2nd Floor Rear is an annual 24-hour festival of alternative spaces, apartment galleries, and ephemeral and migrant projects celebrating Chicago’s vibrant community of alternative and DIY art spaces.
In 1980, the Neoists, a little-known avant-garde subculture descended from Fluxus, held their first annual “International Neoist Apartment Festival” or APT, a four-day long event complete with concerts, performances, film screenings, and installations, in the apartment of one of the members of the Neoist group. Poorly documented and marginally historicized, it is thought[1] that APT carried on annually, in various iterations, until 1988.
Drawing on the 24-hour block party model (think Chattanooga, Tennessee’s Mainx24 festival), 2nd Floor Rear adapts the spirit of APT to a condensed, 24-hour timeline. Past events ran the gamut of (a)typical alt-Chicago art phenomena, from pop-up exhibitions to dream yoga sleepovers, site-specific installations, performances, late-night studio square dancing, and more. Get your art party on this February for the whole 24-hour cycle (like a champ!) or pick and choose your events.
[1] See Stewart Home’s The Assault on Culture. http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/neoism/neoass.htm
