Lumpen Magazine is a news and culture magazine featuring the work of emerging and established artists and writers. It features editorials, interviews, and reviews focused on current events and emerging cultural trends. Published monthly until 1998, it is now quarterly.
Issue 137 of Lumpen joins the Hyde Park Art Center’s Artists Run Chicago 2.0 exhibition in celebrating the city’s artist-driven projects. The magazine was a chance to not only honor but also to research and to hear out from the artists and organizers running platforms for other artists and communities in the city.
In the spirit of cooperation that marks artist-run culture thrive in Chicago, Lumpen 137 is a collaborative initiative undertaken by Public Media Institute in partnership with Hyde Park Art Center and Sixty Inches From Center.
In interviews and essays with artists who run galleries and cultural spaces in Chicago, Lumpen 137 gives us profiles, characteristic histories, and pieces of advice from the community. Two maps compare the spaces that were part of the first “Artists Run Chicago” show, in 2009, and those that make up the exhibition this year. A comprehensive directory lists over two hundred artist-run projects that operate in Chicago invites the reader to begin to explore beyond the cultural sites they may know, and venture into second bedrooms or basements with exhibitions of exciting, experimental work hosted by the city’s artist communities.
To coincide with the physical launch of Lumpen 137, Public Media Institute is also launching artistrunshicago.com - which features a map and directory of artist-run platforms in Chicago. The map currently shows over two-hundred artist-run spaces and projects that are currently active or have recently ended in Chicago. But this is just the start: we hope to get many more through the online form where anyone can submit a new space to the map.
Contributions by: Agitator Gallery, Allison Peters Quinn, Annette LePique, Bad at Sports, Brandon Alvendia, Cecília Resende Santos, Christina Nafziger, Dan Gunn, Gareth Kaye, Hyde Park Art Center, James Schenck, Lori Waxman, Maddy Stocking, Margaret Welsh, S. Nicole Lane, Noah Hanna, Public Access, Terrain, Yollocalli
Research by: Cecília Resende Santos, Maddy Stocking, Mána Taylor Hjörleifsdóttir
Lead Editor: Marina Resende Santos
Edited by: Mairead Case. Nora Catlin, Ed Marszewski, Maddy Stocking, Nick Wylie
Creative Direction & Design: Some All None / Jeremiah Chiu & Itsyana Campa
Cover: Itsayana Campa
Dimensions: 9.75 x 11.75"
Materials: Newsprint
Public Media Institute
(Bridgeport)
Public Media Institute is a non-profit 501(c)3, community-based art & culture organization with a mission to create, incubate and sustain innovative and equitable cultural programming through it is our core programming platform: Lumpen Magazine, Co-Prosperity, Lumpen Radio, and Buddy, Enduring community partnerships, including those with Maria’s Community Bar, Kimski, and Marz Community Brewing bring expanded audiences for culture, journalism, and politics while helping us feed and celebrate with our neighbors.
