I have only considered entering the Chicago River once–when, shortly after I moved here, I was fired on the first day of my job. “You had better have intestinal fortitude,” my fat, homicidal boss had gassed, and I replied that what I had was closer to intestinal flu. A half hour later I was standing on the LaSalle bridge, flat broke and staring numbly into the opaque water, feeling appropriately melodramatic. Oddly, my spirits lifted as I contemplated not floating about in that acidic spit.
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As if to encourage the advent of that new day, three Chicagoans have been planning a festival of floating sculpture for the river. Luke Dohner, the father of the event, initially imagined a single sculpture floating on the river, because “it was such an empty, open space, begging for something in it.” (This reasoning reminds me of a small child who drew with a pen on his buttocks because they were “so plain.”) He told his friend Dennis Callahan, who coincidentally had just moved into a studio space overlooking the river at Cortland Avenue. The two of them drummed up the idea of gathering self-propelled or towable sculptures to form a procession on the river. They brought in former scientist Henry Friedman to handle the organizational aspects, and amazingly the thing has come together as Flo Tilla, a collaboration of 23 (“Confirmed?” I asked. “Well . . . 23,” replied Callahan noncommittally) participants and their temporary contributions to the river.
The show is intentionally nonjuried, a determined effort on the part of the organizers to avoid imposing a viewpoint on the entries and to encourage a more pluralistic display. There are no entry fees; operating costs are funded by what Callahan refers to as their “lunch money.” As a final snub to institutions that would confine expression, the entry form contains a notation at the bottom admitting that Flo Tilla is in no way funded by the Illinois Arts Council, any state agency, the Chicago Office of Fine Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, or the North Northwest Arts Council–a notation that has irritated art promoters/real estate developers in the area.
