Peripheral Vision: A Chicago Perimeter Ride project (2015-ongoing)

exhibition closing ride Sunday, March 26th 9am
Compound Yellow
244 Lake Street
Oak Park, IL

"Here's the three Rs -- Repetition. Repetition. Repetition." -- Mark e. Smith (the Fall)

Is the presence of a bicycle in an art gallery an inevitable Duchampian gesture, or is it sometimes just Freud's cigar?  A bicycle without a cyclist is simply a potential ride, while a cyclist without a bicycle is a bi-ped.

The Chicago Perimeter Ride is a fleeting, ephemeral yet concrete, street traffic performance staged site-specific on the outskirts and along the city limits of Chicago. The streets serve as a fringe theater where the methodical, methodized actor-cyclist performs his routine. This ritual ride is repeated like a meditation, a prayer, poem, a song.

The photographic canvases in this exhibition contextualize the space, the cityscape, in which the exercise is negotiated and performed -- the lakefront, Burnham Greenway, brownfields, arterial and residential streets,  barber shops, hot dog stands, liquor stores and tap rooms, tamale carts, taverns, tire shops, taquerias, corner stores / bodegas, car washes, auto parts & repair, stranded boats and trailers, pink walls,  graffiti scrawls, Virgin Marys and of Guadalupe, pylons and bridges, railroad crossings and church crosses, the Chicago and Calumet rivers, the Sanitary and Ship Canal, Wolf Lake, frozen beaches and on-ramp interstate wetlands, banquet halls, pizza joints, beauty salons, sub shops, paleterias and neverias, day care centers and cleaners, motels and shrimp shacks, travel agencies and print shops, Nicky's -- the home of the Big Baby, a power plant and a comfort station, American Legion posts and tanks along the border, Dinette World and dollar stores, joyerias and Jewel Stores, muffler men and upholstery shops, and the countless apartments above the shop or bar.  Given the scope and scale of this project and its highly mobile nature, I hope to present multiple iterations at various locations throughout the city over time.

In conjunction with the closing of the show in late March, I will invite all that are interested to join me on a Perimeter Ride, starting at Promontory Point in Hyde Park. We will stop at various select points along the route for refreshments, including a stop at Compound Yellow.