Michael Workman

Six spaces in a loosely defined area on the Near Northwest Side have recently forged an alliance to help promote each other's exhibitions. Taking as their moniker an outmoded neighborhood designation, members of the West Town Gallery Network, according to 40000 Gallery Director Britton Bertran, chose the name "because it was as inclusive as possible." Comprised of his and Lisa Boyle galleries, Fraction Workspace, Corbett vs. Dempsey, Booster and Seven and Western Exhibitions, they hope to escape obscurity with a newly found strength in numbers. Additional information and a map of the network's galleries in PDF format can be found on the WTGN site at www.westernexhibitions.com/WestTown. Newcity recently sat down for a coffee with Bertran to discuss the newly forged network's raison d'être.

How did you this get off the ground?

Bertran: Pretty organically. I told John Corbett of Corbett vs. Dempsey that I was opening up something in the neighborhood. He was a close friend of mine and mentor from when I was at school at the Art Institute. One day he came over after I opened and said `You know, we should really start working on developing some sort of dual openings.' And Scott Speh had helped me organize, get my shit together and open up the gallery, and he's pretty much in the neighborhood too. So I had dual conversations with both of them at the same time about doing this. And some other galleries in the neighborhood, like Fraction Workspace and Lisa Boyle, who's right on the outside of Scott's space--we all got together one time and started shootin' the shit and talking about it and it all started coming together like that.

Do you want to eventually try bringing other galleries into the network?

Bertran: Oh, absolutely. It's all about the neighborhood itself. Of course, there's a certain level [of gallery] that we'd want to be involved, but we're also interested in different kinds of galleries. John Corbett's place is a little bit different, it's not contemporaneous; a few of the other spaces are not-for-profit. But it's not like an application process, if they're interested they come to us and we can have a conversation about it. It's pretty informal. We pretty much just do a listserv and chat online and then if something comes up that we want to talk about--like, we just came out with a map, so there was a big to-do about the map, who was going to it, what information was on it, coming up with a mission statement for all of us.

So it's not like a merchant's association. How would you describe it?

Bertran: It's kind of an ad hoc organization. There's no commercial gain from our collaboration.

But you do send out joint mailings of press releases, and share administrative things: promotion, publicity and things like that.

Bertran: Right, and there's a website that Scott put together and we all contributed to the design for that. We've only worked on this for about three or four months, it's still a relatively new idea but we wanted, with the openings on September 9, to make sure that people knew that this was here as a destination to augment the other neighborhoods, not as competition. But of course, the whole idea is to get people into your place.

Where's this heading then? What do you want to do with this?

Bertran: We like to share ideas and hints. Do you know a good person to make a postcard? Stuff like that. But on the other end, in the future I can see us collaborating on some sort of conceptual show--where everybody has a good demeanor and nobody's stepping on anybody's toes or anything like that.

As a neighborhood association what do you want to see happen?

Bertran: As you know, this neighborhood's full of young professionals with lots of disposable money. Giving them another excuse to maybe do a Saturday walking tour of each gallery--and everything's relatively close, but it's also a great way to see the neighborhood. West Town's emerging--I mean it's always been a kind of gentrified--maybe not in the last twenty years or so, but in the last five or six years or so, it's been breaking down and building up over and over again. If you did walk from gallery to gallery it'd be a pretty interesting journey. We want to market the network itself on an international scale; we're talking magazines that a lot of people read, you know, I get excited when I see a Chicago gallery ad in one, let alone if it's reviewed. Already people are encouraged by the location because a lot of students live over here as well, so it's more convenient for them and I think it might be inviting for even more galleries to open up shop. There's a lot of storefront spaces around. And, you know, there's the whole history of the Uncomfortable Spaces here, that kind of thing all happened out in this neighborhood.

Nova news

Finally opening this week after several months of preparation, the Network of Visual Art (Nova) Project Space at 840 West Washington (full disclosure: I'm the director of this not-for-profit) on Friday, September 9 at 6pm will host an exhibition of work by Brian Getnick and Andy Young. Besides an exhibition space, Nova also provides work studios for nearly twenty Chicago artists, exhibition space for collectives such as Garden Fresh and showroom for glass and sculpture artists Peter and Marilyn Frank. There's also a Resource Lounge with places for posting artist's opportunities and a full archive of New Art Examiner and Bridge magazines available for public use.

Clarification

While the curators of last week's R4wb1t5 microfest informed this reporter that the apartment they were using was an abandoned space, an email from its actual tenants informs us this week that it's in fact the home of Alterspace, an apartment gallery running under the radar for the past eight months. Check them out online at http://www.cayetanoferrer.com/alterspace.

(2005-09-06)

Also by Michael Workman

Fall Forward: Art and Museums
There's often so much visual art happening in the Pilsen neighborhood that it's difficult to differentiate one particular event from another
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Tip of the Week
Wednesday of next week, the Museum of Contemporary Photography goes rock 'n' roll
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Eye Exam
In a very hot, very darkened apartment on Washtenaw, kids are crushed shoulder to shoulder in a narrow hallway, dripping sweat and trying not to move
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Eye Exam
House burning to the ground with you in it? Call the fire department. Ski-masked stranger with a chainsaw chasing you down the street? Call the police department. Wake up with an urgent need for art? Call the art department
(2005-08-23)

Tip of the Week
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Eye Exam
(2005-08-16)

Eye Exam
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Eye Exam
(2005-07-26)

My Crack-Whore Stalker
(2005-07-26)

Eye Exam
(2005-07-21)

Eye Exam
(2005-07-19)

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