You ought to be in pictures

Chicagoans may think they know all about patronage, but the word means something different at the Hyde Park Art Center (HPAC). It’s rare today for one person to pay another directly to create a work of art. But in the early 1990s, HPAC board member Tim Brown decided to resurrect this age-old method of art production. Through its inventive Not Just Another Pretty Face (NJAPF) project, the HPAC has played matchmaker to a receptive network of Chicago artists and patrons ever since.

The HPAC displays the fruits of the most recent yearlong NJAPF collaborations through January 11. The NJAPF show features not only well-known artists, such as Nick Cave, but emerging professionals and even students. Some of the patrons, including Paul Klein and Amy Crum, are regular collectors and prominent members of the Chicago arts community. Yet this year, many other participants who don’t consider themselves collectors commissioned work—including Lincoln Square resident Nancy Fishman, executive director of the Grand Victoria Foundation.

Fishman explains that the NJAPF process begins at HPAC board members’ houses, where the institution’s staff shows slides of select artists’ work to potential patrons. The HPAC then arranges for patrons to visit various artists’ studios. Based on such visits, Fishman commissioned work from several artists. Her collaboration with Juan Angel Chávez inspired outings to abandoned buildings, where the pair harvested glass and industrial floor brushes. Chávez’s resulting mixed-media sculpture, Flower of New Light, reflects Fishman’s interest in gardening as well as conversations the artist and patron shared. After seeing the finished work, Fishman says, “I was thrilled. [It was] a complete surprise, but very familiar at the same time.”

Although most of the works take the patrons as their subjects, others are more closely linked to artists’ existing practices—for example, Brian Dettmer’s sculpture Book Trails for the Silverberg Family. Dettmer sliced up four vintage children’s books with a surgical knife to reveal selected illustrations within. “Each book is connected to the next, creating walls and windows that reflect each member of the family,” he says. “It was a fun challenge to interpret the idea of a portrait into my work without being too literal.”

According to NJAPF organizer and HPAC assistant director Kate Lorenz, the project hasn’t been implemented for five years because it places such intense demands on staff and board members. Since 2003, NJAPF has quadrupled in size. For 2008, 65 patrons, paying $100 to $15,000, commissioned 86 works by 58 artists; the HPAC and the artists split the fees 50–50. That may seem like a steep cut for the HPAC, but commercial galleries offer the same terms—and aiding the nonprofit was an incentive for the artists, many of whom have exhibited at the HPAC or have close ties to its staff. Artist Floyd Atkins, who says he hasn’t heard of anyone having a bad experience with NJAPF, praises its straightforward, “idiotproof” process.

Due to the initiative’s success, Lorenz predicts the HPAC will hold NJAPF every two years, adding that she’s received phone calls from arts institutions around the country that are interested in replicating it. When it comes to strengthening an arts community, patronage has its place.