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Joseph Tabet has produced the annual Navy Pier sculpture exhibit since 2001, when it fell in his lap. But earlier this year he had to rethink it. The Pier Walk, which once stretched the entire length of the pier, had shrunk in recent seasons and been banished to the little traffic-circle park in front of the entrance. Art Chicago, Pier Walk’s sister event, had decamped, its replacement had vanished, and it looked like the pier itself would soon be under construction. Given all this, Tabet decided to reinvent Pier Walk as a year-round series of overlapping solo shows, curated by Dave Hickey and David Pagel, which over the next three years would feature around 20 artists. Tabet says that plan is still in the works; it just didn’t come together this year. Instead, with Pier Walk off the table, he surfaced a block west, curating a show that recently opened at the new Starr Gallery, 435 E. Illinois. That’s the building that used to be North Pier Terminal, which has been reborn as the River East Art Center.
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The transformation is the work of MCL Companies, which owns the building and the 13 acres around it that once belonged to the Chicago Dock and Canal Trust. MCL president Daniel McLean and a group of prominent local investors bought the property in the late 1990s and launched a condominium development there (with hotel, movie theater, and shops) that will include about 2,000 residential units by its scheduled completion in 2010. If things go according to plan, the terminal building will grow two stories and its offices will be converted to residential units, with 140,000 square feet on the street and lower levels devoted to an arts hub clearly intended to add character to the canyonesque neighborhood. There are eight gallery spaces on the main floor, six of which are spoken for: the tenants so far are Starr Gallery (owned by MCL), Inspire Fine Art, Thomas Gathman, Lora D, and Ogilvie/Pertl. The sixth gallery tenant will be Columbia College, and by January the center expects to complete 22 artists’ studios that will come with subsidized rent, marketing services, and a resident artists’ gallery. Center head Mikki Markowicz says she doesn’t yet have firm rental prices for the studios, but she expects brisk interest and is setting up a jury process to decide who’ll get them.
Strapped on the Mural Mile
aWith construction still on hold and the state sitting on the cash he says it promised, Museum of Broadcast Communications president Bruce DuMont is touting “the opportunity of a lifetime”: naming rights to the museum, with “perpetual recognition on State Street” running a mere $7 million, about what it’ll take to get the hard hats back on the job.
