Cover art: Melissa Leandro, Newcity Breakout Artist 2018
Each spring, when thawed bulbs burst forth from the soil with their exuberant and ill-informed joy for a precocious summer, the writers of Newcity Art match the spirit of the season by profiling a few of the artists who represent the unbounded energy of art-making in Chicago. They make Chicago compelling, complex and worth being a resident and a viewer of art. They challenge us and bring us the questions we never dared to ask and might not want to engage. And they are but a few among many who are doing just the same.
This is the fifteenth year of Newcity’s “Breakout Artists” and the fourth and final year of my tenure at the editorial desk of Newcity Art. I am proud to leave this brilliant publication with these recommendations for Chicago’s next generation of image-makers. This city wouldn’t be the same without them, nor would I.
Newcity’s Breakout Artists 2019 was written by Kerry Cardoza, S. Nicole Lane, Alisa Swindell, Anastasia Karpova Tinari, Chris Reeves, Vasia Rigou and Elliot J. Reichert.
Elliot Josephine Leila Reichert is a curator, critic and editor. She is the inaugural Curator of Contemporary Art at the Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University. She was formerly Curatorial Fellow at the Chicago Artists Coalition, Art Editor of Newcity and Assistant Curator at the Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University.
Art 50 2023: Chicago’s Artists' Artists Every single artist seems to know and care about every single other artist. This is a signature element of art in Chicago—a powerful sense of community that transcends the competitiveness and careerism that undermines other places.
