Art on Track
review by Cassandra Smith
I left Rogers Park at late last Saturday morning, rode the Red Line south to Fullerton, transferred to the Brown Line, and rode to Adams and Wabash, where I got off, crossed to the other side, and boarded Art on Track.
Billed as "the world's largest mobile art experience," Art on Track was produced by SALVO, a group of Chicago artists and designers dedicated to increasing the city's cultural awareness
and education by presenting art to an expanded urban demographic in friendly, accessible ways. Though I can't say for sure, it seemed to me they did just that, succeeding not only in their goal of creating a positive public image of artists making work here and now, in the spaces we all recognize, but also in creating an unexpected and dynamic space for dialogue. As one passenger said to another, "I've never felt so comfortable on the CTA. Everybody here is somebody I know or want to know."
Eight train cars, eight art venues, circling the Loop all day long: The most critically honest thing I can say here is that, I think, the fact that Art on Track happened at all is, overall, a good thing. Anything else I might write seems unnecessary. There was some stuff I really liked, some stuff I didn't like so much, and a few really pleasurable, really funny, really strange moments, when the actions and conditions of the various installations, artists, and fellow passengers traveling with me engaged the transitional and social spaces of the train cars in unexpected ways. And that was more than enough.
For instance: Artist Oli Watt and I, speaking to one another of being "in the same boat" (groan...yes, we really said those exact words, but that's, of course, what makes it so great), as we stood in his installation, "Undercurrent" (NFA Space), a perfect image of what it is, in fact, to be in the same boat, a train car whose seats were all occupied by handmade, bright blue and silver life vests, completely non-functional but there "just in case." Or the moment when a four-year-old girl called out to her sister, laughing, "Help! I'm stuck in the web!" as she mock-wrestled her way out of the red plastic webbing that neatly divided the train car of Scott Ashley's installation, "Us and Them" (Aldo Castillo Gallery) in half. Or when everybody aboard the Hyde Park Art Center train car decided to rummage through their pockets and purses and to leave something of value in exchange for one of stacks and stacks of Stan Chisholm and Lisa See Kim's handcrafted MoneyBags, each silk-screened with a dollar sign or other symbol of currency, and neatly tied close at the top, filled with something valuable and unseen inside. Or the gorgeously snuggly, slightly sinister, and finally endearing "Meat Meat" installation from Amy Honchell's class at SAIC (SUGS Gallery). Or the bubble-wrapped floor, bubble-wrapped ceiling, bubble-wrapped seats and bars of the SALVO car producing an effect, in combination with the beautifully diffuse, clear light of midday streaming in through the bubble-wrapped windows, that bordered on the sublime. The only thing better than how it looked was how it sounded, popping beneath the spiky heels of my boots.
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