It's time once again for the nonprofit Chicago Artists' Coalition's Chicago Art Open, taking place October 3-19 at the Merchandise Mart and in the West Loop's FLATFILEgalleries. This year's exhibition features 285 works representing all media, from drawing to installations. The festivities kick off Friday, October 3 with a special preview event (i.e., more expensive) from 4-6 p.m. and a general opening reception (i.e., less expensive) from 6-10 p.m. at the Merchandise Mart. Other Open events include gallery tours, panel discussions and an October 19 talk with collector, philanthropist, MCA founder and National Medal of Arts recipient Lew Manilow; click here for the full schedule.

As part of the Open, CAC will release its first-ever issue of Prompt: a cross-disciplinary, biannual, visual arts journal focused on the Chicago scene. We don't have a copy at our disposal, but the titles of the inaugural articles -- "Organizing as Fetish," "DIY, Why?" -- and features on artists such as Joan Livingstone make it all sound fairly promising, even if we're not sure what "contextualizing aesthetic artifacts" means.