Brains Brilliancy Bohemia

This week’s Newcity Art picks Brains, Brilliancy, Bohemia: Art & Politics in Jazz-Age Chicago as one of their top 5 groundbreaking shows of 2009. Check out the list here.

The catalog for the exhibition has just been reprinted. The new edition features a new cover, additional essays and materials, plus a DVD of The More Things Stay the Same. Pick up a copy here.

The Dill Pickle Club is organizing a honking huge art show, bookshop and event series at the Eyeful Gallery that opens Thursday, December 3rd at the First Thursday artwalk. Go here for all the details.

I’m making four short videos to promote the event, one to be released each week of the month long show. Here’s the first installment.

Special thanks to Christopher Doulgeris of Hooliganship and Felix and Huck from the Cardboard Songsters.

WORK | PROGRESS also celebrates two publications I produced for the Dill Pickle Club — Brains, Brilliancy, Bohemia: Art and Politics in Jazz-Age Chicago and Art for the Millions: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA. Head to the store for more info and to pick up a copy.

Wow, I was talking fast. Thanks goes out to Michael James, owner of the Heartland Cafe, for having me on the show.

versionad_021 ‘Brains’ is part of this year’s Version Fest, kicking off this weekend in Chicago, IL. From their site:

From April 23-May 2, we are gathering to celebrate, identify, and discuss our Immodest Proposals to change and improve our social, political and cultural ecologies. Version>09 will showcase emerging, progressive trends in art, politics, technology and music. We’ll gather and see how our peers live and work in a rebooted 21st century.

The festival is organized, in part, by Ed Marszewski, an art/ activist organizing powerhouse who edits several publications and runs the Co-Prosperity Sphere, an experimental cultural center in Bridgeport. The new issue of his journal Proximity Magazine is highly recommended.

brainsbrilliancy Although the Brains, Brilliancy, Bohemia exhibition has ended at Mess Hall, books are now available online, and at select locations in Chicago, IL and Portland, OR.

Preview book here.

Buy it here.

poster3

I also have a handful of these Dill Pickle Club posters available, courtesy Pete Yahnke. Print is approx 18″ x 24″, brown ink, silkscreened on pink archival paper. Buy it here.

Last Sunday, one of my true inspirations and heroes, Franklin Rosemont, passed away. On April 4, 2009, Franklin gave his last public speaking appearance at the opening for Brains, Brilliancy, Bohemia, a show I curated at Mess Hall.

for franklin from marc moscato on Vimeo.

Franklin was a tireless organizer, and a remarkable historian; to be in his presence demanded reverence. I know of no other publisher so dedicated to making available the “non-stuffed shirt” version of history than Charles H Kerr, the publishing company he co-directed. He will most certainly be missed.

A nice biography courtesy of The Trib.

Five lectures, three packed events and two interviews in 11 days and ‘Brains’ is nearing its run at Mess Hall. Tuesday is its last day and I’ll be posting documentation soon.