It’s not a novel idea, but with brick-and-mortar galleries around every corner in downtown Bloomington, Adam Farcus’ Lease Agreement feels and looks different. Farcus lives at 116 W. Washington Street, above Windy City Wieners.
Big front windows in their apartment face north, and up another flight of stairs — into what might be described as a cupola, there is a small room with unfinished walls and one of the best views in Bloomington.
Lease Agreement, Farcus’ nomadic curatorial project, goes wherever they go, with the longest stretch taking place in a cozy front room in Baltimore. A temporary faculty appointment in the Wonsook Kim School of Art at Illinois State University brought the Coal City native back to their alma mater. Previous Lease Agreements have come and gone in Chicago, Texas and Mississippi. And at the end of the month, Farcus will move again, this time to Tampa, where Lease Agreement will inevitably move to, too.
Thus, this is both hello and goodbye for this writer on Bloomington’s arts beat, but there are still a few days to climb the stairs off of Washington Street and catch Lease Agreement’s final output in Bloomington-Normal (for now).
It’s an installation called “Three Handfuls of Pennies” by Peoria-based artist Whitney Johnson. And it’s a pretty simple piece, really: Johnson placed a cat fountain and fish tank bubbler in the corner of the tiny room. Three handfuls of pennies amounting to $1.85 sit in vinegar, accelerating the formation of a teal-hued patina called verdigris.
The cat bowl has a blue film coating around its edges. The “gallery’s” two windowsills hold pennies in varying states of decay and a little clump of verdigris Johnson will use for — she doesn’t know what yet.
“I don’t know what I’ll use it for,” she said. “A painting material — eventually. I don’t know what will be made from it; we’ll come to that later.”
Artist-run initiatives like Lease Agreement are not about making money, but they’re not about losing it either.
“The model of Lease Agreement is based in working directly with and getting to know artists and then bringing them into whatever kind of context as a curator and as an alternative space I can offer,” Farcus said.
“I think the thing about unconventional spaces is they have to be site responsive,” they said. “So, Whitney made a piece in response to the space. I think that’s really exciting and gives people an interesting context to respond to. It’s antithetical to the idea of a white cube gallery, which is supposed to be devoid of any other kind of connotations, which it really isn’t.”
By marching to the beat of a different drum within the arts economy, the work is about conversation and connection — less concerned with the price tag of that experience. In some regards, newer spaces like the Hangar Art Company on the other side of the square operate on the same model, but they’ve still got rent to pay and city regulators to appease.
In that sense, Lease Agreement and Johnson’s “Three Handfuls of Pennies,” which generates something valuable from something that, today, is practically worthless, share a kinship.
“These things — pop-up exhibitions — come and go with who’s here and the energy, time and capital they have to do those things,” Farcus said. “A little bit of doing this now is to say to people who’ve come and who’ve seen this: What’s the thing that they can do? What’s the next step?”
Farcus points to the 410 Sculpture Park under the Main Street bridge as being another artist-led initiative that doesn’t have sales in mind.
“They’re there to support artists,” Farcus said.
To be clear, neither approach to artmaking and curation is good or bad — per se. It just is. But Farcus and Lease Agreement’s departure leaves the door open for a new tenant at 116 W. Washington St. Let it be someone who takes up the mantel running the pint-sized pop-up above Windy City Wieners.
To see "Three Handfuls of Pennies," contact Adam at leaseagreementgallery@gmail.com. The show closes on Saturday.
