August was august. We had two receptions for Claire Arctander—one in the alley behind her house somehow both near Logan Square and in Logan Square and one as part of the lovely Terrain Biennial in Oak Park. In addition to Arctander’s bumper sticker—for femicultures—she made two series of currency refacing stickers to help speed the need for women on American bills. She made stickers with Maya Angelou, Queen Liliʻuokalani, Angela Davis, An Ice Cream Cone, Yayoi Kusama, Beyoncé (Knowles), Lily Tomlin, Nina Simone, Catherine Opie, Georgia O’Keeffe, Kara Walker and Jane Addams which are already in circulation. Email us for your own set (a dollar each or ten dollars for all twelve). We served ice cream and Paul Germanos took some great photographs. We won that one.

September brings us our most ambitious collaborative project, and the final show of season two. Anthony Romero and Josh Rios have a fascinating project together that has taken them from Art in These Times to Gallery 400 to Sector 2337 to Andrea Meislin Gallery and beyond, organizing screenings, making sculptures and giving performances. They’ve enlisted Eric J. Garcia, who among many wonderful accolades is, like the car and its owners, a New Mexican.

For their sticker—each individually hemmed by real life artists—they’re continuing their embodied research into Chicanafuturism, a thread that’s been woven throughout their projects. The sticker itself—always a secret until the ceremonial affixing—rides low, takes space as a place and is impeccably rendered by genius draughtsman Garcia. There might be a smoke machine, there might be snacks from the future, there might be selections from the Great Tunes archive of great tunes. The car doesn’t have a spoiler, so we insist on keeping secrets.

Looking forward (windshields being what they are), we’re also excited to be a part of the mammoth Chances Dances 10-year retrospective taking place all over the city. We’ll be featuring the work of comics artist and journalist Anne Elizabeth Moore as part of the closing reception at Gallery 400. Not to honk our own horn, but it’s another amazing bumper sticker surrounded by the best paratext funny can buy.

ANTHONY ROMERO and JOSH RIOS, both originally from south Texas, now live and work in Chicago. Over the past several years they have been developing various performances, 2 and 3 dimensional works, curatorial projects, installations, writings, and screenings that deal with the key experiences of being Mexican origin in the US. Broadly speaking, their projects center on contemporary Chicana/o aesthetics, elided histories, and the larger themes of US/Mexico relations.

ERIC J. GARCIA is known for mixing history and humor to critique contemporary society. Working in an assortment of media, from hand-printed posters, to syndicated political cartoons, to sculptural installations, Garcia’s art is as much about craft and aesthetics as it is about politics.

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Tags: Anthony Romero, Eric J. Garcia, JOSH RIOS, Pilsen, trunk show