Last weekend was the second iteration of the MDW Fair, an independent visual arts fair located at the Geolofts building in the industrial district west of Bridgeport. Despite this being the second round for MDW, and only a few months after the first iteration, the fair’s legacy is about only seven months old and still in flux, so a quick history may be useful:
Overall, the second MDW Fair showed one of the best alternatives to a market-driven art community that I’ve seen, with arbitrary, conflicting, confusing, but universally constructive relationships forced out of interaction. During the Hand in Glove presentation on alternative funding models, speaker Jeff Hnilicka’s demonstration of the human mic caused a dog to bark at the back of the room, and also led an art space on another floor to turn up the bass. The rest of the presentation had to fight bass bounce with volume, by Hnilicka adopting a louder voice and, perhaps incidentally, a more empassioned tone, just to get beyond the bassline. I wasn’t sure which I was nodding along to. Likewise, while hearing Lane Reylea and Martha Wilson describe the importance of artist-run spaces as alternatives to established cultural practices and institutions, and what it means to be an artist when art becomes political and these alternatives become the subject of cultural freedom or frenzy, I was increasingly amazed at the event’s organization.
More than just a fair, MDW is a consciously open and healthy site for developing and strengthening artist networks, making room for artists to exhibit, encourage, improve, and inspire each other, while also taking the bold contextual step of acknowledging that yes, visual art also happens to matter.
-Steve Ruiz, ArtSlant Staff Writer.
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