TIME OUT CHICAGO - August 2008

[Disclaimer: The following is an archive of content that was originally on another website. Originally posted August 2008 - This is an excerpt of a feature in anticipation of Art On Track 2009. - to visit the original post click here. Please be aware that some press/posts do expire.]

Ideals on wheels

Art on Track curates an El of a show.

By Lauren Weinberg

OFFICE FACE Don’t be fooled by the suits: Stoakley, left, and Hummel, right, hope their entrepreneurial skills will help local artists.

Photo: Liberty Harring

Even the most jaded CTA riders may be shocked when an art gallery rolls into the Adams/Wabash El stop on Saturday 30. “Art on Track” will fill an entire Orange Line train with work by emerging local artists. As the eight-car train circles the Loop from 6–10pm—skipping most of its usual route to Midway—its curators hope the project introduces a new audience to the Chicago art world.

Tristan Hummel, 21, a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, came up with the idea for “Art on Track” three years ago. After reading an interview with a director who rented an El train for a film, he learned that anyone can charter a train (except during rush hours) for a fee of $1,200 or more, depending on the size of the event. Hummel won’t say how much “Art on Track” cost. “It’s not as bad as you’d think, but I had to take out a sizable personal loan from the bank,” he admits.

The CTA readily gave Hummel permission to rent a train in order to fill it with art—once he agreed to show works that would be appropriate for all audiences. “Art on Track” faces other unusual constraints, since it can only display pieces that won’t pose a safety hazard on a moving train. Participating artists are making creative use of suction cups and Velcro, and Hummel explains that none of the art is very heavy: “A lot of it is prints.” Everything will be for sale, but collectors must pick up their purchases after the mobile show ends because a Chicago Transit Board ordinance prohibits the sale of merchandise on board.

Hummel coordinated “Art on Track” through Salvo, an arts and entertainment company he founded last fall, and his classmate Scott Footer collaborated on the early stages of the project. (Footer left this summer to pursue his own artwork.) During the last several months, Salvo has received curatorial assistance from Lethal Poetry, a local arts-management company that specializes in socially responsible projects. Cofounder Mojdeh Stoakley, 21, a recent SAIC alum, says she found many of the featured artists through her alma mater.

Six of the eight “Art on Track” train cars will highlight artists from the Colibri Studio Gallery in Pilsen; the Flat Iron Artists’ Association based in Wicker Park’s Flat Iron Arts Building; Quennect 4, a multiuse art space in Humboldt Park; the North Side’s Peter Jones Studio/Gallery; and the Silver Room, a Wicker Park jewelry boutique. The other two cars, one of which was curated by SAIC student Becky Pfluger and the other by Hummel, present young, local artists not affiliated with any galleries or organizations. Hummel notes, however, that Aldo Castillo submitted an installation from his gallery: Cuban-born artist Antuan’s Izquierda o Derecha. Don’t take out your frustrations on this set of red punching bags, suspended from the ceiling, which are printed with the faces of politicians such as President George W. Bush and Senators Barack Obama and John McCain: Volunteers will ride in each car to discuss the art on board and “ensure its safety.”

Stoakley acknowledges that “Art on Track” is a “stunt”; Salvo and Lethal Poetry were founded on the premise that advertising and marketing techniques can be turned to artists’ advantage. Despite her youth—and her colleagues’—Stoakley insists, “[We have] a lot of power to be entrepreneurs, to create a new path or community for artists if we want.”

Admission to “Art on Track” is $5; patrons’ CTA fares will be waived.

[see original screen shot archive below]


www.lethalpoetry.com
www.themojdehproject.com

EDGEchicago - August 2008

[Disclaimer: The following is an archive of content that was originally on another website. Originally posted August 20, 2008 - This is an excerpt of a feature in anticipation of Art On Track 2009. - to visit the original post click here. Please be aware that some press/posts do expire.]

Art on Track
by Scott Stiffler
EDGE Contributor
Wednesday Aug 20, 2008


Art on Track producers Mojdeh Stoakley (left) Tristan Hummel (right)

For those trying to make their living as artists, creating brilliant work is just the beginning. From there, it’s an endless loop of seeking representation, securing a gallery show and getting the work sold. It’s no wonder that artists, like workaday commuters, often feel as if they’re going around in circles. One brave new creative collective has come up with a unique way to turn that circular shape from a source of frustration into a celebration of creativity.

On August 30, Art on Track (www.chicagoartontrack.com) will turn eight CTA orange line train cars into a moving gallery. Paintings, photographs, video stills and uncategorizables will hang by wires strung from the length of the train and secured by industrial suction cups stuck to the walls and ceiling.

Patrons will be able to reach out and touch some of the work (such as punching bags hung from the ceiling containing the faces of some public figures you’ll surely want to slug). One car will be dedicated to a performance piece that uses rainy day craft materials to continually construct and deconstruct a visual representation Chicago’s best-known landmarks and historical events.

The special charter train that contains Art on Track will circle the loop from 6 to 10 p.m. Saturday, on August 30. To hitch a ride, enter at the Adams and Wabash L platforms (handicap entrance at Washington and Wells). The cost is $5; but those drawn to a particular work can further express their support for the arts by securing a promissory note that allows them to purchase it at a later date.

This unusual triangulation of art, commerce and transportation is meant to provide artists with "a means to exhibit their work unconventionally" while "redefining the public’s role in the arts irreversibly." That’s just one of the provocative promises from Salvo, a think tank of artists whose inaugural project seeks to bridge "the gap between the broader public body and the artistic community." To do so, they’ve chosen to display their art in that most democratic form of travel known as public transportation.

The work on display comes from emerging artists represented by members of Salvo as well as the Aldo Castillo Contemporary Gallery, Flatiron artists group, Quennect 4, The Silver Room, The Colibri Gallery and The Peter Jones Gallery.

By showcasing their work in this unconventional manner, Salvo hopes to "create a new market for the arts. We want to get people used to seeing art in their everyday lives. Once it becomes almost too convenient, it will start to be integrated more fully." That’s the goal of Salvo’s Tristan Hummel (creator and executive producer of Art on Track). Hummel envisions a day where the antiquated gallery system is supplemented by technology that makes art mobile -- so "you’ll see people looking at a Monet or van Gogh the way people listen to songs on their iPod."

Art on Track is the starting point of such an effort: "We tried to find a very public space in which people could make the logical leap from the gallery. The train has this museum quality to it." But unlike the traditional gallery or museum, "We have a very exposed, very raw space. As the train sways, people will grab onto poles and pull themselves closer into the art work; they’ll have to be mindful of it."

Hummel indicates that Art on Track will become an annual event whose second incarnation will "represent more of the Chicago neighborhoods, artists, galleries and communities." One surefire way to ensure the return of a good idea is to throw a lively after party once the train executes its final loop at 10 p.m. Hummel invites Art on Track patrons, and art lovers in general, to the downtown bar The Joynt 650 N. Dearborn. From at 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. you can meet and greet the participating artists and Salvo think tankers -- while getting tanked. It’ll be a fitting end to Art on Track’s noble goal of "providing alternative means to present art while increasing the market for those arts."

[see original screen shot archive below]