Looking back on the year 2008, one of the biggest failures in Rogers Park was the 'Miles of Murals' project. In 2007 this pork barrel project was to be the lifeline of the Glenwood Arts Community. Instead, it's turned into our own version of the 'bridge to nowhere'. Stalled with less than 1% of the work completed.
Video from July 28, 2007
Thank you, Al Goldberg. Thank you, Katy Hogan. Thank you, Michael James. Thank you, Kimberly Bares. Thank you, Rene Carmargo. Thank you, CTA. Thank you, Mo Cahill. Thank you, Joe Moore. Thanks for nothing.
Rogers Park Mural photo by Bill Morton. Video provided by Tom Mannis.
28 comments:
thank you craig gernhart. thank you tom mannis. thank you for your ridicule, your negativity, thank you for making one of the best public art organizations in the city back away from rogers park, and their 15 minutes on the youtube. thank you for slandering good people, and weighting down a good project with your bullshit. you deserve so much of the credit for this debacle.
and thank you for making me look like howard dean. yyeeeeaaarrrrgghhh.
More hard nipples from Kim Bares.
Craig, it's obvious that you know how to keep me cumming back...
Hee Hee Haa Haa!
So, that's Katy Hogan, co-owner of the Fartland Cafe. Hm.
I always giggle when I visit there, with all the Hugo Chavez shit around. See, I used to travel to Caracas, Venezuela quite a bit back in the late 90's, early 2000. President Hugo Chavez is an idiot, and Venezuela is a cesspool of poverty, even under his leadership. And here is the Fartland Cafe, capitalizing off of his socialist crap. Oh, the irony.
While we are chatting about Heartland...I have consistently been served really crappy food there. What's going on?
been there
It's your hairstyle that makes you look like Howard Dean...
The disturbing feature of the HC is the immediate assault against one's olfactory system upon entering the "bar" area. Nothing like having the pungent mix of patchoulie, dirty dish rag and fermented beer greet you to stir up those hunger pangs! Yum, yum. That may be the reason why your meal sucks, since smell and taste are tied together.
We always carry that particular HC smell home with us, too. All the stink molecules hitch a ride home in our clothing fibers, I guess. Hence, we rarely hit the HC when we're in the mood for dinner.
The sad thing is, it could be a really interesting place. I believe I went there fifteen years ago with a friend and it was vaguely rockin'. But then again, I guess the HC is like some hippies: pretty cool when they're young, only to look positively silly and dirty as they age.
(As someone whose attended a few Grateful Dead concerts, I feel I can say that with some authority).
billyjoe's brain, I was afraid you would leave us once billyjoe was banished. Good to see you're still around.
By far, the battle between billyjoe and the "brain" was THE best entertainment in blogdom.
Id like to thank Been There for not starting sentences with capital letters.
adelie
I'm not going anywhere-Craig runs a good site. And even though I've never set foot in the Heartland Cafe, it can't possibly be any filthier than the Red Line Tap. I'm tempted to stop by the Heartland to "hear about Katy Hogan's efforts in Ohio", though. Eh, maybe not.
It's going to get a lot worse for Venezuela & Hugo.
Their oil is almost as thick as tar & only a few refineries in the world can process it. All of them are in Venezuela or the US & the ones there are falling apart & Crazy Hugo won't allow any foreign experts or investment to fix them up. Soon the people there are going to get massively pissed off at all the money he's pouring into Cuba & a few other places, while his own country turns to shit!
So.........what did happen to all the murals and painting they were going to do?
It was nothing more than a dog-and-pony show in the first place. Basically our group of snake-oil salesman came into town and bamboozled the residents. Nothing happened.
Re: the murals that never came to pass.
My concentration in college was oil painting. Now, I know what you're all thinking, "Wow, adelie, what a lucrative major!" But besides that, I did enjoy my ill-chosen collegiate path, and though I could use my questionable talent to assist in painting community murals, I would not. It would piss me off to have someone paint a big penis over my work!
If I feel that way, I'm sure there are other more truly gifted folks who don't wish to see their work tarnished by crude drawings of genitalia.
Maybe the art organization backed away from this mural project because they don't wish to put in time and effort to create, only to have it defaced within a matter of minutes by a bunch of idiots.
adelie
the bashing that went on on the blogs convinced the public art group that was contracted to organize and oversee the project that it was not worth their time to come here. they had already agreed to a fee far below what they usually get. having their employees vilified on the blogs, and posted on youtube was just a little too much, on top of crummy pay.
Has Been, What you label vilified, I label has being held accountable.
Stop whining. Accountability won.
As usual, has been there simply makes no noise. She has no idea what she's talking about and is simply mad. All the time.
Seriously, mo-ron, perhaps you should consider a job.
Oh, and it's not the hair style that makes you look like Howard Dean. It's the adams apple.
So, been there, according to you, blogging and videos on youtube were the sole deterrents?
If that is truly the case, and even if the art organization "blamed" their withdrawal on blogging and youtube videos, then I would have to say that this art organization wasn't that into it to begin with because their egos weren't being stroked in the proper direction.
Frankly, I never really understood the purpose of urban murals. It's like trying desperately cover up blight and decay.
I think it would be much, much better to do what Evanston did and is doing with their train and el overpasses - redesign them and make them look architecturally interesting. The el overpasses in Rogers Park look dangerous and they probably need a good overhaul. That's the perfect time to use some imagination.
Not to mention, if redesigned overpasses get defaced, a little bit of sand blasting and paint will take care of it. You can't do that with a mural. If you paint over a portion of the mural to hide graffiti, then you destroy the mural, and it just looks strange.
adelie, the flaw in your argument is that you are thoughtful and logical.
That type of thinking pretty much goes over been there's head.
adelie,
"(As someone whose attended a few Grateful Dead concerts, I feel I can say that with some authority)."
DITTO!
ckreutz@luc.edu
adelie,
so you believe that art has no purpose? that is has no impact on humanity?
a barren idea.
Nice one, Rogers.
been there, just because adelie believes its a waste of effort to throw up public murals that only get trashed, does NOT mean that she believes that art "has no impact" and is "meaningless"- though I will have to say that much public art IS a waste and DOES have no meaning.
There's nothing that hurts an artist who cares for her work more than seeing it vandalized, or subject to deterioration through the elements and neglect. Your art will have much more impact in a setting where it can be cared properly and viewed at leisure.
Good architecture is art, too, and does a lot more to beautify the city and edify the spirit than a mural that gets defaced and ruined.
so nobody has really answered it yet - what did happen to the murals? did the artists that were contracted just back out? Why would they have been villianized on blogs? That all sounds pretty ridiculous to me. Did Mr Moore have no reasons? no responses? or he had his ceremony with no follow through and just moved on?
raz-
the ceremony on the tape was for a mural that was finished. it was soundly trashed on the blogs because the painter was from hyde park.
and joe had nothing to do with the whole project, really. just that it was in his ward, and he wanted to see it happen. but it was a project of the glenwood ssa, adminstered by their elected commissioners.
the artists did not back out. but afaik the coordinator and the contractor (which was the same contractor as the morse mural) were appalled by the whole controversy. they were accepting much less than their usual fee, and paying the artists much less than their usual fee. to bend over backwards that far, just to have maniacs following you around with a video camera and ranting about them on youtube was just too much.
there was also some trouble with the cta. for some reason no one at the cta has the authority to allow a coat of paint on a concrete overpass, and it had to be approved by the whole board. they were in the midst of a highly publicized financial crisis at the time and did not approve it in a timely fashion. that was what pushed it off the table for that summer.
there was a design that was done by them, that the artists thought was fine, but the commissioners did not like. part of that had to do with the bloggers as well. there were a couple of more versions back and forth, but the commission was not happy with the design.
so, all in all, it was loose, loose, loose.
and laura, speak for yourself. people who do public murals, especially painted murals know full well that they are not going to live forever. you show yourself to be miserly when you say that paintings should not be enjoyed by the public. art that is "setting where it can be cared properly and viewed at leisure" does nothing for those that cannot afford the money or the time to put themselves into such a situations. decoration of the public sphere is an act of sharing and community, whether everyone like them or not. art builds civil society.
you and adelie are free to paint for whomever you choose. but i and the others that were signed up to paint wanted to share with our community, even though we know that some of them are thugs and assholes. we all hoped to put a softer edge on all.
Been there...
Actually, it's your inane rambling that has no purpose or impact on humanity, other than annoyance, of course. You, oh artist wannabe, are the original barren idea.
Actually, I love art. I do feel it's an important part of the human experience. However, art comes in many mediums and many expressions.
I think the sculpture along the north shore channel is pretty funky fresh. And, agreeing with Laura, well designed architecture is an art as well (and probably easier to maintain over the long haul).
Given that the CTA had qualms as well, which is a HUGE factor, I understand why the art org. pulled out. It sounds like a combination of many things, and the renegade blogging and video-taping may have just confirmed what they already knew to be true: "The Park" just isn't ready for more murals and the inevitable defacement.
Now, what we could do, is track down those kids with the paint ball guns, load 'em up and let them fire away.
That would give the underpasses a sort of Jackson Pollock feel, and would be pretty easy to mend if someone drew a picture of a big weenie over the resulting mess. Just fire more paintballs at it!
And rogerspark60645, you know EXACTLY the visual I was trying to describe! LOL!
the cta had no qualms. they have happily given permission for many such projects, and had approved one on morse only a couple of months earlier. it was strictly a matter of being unable to run the paperwork through the bureaucracy, which was in complete turmoil.
and it had nothing to do with "the park." it had to do with a handful of bullies pushing people around, and making decent people decide they didn't get paid enough for that.
they have walls in evanston that are designated as "permission" walls, where kids are welcome to come and paint. don't think any are cta property, tho.
RE: the ceremony on the tape was for a mural that was finished. it was soundly trashed on the blogs because the painter was from hyde park.
If this is true, it would explain why i hate these murals. I hate everything that stinks of hyde park.
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