The Thousands

I know us alternative types like to complain about higher rents and more arseholes every time the subject of ‘gentrification’ comes up, but have you ever thought who’s really behind the spikes in property values? We don’t want to point any fingers but if artists weren’t so into finding cheap real estate and making it look good for the buyers market we wouldn’t be having this problem in the first place.

Take Temporary Services for example. They’re an art collective, based in a low-rent suburb of Chicago, who have learnt to blend in with their surroundings and even relate to the very audience they want to reach. All they want is to keep their lease agreement cheap and their practice going, which is why they’ve been circulating, publishing and distributing their own work under the distinctly ‘un-arty’ name Temporary Services. Who would have thought that keeping commercialism out and communication in was actually a novel concept among artists? Weird.