Chester Alamo-Costello (born 1967) is an American artist, educator, publisher and writer based in Chicago, Illinois. He is known for his international "Art Drop" series (1998–present), which places art into non-traditional settings such as public parks,Williams, Kevin M. "Finders’ Feast," Chicago Sun-Times, October 30, 1998, p. SC-26.van de Rhee, Monique. "Amerikaan legt kunst 'te vondeling,'" De Telegraaf, Amsterdam, July 6, 2001.Baran-Unland, Denise. "USF professor's graffiti art finds place on Italian Streets," The Herald News, June 17, 2011. and for photographic books that have been noted for their rawness and everyday immediacy.Stockdale, Douglas, "Alamo & Costello – The Globe," The Photobook Journal, June 11, 2010. Retrieved March 21, 2019.Baran-Unland, Denise. "Artworks: Joliet artist discusses new photo book," The Herald News, March 1, 2019. Retrieved March 21, 2019.Riordan, Kevin. "Grandpa Danny," Demo 9, Columbia College Chicago, Spring 2009, p. 38. He has exhibited widely in the public domain in Europe, the United States and Canada, as well as at the Museum of Contemporary Photography and Hyde Park Art Center.Bulka, Michael. "The Men Who Sold the World," New City, August 31, 2000, p. 43.Glatt, Cara. "Art Center Features Capitalism and Humor," Hyde Park Herald, September 13, 2000, p. 11.University of St. Francis. Art & Design – Chester Alamo-Costello, Academics. Retrieved March 21, 2019. His photography and projects have been reviewed or published in the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune Magazine,Alamo & Costello. "Moving Pictures," Chicago Tribune Magazine, photography essay, November 20, 1997, p. 22–24. De Telegraaf (Amsterdam), The Globe and Mail (Canada), New Art Examiner,Loehr, Cindy. "Stuff for Sale – Beret…." New Art Examiner, July–August 2000, p. 72. Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Magazine,Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. "MCA Q&A: Dominic Molon," Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Magazine, Fall 2007, p. 16. Nerve,Bottle, Tom, "The Globe," Nerve, September 13, 2010. and on Chicago Public Radio.Eight Forty-Eight. Football (Soccer) Fanatics Photographed at Globe Pub," WBEZ Public Radio, Archives, June 10, 2010. Retrieved March 21, 2019. His books of photography, art and writing include: Somewhere In-Between Chicago (2018),Alamo-Costello, Chester. Somewhere In-Between Chicago, Essays by Max King Cap, Juan Angel Chávez, Anya Davidson, and Paul Melvin Hopkin. Berkeley: Edition One Books, 2018. Retrieved March 21, 2019. The Globe (2010),Alamo-Costello, Chester. The Globe, Chicago, IL: Dark Lark Press, 2010. Retrieved March 21, 2019. and Grandpa Danny (2008).Alamo-Costello, Chester. Grandpa Danny, Chicago, IL: Dark Lark Press, 2008. Retrieved March 21, 2019.
Alamo-Costello is also the publisher of, and a contributor to, The COMP Magazine, a digital art and design journal.The COMP Magazine. About. Retrieved March 21, 2019.The COMP Magazine. Archive. Retrieved March 21, 2019. He is a professor in the Department of Art and Design at the University of St. Francis in Joliet, Illinois and at Sichuan University of Science and Engineering in Zigong, China.Chicago Tribune. "New Book Released by USF Art Professor Chester Alamo-Costello," Chicago Tribune, March 15, 2019. Retrieved March 21, 2019.Baran-Unland, Denise. "USF Joliet art professor receives grant to photograph in China," The Herald News, June 22, 2024. Retrieved April 21, 2025.
Early life and career Alamo-Costello was born Michael Christopher Costello in 1967 in Indianapolis to a blue-collar family of German, Irish, and Italian immigrants that valued practical skills.Baran-Unland, Denise. "'Artists are mirrors of their society ...,'" The Herald News, July 23, 2006, p. F8.Kogan, Rick. "Moving Pictures," Chicago Tribune Magazine, November 20, 1997, p. 23. After developing an interest in art and graduating from Southport High School, he studied graphic design, painting and photography at the Herron School of Art and Design at IUPUI in Indianapolis (BFA, 1990).Crone, Katrina. "Uncovering the mystery that is 'Chester,'" The Encounter, Joliet, IL, April 27, 2006, p. 11. He moved to Chicago in 1993, and initially photographed artists, musicians, and transients while living in a warehouse district on the city's South Side, near Chinatown. In 1994, he enrolled in graduate school at Columbia College Chicago (MFA, 1998), where he studied with photographers Bob Thall and Melissa Ann Pinney, and painter Corey Postiglione.Sturgess, L. Abu-Shalback. "Photo Students Take Their Show on the Road," Columbia Chronicle, May 30, 1995, p. 18. He began his teaching career at Columbia, before moving to the University of St. Francis in 1999. Alamo-Costello lives and works in Chicago with wife, Sandy.Fumo Fox, Paige. "Planting Seeds," Daily Southtown, August 28, 2002, p. D1.
Work
Although Alamo-Costello's work has included drawings, painting and journals, his artistic practice primarily lies in two areas: art-related public interventions, performances and social experiments that may be site-specific or placed in public space;Camper, Fred. "Lots of Meaning," The Reader, September 16, 1994, p. 30–1. and photographic series in which he often takes on the role of archivist or journalist, collecting and documenting everyday, contemporary experiences and encounters.
Public and ephemeral art and social experiments Alamo-Costello has worked on a range of public, temporary and experimental projects that present artwork in non-traditional settings to "non-art" audiences and explore themes of ephemerality, randomness, communication, and trust.Baran-Unland, Denise. "Art in the park," The Herald News, December 19, 1999, p. E1, E6. His first forays into this work came about as a founding member of "Armpit" (1992–8), a performance and public art group that included himself and artists Jesse Bercowetz, Nick Nuccio and Michael Plaza. Between 1993 and 1995, they embarked on three "art walks"—the longest, a 298-mile Chicago-to-St. Louis trip—wheeling carts of their own sculpture as a "roving street gallery" bringing contemporary art to communities and viewers that normally have little contact with it in their own environments.Bibbs, Rebecca. "Exhibit Art...Walking," The Indianapolis News, May 30, 1993, p. 13. In 1994, they created a temporary display of large "urban drop-offs" or "urban totems" in empty Chicago city lots that they made from refuse (cinder blocks, hunks of concrete, scrap wood, tubes and old tires) found on-site. The Chicago Reader'''s Fred Camper described it as a "guerrilla installation" of "near-chaotic accretions" that "gains much from its relationship to the site, and from the social goals that made the group choose it."
"Art Drop" series Alamo-Costello extended the urban drop-off concept with his "art drop" series (1998– ), an art-based social experiment that sought to break through the inaccessibility of art galleries and markets by introducing artworks in unexpected public places, thus involving a broader base of viewers in responding to and collecting art.McNichols, Kate. "Art in the park," The Encounter, Joliet, IL, November 1, 2002, p. 11. For the first drop, "Searching for Geomantricks" (1998), Alamo-Costello created sixty lightboxes with abstract color images inlaid in glass and encased in stained oak frames, which he placed in 20 Chicago public parks for passersby to find, keep and respond to; each was accompanied by a note describing the piece and project, a pen, and a self-addressed, stamped envelope for responding. The images, which resembled spider-like lairs, doubled as "puzzle" pieces that combined to form a large-scale image called Geomantrick's Blessing, which Alamo-Costello created by shooting sections of a string composition with a large format camera, varying exposure times, focus points and color balance.Weiss, Andrea. "Searching for Geomantrick", Public Art Review, Vol. 11, No. 2, Fall/Winter 1999, p. 43.
Between 1999 and 2004, he produced "Appleseed International"—named for the American folk-hero, Johnny Appleseed—in which he distributed 280 similarly conceived works to 20 U.S. and 20 international city parks.Weiss, Andrea. "Appleseed", Public Art Review, Vol. 12, No. 1, Fall/Winter 2000, p. 52. For New Street Agenda (2005-2013), he created 280 framed graffiti-like prints that comment on contemporary modes of deceptive communication and distributed them in 80 international cities from St. Petersburg, Russia through Europe to the United States. Alamo-Costello has received responses from about 30% of the left pieces, from places as widespread as Edinburgh and Paris to Joliet, Illinois.
In 2000, Alamo-Costello produced “The Men Who Sold The World” with Scottish artist Donald McGhie, an interactive exhibition and performance at the Hyde Park Art Center that explored contemporary "savage" capitalism and aggressive marketing techniques in the guise of a "fly-by-night upstart company" willing to buy or sell anything. The show transformed the center into "an enterprise zone" including modern office cubicles, product displays, flashing lights, and money-themed imagery; performative elements—at the opening and a second performance—included aggressive entrepreneurs offering to buy ideas, telemarketing of cellphone users from across the room, a liquidation auction down to the walls, and a money giveaway in the street.
Documentary photographic practice Alamo-Costello has created distinct photographic series since 1993, produced throughout the Midwest and Europe, using an approach informed by art and documentary photographers such as Barbara Crane, Mitch Epstein, Walker Evans, Susan Meiselas, Daidō Moriyama, and August Sander. These series include "Chicago Portraits" (1993- ), depicting Chicago creatives, passersby, and neighborhoods; "7 Minutes SW of the Loop" (1996-2012), portraits and neighborhood studies of Chicago's near south side; "Street Notes" (1993- ), images of ephemeral street art, messages and signage; and "University" (2002- ), images taken at USF. Additional series have formed the basis of his three books.