This February has been really busy for us here at Public Media Institute and Proximity magazineland. This weekend marks an end to our recent programming madness . We hope the following events will provide motivation for you to battle this Chicago winter and give you a chance to check out some exciting new shit.
On Thursday [...]

A few weeks ago we were given the opportunity to work with the Chicago Loop Alliance, a chamber of commerce-like organization that serves the downtown loop area merchants. They started their Pop-Up Art Loop gallery project and gave us the old Ritz Camera store to engage with a project.
We are opening a new joint project [...]

We are excited about the release of another issue of our sister publication, Lumpen magazine. Issue 114 should be out this Friday, February 5, during the Save the Whale fundraiser at the Co-Prosperity Sphere.  Plural Design’s tender care in creative direction makes printing on paper worth it.

Good magazine and coudal tipped us off to this.

Nancy Klehm is featured in Time Magazine discussing Humanure.

“At one point, Klehm invited her “nutrient loopers” to a potluck and was surprised to see who had agreed to participate. “It was the white collar people, not the ragtag anarchists. Mostly, they were delighted that they got this wacky proposal,” she says. “They didn’t know how [...]

The Artists Run Chicago Digest is out. Researchers, historians and art educators should not sleep on the beautifully JNL designed, limited edition journal. Co-produced by Green Lantern Press and threewalls it contains:
Interviews, essays and responses along with floorplans, exhibition histories and other visuals archive and present a 10-year time period in Chicago’s artist-run culture while [...]

Bad At Sports interviews Temporary Services.
Our patron, Reuben Kincaid, brings the Radar Eyes print show to NY.
Art Review magazine’s Power 100 meet the The Top 20 Most Powerless People in the Art World
Saturday November 7 is Media Democracy Day.
A sweet Satellite Alphabet set

threewalls and TheGreen Lantern Press release The Artist’s Run Chicago Digest at HPAC [...]

Nate, our captain of tranquility, suggests we all listen to philosopher Boris Groys on the aesthetic responsibility via Frieze podcast
Writer, curator and philosopher Boris Groys gave a keynote lecture on how design today functions as a leading medium of self–revelation and self–positioning in public space

We are pleased to announce that PR, our companion publication, now has its own home here at proximitymagazine.com.
PR is published in between each issue of PROXIMITY. It includes reviews, extended essays and a large graphic/art piece  printed in a broadsheet style. You can find PR all over Chicago and they are FREE. So while you [...]

Don’t miss these recent pieces about making art in Chicago from our local artblogosphere:
New City Art’s Art School Unconfidential: What the city’s burgeoning MFA programs mean for the future of artists in Chicago is a great read comparing the students and programs of the big 5 Chicago universities.
The Bad At Sports Artists Run Chicago Episode [...]

On Sunday May 31, 2009  Public Media Insitute (Proximity’s dot.org parent) will release issue #002 of Pr, our broadsheet newsletter,  at the Hyde Park Art Center. It is part of the Artists Run Chicago Exhibition and features and essay about the history of artist-run spaces in Chicago from the last 25 years by Dan Gunn. [...]

This Sunday, May 10 the Hyde Park Art Center will open its Artists Run Chicago show in Gallery 1. Proximity and its related tentacles will  participate in quite a few ways.  First we asked our friend Michael T Rea to bring over his Spacesuit for Steven Hawking to represent Reuben Kincaid Artist Management. As part [...]

One of the best shows to have debuted since last year is Cody Hudson’s and Corey Arnold’s jam at the Andrew Rafacz Gallery. Take take a peak before the show comes down May 9.  If you don’t know Hudson you should read this recent interview conducted by the cats that design Proximity magazine: The Post [...]

Our release party last Saturday was a blast. Thanks for coming. Even if you didn’t get a fresh copy of the new publications  we will make it easy for you. Download a preview copy of  Matériel at the magazine’s website.  You can purchase one at Golden Age, Quimbys, No Coast, Rotofugi, and Penelope’s. They [...]

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS FOR MONU – magazine on urbanism #11 – CLEAN URBANISM
Download the new Call for Submission – Poster for Clean Urbanism and post it in your faculty!
When it comes to Clean Urbanism – i.e. an [...]

Margot Harrington and Chad Kouri just finished designing our new sister publication,  Pr. Pr is a “Posterletter”–half newsletter and half poster–and it rocks!  The over sized broadsheet confabulation features an interview with Paul Chan, whose recent exhibition at the Renaissance Society garnered rave reviews.
Also featured is a beautiful poster designed by Margot and inspired by [...]

Nor were we. We were looking for some news regarding the big spring art kick off in NYC and found a few crumbs worth digesting about the Armory Show and other fairs.
Paddy Johnson’s reliable commentary and rated reviews can be found here.
Some NYT items:
Toplessness and Taxidermy in a Bottoming Market
A Painting Called Good, but Only [...]

Momus, aka Nick Currie, blogs about the death of print. It’s not looking good for pulp in Chicago after the bankruptsies of the Tribune and The Chicago Reader as well as the collapse of print titles like Stop Smiling and Prompt. One interesting fact he pulled out is that for  every magazine pronounced dead in [...]

We are sending our sort of top secret broadside magazine project to the printers this week. Matériel is an oversized, newsprint publication that’s a collection of the best/brightest designers/illustrators/photographers work we can find – creating a showcase for their submitted work.  It’s a sister magazine to Proximity providing a ‘design’ counterpoint to Prox’s ‘art’ focus. [...]

Proximity was inspired in part by Fucking Good Art, a Rotterdam-based art rag that has taken flight and finds itself coming out with special issues from festivals and biennials from all around Europe. Given our focus in interpreting the machinations of various art worlds we find their Swiss Issue instructive and illuminating:
‘Greed is the [...]

Last month our hard working friends at Area Magazine launched this interesting survey and questionnaire about making socially engaged art in Chicago . We post this link to give you a nice survey of the great projects and the processes behind them.
The Questions:
* Who is your audience and how does your work mobilize them toward [...]