launched them into international stardom, and David Copperfield, whose romanticized illusions are unparalleled.

"You don't see 200 magicians who are world famous or anything," Trace says. "Not that fame is the ultimate goal."

The goal for Trace, as well as his local counterparts, is not world fame. They'd even settle for citywide fame.

Unfortunately, the magic mecca that was once Chicago is now Las Vegas, where everything's a show. But, Parr says that since there's so much magical history in Chicago, it's possible for it to be revitalized. And that's what he hopes to help do.

"I think it could really work," Parr says. "This could become a center for magic again. It's going to take a real effort to move it in that direction. I'm hoping that myself and several friends and colleagues can help move it in that direction. We'd like to see magic back downtown again."

A key element in bringing back the magic to Chicago would first be establishing a place where people know they can find it. Parr thinks that if it's there, people will go to it because he feels all human beings need mystery in their lives.

"We could easily evoke magic's past in the city," Parr says. It'll just take the help of the likes of Burger, London and Trace. And, of course, a little magic.

(2005-04-19)

Photos from MFA opening May 4, 2007

2007-05-07T10:14:00.000-05:00

Randall Garrett performance:

mighty fine arts @ polvo

2007-04-19T18:26:00.000-05:00

Mighty Fine Arts @ Polvo
Curated by Steve Cruz

artists:
Yousef Balat
Candace Briceno
Steve Cruz
Shelby Cunningham
Veronica De Anda
John Hartley
Brian Jones
Rosemary Meza
Harmony Padgett
Polly Perez
Brian Scott
Eric Tosten

Opening Friday May 4th from 6pm-10pm
May 4 - May 26, 2007

Mighty Fine Arts brings to Chicago a sampling of Texas based artists who have been featured in shows at the gallery. This eclectic mix of styles and practices reflects the overall intent of the gallery which is to provide a space for artists who aren't represented in the more established art spaces. That many artists who have shown at MFA have gone on to shows at bigger venues speaks to the quality of artists who have exhibited at the gallery. This show features 12 artists from Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin and Houston.

Mighty Fine Arts is an artist-run gallery located in the scenic and historic Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas. Artist Steve Cruz started the gallery in June of 2004 with the intention of providing an alternative space for innovative and underrepresented artists. mfa presents an eclectic array of shows with the guiding criteria of presenting work that is resonant, thoughtful and highly accomplished. From mid-career to fresh and unknown artists, mfa hopes to enlarge the perceptions of contemporary art in North Texas.

mini exhibit : CarianaCarianne

Cariana received an MFA from University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill in 2001 and Carianne received an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2003. Their installations, objects and videos have been exhibited extensively across the United States, as well as throughout Europe and Canada. Their works have been included in the Istanbul Biennial (Turkey, 2003), The Drawing Center (New York, 2005), the European Media Arts Festival (Germany, 2003) and the Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas, 2003). Their solo projects include Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, 2004), Croxhapox Gallery (Belgium, 2004, 2006), Chicago Cultural Center (Chicago, 2004), and Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago, 2007). In 2006, their work was selected to take part in the DVD publication ASPECT Vol.7: Personas & Personalities and an 80-page exhibition catalogue of their work, titled Borders, was published through Croxhapox Gallery and Parys Press. Their group shows include The Believers at MASS MoCA (North Adams, 2007), Haunted States at GrandArts (Kansas City, 2006), and Empathetic at Temple Gallery of Tyler School of Art (Philadelphia, 2006). Recently, their project, Drawing and Being Drawn, was selected as a finalist for new commissions at Art in General (New York, 2006). CarianaCarianne lives and works in Chicago.

This CarianaCarianne exhibition coincides with programming at Hyde Park Art Center.

CarianaCarianne: The Embedded Body
Gallery 4

5020 S. Cornell Ave.
Chicago, IL 60615
www.hydeparkart.org
(773) 324-5520

flatscreen DVD: Jaime Mendoza

Jaime Mendoza is a Chicago based artist/curator. His work is concerned with issues of immigration, ethnicity and borders, Mendoza uses a variety of mediums such as video, photography, and mixed media installations—all of which fuse the politics of contemporary urban culture with idealistic meditations on aesthetics, history, and identity. Mendoza has exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. and abroad. Most recently, Mendoza presented a workshop on Self Liberation through Self Identification at the 2nd Annual Educating for CHANGE Curriculum Fair in St. Louis, Missouri in conjunction with the University of Missouri St. Louis College of Education -- Division of Teaching and Learning. Mendoza was also awarded a one year grant from The National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC) to publish a book of drawings, “La Chamba: Drawings by Jaime Mendoza” which will be released this fall. Currently Mendoza is an instructor in the Art Department at Northeastern Illinois University. See more of his work HERE.

POLVO
1458 W. 18th St. 1R
Chicago, IL 60608
info@polvo.org
773 344 1940
http://www.polvo.org
HOURS: Saturdays from Noon-5pm or by appointment

polvo @ version07

2007-04-18T21:28:00.000-05:00

:: VERSION>07 THE INSURECTION INTERNATIONALE ::

An unconventional network of creators, workers, musicians, organizations, artists, activists, producers and organizers are collectively waging asymmetrical warfare on the established systems of control in our cultural, political and art worlds.

The Insurrection Intenationale is a moment. It is a point of confluence between various networks and subcultures that believe in the solidarity of our multitudes. Together we are waging a revolt against established systems and authority to create new worlds to inhabit. We are creating alternate realities, independent economies, developing alliances and infrastructures to support our beliefs. We are engaging in a culture war against the establishments in all their guises.

This year Version will explore the various networks undermining the forces of stagnation, decay and business as usual. Individuals and groups involved in creating alternative modes of operations, communications and networks of cooperation are gathering at our annual convergence this spring to discover the plausible worlds we can create together.
We hope you can join us in enjoying the confluence of now and planning the community of future.

“ This is the final struggle/Let us join together and tomorrow/ The International/Will be the human race”

NFO EXPO
NOON to 7pm @ Zhou B Center
1029 W. 35th St. (basement)
$10 Donation

The NFO EXPO (pronounced “info expo”) brings art groups and community orgs together to exchange information and ideas as well as provide a public platform for each group to present themselves. We see it as a trade show for experimental art, emerging spaces, and radical exchange. It’s our version of what an art fair should be.

Through the simple presentation format of a booth or table, based on a science fair model, we will facilitate straight-forward exchanges about what is going on locally in various communities, from disparate neighborhoods in Chicago, to cities all over the world. Media and art collectives, anti-globalization initiatives, community projects, alt spaces, and other art/activist initiatives are highly encouraged to participate. WE will provide booth or table space at a very low fee to help us cover construction costs. The NFO XPO takes Place April 28 and 29, 2007 during Chicago’s city wide annual art fair weekend.

Featuring:
Polvo, Chicago Underground Library, Anni Holm, Monster Box, Archeworks, Archecamp, Anarchitectures, Magnificent Moss, Guillotine, Crowe Brooks’ Disco Mutation, Speaker Boys Epiphany, Intimate Apparel, Janet Groenert, Art Shanties, Country Club, Soule Soule, Sewing Rebellion, The Plaines Project, Dillon- De Give, cBlends, Green Lantern, Secret Order of the Lamprey, Terry Plumming, JB Daniel, Will Work for Food, Three-walls, You Know A Secret, Pray for Oil, Alee Peoples, Street Art Workers Collective, Reversible Eye, Elise Blue, Sean Smuda- Dream Research, Noisvelvet, Campo, Disposable Society, Andrew Kim, I-go, Moveable Labyrinth, 3066 Labs InCUBATE, and others.

Performances, discussions and other autonomous programming accompanies the NFO EXPO. Dinner will be provided at 5pm each nite of the NFO XPO..

Reservoir Magazine

2007-04-12T17:37:00.000-05:00

Polvo Gallery, Pilsen's hidden gem

By Frank Crist
contributing writer Reservoir Magazine

Forget the 18th Street Artwalk at Halsted - the real heart of Pilsen's emerging art scene is found tucked away in the interior.

When first entering Polvo Gallery at 18th and Laflin, one is reminded of an apartment cleared out to make a space to show art. The floors are rough. The walls are uneven. The heat is provided by an ancient gas furnace, which is plopped in the middle of the floor.(it is actually against the west wall and not in the middle of the floor.)

None of this comes as a surprise to Miguel Cortez, one of the three co-founders of Polvo, since he lives in the space.

Yet the rough interior does not speak to the talent that has come through the gallery. They've had shows by such emerging artists as Tracy Rose, current artist-in-residence at the South African National Gallery in Cape Town; Paola Cabal, a conceptual light and shadow artist; and virtual reality artist Hyunjoo Oh.

The gallery runs from 10 to 12 shows per year. Currently they're showing Erica Lord, a Native American artist who uses her heritage to work with "themes of race, ethnicity, and gender roles, as well as concepts regarding memory and the idea of home." Lord's work is provocative, such as her piece where she's gone to a tanning bed to appear darker, yet has covered parts of her body with phrases, which appear against her tanned skin. One phrase is across her chest: "I tan to appear more native." Another, down one thigh: "Colonize me."

The three founders of Polvo, Miguel Cortez, Elvia Rodriguez-Ochoa and Jesus Macarena-Avila, originally began by publishing a magazine 11 years ago. "Polvo Magazine" has been haunting the front windows of coffee shops and bookstores since 1996 and focuses on international artists and writers. Since then, they've had four different galleries (all in Pilsen), scores of artists' exhibitions and a dozen magazines. They've also received grants from the Illinois Arts Council and have established themselves as a not-for-profit.

Polvo Gallery is located at 1458 W. 18th St. (entry on Laflin). Hours are Saturdays, noon - 5 p.m., or by appointment. Polvo can be found on the web at http://polvo.org.

photos from the Emergency show

2007-04-10T21:50:00.000-05:00

artists Jaime Mendoza and Gisela Insuaste

artist Kim Frieders

artist Barbara Koenen, artist Jesus Oviedo and Chuck Thurow from the Hyde Park Arts Center

Erica Lord review in TimeOut Chicago

2007-03-29T05:22:00.000-05:00

Time Out Chicago / Issue 109: March 29–April 4, 2007

Review

Erica Lord
Polvo, through Sat 31.

Growing up in Alaska and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Erica Lord found herself in a frustrating situation: In the Great White North, because of her blue eyes, her peers told her she looked white, and in the UP, because of her skin tone and the shape of her eyes, she was told she looked native. Lord has Finnish, Indian, Eskimo, Japanese, Swedish and English blood, and her reaction to her heritage, and the way the world responds to it, can be felt in some of the pieces on display here.

Most readily in Tanning Project: four photos in a series of nude self-portraits where the artist has blocked out portions of her body with letters before tanning to create the phrases “Colonize Me” on her thigh, “Native Looking” on her arms, “Halfbreed” across her chest, and “I Tan to Look More Native” on her back. The latter image is particularly multitiered, as various questions arise about the aesthetics of skin tone and the strange rituals people undergo to alter their appearances. Additionally, the manner in which Lord is holding her hair on top of her head to reveal the message is pointedly sexual.

In the much larger digital print, Silence, Lord stands blurred in the foreground with a beaded moose-skin gag over her mouth that reads, “Silence.” The tall wind-blown grass in the background is in tight focus, giving the photo a strange kinetic energy. Coupled with the nearby triptych, Trash Totems, in which a silhouetted Lord stacks tires and other garbage at dusk, it raises an interesting suggestion: that beyond the confusion among the different people of the planet is the greater confusion among all the people and the planet itself.—Josh Tyson

A Brief History of Polvo

2007-03-19T17:50:00.000-05:00

A Brief History of Polvo
by Miguel Cortez

We have been organizing art exhibits and publishing a 'zine officially as Polvo since the summer of 1996. But before this Jesus Macarena-Avila and Elvia Rodriguez-Ochoa organized a show in 1995 called "187: With or Without You" dealing with Proposition 187 which was taking place in California at the time which denied benefits to illegal aliens. I also participated, but it was during this time that we realized that we work well together so during summer 1996 we decided to publish an inexpensive black and white xerox "zine". I came up with the name "polvo" which appeared as street graffity in one of my lucid dreams back in May 1996. I don't remember what the dream was about but I did remember that word vividly. During the next few days I kept thinking how cool a name for the "zine" that would be since it means "explosion" in spanish. We gathered sumbissions from friends and others via email and using a brand new(at the time) Mac 8500 I designed the mag. We took it to Kinko's and did an edition of about 200 and started to distribute them to friends, cafe's, universities, etc.

During 1996 we also organized a group show called "El Otro Lado de la Locura / The Other Side of Lunacy" at this wonderful cultural space/gallery called Casa de Arte y Cultura (Calles y Suenos). The director Jose David let us invite whoever we wanted, so we gathered about 5 artists. The Calles y Suenos space(1990-1998) influenced us deeply along with its predecessor Axe St. Arena (an alternative space during the 1980s).

Elvia had been a member of this Pilsen collective called Taller Mexicano de Grabado(Mexican Printmaking Workshop) since the early 1990s. So in the mid-1990s Jesus and myself joined. The group was mostly latin american artists in their late 30s, 40s and 50s and then us who were in our 20s at the time. To them were the up and coming young generation of latino artists and because our ideas of art and artmaking were too far out there for them, we were limited in our creative process. This limitation grew to frustration that in 1999 we decided to open our own space and left the Taller collective.

We found a cheap storefront 2 blocks from the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum on Cullerton and Wood and opened in late February 1999. Artists such as Amy Mall, Jaime Mendoza and Laura Kina showed with us at this time. The space closed in late summer 1999 due to financial and personal reasons. I travelled to Barcelona, Spain for about 7 months during 2000 and when I came back I continued with the magazine but as an online project. Several issues exist as "Flash" files in our archives and later Jesus and I joined to publish another black and white xerox "zine" in summer 2002.

On January 2003 I was walking by 18th and Allport and saw a small old/raw storefront with a "for rent" sign. Out of curiosity I called and it was affordable. I immediately called Jesus and Elvia about it and they were excited about re-opening Polvo. We met and the first show opened in mid-February and was called the "Subaltern Show". During February Jesus and I attended several anti-war marches and we decided to organize a quick group show to take place in March as our protest against the Iraq war. It received some good press and attention within the cultural community. Also during this time the magazine went from a "zine" format to a tabloid(11" x 17") newspaper format.

After about 7 months of paying 2 rents each month I decided to combine them and found an an apartment on 18th and Laflin second floor in September of 2003 and moved Polvo there. After several shows the landlord wasn't pleased with all the people coming in and out during openings because he said the apartment was residential and not a commercial space(he was afraid of city inspectors coming in) so he showed me a storage room he had behind the grocery store in front at street level. The space was bigger and with 13ft ceilings and very raw looking. I loved it-- so in a month's time he added drywall to cover the brick and made a bathroom plus added a kitchen and refrigerator. So Polvo has been at this rear space since March 2004.

Over the years many shows at Polvo have received much press and notoriety and many artists that have shown with us early in their careers have gone onto better and bigger venues. Artists that come to mind that are now well-known are CarianaCarianne, Dolan Geiman, Huong Ngo, Sumakshi Singh, Paola Cabal, Edra Soto, Gisela Insuaste.Some used the space to experiment; they would document their installations and then approach other galleries or museums. And on the other end there are artists who are already well-known and decide to show with Polvo because they agree with our ideas and philosophy of contemporary art, experimentation, community and political awareness. Such past artists are Tracey Rose, Elizam Escobar, Michael Piazza, Bertha Husband, Siebren Versteeg, Guillermo Galindo, Chris Brown, Silvia Malagrino, Deb Sokolow and Lindsay Obermeyer. Our group shows have also been strong and are organized more with political and community awareness. Shows have tended to tackle subjects like "Gentrification", "Anti-War", Low Rider culture, and Surveillance.

the emergency show

2007-03-14T19:24:00.000-05:00

The Emergency Show:
Kim Frieders
Miguel Cortez
Jaime Mendoza
Barbara Koenen

plus flatscreen DVD: CarianaCarianne

Opening Friday April 6, 2007 from 6pm-10pm
April 6 - April 28, 2007

The Polvo exhibits are planned a year in advance but certain times the artist(s) scheduled cannot do the show due to whatever reason. Such thing happened for this month and we at Polvo had to organize a show with very little time so hence the title "The Emergency Show".

Kim Frieders grew up on a farm in Morris, IL. and developed an interest in art at a young age and at 8 began entering art competitions and exhibitions. She studied independently, from books and from life, with occassional lessons in a variety of media, until she began taking structured art classes as a teen. Kim entered into the studio art program at Millikin University in 1996. After realizing a love for gesture drawing, she quickly focused on exploring gestural abstraction and process-driven experimentation through painting and printmaking. She presented her first solo exhibition, in fulfillment of my BFA, in early 2000. Shortly thereafter Kim moved to Chicago. She has focused mainly on acrylic painting since that time, using wood, paper and canvas surfaces ranging from small to large and has exhibited in art festivals, galleries, restaurants and other public and private venues.

Miguel Cortez is an artist/curator living in Chicago and born in Guanajuato, Mexico. He has studied filmmaking at Columbia College and fine art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Miguel is a founding member of Polvo, an art collective since 1996, and has organized various shows throughout the years at the Polvo space and other cultural alternative spaces. The most recent one being at Unit B gallery in San Antonio september 2006. Before that it was at Commerce Street Artists' Warehouse in Houston, Texas. There he brought artwork by local Chicago contemporary artists. Miguel also curated a show July 2006 in San Antonio as part of their Contemporary Art Month. Miguel also has exhibited his work for more than a decade in Chicago, Mexico, and Spain. Recent exhibitions include a show in Austin at Studio 107 Gallery, "Word" at Rudolph Projects in Houston, "Reencounter" at Prospectus Art Gallery in Chicago, "Lo Romantico" at Glass Curtain Gallery in Chicago and "Lies that Bill Gates told me: Exploring the Digital Divide" at VU Space in Melbourne, Australia. Future exhibitions include a two person show in 2007 with Edra Soto at Mighty Fine Arts.

Jaime Mendoza is a Chicago based artist/curator. His work is concerned with issues of immigration, ethnicity and borders, Mendoza uses a variety of mediums such as video, photography, and mixed media installations—all of which fuse the politics of contemporary urban culture with idealistic meditations on aesthetics, history, and identity. Mendoza has exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. and abroad. Most recently, Mendoza presented a workshop on Self Liberation through Self Identification at the 2nd Annual Educating for CHANGE Curriculum Fair in St. Louis, Missouri in conjunction with the University of Missouri St. Louis College of Education -- Division of Teaching and Learning. Mendoza was also awarded a one year grant from The National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC) to publish a book of drawings, “La Chamba: Drawings by Jaime Mendoza” which will be released this fall. Currently Mendoza is an instructor in the Art Department at Northeastern Illinois University.

Barbara Koenen is a Chicago-based artist who creates unlikely combinations of cultural practices around the world as influenced by war. Her recent projects include spice war rugs -- installations and transfers inspired by Tibetan sand mandalas and Afghani war rugs -- and Grenade Cosies, hypothetical illustrations of the evolution of a traditional American craft. Koenen's work has been exhibited in Europe as well as the US. A graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Koenen is a cultural planner for the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and director of the Chicago Artists Resource ( www.chicagoartistsresource.org). Her work may be seen at www.barbarakoenen.com

flatscreen DVD: CarianaCarianne
There are cultural barriers between us. There are language barriers between us. There are geographical barriers between us. There are technological barriers between us. There are truths and man-made truths everywhere. What we see is not what we see. Now, the unchangeable subject is everything around us changing rapidly. People come from different families with different backgrounds. We share the same emotions, yet we gain it through individual experiences. Memories are products that are created by experiences. Our memories become a matter that affects our daily life. We build architectural frames to shell us. At the same time, we build invisible walls between us.

Cariana received an MFA from University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill in 2001 and Carianne received an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2003. Their installations, objects and videos have been exhibited extensively across the United States, as well as throughout Europe and Canada. Their works have been included in the Istanbul Biennial (Turkey, 2003), The Drawing Center (New York, 2005), the European Media Arts Festival (Germany, 2003) and the Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas, 2003). Their solo projects include Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, 2004), Croxhapox Gallery (Belgium, 2004, 2006), Chicago Cultural Center (Chicago, 2004), and Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago, 2007). In 2006, their work was selected to take part in the DVD publication ASPECT Vol.7: Personas & Personalities and an 80-page exhibition catalogue of their work, titled Borders, was published through Croxhapox Gallery and Parys Press. Their group shows include The Believers at MASS MoCA (North Adams, 2007), Haunted States at GrandArts (Kansas City, 2006), and Empathetic at Temple Gallery of Tyler School of Art (Philadelphia, 2006). Recently, their project, Drawing and Being Drawn, was selected as a finalist for new commissions at Art in General (New York, 2006). CarianaCarianne lives and works in Chicago.

This CarianaCarianne exhibition coincides with programming at Hyde Park Art Center.

CarianaCarianne: The Embedded Body
Gallery 4

5020 S. Cornell Ave.
Chicago, IL 60615
www.hydeparkart.org
(773) 324-5520
Gallery Hours: Mon. – Thurs. 10 am-8pm, Fri. –Sat. 10 am-5pm, Sun. noon-5pm

POLVO
1458 W. 18th St. 1R
Chicago, IL 60608
info@polvo.org
773 344 1940
http://www.polvo.org
HOURS: Saturdays from Noon-5pm or by appointment

essay by Jesus Macarena-Avila

2007-03-13T21:56:00.000-05:00

LA FRONTERA: DEFINING ‘NORTE Y SUR’ IN THE AMERICAS

by Jesus Macarena-Avila

I. “Pilsen, Polvo, and the Immigration Rights Movement”

“By a vote of 80 to 19, late on Sept. 29th, 2006, the Senate confirmed a House bill authorizing, and partially funding the "possible" construction of 700 miles of physical fence/barriers along the border. The very broad support implies that many assurances have been made by the Administration, to the Democrats, Mexico, and the pro "Comprehensive immigration reform" minority within the GOP, that Homeland Security will proceed very cautiously.” -- John Barry 1

Last October 2006 I was invited to participate with South Project’s 2006 symposium and conference in Santiago, Chile. I was to represent an alternative cultural space called Polvo on a panel event to discuss the topic of “exile”. 2 Polvo was founded by Miguel Cortez (born in Mexico), Elvia Rodriguez-Ochoa (born in Mexico) and myself, and we are situated in the largest Latin American immigrant community in the city of Chicago. The three of us represents artists whose work for last ten years has not been fully recognised in Chicago, only recently, Polvo has gotten some attention from the mainstream Chicago art world. For ten years, we had mostly straddled networks outside of the United States (US) and beyond Chicagoland area. Part of this is that we represent not the mainstream artistic community,but we are pretty much grounded in Polvo’s surrounding community.

Polvo is in an area called Lower West Side, one of the neighbourhoods is known to most Chicago residents as “Pilsen” which had a large Czech community until Mexican immigrants began in the early 1950’s. 3 Nowadays, most Pilsen residents know it as “La Diesiocho” which means “18” since the largest main street is “18th Street”. Polvo had been situated there since 1996, we mounted exhibitions of issues pertaining to immigrants and Latin America. From our exhibitions being displayed in non-traditional spaces like coffee shops and people’s homes, we began to get noticed by Pilsen’s older generation of Latino/a activist circles. In 1996, we developed a website and “zine” covered in a multi-language format and we called it “Polvo”. It called local submissions (both offline and online communities) for critical thinking, artwork images and creative writings as devising a healthy network away from Chicago’s mainstream artistic community.

As Polvo, we were working as a “collective”, a word coming from “colectivo” (in Spanish), we felt that the mainstream art scene was a not receptive to the type of cultural production we performing in the Pilsen community. In today’s current affairs, Pilsen is undergoing a huge transformation due to urban gentrification. 4 We are maintaining a balance of community-based activism and cultural programmes with no funding, just hard work and commitment. Now we function out of a stable space since 2003, what was once a storage room for a candy store is presently an experimental “project” space. This humble space has become an epicenter for artistic experimenting combined with the idea of social concerns in contemporary art practices. Transnationalism is something that is very important to Polvo, because “networks” amongst critical thinkers, educators and artists can cause new ways of approaching and changes present social attitudes from within and outside of Chicago’s art world.

During the time I was preparing to attend the South Project event in Chile, I was coordinating three projects for Polvo one of them was an exhibition of new work by Melbourne based artist, Michael Capapas. In 2004, I had met Capapas during my residency with the former Hydra Studios programme at the Footscray Community Art Centre, with my exhibition curated by Carmen Grostal. 5 My personal experience interacting with Australian-Asian artistic communities, I saw connections in relation to immigrant experience in the US. My experience as cultural worker outside of the mainstream, doing invaluable cultural work in between the arts and community, I saw parallels in the implications of geographic borders such as the coasts of Australia and the two borders (north and south) between Canada, Mexico, and US. Capapas said in his artist statement for the Polvo media release: "It is probably because a large part of my life has been spent living in places where I felt I did not belong. Being an immigrant from the North, I have been a stranger in the South."

Border crossing experiences translate differently between Australia and US, many immigrants have braved the sea to arrive on the shores of Australia, many deaths go unnoticed similar to the many undocumented deaths of people braving the US/ Mexico borders. 6 I remember stories from mother about her despair and fear when she was crossing the border from Mexico into the state of Texas. She wondered what waits for her, in a pursuit of the “American Dream”, my father expecting her in Texas. They both were very young, lived out in the range and staying nights at different homes until they had reached their destination. It reminded me of the stories I heard from Vietnamese artists in Footscray, a west suburb of Melbourne. Their narratives of families waiting for loved ones to arrive to Australia. We shared our stories and found some connections because migrations of people all over the globe carry those stories very close to their hearts. They reflect courage and bravery that go beyond adversity for what most people strive for: quality of life.

Since 2006, immigration reform has been a hot topic in the mainstream US media and for many undocumented communities, mostly from Mexico, Latin America, and Caribbean. As the Bush Administration continues with their endless war with Iraq are now persecuting “illegal aliens” by trying to secure its borders from possible threats. In Chicago, which sometimes is known as the “city of broad shoulders”, has a long history with immigrant communities. Chicago has a large pockets of undocumented communities as hardworking laborers and Bush’s recent raids, sanctions and deportation of many undocumented workers has now caused damage to many working class households where their children has US citizenship by birth.

What stands in front as a form of agency for social change has been recent Chicago’s mobilizations of immigrants, undocumented workers, churches, social service organizations, etc. whom made history last Spring 2006. Thousands of protesters participated in an event called the “March 10th” March”. It was the stepping stone of what is now called the “Immigrant Rights Movement”. This movement is on the forefront with figures in the media like undocumented activist, Elvira Arellano although she protest has been met with much resistance from right winged groups such as the Klu Klux Klan and Minutemen. 7 She refuses to leave the US as an undocumented worker. She stands for her son, Saul Aguirre (who has US citizenship by birth) and her place as a hard worker in the US. In past article, she proclaimed, "President Bush has said he is in favor of legalization, and yet he is pursuing a relentless policy of raids, deportations, separation of families, and sanctions. This is hypocrisy." 8

Arellano’s story via the media has touched thousands of Latin American immigrant households in the US, both undocumented and residents. Her story represents values very important to family, security and providing a value system worthy to her son. I feel her story re-defines what it is to be a Millennium “American”. In a 2006 “Time” magazine interview with conservative, Pat Buchanan, he expressed that the “American” identity is in danger: “We spoke the same language, had the same faith, laughed at the same comedians. We were one nationality. We're ceasing to be that when you have hundreds of thousands of people who want to retain their own culture, their own language, their own loyalty. What do we have in common that makes us fellow Americans? Is it simply citizenship? Or is it blood, soil, history and heroes?” 9

Buchanan continues to state that old “American” values had gone due to recent social movements reclaiming new strategies. Myself as a child of immigrant parents, Arellano’s story is but an inspiration to make contemporary art as relevant cultural production. What are the American values in which Buchanan speaks about? But for me as a child of immigrant parents what has always been an obstacle throughout my whole life in the US, is the topic of “immigration”. In 1994, the government of California wanted to pass a political referendum, proposition 187 to seize out the “illegal aliens” (which is a patronizing label, in humane) in their state. Many art and activist circles in Chicago protested with art. I, myself organized an exhibition (pre-Polvo collaborative effort) called, “187: With or Without You” in which displayed immigrants artists depicting work responding to the proposition 187 in the state of California. It was mounted in 1995 at Malcolm X College and Robert Lopez Gallery; it featured artwork by predominantly immigrant artists. The intention of the show was to critique on how proposition 187 in the state of California affected immigrant communities and how these types of political referendums are inhumane. 10

Scholar David G. Gutiérrez recounts this referendum as “…an incident that is now widely considered to have marked a turning point in recent immigration history, an estimated seventy thousand people took to the streets of Los Angeles to protest the impending passage of California's Proposition 187. The statewide initiative, much of which was subsequently invalidated in a federal district court, was a frankly punitive measure designed to discourage unauthorized migration to California by denying undocumented residents and their children access to virtually all public services, including tax-subsidized health care, welfare programs, and public education.” 11

For my involvement with Polvo exhibitions and events is a powerful space to incubate creative culture as a social agency. For example, Polvo’s exhibition of Michael Capapas that happened in December of 2006 and was a rare opportunity to make connections between two countries to see what “borders” and what is the common bond of immigration between Australia and US. The beginning of this opportunity began months before the arrival of Capapas in Chicago during the months of January and February 2006. I had initially made contact with a social service organization, Coalition of Arab, African, Asian, European and Latino Immigrants of Illinois (CAAAELII) because I wanted to collaborate with them with the exhibition of Capapas. 12 His new artwork is focused on his immigrant experience in Australia, which makes his work a natural fit with Polvo’s mission. Since 1996, Polvo has been devoted to artists whose work explores societal concerns.

II. “South Project 2006: Examining Hemispheric Borders and Third Spaces”

The late Chicana theorist, Gloria Anzaldua evoked intellectual constructions using the physical border between Mexico and US as a third space in which cultural resistance is sustained. She described as an "…actual physical borderland that I'm dealing with in this book is the Texas-U.S. Southwest / Mexican border. The psychological borderlands, the sexual borderlands and the spiritual borderlands are not particular to the Southwest. In fact, the Borderlands are physically present wherever two or more cultures edge each other, where people of different races occupy the same territory, where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space between two individuals shrinks with intimacy.” My position as man of color, Latino, Chicagoan, Midwestern, artist, and educator, Anzaldua’s “third space” works a healthy position to sustain identity or identities. Then borders could be seen as spaces that can be stretched out inward and outward for me to transform into something positive and to work out ideas.

Anzaldua’s intellectual works embarked on an intersection of imagination and a multitude of identities drawn from an existing social political landscape. Her cultural connections to the idea of “mestizaje”, the process of cultural and race mixing going back to the colonial era of Mexico, since the US southwest region belonged to the Mexican government until 1848. Mexico is home to many mixed blood populations, labeled “mestizo” since colonial times. Although the “mestiza/o” was a creation of both worlds, in such a society, a person’s skin color contributed to her / his upper rank position and privilege; skin color reflecting upon one’s connections to Western culture.

In order to continually divide and separate, more categories were created in the Spanish settlement. For example, if a “mestiza/o” married a European, they would produce a “castiza/o”. The “castiza/o” would have to marry a European in order to secure economic privilege and social ranking in the Spanish community. Historian Jonathan Israel wrote on “mestizaje”, explaining: "However the government has no objection to the ordaining of ‘castizos’, the offspring of Spaniards by ‘mestizas’. Indeed, it is clear that the secular clergy in New Spain, which we have classified as ‘creole’, has in its veins a strain of Indian blood also and was really ‘creole-castizo-mestizo’." Israel pointed out how a government can control a person’s genetic heritage by an invented label. 13

Anzaldua’s historic references to the “mestizaje” opens up a dialogue to explain the idea of a “third space” in which many elements can merge and exist in a fluid manner. This concept continues influence many Chicana feminist visual artists, writers, etc. within the Southwest region of the US. Even Australian based scholar, Maureen Perkins has referenced the “third space” concept in her theoretical framework on studying mixed race identities. Her preface to her book, “Borderlands: La Frontera” touched upon many prevalent points toward undocumented border crossings in the US. The geographical borders transformed into sites of resistance and cultural metaphors found in everyday life on the US / Mexico border.

She advocates that “... living on borders and in margins, keeping intact one's shifting and multiple identity and integrity, is like trying to swim in a new element, an "alien" element. There is an exhilaration in being a participant in the further evolution of humankind, in being "worked" on. I have the sense that certain "faculties"-not just in me but in every border resident, colored or non-colored-and dormant areas of consciousness are being activated, awakened. Strange, huh? And yes, the "alien" element has become familiar-never comfortable, not with society's clamor to uphold the old, to rejoin the flock, to go with the herd. No, not comfortable but home." 14

My interest in these ideas of “third space” and borders were pre-set in my initial introduction to South Project’s mission via my 2004 residency to Melbourne and curator Carmen Grostal. My interests were peaked when it heard of its mission and position to challenge and expand the concept of “north” and “south” territories of the world. Their planned design project to establish important networks of cultural exchange, programming, think tanking, and advocating culture make one to see that borders can be dissolve and transform. Creating spaces with partnering institutions and organizations for artists, curators, cultural workers, etc. to transform individually or collaboratively in grounding new approaches to idea and art making.

As I see it, “northerners” of the privileged sectors have visibility and tend to dominate as playing the “gate keepers” of culture. Although on may think that “north” and “south” is that the equator divides the “north” and “south”, it does not function like that for me in the Americas nor I think for South Project participants. I always felt the US / Mexico border of the Rio Grande is what divides “north” and “south” within the areas of economics, politics and dominant culture or how I would describe as “norte y sur”. Weeks before arriving in the city of Santiago, Chile to participate with the 2006 conference, US passed that there will be funding for “…the ‘possible’ construction of 700 miles of physical fence/barriers along the border.” 15 The construction of a wall is a cultural insult to Latin America and the Caribbean, a direct insult to the populations of Latin American immigrants and undocumented workers in the US. In the end, it is a harsh insult to Latin Americans and Caribbeans inside and outside of the US.

As an artist, I start to feel the “third space” that Anzaldua speaks about calls for a new transformation or enhancement. At South Proiect’s panel event, my presentation on centred on spotlighting the “March 10th March”, Polvo’s immigrant-theme projects and Anzaldua’s “third space” theory, I became very aware that everyone was in agreement with me, about that “wall” that reconfirms the US as the dominant culture, the master narrative. I knew that there would also be frustration and angry emotions expressed during my presentation, a child of immigrants of poor family who braved the harsh conditions of crossing “la frontera” (US/ Mexico border) as commonly known to many Latino/as in the US. Up to this date, many undocumented deaths of many people from Latin America and Caribbean going toward the common goal of the mythic “American Dream” have gone unnoticed to the average “American”.

III. “La Frontera: Imagining a Fourth Space”

“La frontera” is now to be transform again since Anzaldua’s interpretation. It calls for a reworking of it as a cultural metaphor, today right-wing groups such as the Minutemen feel that it is their “American” right to secure the borders with or without the US government’s approval, by literally chasing border crossers like a hunting sport. They have begun to intercede into whatever manifestations of protest for Immigration Rights Movement. As artists, cultural workers, educators, and art administrators, we need to find something within borders to resonate ideas, the ones with solutions. Of course none of us (or I) can save the world, but we can try to secure and sustain a space to allow thinking outside of the master narrative. It can be a newly transformed space to enable networks of information, ideas, art making, and humanist issues.

Is it naive for me to think that we could unite as a “multitude” against the dominant culture to address the wall that US plans to build on its southern border. Some view the US as Imperialist component of the “Empire”. I have been studying the "Empire" theory, which can defined as: “to seek a multi-national sovereignty through globalization.” The founders of the "Empire" theory, Thomas Hart and Antonio Negri, define it as: “... a series of national and supernational organisms united under a single logic of rule. This new global form of sovereignty is what we call Empire.” 16 My position as a minority lacking in political power living within US, it intrigues to understand their "Empire" theory. Hart and Negri make several comparisons between the United States and the "Empire". They claim that the Empire seeks sovereignty through a constructed constitution similar to that of the United States: “The realization of the imperial notion of sovereignty was a long process that developed through the different phases of U.S. constitution history.” 17

Negri and Hart discussed thoroughly those different phases like the race relations within the U.S. Issues of slavery and freedom ring within the different phases such as "colonial racism," which have existed for the U.S. since the discovery of the Americas. Empire theory offers a scholarly opportunity to this century to seek an alternative democracy with globalization issues. It operates using a nonviolent position to face a new type of oppression not relying on old colonial tactics. Although one can not solely just stand on theory itself to position her or his argument; my answer is “creativity”, for me it is the artistic practise. One needs to reflect on the “point of return”, meaning for me a place in within the “third space” concept in which can offer a ground to function like an observation deck. It can serve as a safety device to secure cultural roots but feed my investigative artistic sources.

I am have been working on a series called “Point of Return” or “Punto de Regreso”, since I am of Mexican heritage it makes references to Mexican art history. The series features site-specific installations examining cultural reclamation. The installations make historical references to Diego Rivera’s 1915 "Zapatista Landscape" painting exploring culture linked to displacement, landscape and memory. Through the usage of fiber and popular textile art, the concept and material intersect aesthetic concerns belonging to folk and popular art forms. Since the late 1960’s, Chicano/a artists in the United States have artistically focused their artwork on reclaiming Mexican heritage.

Chicano artist and scholar such as David Rosales wrote on Rivera’s "Zapatista Landscape": "This painting painted in Europe in 1915 could be painted in California in 2000 and still be relevant to the concepts of assimilation and misplaced histories of Chicano peoples. This painting was done by a Mexican who is far from home and working within Western Art historical means, but expressing colonial concepts of aggression and survival within assimilation issues." 18

I will continue to make my work in relation to the prevalent topics that surround me, joining other creative communities on straddling the globe on it axis. We should re-examine these “borders” in between to surpass geographic and cultural definitions. Also to be careful that in that “fourth space” allowing us to retain what make us different and still connected to our respective communities. In many ways, I think that Polvo is working within a “fourth space” using our cyber communities to extend our vision into the digital world. Our tools of communication and our worlds of imagination can collaborate and participate in a “fourth space” with it numerous points of returns.

ENDNOTES:

1. This article discusses the wake of the US in its attempt via Homeland Security to protect the southern border in “U.S.-Mexican Border: Can Good Fences Make Bad Neighbors?” by John Barry (Thursday, June 15, 2000).
2. The conference took place at several spaces such as Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Universidad de Chile, Centro Cultural Mapocho during the month of October of 2006. For more information please log onto http:///www.southproject.org.
3. Pilsen has a long tradition of community arts since the Czech community lived there. When its past residents moving out to their suburban homes most of their deserted cultural spaces became sites of community based programs and low income artist studios which resulted from the 1970’s social movements within the present Mexican community.
4. Polvo had coordinated exhibitions inviting artist as well as community groups and organizations to discuss how gentrification is affecting Chicago communities.
5. My exhibition was mounted during the months of October and November 2004, “Invisible Flesh” with Gabriel Gallery at Footscray Community Art Centre (FCAC) initiated by two years of email conversations and preparations with Carmen Grostal, former director of FCAC’s Gabriel Gallery.
6. Many people from Central America and Mexico go across in many ways, one of the ways are through “coyotes”, who are drivers who drive people illegally, it is very dangerous situations due to harsh treatment and physical abuse.
7. Elvira Arellano, has been protesting Bush administration’s immigration reforms since 2005 organizing undocumented mothers in Chicago and with other organizations such as Centro Sin Fronteras. Since late summer 2006, she has been seeking sanctuary at a storefront church in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighbourhood and refusing to leave the US.
8. Elvira Arellano was interviewed for Medill News, Northwestern University, entitled “Immigration advocate refuses to appear for deportation” by Erin Zaleski on August 15, 2006.
9. He was interview in the Sunday, Aug. 20, 2006 edition of Time, “10 Questions for Pat Buchanan” by Jeff Chu.
10. This was the first artistic response to Proposition 187 to happen on a college campus as an group exhibition in the US.
11. He wrote the article entitled “Migration, Emergent Ethnicity, and the "Third Space": The Shifting Politics of Nationalism in Greater Mexico” examining immigration policies.
12. I had led community art programs with CAAAELII’s staff, community leaders, and youth with bookmaking workshops. The artwork resulted were exhibited alongside Capapas exhibition at Polvo last December 2006.
13. Israel wrote on the history of “mestizaje” in Mexico, “Race and Class in Politics in Colonial Mexico: 1610-1670”.
14. Anzaldua discusses identity politics and reworks the idea of culture existing next to each other in “Borderlands: La Frontera, 2nd edition”. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1999.
15. This article discusses the wake of the US in its attempt via Homeland Security to protect the southern border in “U.S.-Mexican Border: Can Good Fences Make Bad Neighbors?” by John Barry (Thursday, June 15, 2000).
16. Negri, Antonio. “Empire”. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001, p.7.
17. Negri, Antonio. “Empire”. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001, p.167-168.
18. David Rosales is an artist based in California who did comparative research on Rivera’s work with Chicano visual aesthetics.

Jesus Macarena-Avila is a visual artist working and living in the city of Chicago.

interview with Erica Lord

2007-03-12T05:35:00.001-05:00

hear an interview with artist Erica Lord currently showing at Polvo
Erica Lord.mp3

Erica Lord @ polvo

2007-03-06T19:28:00.000-06:00

Erica Lord
flatscreen DVD: Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud

Opening Friday March 9, 2007 from 6pm-10pm
March 9 - March 31, 2007

Erica Lord grew up between Alaska and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. An inter-disciplinary artist, Erica works with themes of race, ethnicity, and gender roles, as well as concepts regarding memory and the idea of home. Her exploration of these universal aspects are in relation to her constantly changing identity, a shifting self whose qualities seem to surface and diminish, depending on her context or present environment. Erica currently serves on the Indigenous Arts Action Alliance (IA3), a non-profit organization that has supported bringing Native artists to the Venice Biennale for the past 8 years, has had her creative writing published in Red Ink magazine and has exhibited at the Montana Museum of Art and Culture, the Carl Gorman Museum (CA), and the Two Rivers Gallery in Minneapolis. She received her BA from Carleton College (Northfield, MN) in liberal arts/studio arts in 2001 and her MFA in the sculpture department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

flatscreen DVD: Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud
Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud was born in Texas in 1978 and studied Visual and Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She acts as artist, performer, collaborator, and writer on a variety of interactive works dealing with everyday and metaphysical rituals. She currently lives and works in New York and Miami, and just started labotanica.wordpress.com.

polvo benefit: silent art auction

2007-02-27T20:19:00.001-06:00

Polvo Benefit
Friday March 2, 2007 from 6pm-10pm

Come support and help us continue with our programming for 2007. Rents are raised, neighborhood is changing, but we are still here. We plan on doing a silent art auction. We rarely do benefits but this year we need to do so in order to continue. For those who do not know us that well, we are a non-commercial alternative art space run by a collective of 3 (Miguel Cortez, Elvia Rodriguez-Ochoa, and Jesus Macarena-Avila). We have been organizing art exhibits for more than a decade in Chicago. We showcase contemporary art in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood.

Artists donating work:
Steve Amos
Adriana Baltazar
Virginia Boyle Lopez
Burtonwood & Holmes
Elke Claus
Juan Compean
Miguel Cortez
Minerva Cuevas
Chris Diers
Hector Duarte
Brad Farwell
Finishing School
Dolan Geiman
Gisela Insuaste
John Lenting
Roberto Lopez
T.W. Li
Patrick Lichty
Jesus Macarena-Avila
Silvia Malagrino
Trevor Martin
Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud
Jaime Mendoza
Mark Nelson
Huong Ngo
Jesus Oviedo
Naufus Ramirez
Allison Rentz
Michael Robert Pollard
Eufemio Pulido
Odie Rynell Cash
Edra Soto
Greg Stimac
Jeremy Tubbs
Paola A Valera
John P. Weber
Sallie Wolf
Christopher T. Wood
plus many more...

Silent art auction with your host MC Nopal

POLVO
1458 W. 18th St. 1R
Chicago, IL 60608
info@polvo.org
773 344 1940
http://www.polvo.org
HOURS: Saturdays from Noon-5pm or by appointment

Jesus invades Mexico!!

2007-02-27T20:12:00.000-06:00

“PUNTO DE REGRESA / POINT OF RETURN: JESUS MACARENA-AVILA”

Opening: Friday, 8 April 2007
8 April – 25 May 2007

“PUNTO DE REGRESA / POINT OF RETURN” is the first solo exhibition in Mexico for Chicago based artist, Jesus Macarena-Avila. This exhibition features site-specific installations examining cultural reclamation. Aside from the installations, a series of large-scale digital prints will be presented making commentaries on bi-culturalism, class and race. They are inspired by Mexican and South African social relevant graphics with the political satire of 1970’s African-American and Chicano visual aesthetics.

The installations make historical references to Diego Rivera’s 1915 “Zapatista Landscape” painting exploring culture linked to displacement, landscape and memory. Through the usage of fiber and popular textile art, the concept and material intersect aesthetic concerns belonging to folk and popular art forms. Since the late 1960’s, Chicano/a artists in the United States have artistically focused their artwork on reclaiming Mexican heritage.

“PUNTO DE REGRESA/POINT OF RETURN” feature installations exploring culture linked to displacement, landscape and memory.

Chicano artist and scholar such as David Rosales wrote on Rivera’s “Zapatista Landscape”: “This painting painted in Europe in 1915 could be painted in California in 2000 and still be relevant to the concepts of assimilation and misplaced histories of Chicano peoples. This painting was done by a Mexican who is far from home and working within Western Art historical means, but expressing colonial concepts of aggression and survival within assimilation issues.”

Macarena-Avila has MFA degree from Vermont College of Norwich University and studied at the School of the Art Institute, where he earned his BFA degree. He has obtained a high level of artistic accomplishments and experiences exhibiting his work in both the United States and internationally including Argentine, Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Poland, South Africa, Senegal, Spain and Zambia.

Publications such as ArtUS, Art Throb, Dialogue, Gravy Magazine, New Art Examiner and El Portaliano/ Fundacion Diego Portales have highlighted Macarena-Avila’s studio work and community art projects. He has lectured at Antioch College (Yellow Springs, Ohio), Columbia College Chicago (Chicago, Illinois), Witts University (Johannesburg South Africa), Centro Cultural Mapocho (Santiago, Chile), Community Arts Project (Cape Town South Africa), Bellview Art Centre (Bellview South Africa) and the Victorian College for the Arts (Melbourne, Australia). In Chicago, he is the co-founder of Polvo, an alternative cultural space for contemporary art.

CENTRO CULTURAL CASA PURCELL
Hidalgo #231, Centro Histórico, Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico
Tel: (01 844) 414 50 80 / 414 55 36 Website: www.casapurcell.net
Tuesdays – Sundays: 10:00 am - 7:00 pm
Mondays: closed, free admission

“PUNTO DE REGRESA / POINT OF RETURN” is partially supported by a CAAP grant from the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs.

polvo @ bad at sports

2007-02-14T18:54:00.000-06:00

The Bad At Sports crew interviewed Elvia Rodriguez-Ochoa of Polvo:

direct download: http://media.libsyn.com/media/badatsports/Bad_at_Sports_Episode_76_Rodney_Graham.mp3

more info: http://badatsports.com/blog/?p=93

Miguel Cortez, Edra Soto and the return of John Held Jr

2007-02-13T17:22:00.000-06:00

Miguel Cortez, Edra Soto and the return of John Held Jr

Opening Saturday, February 17, 2007 from 6-9 pm
Feb 17 - to March 18, 2007

MFA Gallery hosts two artists from Polvo for this exhibit; co-founder and gallery director Miguel Cortez and Edra Soto. Miguel Cortez's work deals with the dichotomy involved between the abstract and political. His digital prints voice criticisms of the Iraq war and the Bush regime as well as gentrification and environmental concerns. Miguel Cortez was born in Guanajuato Mexico and now lives in Chicago. His work has been exhibited in Chicago, Mexico, and Spain. Recent exhibitions include Pool Art Fair in Miami, Milwaukee International Art Fair, a show in Austin at Studio 107 Gallery, "Lo Romantico" at Glass Curtain Gallery in Chicago and "Lies that Bill Gates told me: Exploring the Digital Divide" at VU Space in Melbourne, Australia.

Edra Soto's work examines the ordinary process of taking snapshots in order to review our tendencies, impulses or compulsions. Her photo based installations present questions about the social concept of family and our extended family of friends and pets. Edra Soto was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In 1995 Edra received the Alfonso Arana Fellowship to work in Paris, France for a year. She attended The School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she obtained her Masters degree in 2OOO. Immediately after, she attended a 2 months residency at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She has exhibited in Puerto Rico, Paris, Australia, Spain, Russia, New York, St Louis, Milwaukee and Chicago. Some of her latest presentations include a live performance at El Museo del Barrio in New York, a solo show and live performance at El Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, UIC Gallery 4OO, NIU Museum in Chicago, and Polvo in Chicago. A solo show of her latest instalation was on view at Polvo, Chicago on January of 2OO7.

John Held Jr. has been an active influence in the development of Mail Art and Rubber Stamp Art since 1975. Facets of his collection are included in the Getty Research Library in Los Angeles and Museum of Modern Art in New York. He has authored books on artist postage stamps and correspondence art and his prints and stamp art have been exhibited in Moscow, Paris, Brussels, New York and San Francisco. He also lived in Dallas from 1981-1995 and was the owner/director of Modern Realism Gallery. He now resides in San Francisco. For the MFA show he will be exhibiting some of his artist stamps inspired by the Fluxus and Dada art movements and the mail art of Ray Johnson.

mighty fine arts is an artist-run gallery located in the scenic and historic Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas. Artist Steve Cruz started the gallery in June of 2004 with the intention of providing an alternative space for innovative and underrepresented artists. mfa presents an eclectic array of shows with the guiding criteria of presenting work that is resonant, thoughtful and highly accomplished. From mid-career to fresh and unknown artists, mfa hopes to enlarge the perceptions of contemporary art in North Texas.

Mighty Fine Arts
407 N.Tyler between 8th and Davis St.
Dallas, Texas
Gallery hours are 12:00 to 5:00 Saturday and Sunday or by appointment: phone 214-942-5241. Email: steve@mfagallery.com

tonight's opening!

2007-02-09T23:55:00.000-06:00

http://polvo.org/san-antonio-blog/february07/index.htm

Finishing School

2007-02-07T20:08:00.000-06:00

WWFSD?: Finishing School

mini-exhibit: Lucia Gomez
flatscreen DVD: Amelia Winger-Bearskin

Opening Friday February 9, 2007 from 6pm-10pm
February 9- March 3, 2007

Finishing School’s new project, WWFSD?, which is primarily formatted as a blog, investigates specific ideas that they feel influence their practice. This introspective exercise helps them become more critically conscious of themselves and the world around them. Their goal is to share one idea each day for the year 2007. The installation at Polvo will include a selection of pieces from this project. You can visit the blog at www.wwfsd.blogspot.com

Finishing School (FS) is a collective identity that investigates the many intersections between critical, covert, and common subject territories. All FS projects attempt to demystify cultural production and engage viewers into various participatory models. The collective has been open for business since 2001. You can visit them at www.finishing-school.net

mini-exhibit: Lucia Gomez

Lucia Gomez (born in Guatemala) is pursuing her B.F.A. in Photography with Columbia College Chicago. Her exhibited work deals with identity politics, dealing with her bi-cultural heritage. Presently, Gomez is documenting the Immigrant Rights Movement, photographing the life of activist, Elvira Arellano. Her photographs have been published with "Hoy" Newspaper and can seen on "Deviant Art" website.

flatscreen DVD: Amelia Winger-Bearskin

Amelia Winger-Bearskin is currently an MFA Candidate at the University of Texas in Austin where she is majoring in Transmedia, the study of time based art which includes Video Art , Performance art, and time based Installation. Amelia is greatly interested in exploring the 4th dimension in art, and to challenge the visual experience in addition to the temporal connection to artistic experience.

She was classically trained as an Opera Singer in Rochester NY at the Eastman conservatory of music, and then pursued an undergraduate degree in the area of sculpture and Performance art at George Mason University outside of DC. Growing up in Rochester NY , close to her seneca-cayuga tribal lands and the site of their largest city, was influential in shaping her narrative and outlook of her current work. Her mother is a traditional native storyteller from the Seneca Cayuga tribe of the Iroquois nation. Stories of all kinds weave themselves into her works and are re contextualized to shape her work, unfolding destination, space, and time. She is currently working out of Austin Texas, and is showing works with live performance art and digital video. Amelia Winger-Bearskin has shown in various galleries in major US cities, as well as in Mexico and Central America, where she lived for many years. She has received various grants, fellowships and awards in the artistic fields, and has a large body of collaborative artwork in addition to her solo pieces.

POLVO
1458 W. 18th St. 1R
Chicago, IL 60608
info@polvo.org
773 344 1940
http://www.polvo.org
HOURS: Saturdays from Noon-5pm or by appointment

edra soto in the chicago reader

2007-01-26T19:24:00.000-06:00

All about prison, a collage of cats and babies, and a good 80s-inspired paint slinging

Fondness by Edra Soto; a still from Lucky Pierre's Final Meals, a video installation of volunteers eating replicas of the least meals requested by prisoners executed in Texas

By Bert Stabler
January 26, 2007

Captive Audience
WHEN Tue-Sat through 2/24
WHERE Gallery 400, 400 S. Peoria
INFO 312-996-6114
MORE Gallery talk with Marc Fischer and artists Lucky Pierre Sat 1/27, 2 PM. Public discussion Sat 2/3, 2 PM.

Edra Soto: Familiar Portraits
WHEN Sat through 2/3
WHERE Polvo, 1458 W. 18th, 1R
INFO 773-344-1940

Peter Hoffman and Caleb Lyons: Hot Mess
WHEN Thu & Sat through 2/4
WHERE Green Lantern, 1511 N. Milwaukee, 2nd fl.
INFO 773-235-0936
MORE Musicians Jacob Christopher and Celia Whire improvise in response to the paintings Sat 2/3, 8 PM, $5 suggested donation

CAPTIVE AUDIENCE, AN extraordinary exhibit about incarceration curated by Marc Fischer, approaches its compelling subject from many angles, using the gallery as a place to savor, examine, and blend experiences. You can try on prisoner clothing, restraints, and hoods, for example, as well as see the catalogs that sell these products to public and private institutions. You can even take home your own plastic-wrapped prison-issue toothbrush. And a clever board game -- Incarceration, created by a group of British prisoners known as Risk-Takers Ltd. -- allows you to explore daily life on lockdown a bit more deeply.

Straightforward pedagogy is part of the show, but the work quickly moves beyond that. Technically accomplished renderings in ballpoint pen and colored pencil by an inmate identified only as Angelo easily merit a solo exhibit; his vivid epic tableaux depict fantastical scenes of humiliation and torment. Some pieces are collaborations between prisoners and people on the "outside." Chicago artist Mary Patten, who corresponded with several prisoners, displays their letters, photos, and ephemera in the highly moving installation Contraband . In Coming Home the group Chicago County Fair -- which works with prisoners at the supermax facility in Tamms, Illinois -- created a photo display of fictional scenes of prisoners triumphantly returning home. Unincarcerated solo artist L.J. Reynolds offers one of the least didactic pieces: a video, Space Ghost, combining scenes of prisoners and astronauts that elicit startling insights into the two groups' parallel and opposed worlds.

THE POSTCARDS AND virtual notices for Edra Soto's installation at Polvo, Familiar Portraits, feature a manipulated photo of the artist lying beside her sleek black cat, Tito -- who's blown up to the mammoth proportions of a full-grown tiger. But photo experiments barely appear in the piece itself, which was fine with me. Whimsical trompe l'oeil effects often seem like overdetermined attempts to undermine visual "reality," and Soto's closet-sized installation is far more snuggly than your average epistemology seminar.

Tito's monstrous purr, delivered via a speaker with plenty of chest-vibrating low end, permeates the installation. But while the intimacy and the sound suggest the womb, the visual aspect evokes tasteful domesticity: the walls are brightly lit and decorated with clean photographs of Tito in an assortment of poses against white hexagonal bathroom tiles, which transform him into a near silhouette. The black-and-white color scheme is occasionally interrupted by colorful floral shapes: cutouts of snapshots, primarily of cute babies. Out of the way, above the door, are two postcards, one showing Christ surrounded by children and the other Saint Francis preaching to the animals. Homey interiority is perhaps culturally specific here, evoking the Catholic faith of Soto's Puerto Rican upbringing (her parents sang in a nationally televised church choir). The postcards offer a subtle but welcome counterpoint to the bouquets of rather homogeneous white babies on the walls.

I tend to feel a tad stumped by art that apparently has no grand aspirations -- but that's not necessarily bad. Familiar Portraits resembles a MySpace page for a 30-ish American woman, and as such becomes an ephemeral yet tangible reflection of an era in which individuals' virtual scrapbooks and gestures of individual expression are globally distributed, living on as long as there's a server to host them.

EVERY GENERATION OF indie rockers pays homage in its own way to the Velvet Underground, and every generation of young painters tweaks the romantic gestural cacophony of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jonathan Lasker, Georg Baselitz, and Judy Pfaff. Now -- as various traveling retrospectives and art students' fashion choices attest -- the 1980s are thoroughly upon us. Their impact is undeniable in Hot Mess, Peter Hoffman and Caleb Lyons's salon-style installation of festively frenzied collaborative paintings, which feature thick slabs and dabs of many colors jarringly combined in dense layers. But these two artists are even more devil-may-care than their paint-slinging forebears in their rendering of faces and architecture, and far more untidy in their geometric elements and color choices.

This isn't a recipe for success, but Hoffman and Lyons get impressive results. Warm and cool tones, bright and dull hues, areas of high and low contrast, smeared transitions and sharp edges, opacity and transparency, lines, patterns, shapes, textures -- in every piece these components balance one another in a delicate makeshift orchestration teetering on the brink of collapse. Some individual paintings are more attractive than others. But the volume and energy of the installation overall should impress any lover of bravura painting. Even if you're not one, you can find all kinds of things to see -- just squint and turn your head the right way.

Propagation show in Chicago Reader's 2006 Top 10 Art Exhibits

2006-12-29T16:34:00.000-06:00

Critic's Choice 2006 Top Ten exhibits
By Bert Stabler December 22, 2006

My top ten choices acknowledge some exciting trends in Chicago art. One is the new emphasis on Afro-Futurism, which synthesizes traditional designs and media, psychedelic mysticism, current technology, and utopian politics. Then there are the new breeds of artists and curators exploring unusual media, staging "interventions" (often socially committed work created or displayed in public places, not galleries), and exhibiting in individuals' apartments and yards, introducing a welcome spontaneity and vulnerability.

"Pathways to Unknown Worlds" at the Hyde Park Art Center, October 1-January 14, 2007
John Corbett's collection of written and visual artifacts documents the iconography of utopian mystic/jazz auteur Sun Ra, highlighting his stunningly creative, searing artistic and political statements. The excellent auxiliary programs devoted to his legacy should go a ways toward making Afro-Futurism a household word.

Nick Cave: Soundsuits at the Chicago Cultural Center, April 22-July 9
African-inspired rococo costumes for dancers by SAIC fashion department chair Nick Cave constituted the most singularly striking collection of figurative mixed-media sculptures you were likely to see this year without going to Wisconsin to see Tom Evermore's giant scrap-metal ostriches.

D. Denenge Akpem, part of the 12 x 12 New Artists/New Work series at the Museum of Contemporary Art, June 3-July 2
Imaginative Nigerian-born performance, video, installation, and fiber artist D. Denenge Akpem explored her ancestry and femininity in an array of traditional and high-tech media, using imagery drawn from fairy tales and surrealism. Her inspiring, colorful show included fiber-optic jellyfish, chalk wall drawings referencing Italo Calvino, and flower-shaped chairs.

Undergraduate exhibition at SAIC Gallery 2, April 2-14
This annual show should never be overlooked -- by dint of sheer volume and energy, there's always fantastic work to be seen. Most of the best items this year involved fake animals.

Sabrina Raaf at Wendy Cooper, April 28-June 3
Sabrina Raaf's altered digital photos of magical interiors combined a blank Ikea aesthetic -- empty white rooms with blond-wood floors -- and Robert Longo-style figures in gravity-defying poses. Raaf showed some ingenious robotic contraptions as well. Wendy Cooper has exhibited other sexy work this year: the scary wall art of Belgian artists Aline Bouvy and John Gillis in September was cool too.

"Propagation" and Christa Donner at Polvo, October 13-November 4
Curator Sabrina Raaf's "Propagation" consisted of video, sound, and print documentation of work created or exhibited outside the gallery system. Amy Youngs described on video, for example, her creation of sculpted shells for hermit crabs (they don't have their own and rely on castoffs). A minishow by Christa Donner showed she's branching out in her reconceptualizations of the body: she's been photographing performances in which people are wearing her drawings of cut paper, colored pencil, and other media -- yarn, paint, glitter. See the show ONLINE HERE.

Version>06 at Iron Studios and elsewhere, April 20-May 7
The Version festival -- just over two weeks of installations, events, exhibits, performances, talks, tours, and workshops -- emphasizes video, electronics, and other new media and adds preoccupations with activism, partying, and their hybrid offspring, interventions. Signal examples were the "art shanties" originally constructed by the Soap Factory collective for Minnesota ice fishermen, offering activities from karaoke to building pinhole cameras.

"Hot and Ready" by Melinda Fries et al, in public and private spaces around Walnut and Damen, October 1
This was more a one-day street party than a proper show -- the antique art term is happening. Highlights included a mobile inflated ball roughly the size of a two-story building, a semifunctional full-scale catapult, a climbing wall constructed from old stuffed jeans, scrounged trophies (including plush Japanese "husband" dolls), and a great potluck spread.

Scott Treleaven at Kavi Gupta, October 20-November 25
Founder of the legendary queer/punk/pagan zine This Is the Salivation Army, Scott Treleaven primarily showed nostalgic-erotic pieces combining picturesque flora and fauna, Victorian morbidity, and hot young satyrs in a mix of watercolor and collage.

California Occidental Museum of Art: COMA 5, July 15
This incarnation of the museum's one-night-only apartment-gallery group show offered a well-coordinated vision of messing with space. Annika Seitz's minimal orange Hello Kitty-ish Ganesh figures, Mike Wolf's Eminent Domain sawhorse legs, and Mindy Rose Schwartz's creeping macrame lattice were all high points.

our new year begins January 12, 2007

2006-12-20T20:33:00.000-06:00

Familiar Portraits
Photo installation by Edra Soto

also this month:
mini exhibit: Adriana Baltazar
flatscreen video: Josue Pellot

Opening Friday January 12 from 6pm-10pm
January 12- February 3, 2007

One way of acquiring an immediate sense of ownership to space, person and moment you are living in life is the simple action of taking a picture of it.

A way to review our tendencies, impulses or compulsions is by going in retrospect and examining our past approaches. In Familiar Portraits, Edra Soto examines the ordinary process of taking pictures of things we love; our pets, our babies, possessions, etc. and project a view on how we reclaim things in life; our sense of ownership.

For this sociological approach, the artist invited a group of friends and family to participate in this visual survey. Soto asked them to donate pictures they have taken of their beloved ones (pets, babies, etc).

All their contributions constitute her personal narrative of what "familiar" means.

Familiar Portraits is presented as an installation (narrow space defined by two walls inside the gallery space) displaying a series of photo collections interrelated by the artist. Some of the photographs are perceptive and others are fictional representation. The fictional representations are digital manipulations created by the artist and are integral to the narrative of this project. In Familiar Portraits, Soto utilize hierarchical classifications, proportions and sets to create visual and organizational schemes.

Soto's interest in classic subjects like portraits, still lifes and landscapes have led her to a personal questioning about the social concept of family, extended families, the people or animals we live with, who we love and why.

Edra Soto was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1971. In 1995 Edra received the Alfonso Arana Fellowship to work in Paris, France for a year. She attended The School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she obtained her Masters degree in 2OOO. Immediately after, she attended a 2 months residency at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She has exhibited in Puerto Rico, Paris, Australia, Spain, Russia, New York, St Louis, Milwaukee and Chicago. Some of her latest presentations include a live performance at El Museo del Barrio in New York, a solo show and live performance at El Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, UIC Gallery 4OO, NIU Museum in Chicago, and Polvo in Chicago. A solo show of her latest instalation will be on view at Polvo, Chicago on January of 2OO7.

Download Edra's CV here
see more at www.edrasoto.blogspot.com

mini exhibit: Adriana Baltazar
Born in southwest Chicago, Adriana Baltazar has grown up to be a near hermit. By night, she is drawing away and by day working in an office to pay off art school debt. As a child she searched for stray pets to nurture and now it appears she is the stray. Find her wandering streets and woods seeking sublime inspiration and escape in vacant lots or other plots of dirt overridden with trees and foliage. For this show she will create a wall size pencil drawing. She explains: "Theres a nice correlation between the impermanence of pencil as a medium and the imminent temporary existence of many vacant lots in our neighborhood. A gallery space in itself is much like an empty lot, impermanent and ever-changing with every exhibit. If I put up objects., ie paintings, viewers can assume that after the exhibit was over, I'd take them back or install them at a new space. The pencil as a medium stills seems to convey a sense of fragility, that it will be erased, replaced. That it is unfinished."

flatscreen video: Josue Pellot

Having been born in Puerto Rico (Mayaguez - wearing bell-bottoms) but raised in the U.S. since the age of five, traveling back and forth from the Island and Chicago, Josue feels that he's somewhere between these two cultures, probably in the Bahamas. Josue (ho.sway, ho.sue.ehh) - grew up between Humboldt Park and Logan square where he was introduced to art thru Graffiti and Hip Hop. He went to Kelvyn Park High School on Chicago's northwest side and then received a BFA with a minor in Biology from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Despite all this, he was awarded an MA from Northwestern University in Art Theory and Practice (the theory being if you practice, you'll improve - thus he keeps trying!). He's now a Chicago-based artist and works in various mediums.

POLVO
1458 W. 18th St. 1R
Chicago, IL 60608
polvoarte@yahoo.com or 773 344 1940
http://www.polvo.org
HOURS: Saturdays from Noon-5pm or by appointment

Jóvenes latinos exhiben en Polvo

2006-12-19T18:45:00.000-06:00

La Raza
Publicado el 12-18-2006

Jóvenes latinos exhiben en Polvo

Joana Arellano está todavía en la secundaria y Carlos Terrazo se graduó el año pasado, sin embargo, estos jóvenes artistas ya están exhibiendo, en la galería Polvo de Pilsen, su instalación titulada: “Nuestras historias en palabra e imagen”.

Mercedes Fernández
La Raza

Son dos jóvenes promesas del arte latino que han tomado la ruta del arte para expresar las inquietudes propias de su generación, así como los temas que les preocupan como miembros de la comunidad latina.

Joana, quien nació en este país y sus padres son inmigrantes mexicanos, vive en el barrio de La Villita y estudia el cuarto año en la secundaria Whitney Young.

“Siempre me ha gustado el arte, veo que es una manera en la que podemos expresar nuestras opiniones, emociones y también crear un cambio social”, dice la joven artista.

Dalí, Caravaggio, Frida Kahlo, André Breton son, entre otros, los artistas que más admira Joana, quien realizó su formación artística en Gallery 37, Marwen, Universidad de Illinois en Chicago y también en su escuela secundaria.

El trabajo realizado por estos jóvenes artistas latinos consiste en una instalación en la que se puede apreciar un mural en acrílico con paisaje de montañas donde escribieron la palabra “journey”, así como fotografías y códices elaborados por inmigrantes que participan en los programas de arte de la Coalición de Inmigrantes Africanos, Árabes, Asiáticos, Europeos y Latinos de Illinois (CAAAELI) y Citizenship and Voter Training School (CIVITAS).

“La instalación se enmarca dentro de la exhibición de Michael Capapas, quien es un artista filipino y trata sobre el problema de la inmigración y la identidad”, dijo Jesús Macarena Avila, artista, curador, educador y co-fundador de la Galería Polvo.

Gracias a su invitación, los jóvenes latinos tienen la oportunidad de exhibir su trabajo que incluye las fotos que resultaron de un taller sobre el tema de inmigración organizado por CAAAELI, así como códices, o códigos, elaborados a mano por los participantes, los cuales tienen como tema central la inmigración y el viaje.

A partir de estos conceptos, los artistas desarrollan un trabajo que invita a la reflexión sobre el significado de la frontera o las fronteras desde la perspectiva inmigrante “que puede ser la frontera de los Estados Unidos, o la frontera dentro de la familia cuando se confrontan la generación de padres inmigrantes con los hijos nacidos en este país”, acotó Macarena Avila.

Joana, quien afirma haber recibido siempre el apoyo de su familia, maestros y amigos asegura ser una buena estudiante en la escuela y espera ingresar a la Universidad de Illinois en Urbana – Champaign para estudiar arte y sociología el año que viene.

Por su parte, Carlos Terrazo se graduó de la secundaria Farraguit en junio pasado. Actualmente estudia en el Harold Washington College y trabaja como coordinador de juventudes en el Comité de Desarrollo de La Villita.

La mini-exhibición de los artistas latinos se presenta simultáneamente con la exposición de Michael Capapas, artista nacido en Filipinas de padres inmigrantes establecidos en Melbourne, Australia. Egresado del Victorian College for the Arts, Capapas se vinculó con Macarena Ávila durante un viaje de trabajo que llevó a este último hasta Melbourne.

Esta será la primera individual de Capapas en los Estados Unidos en la que mostrará un trabajo que toca el tema de la inmigración en Australia.

“Ésto es probablemente porque una gran parte de mi vida la he pasado viviendo en lugares donde sentía que no pertenecía. Siendo un inmigrante del norte, he sido un extraño en el sur”, dijo Capapas antes de partir para Australia la semana pasada.

La exhibición, que se inauguró el 6 de diciembre, culminará el 30 de este mes. La galería de arte Polvo está ubicada en el 1458 de la Calle 18 en Pilsen. © La Raza

Now the giant faces really are watching

2006-12-19T17:06:00.000-06:00

Critics say Millennium Park cameras are a blight
By James Janega
Tribune staff reporter
Published December 19, 2006

What strikes you about Jaume Plensa's twin glass towers at Millennium Park are the faces, as big as JumboTrons, that appear to be looking at you.

And since late November, they actually have been.

A $52 million grant from the Department of Homeland Security bought the Chicago area a host of public safety improvements--including an obvious and ungainly camera atop each of Plensa's giant glass towers.

The city that put cameras in crime-ridden areas and at intersections to catch red light scofflaws has planted them atop Crown Fountain, one of its most prominent pieces of public art.

They are partly to keep tabs on burnt-out lights, park officials say. But the cameras are largely for security reasons, and art lovers don't like it.

"Oh my God, look at that. Not very pretty," said Paul Gray, a director at the Richard Gray Gallery in Chicago who has worked with Plensa on other exhibitions, as he looked at a photograph of the cameras online.

"It looks like a Martian sitting there with a little antenna on his head," said art and architecture enthusiast Mike Doyle, whose partner took the photograph.

"It is a temporary fix, so we can get a permanent solution installed next summer," said Ed Uhlir, Millennium Park executive director.

"But it is ugly," he agreed.

A permanent camera will go on a pole west of the fountains next summer, roughly where speed chess players set up their table on the sidewalk at Monroe Street and Michigan Avenue, said Millennium Park spokeswoman Karen Ryan.

Critics say the temporary ones cannot be temporary enough. "That is one of those `What were they thinking?' kind of moments," said James Yood, professor of art history at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

"This changes the whole idea of the sculpture, which is that these are our brethren," Yood said. "Now instead of looking at us, they're surveilling us, which I think is not exactly the artist's intention."

The cameras have created a stir since being installed around Thanksgiving, with versions of the following scene playing out downtown:

"We were walking down Monroe towards Michigan Avenue to go for a walk in the park. Then we got to the corner and noticed it," said Devyn Caldwell, a Loop resident and architecture photo blogger.

Next to him, Doyle looked up and saw it too.

"The first thing I see is these little black things sticking out," said Doyle, also a blogger. Their Sunday walk screeched to a halt as they stared. "I said `What in the world is tha--?' But as soon as the question was out, we knew right away."

Chicago is dotted with cameras. They roll near public housing complexes and videotape dangerous intersections around the city.

Mayor Richard Daley announced in October that he wants to add 100 police cameras to high-crime streets, expanding a camera system the city credits with 30 percent drops in local crime. There are already 200 cameras on the street, many with large, blinking blue lights.

The cameras at Millennium Park are almost as obvious but at least do not blink. And they haven't recorded anything unusual yet, said Ryan.

Though they will be relocated, setting them up on the sculpture was easier than putting in a new pole for them, she explained.

"This was a way to get them up there," she said.

Plensa, who is in Spain, could not be reached for comment Monday. Uhlir said Millennium Park cleared the cameras' addition with the architects who worked with Plensa on installing the fountain. The final cameras, assured Uhlir, "will be much less intrusive."

------------------
and later today....

Millennium Park cameras removed after outcry

By James Janega
Tribune staff reporter
Published December 19, 2006, 12:24 PM CST

Millennium Park officials early today took down a pair of security cameras atop Jaume Plensa's glass-block video fountains, removing what art aficionados decried as intrusions in a prominent piece of downtown public art after the Chicago Tribune wrote about their concerns.

"When we found out there were so many people who found it more obtrusive than we expected, we took them down," said park spokeswoman Karen Ryan.

The cameras were installed as part of a $52 million Department of Homeland Security grant to the Chicago area, and the cameras atop the Plensa-designed Crown Fountain were only two out of about 10 in Millennium Park alone, city officials said.

But their location irked the artistically-minded, and bloggers began writing about and posting pictures of them online over the weekend.

The Tribune was the first to mention the aesthetic concerns to park managers, Ryan said. "Then we looked around for it (criticism) and we found it, found the blogs."

Plensa, reached in Spain by Chicago gallery contact Paul Gray, was relieved they were taken down, Gray said.

"He's happy that they've decided to seek a better long-term solution — and he understands the need for security in a public space," Gray said. "He and I have both worked in the public space a lot, and are aware that when you put art in a public space, it does belong to the public. You hope the city will be respectful."

The city was, he added. The problem was not with cameras per se, only with where they were located.

"People have to know that they're there to be useful, but that doesn't mean it needs to be on the nose of a sculpture," Gray said.

Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune

a call for artists

2006-12-19T17:03:00.000-06:00

echelon: who is watching you?
August 3 - September 1, 2007

"One cannot use spies without sagacity and knowledge, one cannot use spies without humanity and justice" - Sun Tzu

"It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself..anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face.. was itself a punishable offense."
- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 5

US surveillance began centuries ago with the concept of slave passes, which allowed slave-owners to monitor and control the mobility of their "chattel." Yet the slave pass system was sometimes subverted by the rare slaves who could write, such as Frederick Douglass. These literate slaves could create their own passes and might thus gain freedom for themselves and other slaves. Trafficking in passes and "free papers" soon became a burgeoning business, one that the slave system grappled with for nearly two centuries.

From slaves, the history of surveillance next turns to the infamous Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which restricted Chinese immigration to the United States. All Chinese laborers were forced to register with the government and subject themselves to being photographed and fingerprinted. A whole apparatus of surveillance was created.

In the 1920s, government surveillance spread to political radicals, especially workers trying to organize union activity. J. Edgar Hoover headed this government surveillance unit which would later become the FBI. As the 20th century advanced, computer technology proved a powerful enhancement to the regime of surveillance. This allowed most devices and databases to be monitored and evaluated, including automobiles, Your car can be tracked by GPS, and your spending habits can be gleaned from accessing your credit card records. Internet and email are monitored in the workplace and cameras are just about everywhere.

For this show artists will explore the history of surveillance and how this affects us at this present time. They will in turn create work dealing with this theme which will include 2D work, installation, and new media.

OPEN TO USA ARTISTS
DEADLINE JAN 31, 2007

Requirements:
1. Send a couple of jpegs of the type of work that you do along with a short one paragraph Bio and CV(in word or PDF format). If you do video then send links to any online work.

2. Write a short one paragraph statement about the work you would like to create that deals with the theme.

3. The show takes place in Chicago so any work that is selected from another city must be easy, small and cheap to transport via UPS, FEDEX or Postal Service (you ship it to Chicago and we pay for the shipping back). We do not receive any funding from the government and we do not have insurance. But in the 10 years of organizing shows nothing has ever been stolen or damaged.

For more info: http:// www.polvo.org/echelon.html

EMAIL: info@polvo.org

ABOUT POLVO:
Polvo is an alternative space located in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood and is operated by the artist collective Polvo, originally formed in 1996. Polvo's history consists of organizing artistic and cultural venues with Chicago / Pilsen-based community spaces. In addition to venues, the collective generated a magazine focused on arts and culture followed by an online website that initiated an international array of visual artists, writers, and cultural critics (Polvo maintained a Pilsen gallery space in 1999). Since February 2003, the collective has been organizing and curating art exhibits at the Polvo space where we showcase contemporary art including installation projects, new media and performance by a diverse group of emerging and established artists.

Timeout Magazine review

2006-12-10T14:07:00.000-06:00

“Rooted in Tradition”

Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, through Sun 10.

from Timeout Chicago

The altar on display here for Chicago police officer Eric Solorio, who was killed earlier this year while on duty, has the traditional elements used in celebrating the Mexican Day of the Dead: food to feed the soul on its long journey (tamales), something to drink along the way (Patrón tequila) and personal items so the dead know they are remembered (shoes, a Loyola mug, a toy police car and a video montage).

The holiday is rooted in an ancient Aztec tradition that was combined with the Christian holidays All Souls’ Day and All Saints’ Day to save it from eradication by invading Spaniards. Solorio’s memorial shows the way time continues to round the edges off of the ceremony by incorporating a flat-screen monitor and a Starbucks cup.

In a separate room, an altar for Michael Piazza, a local artist who also passed away earlier this year, was assembled by his friends at Polvo, the nearby art collective and gallery space, who take a more creative approach. Touching on one of Piazza’s favorite sayings (“You spend the first half of your life groovin’ and having fun…and the second half looking for a good mattress”), they put a mattress on top of a bed of his favorite books. It’s far more warm and engaging than a tombstone or a starchy wake.

This exhibit features other altars as well, alongside paintings and sculptures that explore the holiday’s other elements, predominantly skulls and skeletons.—Josh Tyson

an evening of films created by Shikshantar Andolan

2006-12-05T20:44:00.000-06:00

Join Twine for an evening at Polvo, "Re-membering Nai Taleem".., an evening of films created by Shikshantar Andolan, The Peoples Institute for Rethinking Education and Development. This is an abbreviated version of the full festival, which is happening concurrently in India.

Friday: December 15th: 7:15pm
FREE ADMISSION

We hope that these films can invigorate our ideas about education.

Program:

Mera Atma Shikshak, Mera Karma
Director: Vidhi Jain, Pravin Pagare, Tushar Kulkarni, Pannalal Patel
Length: 68 minutes
Language: Hindi With English Subtitles

This film takes us into a profound conversation with Dayalchand Soni, a Gandhian educational thinker. Soni's wisdom challenges us to rethink some of our most basic assumptions around education while deepening our understanding of the possibilities that lie in nai taleem.
Children Being In the World
Director: Amit, Manish, Jinan KB
Length: 5 minutes
Language: Music with English subtitles

This Film explores natural learning ecologies of children living in non-letterate communities in India. What have we lost by distancing ourselves from Nature? How can we remember our biological instinct for learning?
Colors of Devotion
Director: Suny Gandhrva and Ramawtar Singh
Length: 28minutes
Language: Hindi with English subtitles

For hundreds of years, In The town of Nathdwara, Rajastan there has lived a community of artists connected to the temple of Shreenathji. Generation after generation has devoted itself to the Pichhwai art form. Now this learning community is struggling to keep the essence of its art alive in the face of modernity. Their experiences can help broaden our visions of education.
Cycle Yatra
Length: 5minutes
Language: music with English subtitles

A group of friends travels on bicycles in Mewar, Rajastan India for one week using no money.

Discussion and Response: We would love to hear your stories of integrated learning and we aim to create a spontaneous and informal response video to mail back to Shikshantar as a kind of exchange.

Download more info here

Polvo
1458 W. 18th Street 1R
Chicago (entrance on Laflin side)
www.polvo.org
773.344.1940

Twine International is a not for profit in process committed to promoting art, ecology and social justice through ethical enterprises and integrated learning. If you are interested in learning more, contact Amy Mall at: premelamall@yahoo.com

Elvia Rodriguez honored by LISC Chicago

2006-11-29T19:23:00.000-06:00

Heroes: Carmelita Frias, Elvia Rodriguez

Community Heroes are individuals who offer their passion, strength and talent to improve their neighborhoods, benefiting people who may never know them by name, but who will reap the rewards of their work. The Community Heroes for Pilsen are Carmelita Frias and Elvia Rodriguez. They were selected, along with 26 others from across the city, by the New Communities Program lead agencies and their partners. Congratulations to these extraordinary "ordinary" people for their steadfast commitment to improving Chicago neighborhoods.

CARMELITA FRIAS

Carmelita Frias is a loving mom, but it takes effort to get 100 kids ready for a ballgame. The single mother of four created "Carmelita's Kids," the informal name for her neighborhood program for children. The Resurrection Project community leader partners with institutions and foundations to bring resources to Pilsen's youth. She typically is found taking dozens of children at a time to major sporting events or recruiting for Chicago Police Department's Explorers and other programs. Summer nights Carmelita volunteers in Pilsen's streets with the Resurrection Basketball League. She has given away countless books and believes that exposing children to positive options helps them make wise life choices.

ELVIA RODRIGUEZ

Community artist Elvia Rodriguez offers experience, leadership and vision to Pilsen's children and budding artists. She has promoted the arts for 10 years through different neighborhood venues. As a member of the Polvo artist collective, Elvia is a strong advocate for local artists. She helped plan the premier of Pilsen Open Studios, an event showcasing Latino artists in the community. She also involves youth in the arts through the Pros Arts Studio. As a Resurrection Project leader, Elvia is an invaluable member of the organization's El Zócalo Leadership Team, which crafted a vision for healthy creative activity throughout Pilsen. Elvia was an official representative of Pros Arts Studio in the Quality of Life planning process through the Pilsen Planning Committee.

MICHAEL CAPAPAS

2006-11-20T19:46:00.000-06:00

MICHAEL CAPAPAS

Opening Reception: Friday, December 8
from 6 pm to 9pm
Exhibition dates: December 8 – December 30, 2006

This will be Michael Capapas’s first solo exhibition in the United States. Capapas was born in the Philippines and resides in Melbourne, Australia. His past work deals with the interweaving of memory, private fantasy, public history and recognition of the past. For his exhibition with Polvo, his new work will tackle the topic of immigration in Australia. He explains: "It is probably because a large part of my life has been spent living in places where I felt I did not belong. Being an immigrant from the North, I have been a stranger in the South." Capapas completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Australia. Capapas will be a visiting artist and lecturer with the Art Education Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), the Gerber Hart Library, co-sponsored by CAAAELII (Coalition of African, Arab, Asian, European and Latino Immigrants of Illinois) and Polvo (these related events will be free).

Mini-exhibit: Our Stories in Word and Image: Joanna Arellano, Jesus Macarena-Avila and Carlos Terrazo with CAAAELII / CIVITAS

Chicago artists: Joanna Arellano, Jesus Macarena-Avila and Carlos Terrazo with CAAAELII and Citizenship and Voter Training School (CIVITAS) collaborated with their partnering agencies with workshops on immigration. Books and photographs display personal stories, workshops co-sponsored and led by CAAAELII and Polvo. Participants include: Evelia Barrera, Emerita Bernales, Sarah Campion, Nancy Fuentes, Maria Garcia, Kongit Girma, Jenny Ho, AmberJaved, Chodar Kyi, Rosevelia Miramontes, Nitzy Mota, Eleanor Sweeney, Hindeke Tewodros, Negatwa Tewodros and Marcelino Ventura.

Flatscreen DVD: CAAAELII/ CIVITAS

Since 1997, CAAAELII is an organization centered on servicing immigrant communities. This documentary journals their history with over 20 agencies serving immigrants and refugees in the Chicago metropolitan area joined together to form CAAAELII. It began as an avenue for agencies to pool resources and ideas when teaching citizenship classes to immigrants and refugees seeking to apply for citizenship, recruiting and training volunteer citizenship teachers, and advocating for immigrant and refugee rights. Its mission: "To improve the quality of life for immigrants and refugees and to ensure dignity and respect." CIVITAS is a CAAAELII program inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Highlander Center , CIVITAS is a school for immigrants. It is designed to engage local immigrant communities in building their own capacity to engage within a multi-ethnic and multi-issued environment, towards the fulfillment of collective social justice. CIVITAS is also the central research and training arm of CAAAELII, fostering groundbreaking cross-racial, cross-cultural community dialogues and community connections.

FREE Related Events:

Lecture by Michael Capapas on Saturday, December 2, Gerber Hart Library, 1127 W Granville Avenue at 2 pm
An Artist Conversation with Regin Igloria and Michael Capapas on Saturday, December 16, Polvo, 1458 W. 18th Street at 2 pm

download press release in PDF format

POLVO, 1458 W. 18th St. 1R, Chicago, IL 60608
polvoarte@yahoo.com or 773 344 1940
http://www.polvo.org
HOURS: Saturdays from Noon-5pm or by appointment

This exhibit program is co-sponsored by and partnering with CAAAELII, Radioarte. Capapas will be a visiting artist with the Art Education Department at SAIC and with CAAAELII. Reception food generously provided by Nuevo Leon Restaurant: http://www.nuevoleonrestaurant.com Special thanks to the partnering individuals, organizations, businesses, exhibitors and ACYD graduate students with Columbia College Chicago.

Pool Art Fair, Miami 2006

2006-11-14T18:36:00.000-06:00

Polvo @ Pool Art Fair, 2006

Artists participating:
Saul Aguirre
Candida Alvarez
Hector Arce-Espasas
Candace Briceno
Miguel Cortez
Antonio Guerrero
Amanda Gutierrez
Michael Hernandez de Luna
Gisela Insuaste
Barbara Koenen
Silvia Malagrino
Jaime Mendoza
Jesus Oviedo
Josue Pellot
Edra Soto

	Saul Aguirre is a Chicago based artist whose work is based on the questioning historical events and the recording of them. Taking part of historic mappings and recording them in a traditional media or experimenting with other materials not of common use. Currently he works on bark paper as a surface of choice adding other natural materials to transform the mapping of several city blocks that have a vast amount of religious temples. Saul has studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is continuously exhibiting throughout Chicago, Washington D.C; Huaraz , Peru ; Mexico City . His work can be found is several private and public collections in the US and abroad.
	Candida Alvarez is an artist living and working in Chicago. She is a tenured professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Painting and Drawing Department. Her current work examines how newspaper photos can be used to make abstract paintings.
	Hector Arce-Espasas was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He now lives and work in Chicago, IL. Hector received a B.F.A. from the School ofthe Art Institute of Chicago in 2005. In 2004, he studied abroad in Valencia, Spain, where he completed the piece "CUBO", a live drawing inside a clear inflatable cube in Plaza de los Fueros. In 2005, he was a resident at The Contemporary Artist Center in North Adams, MA. In 2006, he was commissioned to do a piece for a show organized by the Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture. Recently he had a solo show at Lloyd Dobler Gallery in Chicago, IL.
	Candace M. Briceño is a mixed media artist who combines acrylic paint, pencil drawing, sewing and hand dyed processed felt fabric to create 3-dimensional mini vignettes of small artificial landscapes. Briceño earned an MFA degree in painting and drawing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2002 and a BFA from The University of Texas at Austin in Visual Arts studies in 1994. Since then, she has been featured in The Austin Museum of Art’s “22 To Watch” show which was on view at The Austin Museum of Art Museum, The Galveston Arts Center and The Dallas Contemporary Museum. Her work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions in Austin, Houston, Dallas, Chicago for example a group show at David Castillo Modern and Contemporary Gallery in Miami, Florida and Dunn and Brown Contemporary in Dallas as part of their prestigious I-35 biennial invitational show. The past few years Briceño was a nominee for the Joan Mitchell Award, the Texas Art Prize, and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation biennial nominee and is currently short- listed for the 2006 ArtPace residency. This past year Briceño has two solo exhibitions, one in April at MFA space in Dallas, TX. and another in June at Women and Their Work Gallery in Austin, TX.
	Miguel Cortez is an artist/curator living in Chicago and born in Guanajuato, Mexico. He has studied filmmaking at Columbia College and fine art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Miguel is a founding member of Polvo, an art collective since 1996, and has organized various shows throughout the years at the Polvo space and other cultural alternative spaces. The most recent one being at Unit B gallery in San Antonio september 2006. Before that it was at Commerce Street Artists' Warehouse in Houston, Texas. There he brought artwork by local Chicago contemporary artists. Miguel also curated a show July 2006 in San Antonio as part of their Contemporary Art Month. Miguel also has exhibited his work for more than a decade in Chicago, Mexico, and Spain. Recent exhibitions include a show in Austin at Studio 107 Gallery, "Word" at Rudolph Projects in Houston, "Reencounter" at Prospectus Art Gallery in Chicago, "Lo Romantico" at Glass Curtain Gallery in Chicago and "Lies that Bill Gates told me: Exploring the Digital Divide" at VU Space in Melbourne, Australia. Future exhibitions include a two person show in 2007 with Edra Soto at Mighty Fine Arts.
	Antonio Guerrero received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he currently resides. Guerrero's mixed media work has been shown internationally including a Latin American invitational in Rotterdam. Guerrero's work draws from the Mexican-American experience and has been highlighted in several national publications.
	Amanda Gutierrez born in Mexico City in 1978. She studied philosophy for one year at UAM (Metropolitan University). In 1999, She received a Bachelors degree at ENAT (National School of Dramatic Arts) in Stage Design and currently she is pursuing her MFA at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has been working with media performance projects in which sound art is present as the fundamental element. It was from this experience that she came to understand the melodic basis that radio samples processed with a variety of computer programs, may provide. By becoming acquainted with the use of video, audio and lightning software to hardware her work was able to get in touch with the acoustic characteristics of space. This experience led her to do more complex installations which involved elements of programming to control audio, for instance, these projects had evidence an interest in issues related to the analysis and study of mass media, using media technology as a tool for the exploration of different formal and conceptual solutions.
	Michael Hernandez de Luna is a Chicagoan and artist of Mexican decent. He holds a BFA degree from the School of the Art Institute, Chicago. His work can be seen through out the internet, and in the galleries of Pierogi 2000 in Brooklyn, New York and Augen in Portland Oregon. MHDL has authored three coffee table books on art and stamp art Sextablos: works on metal, 1999; The Stamp Art and Postal History of, 2000; and the Axis of Evil: Perforated Praeter Naturam, 2004. Hernandez de Luna and his artwork have been featured in a number of international media publications and news articles as in Newsweek Reason, PLAYBOY, Print, Art Forum, Art in America, Blab, Juxtapoz , the Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Hoston Chronicle, Linns Stamp News. and the Associated Press to name a few. MHDL has been included in art exhibitions in the countries of Mexico, South Korea, Germany, Russia, Switzerland, France, and the USA. For the last 12 years, his primary focus as an artist has been creating fake postage stamps that he attaches to recycled antique envelopes, and sends through the postal system for cancelation markings and delivery to a designated recipient. In short, his stamps must go through the postal cancelation process for the envelope to become a completed art object. The postage stamps he creates commemorates individuals, topics, and events in question of moral misconduct, social disorder, civil disobedience, and global concern. His work can be viewed as subversive, political, and satirical. One can learn more of his work at www.badpressbooks.com
	Gisela Insuaste's work is based on memories of real and imagined landscapes that are precarious yet beautiful.By playing with scale, line, imagery, and diverse materials, she creates drawings, paintings and large-scale installations that map out and emphasize the subtle and quirky topologies of urban spaces: they are shifty, unstable, and ambiguous, and reflect the physical, emotional, and socio-political charged spaces we live in. Gisela received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her B.A in Anthropology & Studio Art from Dartmouth College. Exhibitions include the Chicago Cultural Center, Gallery 400-UIC, Thomas McCormick, Bucket Rider Gallery, Polvo, 3Arts Gallery, NIU Gallery, Betty Rymer and several group shows in Chicago, IL, Kansas City, MO, Washington, DC, and Ecuador. She is a recipient of the 2004 Richard Driehaus Emerging Artist Award and a 2005 Illinois Arts Council Finalist Award in Visual Art. In 2005 and 2006, she received MacDowell Colony Artist Fellowships to complete new work. She was also recently nominated for a 2006 Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant for Sculptors and Painters.
	Barbara Koenen is a Chicago-based artist who creates unlikely combinations of cultural practices around the world as influenced by war. Her recent projects include spice war rugs -- installations and transfers inspired by Tibetan sand mandalas and Afghani war rugs -- and Grenade Cosies, hypothetical illustrations of the evolution of a traditional American craft. Koenen's work has been exhibited in Europe as well as the US. A graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Koenen is a cultural planner for the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and director of the Chicago Artists Resource ( www.chicagoartistsresource.org). Her work may be seen at www.barbarakoenen.com

	Silvia Malagrino is a Chicago-based artist, native of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her innovative interdisciplinary work in multiple media – including photography, installation, and digital video, - amalgamates critical thinking with poetry, and metaphor with documentation. Malagrino has exhibited internationally and her work is included in the collections of the Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago, and La Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris, France, among others. She is the recipient of numerous awards and prizes, including The CINE Golden Eagle Award for her first film Burnt Oranges- a feature length experimental documentary about the long-term effects and repercussions, personal and social, of Argentina's 1970’s state terrorism. In 2005, her digital video animation The Stream of Life received the prestigious Lorenzo De Medici First Prize Award in New Media at the 5th Edition of The Florence Biennale. Malagrino is a Professor at the School of art and Design of the University of Illinois at Chicago.
	Jaime Mendoza is a Chicago based artist/curator. His work is concerned with issues of immigration, ethnicity and borders, Mendoza uses a variety of mediums such as video, photography, and mixed media installations—all of which fuse the politics of contemporary urban culture with idealistic meditations on aesthetics, history, and identity. Mendoza has exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. and abroad. Most recently, Mendoza presented a workshop on Self Liberation through Self Identification at the 2nd Annual Educating for CHANGE Curriculum Fair in St. Louis, Missouri in conjunction with the University of Missouri St. Louis College of Education -- Division of Teaching and Learning. Mendoza was also awarded a one year grant from The National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC) to publish a book of drawings, “La Chamba: Drawings by Jaime Mendoza” which will be released this fall. Currently Mendoza is an instructor in the Art Department at Northeastern Illinois University.
	Jesus Oviedo is a Chicago-based artist whose work is based on the recording of such things as marks, imprints and occurrences. His work encompasses painting, printmaking installation and three-dimensional objects. He is currently working on a series of work entitled "I Swept My Floor" in which he is making hand-made surfaces out of the detritus of floor sweepings. Jesus received his M.F.A. from the school of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2003 and has exhibited his work throughtout chicago as well as a couple of shows Vermont. His work experience consists of many teaching positions including; residencies in Chicago Public Schools, Hyde Park Art Center and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Jesus currently lives in Chicago's Lower West Side and works as a Studio Coordinator at Chicago Commons Association, a social service agency.
	Josué Pellot Gonzalez Having been born in Puerto Rico (Mayaguez - wearing bell-bottoms) but raised in the U.S. since the age of five, traveling back and forth from the Island and Chicago, Josue feels that he's somewhere between these two cultures, probably in the Bahamas. Josue (ho.sway, ho.sue.ehh) - grew up between Humboldt Park and Logan square where he was introduced to art thru Graffiti and Hip Hop. He went to Kelvyn Park High School on Chicago's northwest side and then received a BFA with a minor in Biology from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Despite all this, he was awarded an MA from Northwestern University in Art Theory and Practice (the theory being if you practice, you'll improve - thus he keeps trying!). He's now a Chicago-based artist and works in various mediums.
	Edra Soto was born in Puerto Rico in 1971. In 1995 she received the Alfonso Arana Fellowship to work in Paris, France for a year. In 1997 she moved to Chicago to attend the Art Institute of Chicago where she obtained her Masters degree in 2000. Her most recent presentations include a live performance at El Museo del Barrio in New York, as part of the travelling show Don't Call it Performance, curated by Paco Barragan. She will be presenting a solo show in 2005 at UIC Gallery 400 and at Polvo.

Friday, Dec. 8
4PM Press Preview begins
5PM – 11PM Opening Night Party

Saturday, Dec 9
3PM – 8PM and by appointment

Sunday, Dec 10
3PM – 8PM and by appointment

Cavalier Hotel
1320 Ocean Dr, Miami Beach, FL 33139
(305) 531-3555
www.cavaliermiami.com

Worthy alternative art transcends pop culture

2006-11-09T06:08:00.000-06:00

By MARY LOUISE SCHUMACHER

mschumacher@journalsentinel.com
from JSOnline

Polka dancing in the aisles is not your everyday international art fair occurrence, but then the Milwaukee International Art Fair was not your everyday fair either.It was, in fact, an alternative to even the alternative international art fairs, which have proliferated around the globe, becoming showcases for the "emerging" art that's got the art market revving at a rapid fire pace.

With an unusual blend of sophistication and beer-on-tap, bowling-in-the-basement Milwaukee-ness, the fair was a modest variation on similar fairs like Scope in New York or the Stray Show in Chicago.

The merrymaking in the air at the Falcon Bowl, the Riverwest beer hall and "nest" of the Polish Falcons fraternal organization that served as home to the local show in October, was evidence that the weekend-long event accomplished its goal of being offbeat.

A blithe and jaunty sensuality reigned in much of the art. It is a playful, do-it-yourself aesthetic that has been the mainstay of alternative fairs for some years now.

Artists working in this vein specialize in varying forms of lo-fi mash-ups of pop and high culture.

Just about everywhere at the fair was the ephemeral stuff of a fourth-grade arts-and-craft class - Elmer's glue, glitter, paper, bright acrylic paints, pencils, crayons and cardboard. Everyday objects, like rubber ducks, abounded, too.

A childlike curiosity drives them more than weighty compositional or conceptual choices.

That there is a certain similarity in the overall look of the art seems both a positive and cautionary sign. On the one hand, it means that there is a global conversation going on between emerging artists who are represented by smaller, less commercial spaces and that a movement, of sorts, exists.

On the other hand, that sameness in this particular style of art making raises questions about originality and whether there's much of it to be had in this particular strata of the art world.

I love the idea of wonderfully disarming art, art that uses as a starting point a visual style as universally familiar as the Thanksgiving centerpieces we made from construction paper in elementary school.

But I have to confess, I love the idea more than the reality.

In truth, when artists go to great lengths to shrug off art-world seriousness the art they make is sometimes just that - not serious. Making anti-art can actually get in the way of making art.

I found myself looking for beauty and ideas and often wondering if there were some secret handshake that I was missing.

Perhaps most sad is that this carefree style may have become the antithesis of what it set out to be. It's a style that allows some artists to hide out, so to speak, to avoid the fundamental challenge of making something meaningful, poetic or beautiful. What was certainly daring at some point in the past can now be predictable and even safe.

But this is true of the alternative scene all around the globe, a fault that can hardly be laid at the feet of this particular fair.

In fact, this fair was arguably smarter than many because of its more manageable size. And it had its share of redeeming moments, too.

The two large-scale paintings by Christine Streuli, brought to the fair by Karma International in collaboration with Galleria Mark Muller in Zurich, were certainly among the better works in the show. Streuli does what lots of artists do - but better than many.

In her paintings, she selects imagery from a seemingly endless array of sources. A lattice pattern of a fence. The silhouette of a bird. An antique photo of a can-can dancer. Rorschach ink blots. Expressive dribbles of her own paint.

With electric color, she layers her obviously flat images into quasi-abstract paintings that mysteriously seem to develop depth before your eyes and become lighted from within, like surreal landscapes that might envelop you with a single step forward.

The jumbo eyes in the characters of Eddie Martinez' paintings are sweetly arresting, eyes with inky pupils that have gone wide from some unknown source of bliss.

In "Mr. Garcia McDonald," the figure's hair and beard are plump, blob-shaped swaths of luscious white paint that dominates the petite artwork, created in a naive style. Crammed in around the edges - for landscape and maybe a shoulder or two - are expressive strips of olives, sky blue and reds. Martinez was shown by Zieher Smith in New York.

That Gisela Insuaste has spent a great deal of time in places with visible and dramatic landscapes and is now making art in a pretty flat place - Chicago - makes perfect sense when you look at her art. She creates landscapes that seem a fragile balance between the natural world and the urban and manmade.

In them, flat sheaths of green are propped on giant, toothpick-like stilts, creating an intentionally artificial mountain range. She also creates fantastical bits of urban landscapes on planks of wood, using the wood grain to add a topographical element.

Insuaste's paintings are only hints at her installations, which appear to be her stronger work, but it's still a good introduction to what she does. She was shown by Polvo in Chicago.

Nate Page, a former Milwaukeean, had work up in the Hotcakes Gallery. He uses a technique that falls somewhere between drawing and carving, transforming women's magazines into topographical, sculptural forms. He slices concentric shapes in page after page, drilling down to find and isolate eyes in various advertisements, bring them up to the surface.

Hotel, a Portland, Ore., gallery, had works by Megan Whitmarsh on view. At a distance they look like solid blocks of color with specks of other colors. At close range, the tiny scenes with elves and Eskimos that she's embroidered onto stretched fabrics become visible. There is something very homey about her work, but it is Minimalist and modern in its spareness, too.

ONLINE

To see online videos about the Milwaukee International Art Fair and to see a selection of the art on view there, go to www.jsonline.com/links/artfairvideo.

LINDSAY OBERMEYER: ODDS

2006-11-07T07:11:00.000-06:00

LINDSAY OBERMEYER: ODDS

Opening Reception: Friday, November 10 from 6pm to 9pm
November 10 – December 2, 2006

Lindsay Obermeyer’s “Odds” project will be exhibited for the first time at Polvo! Obermeyer employs the history and metaphors surrounding textile practices to study issues as diverse as medical ethics, mental illness,and gender. She explains: “My ‘skins’ or garments will reflect the impact of disease on the body. It will investigate the point at which the decorative elementcrosses over to the grotesque and uncanny, when a beauty mark becomes a tumor.” This project is partially supported by a Community Arts Assistance program grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs.

Obermeyer has exhibited her work throughout the United States at venues such as the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Milwaukee Art Museum, and the Museum of Arts and Design (formerly known as the American Craft Museum). Her work has been included in three traveling exhibitions and several international exhibitions. It has been featured in numerous books and publications including the “Chicago Reader,” “American Craft”, “Fiberarts”, and “Reinventing Textiles: Gender and Identity”. Obermeyer has instructed studio and art education courses at National-Louis University, Northern Illinois University, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago among others. She is the recipient of two grants from the City of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs. She holds an M.F.A. and B.F.A. in the fiber arts and an M.A.T. in elementary education.

Mini-exhibit: Juan M. Villanueva (New York City)

Juan M. Villanueva will be showing his small paintings from his series entitled: "Seasons of Development". It is Villanueva’s search as described by the artist as a "...search for personal identity and sense of community drives all my art, whether the medium is oils or acrylics, public art and/or natural elements." He studied the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and currently resides in New York City where he is also actively involved with the Groundswell Community Mural Project, based in Brooklyn, New York.

Flatscreen DVD: Sita Moyo (Johannesburg, South Africa)

Sita Moyo was born in 1981, in South Africa. In 2004 she received her B.A Honors Degree in Visual Art from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, and 2000-2003 B.A. Degree in Fine Art and English Literature from the University of Natal. Moyo will show her animation piece, "Fall From Grace" depicting a metaphysical anatomy of the female body, using archaic and modern symbols in atmospheric landscapes. Last year, this piece was included in the 2005 Tehran International Animation Festival.

Download Press release in PDF format
Download Brochure in PDF format

POLVO
1458 W. 18th St. 1R
Chicago, IL 60608
polvoarte@yahoo.com or 773 344 1940
http://www.polvo.org
HOURS: Saturdays from Noon-5pm or by appointment

Lindsay Obermeyer’s ”Odds” project is partially supported by a Community Arts Assistance program grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs.

Milwaukee International

2006-10-19T17:10:00.000-05:00

**POLVO IS GOING TO MILWAUKEE THIS WEEKEND!!** We are participating in the Milwaukee International Contemporary Art Fair. Polvo will feature the work of Edra Soto, Gisela Insuaste, Paola Cabal and Miguel Cortez.

Milwaukee International 2006 http://milwaukeeinternational.tk/
October 20 and 21 2006

This year, for the first time, Milwaukee will host its own contemporar art fair. Twenty-eight of the world's finest galleries are coming to share their art. The fair is open to the public and admission is free. Galleries, non-profits and nomadic curators from around the country and world will be participating, showing contemporary art in a genuine, old-school Milwaukee beer hall. Various events around the fair will offer visitors guided bus tours of the city, a performance night, a DJ dance-a-thon, a collage party and a panel discussion. Fair visitors can expect to find an eclectic selection of art spaces side-by-side under one roof, from submerging to emerging galleries, young artist-made product stores next to established non-profits, anonymously curated work and internet-based projects.

Participating Galleries

Angstrom Gallery Dallas/Las Angeles

Anonymous Gallery Milwaukee

Artledge Chicago

BasFisher Invitational Miami

Canada New York

Gavin Brown's Enterprise New York Galeria Comercial San Juan

General Store Milwaukee

Ghosts Are Everywhere San Francisco

the Green Gallery Milwaukee

Hermetic Gallery Milwaukee

Hotcakes Milwaukee

Jacob Fabricius Copenhagen

Karma International in collaboration with Mark Müller Zurich

Little Cakes New York/Tokyo

Locust Projects Miami

Jody Monroe Gallery Milwaukee

Morgan Lehman New York/Lakeville

Motel Portland

Ooga Booga Las Angeles

Other Gallery Winnipeg

Polvo Chicago

Roots and Culture Chicago

The Suburban Oak Park

Swiss Institute New York

Western Exhibitions Chicago

White Columns New York

Willy Wonka Inc. Oslo

Zieher-Smith New York

and more.

Jesus in Hoy newspaper

2006-10-19T13:12:00.000-05:00

Jesus Macarena Avila: Arte y compromiso
--------------------
Por Esther Herrera Colaboradora diario HOY
viernes, octubre 13, 2006

Chicago -- Conjugar la expresion artistica, el discurso coherente y la vocacion docente con una practica solidaria, constituyen el marco de accion de un joven artista mexicano en quien la pasion por la representacion estetica va de la mano con su identificacion con los mas vulnerables de la sociedad, en especial con los inmigrantes.

Los residentes de Pilsen todavia recuerdan una tarde de domingo cuando Elvira Arellano, junto con otros cuatro activistas, llevaban a cabo una huelga de hambre en la Plaza Tenochtitlan, mientras en el lugar Jesus Macarena Avila ensenaba a jovenes, adultos y ninos el arte del papel picado en un improvisado taller.

Venciendo el constante acoso del dolor por una molestia renal, Macarena se presento esa tarde y encargo a los activistas anunciar el taller. De pronto, transeuntes, mujeres con sus ninos y jovenes se encontraban ensimismados con la magia del papel picado que al caer la tarde adornaba con multiples colores la plaza donde Elvira Arellano clamaba la atencion de las autoridades por un trato humano y justo para los inmigrantes.

Macarena nacio en Texas, hijo de inmigrantes de San Luis Potosi, Mexico, y desde una temprana edad descubrio su vocacion de artista, nutrida por la riqueza de la cultura prehispanica que sus padres le mostraron a traves de continuas visitas a museos y exhibiciones y por el factor de haber vivido la experiencia inmigrante a traves de ellos.

Residente de Chicago desde finales de los 80, el artista, egresado de la Escuela del Instituto de Arte de Chicago, recuerda con especial carino su paso por el programa Chicago Boys and Girls en Pilsen.
"Cuando empece con los jovenes no tenian un programa estable de arte y cultura, y con poco dinero y recursos de la comunidad lo fui implementando", dice Macarena, a quien lo sensibilizo el hecho de que aun cuando los ninos y jovenes eran residentes de Pilsen no tenian conexion alguna con el Centro-Museo de Bellas Artes Mexicanas, ni con otros centros de arte y cultura.

"Los lleve en excursiones a conocer su museo, a aprender de su cultura, a hacer libros con papel amate, el material con que los Mayas elaboraban sus codices a partir de la corteza del higo, entre otros proyectos", evoca con entusiasmo el joven artista.

Pasion por la educacion
Macarena es un voluntario nato y cuando se desempeno como tal en el Boys and Girls Club, organizacion que ya no existe, disfruto ademas el poder desarrollar otra de sus pasiones: educar.
"Fue una experiencia maravillosa donde pude trabajar con ellos ensenandoles a hacer murales para que decoraran sus areas de juego y demostrarles que son capaces de manifestar su expresion creativa", anade Macarena quien se desempena como curador de arte y es co-fundador de Polvo, un espacio alternativo de exhibicion de arte en Pilsen.

A mediados del '95 Macarena crea el proyecto "Barrio sin frontera", un programa de intercambio entre los ninos y jovenes mexicanos de 5 a 16 anos de Pilsen y ninos puertorriquenos de Logan Square. "Fue un proyecto interesante y logre obtener los fondos del Consejo para las Artes de Illinois", afirma Macarena.

El joven artista texano siente que el exito de su carrera como artista, curador y educador, se basa, entre otras cosas, en su relacion directa con la comunidad hispana y fuera de la comunidad hispana. "Cuando uno sale de su misma comunidad y va a otras, regresa con una nueva experiencia, con una nueva cultura y con una nueva perspectiva que se hace mas util a tu comunidad de origen".