If you ask someone where to go to see art in Chicago, they will likely direct you to the Art Institute, or perhaps to the Daley Plaza Picasso and its nearby cousin, Alexander Calder’s Flamingo in Federal Plaza.
But to the junkyard at 30th Street and Kedzie? Probably not, even though this extravaganza of hand-painted advertising is one of the city’s most glorious examples of public art. To the thousands of stone carvings that line the Lake Michigan shore? Only a bit less unlikely, despite being the city’s most massive repository of outdoor sculpture.
Regardless of what adjective you attach to it — folk, outsider, vernacular, self-taught or anything else — we’re talking about art made by people with little or no formal art education, people who mostly don’t consider themselves artists. They make things as pastimes or to impress friends, maybe to advertise a small business. Rich in imagination, heedless of art world conventions, their creative expressions take surprising directions and put art in unexpected places across the city.
To find this art you will have to venture off the beaten paths, but casting a net for creativity beyond its traditional home in museums and galleries can make the city streets, shops and shorelines a lot more interesting.
Some unconventional makers have achieved worldwide acclaim. These self-taught artists, active mostly in the 20th century, include Henry Darger, the epic-making reclusive janitor, and Lee Godie, the well-known street person and portraitist. There was Joseph Yoakum, whose visionary landscapes inspired generations of fine artists, and William Dawson, who worked at the South Water Market when he wasn’t carving evocative sculptures.
There were immigrants like the fantastical sculptor Derek Webster (from Honduras), the metal worker Stanley Szwarc and the sculptor and painter Bruno Sowa (both from Poland), and Drossos Skyllas (from Greece), a creator of exquisitely detailed paintings. Many of these creators have gained recognition, and more will surely do so in the future. But vaster numbers have contributed to the city’s artistic landscape anonymously.
Perhaps their most spectacular, if least known, contribution is the collection of rock carvings on the limestone stepstones that survive along sections of the lakefront. Starting at the Indiana state line and carved as early as 1930, these range from simple initials and lovers’ hearts to portraits, cryptic messages and elaborate mythological scenes.
Other anonymous creators — sometimes professionals, but most often those who were not intentionally “making art” — have supplied signs and “muffler man” sculptures to promote automotive businesses, like the signs at Frank’s West Side Auto Parts (30th and Kedzie) or the muffler man at 6 Stars Auto (Lawrence near Sacramento). Or lovingly rendered images for fast-food stands, like the gyros fantasy at Nick’s Drive-In (Harlem just north of Touhy). Or prosaic but lively representations of food and shoppers for local grocers, like the one at Al Jou Food Mart (Pulaski at Division).
The idea that art can be found anywhere has resonated strongly in Chicago, in part through the efforts of School of the Art Institute teachers like Ray Yoshida and Whitney Halstead, who encouraged their students to look for art all around them, including, notably, the Maxwell Street market.
Although Maxwell Street may be a shadow of its former self, it’s still possible to stumble across interesting stuff there. The same goes for the city’s other flea markets, thrift stores and estate sales. Even residential blocks can hold diamonds in the rough for those who are looking: Central Park Avenue, south of Peterson, sports a house decorated like a giant face, and you can find a handmade folk art fence on Bell, south of Bowmanville Avenue.
If you want to see this kind of art in a more formal location, there’s the Intuit Museum of Intuitive and Outsider Art (although it will close after Labor Day for renovations that are expected to last through next summer; look for a pop-up exhibit or two in the meantime). A few independent galleries, like Carl Hammer, show this work, and Project Onward is home to a number of artists who are creating outside the standard channels.
Still, this art is mostly not found in museums and galleries —i t’s inherently evanescent. Creative spectacles, like the house once covered with crosses on Chestnut Street near Ashland, disappear in the absence of their creators. Many of the self-taught artists who once showed their work downtown, like Godie or Wesley Willis, have died, although if you’re lucky, you might still encounter the Peace Prophet with her drawings on a Loop street corner.
Shop signs usually vanish within years of their erection, faded from the weather or disappearing with the business. Many enterprises now deploy manufactured advertising signs, rather than relying on handmade imagery, but a few still rely on original art for their advertising.
All in all, there’s no telling what you might find in the wild if you keep your eyes open.
