Join us for a potluck edition of Proximity Magazine Number 11, wherein we investigate the intersections of art, food, politics and social practice. We are following our noses and inhaling the increasing preoccupation of food being used in contemporary art. Our engagement with projects that have inspired us in recent editions of Proximity, Version Festivals and MDW fairs, and romps throughout our city’s art ecology has lead us to this inevitable feast. And of course the increasing collaboration between chefs and brewers with community groups and social causes has given us a pause to further consider this blossoming movement of culinary social art practice.

Please  prepare a course, a dish or an aperitif and send us your thoughts in a one paragraph pitch. We are seeking short and long form essays, briefs on historical artworks (we hope someone will create a directory of historical works), visual imagery, and your investigations into how the boundaries of art and food have been blurred, smoothed out and ingested.

Reservations at  edmarlumpen at gmail dot com. Our pitch deadline is March 15, 2013. Completed texts and works are due by April 15, 2013. We will  release the issue at a new endeavor  to be unveiled this Spring at Version Festival 13.

( Photo of Stefan Gross Sculpture  at Re: Rotterdam 2013 )

Our bud, Edie is having his first solo show this January 4 – February 16, 2013. with the Opening Reception onFriday January 4, 6-8PM.

See you there. From the announcement:

Thomas Robertello Gallery is pleased to present Memory Palaces; an exhibition of new drawings by Chicago-based artist Edie Fake. Comprised of fifteen drawings, Fake’s first solo show in Chicago is a city built from two places or directions: a series of gateways for departed friends and vividly patterned architectural spaces re-imagining Chicago’s queer history.

In his ecstatic gateways, Fake pays tribute, mourns the loss of, and meditates on the lives of departed friends. The ballpoint pen and gouache drawings take the form of thresholds, passageways, and transitional spaces using visually striking patterns and fantasy architecture. Fake’s pictorial spaces expand and collapse, memorializing lives and building a community of celebratory facades in honor of his friends.

Taken from fragments of Chicago’s buildings and history, Fake recreates and reincarnates the spaces once associated with LGBTI newspapers, feminist clinics, dance clubs, social spaces, punk venues, theaters, and other imagined spaces. Among the historic spaces from Chicago’s past depicted here are the Newberry Theatre – a gay xxx movie theater in the 1970s, Nightgowns – a queer artist space on the south side in the early 2000s, JANE – a radical undercover abortion service established in Chicago from 1969-1973, Killer Dyke – 1971 newspaper from Northeastern IL University, Blazing Star – newspaper and group based in the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union (CWLU) mid-1970s, La Mere Vipere – a gay bar on Halsted that became a pivotal venue in Chicago’s early punk scene (burned down in 1978), The Snake Pit – former Chicago gay bar (1970s), and Club LaRay – gay dance club and hub for dance music and voguing in the 80s.

Since moving back to Chicago in 2009, Fake’s artistic practice has centered around synthesizing the city’s gay history with a visionary landscape for the queer present. The buildings in his drawings are not about nostalgia for a lost time, instead, they are about re-awakening the impulse to create physical space for queer voices, lives and politics. They are decidedly shaped by real buildings in Chicago. Like the city itself, the buildings drawn are visually striking: ornate and formal details merged with the eclectic aesthetics of hand-painted signs, weathered awnings and makeshift repairs. The drawings engage the viewer with the history of a community in a way that inspires both investigation and response. These pieces act as visual bridges between former incarnations of local queer initiatives and blueprints for new and necessary resources.

January 25, 2013
7-11 pm

Please join us at the Co-Prosperity Sphere as we celebrate the release of the long awaited Comics Issue of Lumpen magazine. We haven’t done one since the 90′s and we are super thrilled to see a compilation of some of the best comic artists in America all contained in one juicy newsprint concoction.

We are mounting an exhibition of works by the artists featured in the issue. Complementary beverages will be served. There is no cover.

Enjoy works by:
Ryan Travis Christian
Andy Burkholder
Bernie McGovern
Ben Bertin
Blaise Larmee
Edie Fake
Grant Reynolds
Ben Marcus
Leslie Wiebeler – 2 pages
Jason Overby – 1 page
Nate Beaty
Max Morris
Joe Tallarico
Marieke McClendon
Nick Drnaso
Lyra Hill
Sara Drake
Lale Westvind
Eric Rivera
Carrie Vinarsky
Anya Davidson
George Hansen
Jeremy Tinder
Ian Mcduffie
Krystal Difronzo
Paul Nudd
Lizz Hickey
Marian Runk
Keith Herzik
Brooks Golden
Nick Williams
Trubble Club
Susan Sarandon
Luke Temby (Cupco)
Aaron Renier