Julia Arredondo, Stella Brown, William Camargo & Yvette Mayorga, Monica Chadha & Carlo Parente, Raul De Lara, Angela Davis Fegan, Alejandro Jimenez Flores, Alfredo Garcia, Danny Giles & Sharmyn Cruz Rivera, Jaclyn Jacunski, Leo Kaplan, Morten Kvamme, Kirsten Leenaars, Ruslana Lichtzier, Fran Lightbound, Kelly Lloyd, Lora Lode, John Lusis, Jesse Malmed, Nicole Marroquin, Victoria Martinez, Gabriel Montero, Nuria Montiel, Josh Rios, Bailey Romaine, Luis Rodriguez Rosario, Edra Soto, Third Object (Ann Meisinger, Raven Falquez Munsell, Gan Uyeda), Selina Trepp, Rafael E. Vera, Lisa Vinebaum, Aaron Walker, and Latham Zearfoss.

Organized by Brandon Alvendia and Greg Ruffing.

Spring is here and the flowers will bloom as boldly as the coroplast signs announcing the hottest-of-the-hot real estate opportunities and open-houses galore. With them, the ambitions of the creative class often pave the way for the investment class to foist cranes into many a busy bike lane and impose more formulaic zombie urbanism into our storied cityscape – transforming large swaths of neighborhoods into veritable open-air shopping mall entertainment complexes, while other areas remain tragically under-resourced. Colorful histories are literally and figuratively painted over with zeal in the cold yet fashionable flat grey of 21st century corporate urban renewal.

It is in context of the ongoing resistance to a hubris-in-chief who made a name developing real estate (among other problematic ventures), an endangered national art fund, a pushback against “art-washing”, and a world dividing further and further along spatial and cultural lines, that this exhibition gains a necessary urgency.

Standards Variance is a group show of speculative proposals around what is possible for urban space (empty lots, abandoned buildings, storefronts, green-space, etc.) in Chicago.

Something radical?
Something practical?
Something fantastical?

What would it look like? What would happen there? How would it function? What needs or wants might it help fulfill that perhaps aren’t currently being addressed?

Standards Variance considers what the future might hold for urban space in this new era of volatile market optimism, political turbulence, and widespread uncertainty. It seeks to open a discussion around speculation of land, resources, and real estate – typically centered on economic outcomes and future profit potential – toward a more expansive and inclusive set of concerns derived from a grassroots level. This project is not necessarily against development – but it is, in many ways, anti-developer.

The participants were invited to devise alternative forms of “speculation” that are rooted in a local right to self-determination: the latent desires, aspirations, and needs of communities. Such perspectives are often overlooked, ignored, or given lip-service in top-down, bureaucratic urban planning and “placemaking” – where real estate developers, planners, markets, and governments are not adequately accountable to residents. This unjust lack of voice becomes especially devastating in the many urban neighborhoods dealing with gentrification and displacement.

Standards Variance enlists the creative thinking of artists and non-artists alike to imagine alternative notions of urban space that are perhaps more egalitarian, useful, critical, inclusive, accessible, or progressive, while at the same potentially utopian, whimsical, anti-commercial, experimental, absurd, far-fetched, etc. The proposals needed not consider any limitations in budget, zoning, availability of space, feasibility, or the laws of physics. We recognize, embrace, and indeed hope that this would yield a wide variety of incongruent or conflicting proposals, whose differences would reflect something of the diversity of our communities as well as the different modes of commitment to them.

The centerpiece of Standards Variance is an installation of 30+ speculative proposals mounted around the gallery on custom-built displays. A rotating selection of the proposals will be visible in the storefront’s large picture windows, subtly mimicking the property listing arrays often hung grid-like in realtor office windows. Supplementing these displays will be a modest library of source material available to peruse, as well as takeaway objects collected specifically for this exhibition. Opportunities will also be provided for visitors to craft their own responses and proposals into the mix. At the close of the exhibition, a digital publication, complete with essays by the organizers, will be released to document all the proposals and other content generated during the run of the show.

Official Website

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Tags: Aaron Walker, Alejandro Jimenez Flores, Alfredo Garcia, Angela Davis Fegan, Bailey Romaine, Chicago, Danny Giles & Sharmyn Cruz Rivera, Edra Soto, Fran Lightbound, Gabriel Montero, Gan Uyeda, Humboldt Park, Jaclyn Jacunski, Jesse Malmed, John Lusis, JOSH RIOS, Julia Arredondo, Kelly Lloyd, Kirsten Leenaars, Latham Zearfoss, Leo Kaplan, Lisa Vinebaum, Lora Lode, Luis Rodríguez Rosario, Monica Chadha & Carlo Parente, Morten Kvamme, Nicole Marroquin, Nuria Montiel, Public Access, Rafael E. Vera, Raul De Lara, Raven Falquez Munsell, Ruslana LICHTZIER, Selina Trepp, Stella Brown, Third Object (Ann Meisinger, Victoria Martinez, William Camargo & Yvette Mayorga