Tracy Kostenbader

"Home Not Home," October 2022, Installation Location outside of Anysquared, 2328 N Milwaukee: hanging on a tree. Materials: Recycled corrugated plastic political signs and plexiglass, leftover chalkboard paint, color pencil, paint marker, tracing paper, hot glue and black duct tape, 100lb fishing line, battery-powered led lights. @agitatorgallery @tracykostenbader #artinstallation #installation #installationart #chicagoart (at AnySquared) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cj1p__-Dais/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Creating an installation for outside the studio for @agitatorgallery’s Guerilla/Insurgent installation Art project. Work-in-progress “Home Not Home” recycled political signs, chalkboard spraypaint #chicagoart #agitatorgallerychicago #agitatorgallery #tracykostenbader #installationart #homenothome (at AnySquared) https://www.instagram.com/p/CjgSEuPp8pQ/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Thank you @bswinney42 for this photo from the #AnySquared planning meeting last night. Gratitude to everyone who participated, made contributions, and shared ideas! Excited to be a 501c3 tax exempt org! We talked about the upcoming Art Swap at @hairpinartscenter in late February, our new “Life & Love in Covid Times” at @colesbar the “Breakfast” exhibit at @studio__nez in March, and future mural projects and exhibits. Look for AnySquared T-shirts coming soon! Thanks @thegrayfox_11 for the t-shirt design and the illustration for the exhibit. Keep in touch with AnySquared and find info @ne2_gallerysquared. Love all the AnySquareds! @akira.portraits @thegrayfox_11 @kimberlyrosette @the_lady_jak @crooked_smile49 @uglybitchfilms @bitches__brew @lostfrankie @river_arroyo @dial8r @helensanzcor @monstrochika @nherna7 @flash_abc @holidaygerry @luckygnomechicago @mapssketchbook @drvgee @caughtontape_ @eliigz_ @andrew_the_rose_artist @daremelife_ Plus, more who were there! #artpluscommunity #anysquared #exhibits #artlife #makingarteveryday #makeart #chicagoart #chicagoartists #chicagoexhibits #chicagoevents (at AnySquared) https://www.instagram.com/tracykostenbader/p/CY9ic47F7oV/?utm_medium=tumblr

Thanks Brett Swinney for this photo from Against Da Fence. It is bittersweet as Project Logan is being demolished. We are smiling to not cry. Last week’s Against Da Fence event was a great day and probably the last public event with Project Logan standing as more walls get chewed down by heavy machinery.

See Full Post Here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CUGAyGpFnul/?utm_medium=tumblr

AnySquared Spotlight Art Talk with Tracy Kostenbader. Brett Swinney guest hosted! See full series of art talks on AnySquared Projects YouTube (@anysquared)

_____

ABOUT TRACY KOSTENBADER tracykostenbader.com or IG: @tracykostenbader tracykostenbader.com

Tracy Kostenbader is a visual and social artist who co-founded AnySquared as an artist collaborative in 2010 to develop art projects with others in rejection of an elitist view of art and institutions. Functioning on the basic premise of mutual aid and cooperation, Tracy has also helped build a unique organization and space in Chicago where people come from all over the city to participate and build projects together.

She transformed her home studio to make space for other artists where people can interact and produce art together. Tracy has been hosting AnySquared’s studio days more than a decade and mentors emerging artists to expand their ideas about how to create their work.

In AnySquared, she spearheads collaborations with a network of artists and groups and brings people together. She leads visual arts projects where participants are included in the process of designing and producing them. She creates arts programming, curates exhibitions, and nurtures others to also become arts organizers and make more challenging arts projects.

Tracy’s philosophy is rooted in collaboration. Her history of work with social justice campaigns has a profound effect on her ideas as an artist. Working together is the underpinning of AnySquared.

While producing collaborative projects, Tracy has maintained her own art practice. She explores personal and political themes with paintings, drawings, and digital images.

____ AnySquared.com YouTube, Twitter & Facebook: @AnySquared IG: @ne2_gallerysquared _____

https://www.instagram.com/p/CSs-1wgrEuJ/?utm_medium=tumblr

Working on a window piece. (at AnySquared) https://www.instagram.com/p/CHBoI2KhArk/?igshid=lr788iochjm

Making signs for a project my roommate created. We have also been making them during AnySquared Wednesday Studio Days @ne2_gallerysquared #blm #blacklivesmatter #signproject #plotliberation #artpluscommunity #anysquared # (at AnySquared) https://www.instagram.com/p/CEz4VYvBo_I/?igshid=1gsicboormyaa

Making something. #chicagoart #logansquare #inthestudio #makingart #painting #drawing (at AnySquared) https://www.instagram.com/p/CAEsl8dgpCe/?igshid=1elsolkqjjsrv

Back to basics. Some mutated self-portraits. Warts and all. I have been struggling to make. I almost never do self-portraits. But, I am trying to do a few this month as exercises/exorcises. These are relatively unskillful because I have not been regularly drawing, but I am forgiving myself for that. (at AnySquared) https://www.instagram.com/p/B_kuqF-F1uz/?igshid=qpyofmozyeqo

LIP 20/20 exhibition | March 7–28, 2020 Hairpin Arts Center, 2810 N. Milwaukee, Chicago LIP = Life in Progress #LIP2020

CALL FOR ARTISTS! Visit website for LIP Call for requirements > Deadline January 22, 2020 Open to artists in Chicago and the Surroundings Area Accepting Submissions for | Painting, Drawing, Photography, Sculpture, Installation, Interactive Piece, Video, Performance, Spoken Word, Music, and Sound as well as Workshop Proposals. ____

For questions about the exhibition or application, email projects@anysquared.com.

____ This exhibition is  part of the larger LIP 20/20 ART SERIES organized in the next year in honor of AnySquared’s 10th anniversary. The year-long series will include exhibitions, community building events, a poster series, and community murals. AnySquared.com IG: @ne2_gallerysquared Facebook: AnySquared Twitter: AnySquared

Check it out: AnySquared's Tracy Kostenbader joined Trixter on S.H.E. Gallery's CAN TV show on January 28, 2019

“Violate,” “Incubate,” and “Liberate” (Eating Words series) 2018, three double-sided hanging banners: 25.5” X 62” each (with their backs shown), acrylic and spray paint on sewn canvas.

Installation Shot of June 2018 "Eating Words" Exhibition at Agitator Gallery. For most of my art practice, I have been producing work with images of objects and often, combine the images with words. In a previous exhibition in 2007 titled “UN/Useful,” I combined “un” words with tools, hardware, and instructional diagrams. In the “Eating Words” series, I utilize words that end in letters a-t-e with images of eating utensils to express dialogues of negative, positive, and transitional ideas. I have continued to make works utilizing words/images both as a path to reflect on the horrors that dine on people in the current world, as well as a meditation on a future where people get the actual resources/sustenance needed in a better one. Each of the three banners, Violate, Incubate, and Liberate, reflect steps in the process we go through to change the world and heal. The banners are reinterpretations of four mini-banners I originally made in 2012.

___

Tracy Kostenbader lives in Chicago and is founder, lead artist, producer, and principal curator of AnySquared Projects.

___

tracykostenbader.com