Moving Art
by Diana Bae
It was an article in the Red Eye that inspired Tristan Hummel to work on a unique location for an art exhibition. The newspaper piece was a story about odd things to do with your money in Chicago. “One of those things was to rent a CTA train to host a party,” says Mojdeh Stoakley, Hummel’s business partner. “He thought, ‘Why not an art exhibition?’”
That idea, which struck a couple years ago, is finally coming to fruition. Stoakley, the 21-year-old CEO of Lethal Poetry, has partnered with Hummel, also 21 and CEO of Salvo, for “Art on Track.” For one night only, an eight-car orange line CTA train will turn into a moving art exhibition -- and Stoakley hopes it will earn a Guinness World Record as the largest mobile art exhibition. There will be five galleries as well as the works of 200 independent artists. Along with the visual arts, theater groups and a puppetry group will be present as the train rolls through the Loop on the elevated tracks. The $5 entrance fee for the event is also the ticket into the “Art on Track” afterparty at the Joynt, as well as a free drink.
For Stoakley and Hummel, who met as students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, “Art on Track” is a way to showcase the city. Rather than having people leave the Windy City, she and Hummel “want Chicago to be the destination for artists to build their careers. The city’s already halfway there,” Stoakley says. But the city still needs a “rise in the independent gallery world and a lot of community participation.” All artists that will show their work on the train are local talents.
The exhibition is also a way to change people’s perspectives of their surroundings. “The idea is to re-appropriate the expectations of how one views art: to challenge the artists into thinking about how to create their art for this environment,” Stoakley says. The train also lets “both the normal art-goers and non-art-goers to have access to work that’s been created.”
For the future, Stoakley says she would love to continue this event: “If we get an incredible response, then we can prove to the City of Chicago and the CTA that a bunch of youth can really get it done.”
”Art on Track” will take place Saturday, Aug. 30 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Entrance to the train is at the Adams and Wabash El platform.
[see original screen shot archive of article below]
www.lethalpoetry.com
