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Around The Coyote
Multiple venues centered on the
Two new venues, a host of new donors and participants and a 51-page, full-color catalogue appear to signal a renaissance in the fortunes of the annual Around The Coyote Fall Arts Festival. Four major visual arts venues, two of them new for 2005, expanded the offering of open studios and artists' stalls to 237 participants. With each studio or hall-space hosting an artist, each artist displaying an array of works from one to many, the final tally was a formidable offering in terms of volume. And yet in all the noise and bustle, the nervous energy of an art-fair exhibition, the hundreds of works on display by artists familiar or new, the halls thronging with viewers, something seemed lacking, some elemental spark of artistic weight. The Flat Iron Arts Building has long been the traditional anchor point of Around the Coyote, but this year the experience was less one of lively hucksterism than a too-crowded white noise of visual imagery. Artist's studios provided brief moments of respite, but traversing the halls quickly piled on the pictures, the restless crowds all but pushing viewers along the narrow spaces with small opportunity to stop and appreciate any individual piece. Good work speaks for itself, but even the best art demands a pause, an appreciation, a moment to open the dialogue between image and viewer; and within this shifting throng of artists and viewers, works flashed by as mere glimpsed visuals. The overwhelming impression was not so much the art itself as the elbows, backs and bodies to be dodged in navigating the Flat Iron Building's mazelike halls. Among the memorable works were N. Kedai's works on paper of Arabic calligraphy, perhaps because their bold, curvilinear elegance could make its statement quickly and simply in the crowds' rush. Located within the Flat Iron Building, Around the Coyote's 2005 Curators Choice Show had some curious curatorial choices of its own: multiple works by individual artists, making the mere seventeen works on display, itself a modest offering, even more minimal with the fact that only nine artists were represented. The works themselves, chosen presumably as representative of the select, the premier, the best of the fest, seemed a subdued group, even by academic or conceptual standards. Participants in the 2005 Curators Choice Show included John Herbst, Gerald Perdue, Robert Bunier, and Liza Berkoff. Photography was the strongest here, with other entries including large canvases stippled with painted dots, a tipi constructed of plastic grocery-story bags, an installation of tiny, model-like 'mini-environments' in plastic bubbles, and a selection of drawings. Given that Around the Coyote itself -- accessible right through the doorway at the back of the Curator's Choice space -- featured exhibition spaces for each of these artists to host multiple examples of their works, it seemed strange to devote the Curator's Choice to hosting two, three, even five works by the same individual. With over 200 participants to choose from, this was one place where a broad survey of the artistic talent featured within the festival would have been expected and welcomed. The Northwest Tower, a new large venue for 2005, seemed undiscovered by most Arts Festival visitors, and only partially tenanted by the artists themselves, with many of the studios empty or closed. Still, within them were several hidden surprises, among them the photography of Shim Lim and Patrick Linehan. Both were on display in the same studio, presenting complementary yet disparate approaches to fine art photography: Lim's organic and curvilinear, Linehan's based on a more geometric framework. Further venues for the Arts Festival included the Wicker Park Field House, with artist's stalls in its indoor gymnasium; "The Garden as Gallery", seven outdoor installations in the garden space just west of the Field House; and the Lubinsky Building, smallest of the visual arts venues, with three rooms of artist's stall. But of the art, much of it reflected the current trends in laissez-faire environment, in which both mastery of technique and clarity of statement seem left to afterthought, or even discarded. Much of the work left the viewer at sea to make his own connections, particularly the frequent collages, collage-plus-painting, or collaged elements as three-dimensional box constructions which repeatedly appeared as artists' choice of media. Art needs a deep source to reach out and touch on a personal level: a universality beyond that of being a recorded personal statement, and an intent more thorough than mere random assemblage. But the failing is, perhaps, symptomatic of the rising fashionability developing in the Bucktown area. This year in particular, one could no longer ignore the fact that Wicker Park has gentrified: sleek beauty salons, sushi bars, clothing boutiques, and the blossoming of trendy eateries signaled that the urban vivification common to most Chicago neighborhoods has fully infiltrated here as well. It's half gritty, half glam; but the grit seems to remain there only by the developers' consent. The allure of a rough-and-ready neighborhood with low-rent affordability where artists could lease cheap studio space or rent out abandoned storefronts they could retrofit as galleries, that which made Wicker Park attractive to the arts in the first place, has become, with the influx of gentrification, an imitation of itself. There's a powerful cachet to 'being an artist'; and that certain cool-to-be-an-artist crowd seemed to be the primary motivating force crowding the halls of the Flat Iron Building and the streets of Damen, Milwaukee and North: not "I crave to make art" but "I am an artist; what should I make?": to be an artist first, and make art second. Though billed as one of Chicago's 'arts districts', the neighborhood grows hip with urban cool; and as it does, the the art it sustains appears to be losing vigor. It's easy to grow pessimistic, and that clouds one's vision. Around The Coyote Fall Arts Festival 2005 presented a mixed offering. There was much that was good -- not necessarily outstanding, but solid. From 237 participants, each having an opportunity to showcase the best of their own art, one could expect more. And yet, there were not a few hidden gems. Once you see the work of few decent artists, the faith that may have faltered, in the Curator's Choice and elsewhere, revives. That is, perhaps, the testament of good art: it only takes a little of it to renew your faith, to restore your vision -- to remind you, after all, of what it's all about. Around The Coyote Fall Arts Festival 2005 is an annual event. The 51-page catalogue features one work from each of the 237 participants and is priced at $5. Visual Arts Day Pass, $5; All-Access Festival Pass, $50. The three-day festival also includes theatre, music, poetry, dance and guided tours. --Katherine R. Lieber Katherine R. Lieber has edited ArtScope.net's Visual Arts reviews since 1998. Ms. Lieber is Editor and Associate Producer for ArtScope.net. |
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