Tag Archive for 'MDW Fair'

Weekly Top 10 Quimby Bestsellers

Published on October 18, 2011 0 Comments


Before we jump into this weeks Top 10, just a note to let you know we will be tabling at The MDW Fair this coming weekend (Oct 21st-23rd). This fair showcases solo and duo exhibitions curated by small not-for-profits, artist-run spaces, independent galleries, collectives and curators from around the country and a whole lot more. The fair starts on Fri the 21st, but we’ll be tabling on Sat/Sun. For more info: mdwfair.org

That makes a full month that Optic Nerve #12 has been in the top 10, slowly but surely moving up from where it debuted at #3, then hanging out at #2 for a few weeks, and then this week #1. A bunch of the usual suspects (Bust, Hi-Fructose) but then some that I don’t think have been on our top 10: Likes Dislikes and Piano Rats. Congrats small publishers!

1. Optic Nerve #12 by Adrian Tomine (D&Q) $5.95 – Two pitch-perfect stories of rejection, imperfection, and relationship drama, each ending on a surprisingly uplifting note. “Hortisculpture” pushes Tomine into a stylistic camp with Sammy Harkham, Jordan Crane, Chuck Forsman and Kevin Huizenga – perhaps more than ever before. The story works with a “Chalky White”-ish suburban everyman and his tempered ambitions, but camps up the visual style into a Marmaduke-y newspaper strip aesthetic. The effect is similar to the trickiness of his wedding planning comics. The second half is a repolishing of his “Amber Sweet” college girl mistaken for porn star plot. Plus we get a glimpse into Tomine’s sad-sack mailbox, and some self-aware griping about putting out comics issue by issue.  -EF

2. The Death Ray by Daniel Clowes (D&Q) $19.95 – Coming-of-age-as-comic-book-parable-told-as-comic-book. Another Clowes mindfuck, conveniently in gorgeous hardcover.

3. Bust Oct Nov 11 $4.99

4. Hi Fructose #21 $6.95

5. The Logan Square Literary Review #8 Fall 11 $5.00 – Don’t miss the release event here at Quimby’s Fri 10/28 for this issue Halloween weekend with the Logan Square Literary Review Reads: Halloween Edition! Grab your pumpkin beers and trick-or-treat bags and prepare yourself for the spooky, scary and creepy as read by: Lara Levitan, Michael McCauley, Alicia Hilton and others!

6. Likes Dislikes #1 by Lacey Hedtke $2.00 – As per the Microcosm website: A great little slice of personality from Lacey’s via her extensive lists of likes and dislikes. Some highlights include: Likes: “The thought that Aliens and Humans might someday become one.” “What Illegal things arose out of prohibition” “talking about conspiracies” Dislikes: “Having to break into a place you have the key to.” “Realizing you like your boyfriend’s friends more than you like him” “Playing with silly putty after someone with warts” “Undressing a man only to find he has creepy underwear” With things like this, we get a gradual growing depth into what Lacey is all about and even her seeming contradictions. We smile at shared feeling and cringe at a horrible experience we haven’t yet lived through.

7. Everything Dies #7 by Box Brown (Microcosm) $5.00 – “Issue seven is a comic retelling of the pan-cultural “flood myth.” Here we see Sumerian wind god Enlil (a total badass jerk  a la an evil pro-wrestler) setting out to destroy the newly-created people of the Earth. The “Noah” of this polytheistic ark story is King Ziasudra, and his trajectory and fate are much different than the Christian Biblical version. Beautifully drawn and deep-packed with “the things that make you go hmm,”  Everything Dies will keep you reassessing who we are and what we’ve built our shared narrative from.” – Microcosm Synopsis

8. Gaylord Phoenix by Edie Fake (Secret Acres) $17.95 – All-Gaylord-All-Phoenix-All-In-One, Dr. Bronner’s Style.

9. Just Kids by Patti Smith (Ecco) $16.00

10. Piano Rats by Franki Elliot (Curbside Splendor) $10.00 – Elliot’s poems dissect the 9,000 year gap between the breakfast and the bus ride, the eons between bodies and the slick sopes of memory.  -EF

Want your zine, comic or book to be in the top 10 and get some exposure? Tell your friends to come in and get it.

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Hear ye Hear ye! Opportunities For You

Published on March 11, 2011 0 Comments

Here’s some oppportunities to submit your work or ideas that we thought you might appreciate:

For Version 11 Festival and Related Activity:

Version 11: The Community
April 22 to May 1, 2011
Chicago • USA

A Call For Proposals.
Deadline March 26, 2011

“These years of recession, insolvency, uncertainty, and calamity have affected us in ways we couldn’tve imagined before. The debt crisis, atomized and divisive political culture, a lethargic economy that sees almost one of out of eight people out of work, and attacks on our collective social welfare can only mean one thing: It’s gonna get worse before it gets better.

But there is hope. In the dusty corners of the world, individuals, friends, collaborators, and affinity groups are cementing bonds and creating methods for survival in this so-called “marketplace” where we all work, play, and inhabit. These artists, art workers, writers, activists, and organizers (also their enthusiasts, supporters, and fans) still believe in growing the gardens of our social and cultural ecology, despite the hardships we collectively endure.

Version 11 is a celebration of the Chicago communities — projects, spaces, groups, individuals — creating their own strategies for participatory economies,  co-prosperity, and the pursuit of genuine happiness. Version will demonstrate the possible, celebrate the impossible, and showcase the ingenuity, spirit and passion that create The Community we aspire to take part in together. This is an invitation to share your community, your goals, your dreams for a better Community of the Future. It’s all we have left.

Produced by the Public Media Institute, a non profit 501(c)(3) arts organization, Version is an annual arts convergence that brings together hundreds of artists, cultural workers, and educators from around the world to present some of the most challenging ideas and progressive art initiatives of our day. The ten day festival showcases emerging trends in art, technology and music.

The festival presents a diverse program of activities featuring an exposition/art fair called The MDW Fair, guest curated exhibitions, a massive reenactment of the Haymarket Square riot, community garden projects, public interventions, video screenings, performances, live art, presentations, talks, workshops, art rendezvous and action.

Email Proposals with Subject Line: Version 11 to edmarlumpen (at) gmail.com

Please send us a 100-300 word description of your proposal.

We are accepting proposals for these platforms:

Free University (FREE U)
Each year Version features workshops, presentations, demonstrations, talks, lectures and classes within the framework of the Free University platform. Ideas for provocations and projects as well as instructional guides, lecture and class ideas are welcome.

Performance/ Interventions/ Mobile Projects
Performance art in site specific locations, picnics, tours, public interventions, asphalt canoeing, anarchist marching bands, creative disturbances in public space are important components of the festival. Initiatvies by space hijackers and performance artists of all stripes welcome.

Call for TEXTS Proximity 009
This year Proximity magazine will be releasing it’s Community themed issue covering the Chicago art worlds. It’s a revisiting of issues addressed in Issue #1. Send a proposal very very soon.

The MDW Fair: visual arts landing in Chicago
CHICAGO: threewalls, Roots and Culture and Public Media Institute announce The MDW Fair, a gathering of alternative art initiatives, spaces, galleries and artist groups from the Chicago metropolitan area. Held April 22-23, 2011 at The Iron Studios, 3636 S. Iron Street, The MDW Fair will demonstrate the diversity, strength and vision of the people/places making it happen in the art ecology of our region.

The fair features for-profit, 501(c)3, and commercial and unincorporated galleries, independent curatorial projects and publishers and media groups in over 25,000 square feet of exhibition space that includes a 10,000 square foot sculpture garden with work by local artists. The MDW Fair is a manifestation of the collective spirit behind the region’s most innovative visual cultural organizers, focusing on the breadth of work done here by artists and arts-facilitators alike. Participants include: threewalls, Roots and Culture, Reuben Kincaid, ebersmoore, Antenna, OxBow, The Suburban, ACRE, Iceberg Projects, The Post Family and more.

The MDW Fair is currently accepting proposals from independent curators due April 1st. Please send a project description and up to 10 images of proposed work to mdwfair@gmail(dot)com. “


From The Wunderkabinet:

“We’ve played our exhibitions close to the heart of late and forgone on the open calls, but the upcoming transformation of The Wunderkabinet into No. 3/The Reading Raum has us wanting to reach out to writers and zinesters around the globe. We’ll be splitting the kabinet into two components: ‘for sale’ & ‘read-only’. This means that if you’re more into the collecting than the making, you could lend or donate zines to the exhibition. Of course, if you’re a maker of zines, books, and related ephemera, we want to hear from you, too! The deadline to get in touch with us is March 25 – please do so if you have any questions. Submission guidelines can be found HERE! No. 3 will open in mid-May and run for the summer.”

Thanks to Edmar  and Becky for the info!

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