For the past 40 years, artists in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood have been slowly transforming a four-block stretch of Halsted Street into a quiet creative enclave. Even though the area has established a solid presence within Chicago’s art scene, it’s sometimes seen as a separate entity that doesn’t always engage with the rest of Pilsen’s predominantly Hispanic, working-class community. However, since opening in May of 2010, the Chicago Urban Art Society (CUAS) has made it a point to bridge this gap.
In less than a year, CUAS has become a creative hub for Pilsen’s residents, offering gallery exhibits, affordable art workshops, an artist residency program, and other community-oriented events. Last July, CUAS kicked off its inaugural exhibition with Ray Noland’s Sweet Tea and American Values. For the show, Noland — who is known for his Go Tell Mama series of Obama campaign posters as well as his ubiquitous “Blago” stencil tags — found a way to merge both his politically inspired graphic art and street art by creating makeshift edifices and plastering them with campaign posters and stenciled images.
Though CUAS features street-centric art, co-owners Lauren Pacheco and Peter Kepha’s interests span beyond that. “A lot of times,” Pacheco says, “people would box us and say, ‘You’re a graffiti gallery.’ We’re not a graffiti gallery. What is a graffiti gallery to begin with? We like to say that we promote urban contemporary art by individuals that are inspired by the urban landscape.”
Pacheco and Kepha, a pair of siblings, built a reputation within Chicago’s art community with their first gallery, 32nd and Urban. The gallery, located in Bridgeport, has been a neighborhood hit since opening in 2007. When the two asked Chicago muralist and long-time family friend Juan Chavez to open their first show, 400 people showed up. Despite the large crowds that gathered at 32nd and Urban’s openings, things never got out of hand.
“We asked people to respect the space — have a beer, enjoy the music, buy some art, but when you leave, leave peacefully,” Pacheco says. “People really respected that, and the community really respected that.”
In 2008, 32nd and Urban closed due to a mutual sense of burnout between Pacheco, Kepha, and their two other business partners. The four organized 17 shows in their first year — in addition to holding down full-time jobs — but Kepha felt that the strenuous schedule was worth it in the end. “I’m glad that we pushed ourselves that far early on because coming into this, even though the [CUAS] space is huge, I feel that it’s completely manageable,” he says.
While Pacheco and Kepha were scoping out spaces for their latest venture, they knew that they wanted to stay on Chicago’s S0uth Side in order to continue building upon the area’s creative legacy and to dispel the stigmas that can be associated with that side of the city. “I didn’t want to go anywhere else; this is our home,” Kepha says. “A main reason that I wanted to stay here on the South Side is because I don’t think that people think that anything happens beyond Cermak. They think it’s a complete [cultural] wasteland.”
The two wanted to transform a 4,200-square-foot space in a former warehouse into a non-profit art center that could be beneficial to the rest of the community. In addition to promoting work by Chicago-based artists, Pacheco and Kepha also have incorporated affordable DIY workshops as an integral part of CUAS. Recently, Noland held a tutorial and taught a packed house of students how to create their own stencils.
“We had about 16 tables [in the gallery], and people were out here all cutting [their work] within the exhibition, which was pretty awesome,” Pacheco says. “It’s just the educational process of being able to interact within the gallery space with about $30,000 worth of artwork on the walls.”
For its upcoming exhibit, CUAS will be partnering with Johalla Projects to put on The Daley Show, which will put the spotlight on Mayor Richard M. Daley by creating non-campaign posters to commemorate the end of his 21 years in office. In addition, CUAS has partnered with the Chicago Loop Alliance’s Pop-Up Loop Project, which transforms vacant storefronts into temporary gallery spaces to put on Love Flows Both Ways in collaboration with the Maxwell Colette Gallery. CUAS is expected to create additional pop-ups throughout the winter and also will partner with WBEZ to host its Winter Block Party in January.
With events and exhibits booked up through most of 2011, Pacheco and Kepha are as busy as ever but feel that it’s totally worth it. “We wanted the opportunity to diversify ourselves and do many different things,” Pacheco says. “I enjoy the non-profit world that we’re now in. I think that it’s beneficial, and a lot of people are excited about the projects that we’re doing.”