Story by Caleb Brennan

Edited by Oona O'Toole

Mural Photos by Caleb Brennan

In a dimly lit art studio, an inconspicuous storefront building in the Humboldt Park neighborhood, perches Jeff Zimmermann. The muralist and painter leans back at his desk overlooking the small living quarters that take up a corner of what is essentially a petite warehouse. Zimmermann, 46, pensively puffs on an electronic cigarette, his feet up on the desk.

 

Zimmermann’s work has commented on issues of community, immigration and urban living, and it speaks to the tumultuous nature of American politics. During the election and the beginning of the Trump presidency, artists have created work that means to critique the conflicts of our times. Zimmermann, however, is reluctant to take up a mantle as a political rabble-rouser.

 

Rather than explain what are the deeper meanings of his work, he says he’d prefer to leave it up to his audience. His interpretation of his life is soaked in an appreciation of Latin culture, city politics and the faces and images of everyday life.  

 

With a history of commenting on current social issues, is Zimmermann a political artist? In the past, he has disagreed with this. He responds with his quiet, yet gravely voice. The corners of his words decorated with a wise-guy sort of inflection.

“I have? See this is one of those misquotes. I think I said I’m not a polemical artist, which I kinda would like to be,” Zimmermann says.

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“A polemical artist would be someone who is putting blatant, controversial imagery in their art to be a provocateur. There is a guy in the South who’s gotten a few good pieces of press where he’s gone to Ku Klux Klan rallies, but he’s gotten behind the scenes, so it’s just ended, and they’re all gonna have some pie,” Zimmermann says. “Like he had been there and just taken a snapshot of them being themselves, but they’re in their Klan gear. That’s a super charged painting.”

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Zimmermann’s murals strike an intriguing balance of familiar iconographies with realistic portraits of the people who live in the neighborhood. Often, the murals include subtle nods to current issues, such as a recent piece that featured the head of Wile E. Coyote encircled in a noose. Zimmermann says this was his take on immigration.

 

Mural historian and author Tim Drescher has studied trends within the mural medium for decades and finds Zimmermann’s work to be a throwback to the 60s era. Having studied countless murals from all across the United States, Drescher is familiar with the artist's work.

 

Drescher says the community mural movements were politically oriented at the time and a way to talk about issues in a public forum.

 

“Trump is president, and he has declared (immigration) to be a major issue. Numerically it’s not. It’s infinitesimal. Which means that it’s not about immigration at all. It’s about a certain kind of propaganda,” Drescher says. “With Zimmermann’s murals, where they are going play in all this? I think people will look back on it and say ‘yeah this guy understood the importance of the issue from a human point of view.”

 

Having written several books about American murals, Drescher says he finds this postmodern muralist to be invigorating.

 

“The pieces I know are quite impressive. Partly because he has escaped the sort of standard social realist style that has so dominated community murals for so long,” he says.

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Drescher says what Zimmermann’s art articulates is his desire to tackle these issues and drive them home as accurately as possible. There aren’t many muralists around who do things like that.

 

“I’m a political artist, but I don’t do propaganda. Which is the most important thing,” Zimmermann says.

 

He is not interested in clarifying or forcing the exact parameters of his metaphors—he just wants people to have a discourse.

 

“I’d like to include ideas that aren’t figured out and put that out there, so that people would talk about them. I was hoping outside we’d have Red Guy (and) Blue Guy, and they’d start arguing,” Zimmermann says, referring to his piece “The Party,” which was meant to comment on tribulations of the two-party system.

 

“The wall doesn’t say Red wins or Blue wins. The wall says this is the problem, and you both have a different understanding of it. Let’s talk about it and figure it out. So the opposite of propaganda,” he says. The mural is located on an expansive urban wall in Humboldt Park, and features colorful backgrounds that blend with the realistic portraits and pop art images crossing the massive canvas.

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While Zimmermann certainly gives off the impression of being the neutral observer, he is not without his other commitments. The University of Illinois alum has deep roots in South America and recently returned to Peru.

 

Veronica Beckman, an old friend and Chicago restaurateur, believes Zimmermann seeks to represent the time he spent in the Peruvian culture and the struggles of the South American people into much of his work. Two of his pieces hang in Tanta, her Peruvian restaurant in the River North neighborhood of Chicago. One is a “candy wall,” which references a Peruvian holiday cake, and a 40-foot mural about Peruvian pop culture.

 

“He put some human representations of (the) field workers who pick the produce in Peru. Kind of made sure they were recognized too, just telling the story of how the food comes from the farmers... That little narrative. He made that visible and he made that apparent like, ‘Don’t forget where the food comes from,’” Beckman says.  

 

His work is starkly eclectic, beyond the massive murals and folk-inspired kitchen art. Deep in Zimmermann’s web archive are styles that feature everything from hyperrealistic portraits of Good Humor trucks to experimental pieces like “The Madonna of Bucktown.” Another stretching abstract realism painting, called “Lakescape with America’s Cup Classs,” was sold for $9,000.

 

Zimmermann creates work that matters in the candid narrative of political unrest and art. He finds a fine line between the literal and the mystique. According to Carol A. Wells, 71, the founder of the Study for Political Graphics, there typically isn’t a grey area—when faced with the plights of the oppressed, neutrality is not an option. Even if a piece of art doesn’t take a stance, it still has a political quality to it.

 

“Art is either saying that the system is fine, or that it’s not,” Wells says.

 

What separates Zimmermann from many contemporaries of civil commentary in the arts is his medium, murals.

 

“I think he’s trying to make you figure (the meaning) all out,” Wells said. “A political poster is supposed to be immediately understood. A political poster cannot be a metaphor, because if you don’t figure it out in three seconds, someone is going to move on.”  

 

Zimmermann’s art needs more than just three seconds of attention from the average passerby. The muralist is cautiously hopeful of more thought-provoking encounters with his open source art projects.

 

“There’s a lot of people who think it’s like a billboard, and they should get it right away. We are not trying to sell you anything here you know? So those are the people who don’t get it and get frustrated. So I wish there were more people who don’t get it and don’t get frustrated,” he says.

 

As he begins to pack up for the day, a man in a clean-cut suit enters the studio. Zimmermann greets him as if they are old friends, but the man has arrived to pick up portraits of his two dogs.

The two exchange small talk about a nearby taco cantina and their daily grind at work. The businessman leaves the studio, paintings in hand. Zimmermann watches him leave and grins with the satisfaction of a pleased client. This is what makes Zimmermann’s art so intriguing, its ability to reach across the socioeconomic spectrum.