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"Art is Business" 

http://blackartinamerica.com/profiles/blogs/producer-s-notes-lavon-pettis-chicago


https://soundcloud.com/nrm-perkulator-tm/alpha-bruton-curator-phanton-gallery-chicago

Photo Credit BAIA Najee Dorsey
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6144516789776C05

Copper Press posted by Royce Dean November 2009





Tali Farchi, Royce Deans
Collaboration, ArtPrize Jukebox 


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Juli 2011
Kulturfuhrer fur Pankow und Weissensee

Events, Interviews // AMP-CHI: A Creative Collaboration by Tempestt Hazel on November 15ember, 2010


Newcity.com
Beyond the Loop: the Pop-up scene is contagious
By Lauren Viera, the Tribune reporter
October 15, 2010
Beyond the Loop: Pop-up location is infectious.
Lauren Viera, Tribune reporter

Pop-Up Art Loop is one of the city's best-known temporary gallery initiatives, but it wasn't the first — and it's certainly not the last.

Alpha Bruton has been bringing art to vacant spaces all over town via the Phantom Gallery Chicago Network, which she founded in 2005. As the collaborative organization's chief curator, she has since helped install art in spaces all over Chicago, from East Garfield Park's Madison Corridor (via LISC Chicago's New Communities program) to otherwise vacant commercial real estate in the South Loop, with the help of real estate agencies.

"It was hard at the beginning because people didn't get it," Bruton says of her fledgling years curating phantom installations. She has since collaborated with enthusiasts in Hyde Park, Wicker Park, and, most recently, Logan Square, whose newly founded Independent Artists & Merchants of Logan Square (I AM Logan Square) is working toward pop-up programming of its own. In the coming months, collectors' circle events will help drive interest, and pop-up galleries will begin to sprout along Milwaukee Avenue, a corridor that 35th Ward Ald. Rey Colon deems "plagued" with empty storefronts.

"There is already momentum in the area becoming arts-friendly," Colon said. "I'm happy to report that right in that area, we have the potential for housing artists and actually having them fill some of these empty storefronts with pop-up galleries."

Art-centric Pilsen has been similarly plagued for years. Still, it wasn't until last spring that real estate magnate Podmajersky Inc., which has a monopoly on the neighborhood's live-work storefronts and lofts, approached local multi-use exhibitioners at Chicago Urban Arts Society for help.

"They call them showPODS, but they're pop-ups," said Chicago Urban Arts Society executive director Lauren Pacheco, who co-founded the organization in 2006 with brother Peter Kepha. The pair curated and installed work by local printmakers, painters, furniture designers, and others in seven storefronts along South Halsted Street.

Similar initiatives have taken off in neighborhoods such as Wicker Park, Bucktown, West Loop, and specific addresses like the Merchandise Mart. For example, the Chicago Artists' Coalition manages a studio residency for six artists on the 15th floor. Evanston is on board, too: Founded last winter, the city's Art Under Glass program showcases the work of local artists in unoccupied retail spaces, so long as they live and work in that township.

lviera@tribune.com


Pop-Up Art Loop is one of the city's best-known temporary gallery initiatives, but it wasn't the first - and it's certainly not the last. READ MORE HERE

https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-xpm-2010-10-15-ct-ott-1015-pop-up-galleries-main-20101015-story.html

SWITCHING STATION ARTIST LOFTS

Bringing Art to the West Side
15 S. Homan Avenue Chicago, IL, 
0624

https://www.artspace.org/switching-station


http://www.gpcommunitycouncil.org/uploads/eastgarfieldpark/documents/east-garfield-qofl-2005.pdf

Review: Five Decades of the Fantastic/Murphy Hill Gallery NOVEMBER 29 AT 11:57 pm BY 



Illinois Department of Commerce & Economic Opportunity, Social Media Department David Ross

The Phantom Gallery Chicago Network is committed to helping network and emerging artists succeed through temporary exhibitions in a nontraditional gallery setting. As COVID-19 altered the landscape, Chief Curator Alpha Bruton applied for the #PaycheckProtectionProgram so she could continue to support the gallery. "With assistance from the ILDCEO and their community navigator partners, I secured the PPP as an Individual/Sole Proprietor and look forward to a fresh canvas in 2021," she said.

Check out the Phantom here:  https://phantomgallery.blogspot.com/

Need assistance applying for #PPP funds? DCEO is here to help. The deadline to apply for PPP is March 31, 2021. Apply today: https://bit.ly/38XSkWr

 

Twitter

The @PhantomGallery matches artists seeking places to display their art with nontraditional gallery settings. With help from ILDCEO, independent contractor Alpha Bruton got #PPP to continue to guide emerging artists. https://bit.ly/2OhG1Qr

CHICAGO TRIBUNE: 2021
SUBURBS
Learn about pop-up art installations at the Evanston lecture
By MYRNA PETLICKI
PIONEER PRESS |
MAR 09, 2021 AT 3:09 PM



"IN FOCUS" LECTURE SERIES is a monthly lecture series that features a variety of talks and presentations by ​artists, art professionals, historians, and more! On Sunday, March 21, 2021, at 2 pm, join us for a lecture about Pop-Up Research Station, a Portal for Documenting Our Art Legacy. This lecture is a part of the ongoing EAC series and features a variety of talks and presentations by ​artists, art professionals, historians, and more!

CHICAGO TRIBUNE |
FEB 24, 2021 AT 3:03 PM
BUSINESS By ROBERT CHANNICK
The PPP gave millions to big corporations. Now for two weeks, it's only for mom-and-pop firms, 
a boost for minority-owned businesses and others left out.

By ROBERT CHANNICK


FEB 24, 2021 AT 3:03 PM

Alpha Bruton, 65, an artist in the Bronzeville neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, works as a consultant to the Sojourner Truth African Heritage Museum in Sacramento, California. In April, she received a PPP loan through Seaway Self-Help Credit Union.

After receiving her first loan, Bruton helped guide other artists through the process, but the small payouts and complicated application requirements deterred many of her colleagues.
“Sometimes you hit a wall with all the stuff that goes into that application that makes people say, ‘I just don’t want to do it,’” Bruton said.
Bruton said the new loan will go toward rent and hopefully help get her with  summer programming, when the Bronzeville Art District Trolley Tour returns, giving her a vehicle to promote her gallery practice. Last summer, the tour was held virtually.
FOR COMMENT: rchannick@chicagotribune.com



Southside Weekly JIM DALEY | OCTOBER 30, 2018
ENVIRONMENT | VISUAL ARTS | WOODLAWN

Concerning the Environment

A month-long showcase of installations and interactive events in and around Woodlawn provokes questions about our place in nature and in our communities.

When she began conceptualizing the installation, she considered different ways of entering the space as well as questions around technology as a source of physical and mental pollution, Bruton told the Weekly. She collected some of the installation’s components, and Hill alongside Experimental Station assistant director Matthew Searle provided others.

“All the things that are in the installation have to have a story of where they came from and why they’re purposed,” said Bruton.

The monitor shells represent her concerns about our reliance on the internet. “Even now, we have little kids that are plugged into their iPhones,” Bruton said. “These monitors were precursors to this little phone.” The monitors hang amid triangular shards of former mirrors. That element reminds the viewer to reflect on how humans have treated the environment. “What’s our legacy, what are we going to pass on to our grandchildren?” she said.

Restoring the Glory of This Iconic Chicago' Black Metropolis' Building





In the heart of Bronzeville, on Chicago's Near South Side, around 20 folks bundled in coats, hats and scarves gathered on the first floor of the iconic Overton Hygienic Building. Photos and graphics lined the walls, stripped to bare plaster and exposed brick. A cardboard representation titled "The Shotgun Shack/House" sat on one table," artist Felicia Preston, covered with cutout slogans and photos. D.W. Griffith's controversial 1915 film, "The Birth of a Nation," by artist Renee Baker, played in a continuous loop, projected directly onto the bare wall opposite the entrance.

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