By fall’s busy art season, Daniel Silva wanted his new exhibition space and cultural hub Te-Qu to be open and ready for business in Little Village.
His team, which includes local muralist Mr. Pintamuro and Julio Anaya of Little Village Local, planned a grand opening for July 30. The celebration was set to include local dignitaries, a DJ, catering, and more, all part of a large community gathering.
But one day before the event, the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection told Te-Qu leaders that it could not issue a business license because the property is, for some reason, located in a residential zone.
Now, the space is diving into the fall art season with a variety of planned pop-ups and collaborations with neighboring businesses and street vendors along 26th Street. With most of their big community events taking place over weekends, they’ve launched a rotating mural series and plan to host exhibitions featuring local artists in the near future as they gear up for a full October opening.
What’s happening on the South Side is unfolding as Chicago Exhibition Week — seven days of gallery events, parties and lectures — happens primarily in and around the city’s West Loop and Near West Side.
But for Silva and his partners, the goal is not to get a seat at Chicago’s existing visual arts table. They want to build one of their own.
That plan has, however, come with some obstacles. Just steps from the Little Village Arch at 3100 W. 26th St., Te-Qu sits in the formerly vacant building at 3126 W. 26th St. It has been, historically, a botanica, a COVID-19 testing site, a barbershop and at some point in the 1950s, a gas station. So it made sense to start a business there.
But the Little Village Chamber of Commerce informed Te-Qu that it sits in a residential zone, grinding to a halt the process of securing a business license. According to data from the Cook County Assessor’s Office, however, the address is being assessed as a commercial property and straddles the line between residential and mixed-use (commercial and residential) zones.
Because they couldn’t host commercial exhibitions inside or officially launch as a store yet, Silva and his partners decided to “do what our people have been doing since forever here on 26th Street,” Anaya said. “We had to do the old Little Village method.”
That tried-and-true method, utilized by street artists and vendors for decades, means meeting the neighborhood where it already exists by taking their art to the streets. Anaya bought some clothing racks from Wal-Mart to display T-shirts and art, and the next day they attracted dozens of residents from across Chicago. They ordered pizza for guests, and representatives from The Foundation of Little Village and State Rep. Edgar González dropped by to express their support.
“We had to go back to the drawing board,” Anaya said. “That’s actually where it clicked for a moment where it’s like: ‘Okay, well, we don’t have the piece of paper, but we have our community here.’”
But when city officials kept questioning why they couldn’t simply find a different storefront, Daniel and the team stood their ground. Now, Silva and his partners are working with the city to get the property rezoned, a process that involves Ald. Michael D. Rodriguez (22nd), Mayor Brandon Johnson and the city’s rezoning committee.
The project is funded by grants from the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection, and a storefront grant from the Little Village Chamber of Commerce.
Art was still happening as they waited. Mr. Pintamuro and other local artists have painted murals on the walls inside and outside of the building. “The license is good and all, but I think ultimately building and bridging that connection that brings people here is just as important, if not more,” Anaya said.
And thanks to a viral video featuring the makeover of an unsightly pole outside the space, their social media presence has grown exponentially. The pole was painted to look like a cactus, and locals are invited to place their own stickers in an attempt to beautify the area.
The name of the space is derived from the Nahuatl word “tequieo,” which means a collective work or service within a community, Silva says. In the spirit of tequieo, Silva wants the space to be about “helping each other out” in “communal service.”
Mr. Pintamuro said he often thinks of a Nahuatl proverb for Te-Qu’s mission: “You always want to make sure that the temple, or place where you receive the knowledge or medicine, is always as beautiful as you found it… We have a responsibility since we are [at] the entry point of Little Village.”
At first, Te-Qu was just a merch platform, Silva said. He wanted to make and sell creative T-shirts, designed by local artists, but as he walked down 26th Street one day, he got the idea for a place like Te-Qu in the neighborhood.
He met Orbit, also known as Arturo Anguiano III, a 19-year-old artist who got to work on his first Little Village mural thanks to Te-Qu. His work is part of the rotating mural series, on view from outside the space.
In talking with Orbit, Silva said he found most local artists were making and displaying their artwork in Pilsen or in North Side neighborhoods. But few were doing anything in Little Village.
As soon as the opening event was cancelled, Mr. Pintamuro said the partners were flooded with inquiries about the space. “There were already people like, ‘Hi, I’ve been trying to get a hold of the owner. I’m trying to open up a car wash,’” he said. “Or just random people just trying to get at the space already.”
Because of all the opportunity around the Little Village space, “we have to defend this,” Mr. Pintamuro said. “I grew up in Little Village… I don’t have any access to generational wealth, but I do have a lot of talent,” he continued. “We needed to find a space where all ages can find their voice and their form of expression.”
He says that going to North Side galleries can sometimes feel elitist. “But it doesn’t always have to be that way. We can create these things and give back to the neighborhood.”