Arts Professional Story: Michael Workman: On Chicago
Why is Chicago a good city to make art?
I’m always blown away by the studio system in-particular: the studio spaces far outstrip the number of galleries in this town by three or four times. They’re everywhere, all these artists working away in Chicago at the Splat Flats on Division Street, in the Flat Iron Building at Milwaukee North and Damen, the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue and the whole Podmajersky dynasty down in Pilsen. That’s without even mentioning Lill Street, our Network of Visual Art Studios in the West Loop, Iron Studios in Bridgeport, the live/work communities of Acme in Bucktown, and the city-sponsored Switching Station Artist Lofts on Homan Avenue. The list goes on and on and on. It’s really incredible, that’s where the life is in this city. Occasionally, those artists open up their spaces for viewing, especially during Chicago Artist’s Month when it’s just a feeding frenzy. Artists can find affordable workspace in this city in almost any square footage they need.
Chicago also has the advantage of several communities that conscientiously resist definition solely in terms of supply and demand. It’s a great place to live for outcasts of commercial society. That may sound a little odd, since I work now mainly on the commercial side of things, but my training is as an artist. Before I came to Chicago to attend Northwestern, I enrolled for a semester at the Savannah College of Art and Design, where I realized that my coursework was almost entirely bereft of academics. It was something I was longing for, and that I realized rather quickly art school wasn’t going to provide.
That’s one huge thing Chicago has going for it: excellent educational opportunities. It’s another long list, from the University of Chicago on the south side to Northwestern University on the north, and the University of Illinois at Chicago, the Art Institute and DePaul, Loyola, Columbia College and even a world-renowned culinary school, Kendall College. Chicago is also a city with a lot to offer in the way of subcultures: queer culture, drug culture and the more “underbelly” type experiences can be had here with some degree of autonomy and anonymity. Whether it was pot-smoking, heroin-dosing jazz musicians or writers popping Bennies, artists and the avante-garde have always been drawn to—and sometimes, tragically killed off by—the drug culture. Before I came here, while living in Savannah, Georgia, I was of course drawn to places where I could dabble in free love and drugs—though, luckily for me, the drug part was mostly restricted to marijuana and the rare dose of LSD.
Chicago has a reputation as a town that parties too hard, and that’s probably where the figure in distress that’s so recurrent in the region’s visual art comes from. Believe it or not, artists need to have that kind of freedom, to experiment and explore, to live intensely. And one thing that can certainly be said for the Midwest is that we have a high level of tolerance for alternative lifestyles. Substance abuse, non-traditional sexuality, whatever you’re looking for, it’s all available here. But seriously, if you’re coming from one of the surrounding states, or even downstate Illinois, Chicago serves as a kind of cultural access-point, a true cosmopolitan beacon.
Whatever you want, we got it. Chicago was a great town for my own youthful indiscretions, where I could be happily promiscuous, and waste more than a few years as a serious alcoholic. I’m kidding. I’m kidding. But seriously? There’s no reason to stay here. None at all. You’re better off if you move to New York.
Michael Workman is Director of Bridge, NFP, a Chicago-based arts programming organization. Bridge, NFP, organizes annual Bridge Art Fairs in New York, Miami, Berlin and London and pioneered a multi-use facility that provides incubation space at 119 N. Peoria for developing arts organizations. Bridge, NFP, also formerly published Bridge Magazine, for which Workman served as Publisher and Editor-in-Chief. He is Art Editor for the Chicago alternative weekly newspaper, NewCity, and Chicago correspondent for Flash Art . His writing has appeared in New Art Examiner, the Chicago Reader, zingmagazine, TenbyTen and Contemporary magazine.
More Arts Professional Stories by Michael Workman:
On Art Fairs
On Being a Critic
On Bridge
On Getting Published