Editors: Mairead Case, Rachel and Ed Marzewski
Chicago: Proximity Magazine, Spring/Summer 2010
Pages: 160
Dimensions: 7 in x 9.5 in
Cover: soft
Binding: perfect bound
Process: digital
Color: full color cover and limited number of pages, mostly b&w
Edition size: unknown
ISBN: none

From the editors:

The folks at this magazine believe it’s important to practice what you preach.

So we are proud to say this Proximity was released at Version Festival, one of our many projects. We think our annual art festival, now in its ninth year, is a great experiment in connecting communities, groups, and individuals to share what we think a robust and diverse art world should look like. And we think the future of the art world can be found in people and places like Seripop, Telefantasy Studios, Gay Beast, the Benton House, Chris Larson, the Midcoast Free School, Paul Durica, and many of the participants in our artist-run affair.

It’s no coincidence that you heard about some of these people in the pages of Proximity, and it’s also no coincidence that this magazine was born at Version Festival. We are constantly experimenting with new formats and ideas to present at the festivals and spaces. They often cross-fertilize each other. And the results are here, in your hands.

Also not a coincidence: this issue is themed “A Catalog of Strategies.” It features a short, by no means definitive annotated directory of groups, projects, organizations, and individuals, all engaged with the paradoxes of our contemporary world. All worth looking into. Take notes! We hope the list works as an entry point for those interested in interpreting, in slowing down the humongous bombardment of information stomping across our screens. Some of the subjects and artists mentioned are engaged in micropolitical acts, in movements we think should be franchised or duplicated. Some fail beautifully every day, which is something we should all aspire to do. (There should be a rating system, but we ran out of time.)

Article-wise, this issue features texts that give context to our catalog and hope to the environment we are trying to create. Here in Chicago, we know groups and individuals who continue to open new spaces, tend their community gardens, roast their own coffee beans, create products to fund their initiatives, open public libraries, and experiment with new pedagogical models. All those folks are in these pages, plus interventionist histories from Jim Duignan and Greg Sholette, a powerful interview with Aaron Hughes and Nicolas Lampert, and a pedway tour with Hui-min Tsen. When we started Proximity a few years ago, we lodged ourselves at the crossroads of various practices that have emerged in the Midwest over the past decades. In our first issue we mentioned that Chicago was the capital of Art and Activism. It still is. As we enter our third year you will see some changes as we re-calibrate the magazine. We’ll keep what you love and engage with a few more projects. Stay tuned, and see you on the barricades.