Changes in the organization of the Around the Coyote arts festival may confirm the suspicions of those who’ve long criticized the event as a front for real estate developers eager to showcase the gentrification of Bucktown and Wicker Park. Over the last six to eight months the festival’s founder and former artistic director Jim Happy-Delpech has ceded control over the annual weekend of gallery and studio walks, performances, and other arts-related events to a 15-member board of directors headed by Gavriel Mairone, CEO and a managing director of LaSalle International Group, a Chicago-based company involved in businesses ranging from real estate development to hotel, restaurant, health-club, and nightclub management. LaSalle International owns the Paulina Arts Center in Wicker Park, and since Around the Coyote’s inception Mairone has contributed space there for various events.
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For this year’s fest, slated for September 7 through 10, Benkoczy has established nine divisions: visual arts, fiction and poetry, music, dance, theater, performance art, computer art, film, and fashion. A team of two to four curators will oversee each division. On April 29 Benkoczy will hold a town meeting for artists and anyone else interested in learning more about the new Around the Coyote. Before the meeting Benkoczy, Happy-Delpech, and other Coyote officials will plant a flowering tree in Wicker Park. Benkoczy says the tree is intended to stand as a lasting symbol of the rebirth of Around the Coyote.
