The case studies that follow identify sites in underrepresented communities that serve as “studios” or “homes” for artists in non-traditional ways that HAHS should consider partnering with in the future. Each case study is primarily focused on black, brown, and queer spaces in Chicago (my hometown) that were not able to follow traditional preservation measures.
Many artists from marginalized backgrounds, more specifically from black, brown and queer backgrounds, oftentimes lack the resources to own and preserve their artistic spaces. The result is that artists often see either a change in location or complete loss of these spaces. In many cases, these artists spaces function as community centers and serve a much larger part in their communities in spite of the challenges they face by simply attempting to exist. While seen and discussed as pillars of their respective communities, these sites were often only acknowledged by members of that particular community, being pushed to the margins of a broader “history of Chicago”.
Consequently, these spaces are often lost in the larger history of the areas they were once located in. This research hopes challenge this erasure from local history, and uses the legacies of each case study to highlight it’s impact on Chicago’s history. More importantly, this research aims to contextualize all three places as not just artist homes or studios, but crucial parts of Chicago’s cultural identity.
The following case studies focus on three sites in Chicago: Casa Aztlan, Chicago Tattoo and Piercing Company, and The Warehouse. While all of these sites no longer exist in their original form, they all are critical to understanding queer, black, and brown subcultures within Chicago. Functioning beyond the traditional constraints of “home” or “studio” each of these sites are places where dozens of artists and community members were able to find safety and comfort.
It my hope that through the resulting three newsletters, Historic Artist’s Homes and Studios can begin to highlight the complex preservation that happens on a local scale. Whether it be in local preservation offices, the salas of a house in Pilsen, or the storefronts of local shops, remembering and celebrating important artistic sites constantly happens in marginalized communities. These processes of remembering can be viewed as not only legitimate, but crucial for understanding how underrepresented artists and communities can create and maintain legacies of empowerment, remembrance, and happiness.
Casa Aztlán (Case Study #1)
Located at 1831 S. Racine Avenue, Casa Aztlán was a historic arts and community center in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. Founded with the intention of serving the largely Latina/o community it is situated within, Casa Aztlán was one of the largest of a network of community centers that existed in the neighborhood.
At Casa Aztlán, one could always find workshops, live performances, exhibits, or simply community assistance with less art oriented issues. However, former director Humberto Salinas once noted that “It has always been our [Casa Aztlán’s] belief that artists are essential to any organization,” showing the importance of artists at Casa Aztlán to its identity.
Although Casa Aztlán no longer exists, its role in both sustaining the artistic and social needs of its community makes it a crucial historic site for Latina/o history within Chicago. Representing the art, solidarity, self-determination and joy that fuels projects.
The building served a wide variety of artists, providing space for art lessons, art studios for local artists and muralists, Folklorico music lessons and performances, Teatropello theater classes and showcases, and festivals like the ones referenced in the flyers above and below.
Many Pilsen muralists and artists worked out of Casa Aztlán for periods of time, creating their murals both in the neighborhood as well as on the walls of the building itself (see below).
Articles, such as the 1983 piece in Mirarte: Chicago’s Latino Art Publication (seen below), indicate the significance of Casa Aztlán, highlight it’s reach, and celebrate the artists that teach there, including Salvador Vega, Marcos Reys, Roberto Arredondo, and Ray Patlan.
While the original building is no longer a community center, it is critical to celebrate and preserve the history of the space that lives on through the community itself. Closing in 2013, Casa Aztlán continues to have its legacy preserved through the countless stories and memories that exist among those who were able to experience the space.
However, the building itself has not gone unscathed since closing. In 2017, the murals decorating the entrance of the building were whitewashed by new developers. This mural, originally painted by Ray Patlan in 1970, represented the core identity of not just Casa Aztlán, but the broader Mexican and Activist community in Pilsen and Chicago.
Although the building is used now as rental housing apartments, the threats of ongoing gentrification reduce historically significant spaces like Casa Aztlán to sites of occupation for new renters moving into the neighborhood. While the whitewashed exterior has since been reimagined as a new mural, the damage to the original structure is a reflection of the erasure that the gentrification of neighborhoods like Pilsen causes. With the space no longer open to serve the community, the work of local organizations continues to carry the legacy of Casa Aztlán.
Legacy in the Community
When thinking about Casa Aztlán’s legacy, this author sought the help of local organizations that continue to carry out the same community centered work that Casa Aztlán engaged in. By talking with organizations 18th Street Casa De Cultura and Pilsen Arts + Community House, I was able to see how artists and community members both remember the work of prior organizations while continuing to create spaces for the community.
At Pilsen Arts & Community House (PACH), I met with Teresa Magaña and Pablo Ramirez, the two co-founders of PACH. Their organization strives to create platforms to support local artists and to serve the Pilsen community. Through workshops, events, and shows such as this year’s third edition of their show A Tribe Called Chicago, they are able to exhibit dozens of Chicago Artists and provide a network of support for the community.
Pablo spoke to me about his experiences with PACH as well as growing up in and around Casa Aztlán. He talked about what it was like being in space as a kid, how Casa Aztlán changed as he grew older, and everything else in between. (The full conversation with Pablo is available here.)
Similarly, 18th Street Casa De Cultura is an organization dedicated to the honoring of Chicago’s Latino-Mexicano practices through using ancestral conocimiento (knowledge). Maya Zazhil Fernandez and Jackie Rodriguez, two of the co-founders, are both educators and members of the San Jarocho collective, Jarochicanos. They both also grew up being involved at Casa Aztlán and other community centers throughout Pilsen and Little Village.
Posters of past Casa Aztlán events line the walls of 18th Street Casa De Cultura. These posters are part of personal collections where the legacies of spaces like Casa Aztlán live on in the community.
When talking to Maya and Jackie about their own experiences with Casa Aztlán, they both mentioned how fun the space was, with countless concerts, parties and other events happening every weekend. They mentioned how many bands and artists would pass through, some eventually going on to be quite big names later in their career.
Casa Aztlán was one of many community centers that have served the predominantly Latino community in the Pilsen and Little Village neighborhoods. The multi-disciplinary and communal approach to supporting artists from the community is a critical assertion of what artist studio space can look like. In latino, black, and queer communities, these spaces are always rooted in the people, culture, and history that transcends the physical space that is constantly under threat. Recognizing a site like Casa Aztlán recognizes that heritage of resilience, joy, and community support.
Chicago Tattooing & Piercing Co. (Case Study #2)
In Chicago, tattooing maintains a lasting legacy through its lush heritage of world-renowned tattoo artists. At the top of that list is artist Cliff Raven. A pioneer of modern tattooing, Cliff Raven founded the Chicago Tattoo and Piercing Company (then called Cliff Raven Studios) in the mid-1960s, originally at 900 W. Belmont Ave on the north side of Chicago. While the shop has moved twice since its opening, it has been at 1017 W. Belmont Avenue since 2005.
When it first opened, Chicago Tattoo and Piercing Co. was one of the only tattoo shops remaining in Chicago following the raising of the tattoo age from 18 to 21 in 1963. One of the few tattoo shops in Chicago during that period, it maintains its title as the oldest tattoo shop in Chicago. However, Chicago Tattoo and Piercing Co. is also historically important due to its rich queer history.
Cliff Raven was not just a pioneer of the adoption of Japanese aesthetics into American tattooing, but also a member of the gay BDSM community in Chicago. He was originally taught to tattoo by Phil Sparrow, a gay college professor, artist, and tattooer in Chicago. Alongside Sparrow and their friend Chuck Renslow, a tattooer and entrepreneur, all three men made important contributions not just to the tattoo scene, but to the broader Queer Community in Chicago.
While their identity as gay men was something they did not advertise, their role in the history of American tattooing is crucial to understanding where tattooing is today.
When considering important artist homes and studios, Cliff Raven’s role in fostering the development of modern tattooing out of the BDSM community in Chicago stands out as a critical part of Queer, Chicago, and Tattooing history.
The contributions of artists like Cliff Raven make important queer interjections into what is historically perceived as a hypermasculine, heteronormative practice in American history. The history of Chicago tattooing directly contradicts that, as Raven and Phil Sparrow were gay artists during a time when tattooing was a largely homophobic practice.
This makes the work of artists such as Raven and Sparrow central to queer tattoo history, with their careers permitting both men to engulf themselves in BDSM and tattooing practices. More importantly, it highlights how queer artists creating on the margins, in Raven’s case within the world of tattooing, should also be recognized in the same ways as other artists that operate in more traditional mediums.
As tattooing becomes increasingly acknowledged and accepted by the American mainstream, it is critical to acknowledge the important contributions to tattoo history that queer figures like Raven and Sparrow have made to modern tattooing. While there is now literature, such as the book Secret Historian that documents Sparrow’s life, it is critical to also acknowledge that sites such as Chicago Tattoo and Piercing Co. are already being preserved by the community.
At Chicago Tattoo and Piercing Co. and Great Lakes Tattoo, queer history is commemorated. After having been tattooed at Great Lakes Tattoo for the past year, this celebration of their history is clear everywhere you look in their shop.
Old tattoo equipment, archival pictures, and vintage business cards line the display cases of the shop. When searching for designs, tattoo flash sheets from the forefathers of Chicago tattoo history like Cliff Raven and Tatts Thomas make up a healthy portion of the options. At both shops, blog posts celebrate the lineage and history that Chicago tattooing stems from, with both shops highlighting key figures from their queer roots.
Although these histories tend to lie on the margins of popular Chicago history, they are also intrinsically linked to broader histories of queerness and community development in Chicago.
Preserving shops such as Chicago Tattoo and Piercing Co. helps to cement the queer legacy of tattooing in Chicago by acknowledging and celebrating their self-documented history that often lives on the very walls of the studio itself.
The Warehouse (Case Study #3)
The Warehouse, formerly located at 206 S. Jefferson in the West Loop area of Chicago, is a historic black, queer dance club. I use the term “is” because while the venue itself is no longer in operation, having closed in 1982. The genre and culture it spawned lives on through millions of “Househeads” worldwide.
Opened by Robert Williams in 1977, The Warehouse is known as the home of House music, a reference to a new sound that originally referred to Black Disco, R&B, Funk, and Soul tracks played in The Warehouse.
With legendary resident DJ Frankie Knuckles, The Warehouse quickly became the premier club of choice for black, queer men in Chicago. Those who were not welcome at white North Side nightclubs found alternative spaces of leisure, bringing them to the West loop location, situated alongside factory buildings. Knuckles’s smooth, infectious transitions and impeccably tasteful track selection brought thousands into the small, unassuming venue every weekend to be “taken to church”.
The spiritual experience of going to The Warehouse was pivotal to creating what we now know as modern dance music and club culture. Growing out of a dire need to find and maintain space for an underground audience of queer people of color, The Warehouse’s inception marked a unique period in Chicago’s history defined by the sounds of house.
Although The Warehouse was not home or studio to a particular person, it is widely acknowledged as being the home of house music and, more broadly, electronic dance music. Utilizing available music tools, DJs like Frankie Knuckles utilized reel-to-reel tape to create their own edits of popular disco tracks, cutting and taping different sections of songs together. Eventually, this led to the incorporation of neglected drum machines, such as the RolandTR-909 and 707 drums, into edits and original house tracks that began to gain traction in nightclubs locally and globally.
While a club created by and for black queer audiences, the inclusive nature of the resulting House genre led to dozens of clubs opening in the years following The Warehouse. Including clubs such as The Muzik Box, Medusas on Sheffield, and The Power Plant, this new wave of juice bars and nightclubs prioritized serving a young, diverse crowd in Chicago. Most notably, these clubs marked the breaking down of barriers between people from wide ranging identities.
Throughout the heyday of Chicago nightlife, straight club-goers oftentimes found themselves inside of queer clubs and juice bars, teens found themselves dancing among adults, and a whole generation of black, brown, and white youth were able to enjoy the new genre that was developing together.
Preservation in the Community
Following events like Disco Demolition at Comiskey Park in 1979, the proliferation of nightlife spaces created by and for marginalized peoples was a remarkable development within Chicago. As one of the first clubs that catered to gay black men, The Warehouse was known for being a spiritual place where participants could be expressive of identities they often withheld outside of the safety of the night club.
For many club-goers, the experiences of joy from within the walls of The Warehouse are ones which lack much documentation. Photographs, such as the ones above, primarily exist in forum posts and Instagram pages. Web pages and accounts, such as @chicagohousemusicfestival on Instagram, allows generations of Chicagoans to revisit their experiences through communal documentation and archiving of photos, flyers, videos, and educational content.
Luckily, the amount of Chicagoans that possess vast House music archives allows for newer generations of Househeads to continue learning about the history of both the music and social spaces in which it was created. Book series like Beyond Heaven: Chicago House Party Flyers by Mario “Liv It Up” Luna highlight the massive network of clubs, DJs and dance crews that all grew out of the original House club: The Warehouse.
I had the opportunity to speak to Mario, who is originally from the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago, and he described how his collection of flyers stemmed out of collecting the flyers left at local record stores. He acquired the rest of his collection, particularly those from black nightclubs, from other collectors in the city who frequented parties in different areas during different time periods.
Recently, the original building of The Warehouse was made a Chicago landmark after a successful campaign by Preservation Chicago to have the building protected. This campaign was met with overwhelming support from both local and global communities, as generations of “Househeads” came together to preserve a piece of local history. The full report on The Warehouse that was presented to the city can be accessed here.
When talking with Max Chavez, the Director of Research and Special Projects at Preservation Chicago, he emphasized the theme of resilience present in the black and brown queer communities that frequented places like The Warehouse. Max noted that this created “the perfect storm” in which people on the margins of society were able to create a new sound that will take over the world and pervade pop music for decades. You can listen the full conversation with Max Chavez here.
As a DJ myself, I have been able to experience the love of House throughout Chicago. With nearly every person I talked to in Chicago throughout my internship, I was able to discuss and connect over the genre we call House. Whether it be through a DJ someone knows, an event that was coming up, or a shared catalog of music we enjoy, House music is a quintessential component of Chicago culture.
Jackie Rodriguez, from 18th Street Casade Cultura, discussed how House music unites people from all backgrounds and is a special bonding point for many. Interestingly, this has been reflected throughout my internship, as every person I have had the pleasure of talking to locally has talked about their unique relationship with House music.
For many in Chicago, the history of The Warehouse and House music is personal, with the experience of nightlife serving as an essential component of family history. This communal history is oftentimes shared at events which celebrate the legacy of House music.
Annual local events such as the Chosen Few DJ’s Chosen Few Picnic and Festival maintain the lasting legacy of this genre of music. Occurring annually for over 30 years, this festival started off as a few friends playing music at a park in 1990. Since then, Chosen Few Picnic and Festival has continued to celebrate the legacies of DJs like Frankie Knuckles and preserve the collective memory of the music that was played at legendary spaces like The Warehouse.
Although The Warehouse was only open between 1977 and 1982, the legacy of both the club itself and the genre it birthed is critical to understanding the history of Black, Queer artists in Chicago.
Serving as a studio for “The Godfather of House” Frankie Knuckles, The Warehouse is, in the eyes of many Chicagoans, a historic home where House music was born. Over the past five decades, 206 S. Jefferson has held a special place in the hearts of all who were lucky enough to experience it, and those who grew up indebted to the music and culture it helped nurture.
Daniel Velazquez
Daniel Velazquez attended Pomona College as a Posse Scholar, where he studied Chicano/Latino Studies and Sociology. His areas of focus are contemporary Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x art and Visual Sociology.
Daniel seeks to celebrate Latine, Black, and Queer art and artists in all aspects of his work and tries to use his platform as a place to share knowledge and happiness. Daniel has prior experience within the Museum and Historic Preservation fields through work for the Mexicali Biennial and Cheech Center for Chicano Art.