Pod People Take Over
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But Morrison is his own man. Last Saturday afternoon, midway through what used to be called the Pilsen East Artists’ Open House, he mustered his forces. A ragtag band of 15 or 20 celebrants in fuzzy animal suits and sombreros marched down Podville’s main artery to protest what they believe has become an exclusive and divisive event. In this, its 32nd year, the weekend studio walk emerged with a new name: the Chicago Arts District Artists’ Open House, and artists in both west Pilsen and non-Pod east Pilsen were noticeably absent from the official map. Morrison says the annual event and the Chicago Arts District name (applied by a city study to Pilsen as a whole) have been co-opted to promote Podmajersky buildings and their tenants. Peering out from behind a cage attached to his glasses, booming through a bullhorn, “There’s a lot more in Pilsen than what’s on the map,” Morrison took his case to the street. He handed visitors photocopies of his own, hastily compiled alternate guide listing ten additional stops, some of them as far west as Damen.
This year, there was retrenchment. The Podmajerskys (John II and his wife, Annelies, have been joined by John III) dropped the $50 artist’s fee for their tenants, appointed a staff member to manage the event (it had previously been volunteer-run), moved the deadline for registration up several months, and sent out a letter announcing that the open house needed to “scale down” in size while attempting to attract “a much wider group of qualified art buyers….People we want to attract are those who have the capacity to buy or to make offers of opportunities.” Morrison says many non-Pods didn’t receive this letter and were unaware of the early deadline; photographer Jeff Mickey, who works on 22nd, says the number of communal spaces that had been available in the past was scaled down too. Podmajersky tenants were limited to two guest artists per ground-floor studio.
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Take an artist to lunch.
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