Arts

Zine Scene: Loserdom

Anto McFly, who produces the eclectic DIY punk-rock zine Loserdom with his brother Eugene, is not the only zine writer in Dublin, Ireland, but it can feel that way. “I think that zine publishing is still alive, though not as well as its been in the past,” he says. “I would love to see more Irish zines being produced.”

Maybe the problem isn’t the availability of zines but what the future of Irish zines looks like. “Those being produced are mostly by people who have been around for a while,” Anto adds. “I fear that younger people aren’t inclined to venture into producing something on paper, or if they do, they spend so much time trying to perfect their first issue that it never sees the light of day.”

Blackout Film Festival: Breaking From Routine

When Austin Chu, 25, was laid off from a Bay Area Internet startup in December of 2008, he did what many Californians might do: he went surfing every day, made plans to travel across the country to film a documentary, and diligently sent out a flurry of applications for PR and marketing positions.

As Chu discussed documentary plans with his 23-year-old brother Brian — what if they made something different from all the dark, disaster- oriented coverage? — companies started calling him for interviews. One offered him a job.

“If there’s a window of opportunity, you have to jump through,” Austin says. “It’s like, you see a girl in a bar and you make eye contact. If you don’t go then, it’s over. You won’t get another chance.”

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Gallery Spotlight: The Soap Factory

It’s not often that a soap factory slated for demolition can be bought for one dollar and converted into a cutting-edge art space. Yet that’s exactly how Minneapolis’ most comprehensive contemporary art space — appropriately named The Soap Factory — came to be.

The organization began in 1988 and was initially called No Name Exhibitions by the group of artists that founded it in order to emphasize creating innovative art that wasn’t being shown in Minneapolis’ more conventional art establishments. “There were not many independent, scrappy, non-institutionalized art venues. There was the Walker Art Center. There was the Minneapolis Art Institute,” says Katherine Rochester, the Soap Factory’s Program Manager. “But The Soap Factory was committed to the fact that they called themselves ‘no name’ because they were interested in having a different kind of artist for a different kind of space.”

Art invades Chicago’s public transit

The third annual installation of the world’s largest mobile art gallery, Art on Track, will make its way to the Chicago Loop on August 7. Passengers will have the opportunity to board the eight-car train at the Adams and Wabash platform from 5-10 p.m. Participating artists were handpicked based on their control of new artistic methods in their fields. They will have six hours to produce captivating and provocative work to be experienced by the public.

Zine Scene: Shortcomings

When I first read Adrian Tomine’s graphic novel Shortcomings more than a year ago, I was struck by two things: the comic’s sensitive and honest portrayal of modern race relations, and the wonderfully clean art style. The former proceeds mostly from Tomine himself, a fourth generation Japanese American. The latter is strongly inspired by modern masters of the medium like Daniel Clowes and the Hernandez brothers, and it results in evocative illustration that recalls classic comic art of the 1950s and even Roy Lichtenstein.

Gallery Spotlight: The Project Lodge

Madison, Wisconsin may be better known for academics and politics, but just under the surface, a growing art scene is becoming more prevalent in Wisconsin’s capital. The Project Lodge is one of the organizations at the forefront of the city’s creative movement.

Since 2008, The Project Lodge has provided an intersection for local musicians and artists through their combined performance space and gallery. “One of the main goals is to be able to foster creativity for the local community,” Tyler Mackie, The Project Lodge’s gallery manager, says. Christopher Buckingham and Kendra Larson originally founded the space two years ago and have since transferred the space’s management to Andrew Berry, Hayley Powers Thornton Kennedy, Bessie Cherry, and Tyler Mackie.

Catch ALARM at the 2010 Printers’ Ball

It’s time again for The Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine’s co-produced Printers’ Ball. Working with Columbia College Chicago’s Center for Book & Paper Arts and its Student Affairs Office, the sixth annual event is themed as “Print Loves Digital.”

Gallery Spotlight: The Post Family

Rod Hunting, Davey Sommers, Chad Kouri, Scott Thomas, Alex Fuller, Sam Rosen, and David Sieren are all brothers — yet their family is not unified by blood, but instead by kindred creative thread.

The seven initially met through school, work, and mutual friends, and it was their combined interest in design and their need to find a space to create that solidified their bond. This led them to start The Post Family collaborative, which set up shop at 1821 W. Hubbard St. in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood in 2007.

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Gallery Spotlight: Ad Hoc Art Gallery

Since 2005, the co-founder of Peripheral Media Projects and Ad Hoc Art Gallery has brought lowbrow art, street culture, and social activism to the Brooklyn masses through his gallery space, design studio, and community art collaborations.

Zine Scene: The mundane treasures of John Porcellino’s King-Cat

At 20 years old, John Porcellino’s hand-drawn comic zine King-Cat is a veritable dinosaur of the industry.

When publication began in 1989, King-Cat was doubtlessly viewed as just another perzine. Over the years, the scope has increased, and, perhaps remarkably, each issue still has something new to say. By the time he released King-Cat Classix, a collection, in 2007, the zine had officially become a phenomenon.