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 Eye Exam Nova Novitiate Part 2
In case you weren't reading last week, this column continues the
diaristic record of my planning and organizing of a small little art
fair here in Chicago, the Nova Art Fair (www.novayoungartfair.com). Last
week, we left off with the story of the eleventh-hour need for a change
that left us scurrying for a location to host the fair, settling on a
parking garage at 850 West Washington. It's a big, vast open space, and
the garage owner, while certainly stiff in his rental amount, had been
fair enough. All we had to do, we were instructed, was acquire the
necessary permits. We sent the paperwork into the appropriate city
departments, stamped, signed and sealed, and set to work on the code
violations the city inspectors had listed for us in their reports. As we
had it, from each of the inspectors and the electricians, plumbers and
legions of experts we'd hired to evaluate the place, so long as we did
the work to fix the code violations, we were in the clear to host a
temporary event in the space. It included the installation of emergency
lighting, the fixing of a broken electrical ground wire, renting
porta-potties, and the sealing of sundry outlets. We sat down, came up
with a plan and a budget for the work, approached each of our licensed,
bonded experts and then put a call into our contact in the Department of
Cultural Affairs.
Our troubles were only, it turns out, beginning. We were told that
she'd been on the phone with the Department of Buildings, who would
ultimately have to approve our application, and that the administrators
had problems with it. "What problems?" we wondered, since his own
inspectors had agreed to sign off. We were baffled. She told us that the
commissioner who'd have to sign off on the building didn't like the
"use" we wanted to "put in the building." What did that mean? We'd
arranged a deal with the building owner to make sure no cars were parked
in the garage during the days that the public was in it, so that wasn't
it. What was it? It was essentially an empty building that we wanted to
fill with art for four days. What could be life-threatening about that?
We decided to dig a little deeper and asked her if she'd put a call in
for us to the commissioner directly.
When she did, it took about five seconds to figure that we'd
suddenly, inexplicably been made political pawns in an ongoing tiff
between city departments. This commissioner was angry that he was
constantly asked to sign off on spaces that weren't exactly
code-compliant when asked by Cultural Affairs who, it turns out, had a
habit of coming to the Department of Buildings at the last minute. Our
problem? Simple. Despite the inspectors' willingness to sign off, the
commissioner was tired of handing out approvals every other week and of,
as he put it to me in a phone call I made to him directly, "taking all
the risk alone." It wasn't a matter of code violations; it wasn't a
matter of anything. When I spoke with him, he rambled off a list of
violations that would apply to buildings seeking a permanent occupancy
permit, not a temporary one like we needed--we were told we'd have to
build out men's and women's bathrooms, for instance. He'd just decided
it was time to put his foot down, and we just happened to be under it.
What to do? We did a little research, now only two weeks out on the
event, and contacted a man who works on getting approval for buildings
that Hollywood movie studios want to use as stage sets. His first film
was "Backdraft." We hired him and set him to work on a solution.
Waiting for his reply, our situation spawned many conversations on the
so-called "Art Fair Wars." Here was the answer to the question that'd
vexed us all along: it's not the organizers, not the gallerists, artists
or the hired hands who have diminished the status of Chicago's art
fairs. It's the city government. It's all this stuff behind-the-scenes
that goes on that the general public never gets to see.
We realized that we'd come face-to-face with the Chicago Way. Then
we got a call back from our movie-studio guy. "This city never gives
any support to visual art. They roll out the red carpet for the film
industry, because of all the money we bring in, but not you guys," he
told us on the phone. "But here's what we're going to do: we're going
to have your show in a lot in the back of the garage, in a big tent.
It's not ideal, I know. But that's the first rule: the show must go on.
Do that and you'll get your permit." We assented, wearily, and
approached the garage owner with our new situation. "Sure, I'll even
give you a few hundred bucks off the rent," he fawned nobly, even
though it was less than one-fifth the original square footage inside. So
it goes, we thought. Even though we're broke, emotionally chilled to the
bone and weary beyond belief with a madhouse week ahead of us before
opening night this Thursday, we're ready. Ready because maybe we can
change things, somehow make this a more hospitable place for art and the
imagination. Can we do it here? Yes, we thought. Maybe this year's only
a glimpse of things to come, but it's something, and that's a start.
Yes, we decided, we have to try, we have to--and so, yes: on with the
show. The Nova Young Art Fair takes place at 840 & 850 West Washington,
with a VIP room at 118 North Peoria, (312)421-2227. Opening night, April
28, 8-10pm. April 29-30 noon-8pm, May 1, noon-6pm.
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