Wicker Park’s Buddy gallery has thrown its final party so many times that it’s started to seem like the live/work/play space that cried wolf. But last Friday’s farewell was, sadly enough, the real thing. By the time you read this, Buddy will be history. Its three-year lease ran out in June and its six or so inhabitants, plus a couple people with offices there, have to clear out ASAP.
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Several hundred people showed up at last weekend’s for-real, no-take-backs final final-party, a three-room mock rave called Exodus complete with free glow sticks, suckers, and pacifiers at the door. To prevent people from throwing bottles at passing el trains or pissing in the alley, Ed had erected fences along the rooftop’s perimeter. We felt like caged animals and acted accordingly. A punch grazed my face when I accidentally found myself in the middle of a fistfight. Then a dude grabbed one of my pigtails and shook my head violently. I left through the back alley, where my boyfriend was stopped and searched by the police for no apparent reason. Exodus was hard and dirty and dangerous, but not in any of the ways you’d hope. It wasn’t at all the way I want to remember the place that cracked open my head and gave names to ideas that had been rattling around in there with nothing to stick to.
My first Buddy party was in the summer of 2002, a month or two after the place opened. It was an 80s-themed evening called Lumpenwave, cohosted by Heaven Gallery. A thousand people squeezed in to listen to Ed’s first band, Tango & Cash, run through a medley of 80s hits. It was all very ironic and insular and not my cup of tea.
One of my favorite regular Buddy events, 20x20x20, held on or near the 20th of each month, was a nerdy show-and-tell. Anyone could sign up via e-mail and present a slide show of 20 images, with 20 seconds to explain each one. The presentations ranged from the practical (how to use your iPod to download a whole operating system off any computer at the Apple store, how to make kombucha tea) to the absurd (most memorably a historical overview of elves in art, from fairy tales to Alf).
Buddy finally inspired me to quit my day job. It gave me a new measure of freedom and changed my feelings about friendship, romance, art, politics, and the business of everyday life.
