Saturday, April 19, 2014

Chicago- Past and Present

Dinosaur-  The Field Museum, Chicago


“ I want to buy a gun,” said Tyler striding bare-foot through the busy Saturday open market in Chicago’s South Side, the murder capital of America.

 I pop my video camera inside my anorak. Just incase.
Maybe this was not such a great idea after all.
 Here I am on exchange from Glasgow School of Art to the Chicago School of the Art Institute and I had the idea of filming in this notorious area. My contacts assure me I am safe with Tyler.

The memory of that morning came flooding back today when I listened to an item on
 "The Zeitgeisters: Theaster Gates BBC Radio 4 on Theaster Gates, the conceptual artist based in this area of Chicago where he is renovating old buildings and selling bits of them off, carefully framed, to art collectors for eye-watering sums of money.

He is a conceptual artist with impeccable credentials who believes in the power of art for political purposes to regenerate whole communities.
 Find out more about this artist who challenges what it means to be an artist in todays.

As for the gun?
Well we stopped beside a big black limousine where two Afro Americans were sitting in the boot with their wares waiting for business.

“What you looking for?” said one.
 “ A gun.”
“What sort of gun?”
“Staple gun.”
They shake their heads. We walk on.
Phew!


And you can see a clip from that morning on YouTube The WoodLot.

No comments: