CIM
December 1, 2017 - January 28, 2018
CIM
Opening Reception: December 1st, 2017, 6pm
December 1, 2017 - January 28, 2018
Curated by Roman Hrab, CIM is an exhibition that plays on the notion of the collective, and what cultural and ethnic topographies bind first and second generation Ukrainian-American and Ukrainian born artists from the New York City area. The word “CIM” means “seven” in Ukrainian, and this exhibition convenes seven individual experiences as a collective of artists working in a wide range of styles and media. The seven contemporary artists participating in this group exhibition are Luba Drozd, Adriana Farmiga, Maya Hayuk, Roman M. Hrab, Yuri Masnyj, Christina Shmigel, and Marko Shuhan. The artists in this show produce work that ranges from the abstract to the representational to the conceptual, from object-based to installation scale work, incorporating drawing, painting, sculpture, and video and sound. Despite this variance, a dialogue bridging the aesthetic, the figurative, the tangible and the intangible is established between the artists and the works chosen for this exhibition.
Exhibition organized by The Ukrainian Museum, NYC.
Galería / Галерея Chicago
October 6 - November 26, 2017
GALERÍA / ГАЛЕРЕЯ CHICAGO
Curator Tour and Reception: Sunday, October 22, 2017 at 2pm
October 6 - November 26, 2017
The Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art and the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts & Culture present a collaborative exhibition, “GALLERY Chicago,” pairing artworks from UIMA’s permanent collection with works by contemporary artists involved in NMPRAC’s programming.
Art is a language that knows no nationality, and “GALLERY Chicago” will highlight one of the visual languages that artists of Ukrainian and Puerto Rican backgrounds share: abstraction. UIMA houses one of the most robust collections of Ukrainian Modernist abstraction from the 1950s-1970s, while NMPRAC is dedicated to the cutting edge practices of contemporary Puerto Rican artists living or working in Chicago.
In “GALLERY Chicago,” these artists of two vastly different generations and ethnic heritages envelop their unique experiences within their formalism. With UIMA in the West Town/Ukrainian Village neighborhood, and NMPRAC located next door in Humboldt Park, this exhibition is also a reflection of the Ukrainian and Puerto Rican communities’ cultural legacies as neighbors.
“GALLERY Chicago” will feature work by Javier Bosques, Ihor Dmytruk, Frances Gallardo, Jacques Hnizdovsky, Wasyl Kacurovsky, Peter Kolisnyk, Ronald Kostyniuk, Lialia Kuchma, Michael D. Mandziuk, Rafael Miranda Mattei, Konstantin Milonadis, Nora Maite Nieves, Josue Pellot, Aka Pereyma, Luis Rodríguez Rosario, Zilia Sanchez, Kristine Servia, Edra Soto, Mychajlo Urban, and Omar Velazquez.
Curated by Robin Dluzen, Stanislav Grezdo and Bianca Ortiz.
This program is a part of the Chicago Cultural Alliance’s Inherit Chicago. Inherit Chicago is a city wide festival of art, ideas and performance at neighborhood heritage museums and cultural centers. Head to InheritChicago.org for a full list of events!
Register here for the curator’s talk.
October 6 – November 26, 2017 at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art
Curator Tour and Reception: Sunday, October 22, 2017 at 2pm
A Is For Artist
October 6, 2017-November 26, 2017
October 6, 2017-November 26, 2017
Opening Reception: October 6, 2017, 6-9pm
Curated by Scott J. Hunter
Once considered individuals requiring separation from the mainstream, persons with neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders are now recognized as valued contributors to the diversity of our communities. This awareness and recognition has taken place concurrently with a growing movement towards examining and addressing the sometimes quite artificial divisions that exist within the community of creative artists, where it has been the norm to segregate persons who have come to making through less traditional paths, and identifying them as “outsider artists,” who are seen as different from those artists whose training has been more academic and institutionally based. This despite the often quite substantial similarities in process, idea, and production that is seen in the works presented between the two groups, and the influence many “outsider artists” have had on modern and contemporary makers and their approaches to creating work. We are now at an important crossroads where it is imperative we consider the artificiality of this segregation, and come to recognize that making art has many routes behind it. Contemporary practices are ones engaged in by a diverse group of individuals, both in terms of training and experience, and developmental circumstance.
With this exhibition, featuring works by artists involved with Chicago-area based programs The Arts of Life, Esperanza Community Services, and Thresholds, and Flying Colors, the arts program at St. Michaels Association for Special Education, on the Navajo Nation in Window Rock, AZ, there is a recognition that the creative activities of artists who have neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disabilities are as deeply representative of the wider community of contemporary practices that define the visual arts in the 21st century, as they are reminders of the capacity for making that is inherent in being human. Through this survey presentation of drawings, paintings, sculptures, and multimedia productions, A is for Artist seeks to engage both the diversity of approaches that are present within contemporary art at the current time, and to highlight the range of practices artists with neurodevelopmental differences are engaging in, as they pursue their careers as professionals within the creative community of Chicago and the US.
Panel discussion November 18th, 2-4:30pm.
A is For Artist Opening Reception
The Five Elements of War
August 18 - September 18, 2017
Opening Reception: Friday August 18, 7:30pm
August 18 - September 18, 2017
Ukrainian artists Daria Marchenko and Daniel Green are outspoken protesters of the military aggression and the tumult that has taken over the eastern regions of their native Ukraine. Following the rich history of protest art, their illustrative series of works, titled Five Elements of War, depicts the causes, turmoil and consequences of the war.
The installation is multi-sensory, meant to elicit a visceral reaction in the viewer. Each of the five works speaks to a different aspect of the war. The Heart of War makes reference to the raw materials necessary for military intervention, while The Flesh of War symbolizes the relationship between oppressor and the oppressed. The Eye of War addresses the spectatorship of the war by the rest of the world and the failure of the world’s powers to intervene. The Brain of War underscores the role of propaganda. The Face of War, which depicts the prominent figure from the conflict, is unapologetic in its straightforwardness. Depending on the light, the mood of the piece changes; the face displays a wide spectrum of emotions, emphasizing the complexities of the conflict, as well as the human nature of war.
While their work is clearly political, most compelling is its material nature. Marchenko incorporates found objects, including shell casings, documents, and shrapnel, all from the front lines. Their canvases consist of war’s
primary elements: gunpowder, lead, steel, bronze, brass, copper and zinc. In
combination with oil and acrylic these elements exude the unnerving nature of war. This tactile quality of their work allows the artists to concretize the war, bridging the divide between the viewer and the reality of eastern Ukraine.
Daria Marchenko and Daniel Green
Opening Reception: Friday August 18, 7:30pm
The Five Elements of War Opening Reception
Domestic Disturbances
August 4 - October 1, 2017
Opening Reception: Friday, August 4, 2017, 6-9pm
August 4 - October 1, 2017
Curated by Victoria Fuller
“Domestic Disturbances” is an exhibition of work relating to the home, the human condition, and how our lives are reflected in what we call home. Issues represented in the work of Alberto Aguilar, Robert Burnier, Lily Dithrich, Victoria Fuller, Alyssa Miserendino and Alison Ruttan deal with what constitutes a home, and how homes reflect our selves, outwardly and psychologically.
In this exhibition, Robert Burnier‘s suspended tent installation suggests the impermanence of home, whether in the urban environment, or in war-torn countries. So too does Alison Ruttan find urgent subject matter in the displacement of people, with ceramic sculptures of bombed buildings in Syria. In his photographs and installations, Alberto Aguilar explores formal and personal connections to objects from his own home, and from the homes of local Ukrainian Village residents. Lily Dithrich and Victoria Fulleralso draw from everyday domestic objects; the former finds hidden meaning through the manipulation of furniture, and the latter manifests ordinary household items in extraordinary ways. Alyssa Miserendino re-photographs the photographs made by her father, who coped with a personality disorder by using a camera to connect with his family and home life.
Homes have such a deep connection to our identity and it is where our most intimate moments play out, for better and for worse. The loss of home by war, disaster, or economic hardship can be devastating. Objects we collect are both personal and impersonal – some have a personal history, and connect to our personal identity, and others are of throwaway value or simply utilitarian. The artists in “Domestic Disturbances” approach the subject of home through psychological and symbolic perspectives, as well as situational ones.
Gallery Talk & Performance: Sunday, September 24 at 2pm
Marcos Raya – Night Train
June 2 - July 30, 2017
Gallery Talk: Marcos Raya and Lynne Warren, Saturday, June 24, 2017, 2pm
June 2 - July 30, 2017
Chicago artist Marcos Raya has a long, established career and a varied practice, with topics that range from futurism and surrealism, to social, sexual and political commentary. In this solo exhibition, the scope of Raya’s work is narrowed to highlight some of the most poignant and resonate subjects that he explores. Raya regularly includes his own image and autobiography into his work, including some of the darker experiences from his life and the world around him. The artist approaches issues like alcoholism, illness, war, poverty and racism with understanding, criticality and astonishing insight, also imbuing these grim topics with a unique combination of wit, absurdity and strangeness.
Born in Mexico, Marcos Raya has become an inextricable part of Chicago’s artistic landscape. Known in the 1970s and 1980s as a prominent Pilsen muralist, Raya has long been active both personally and artistically in social and political issues; these topics continue to permeate his studio practice of painting, collage and found object works. The artist studied at Windsor Mountain Preparatory School in Lenox, MA. Raya has exhibited widely throughout the country and internationally, including such venues as Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City, Mexican Museum in San Francisco, the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, the Chicago Cultural Center, Carl Hammer Gallery in Chicago, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Raya’s work is in the permanent collections of the MCA Chicago, the National Museum of Mexican Art, and the Smart Museum at the University of Chicago. Raya’s murals can be seen on the streets of Pilsen to this day.
Curated by Robin Dluzen and Stanislav Grezdo
Gallery Talk: Marcos Raya and Lynne Warren, Saturday, June 24, 2017, 2pm
Preview exhibition – HERE
Opening Reception
Sedimented
February 3 – April 2, 2017
February 3 – April 2, 2017
An Artist Talk: Sunday, February 19, 2017 at 2pm
The Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art is pleased to present “Sedimented,” a 4-person exhibition featuring Chicago-based artists Stephen Eichhorn, Gunjan Kumar, Judith Mullen and Toby Zallman. These artists not only share an interest in the intersection of the natural and the manmade, but the manner in which they create their multimedia works have conceptual and literal processes in common. In different ways, the artists are all gatherers of images and materials –as if a multitude of ephemera and ideas have been loosened from the world around them and collected, settling within the artists’ studios and their works.
Stephen Eichhorn’s collage works are the product of a fastidious practice of cutting images of flora from botanical publications. From these accrued piles of carefully incised, paper plant life, the artist sorts and selects the images that are then adhered to luminously colored, and reflective grounds. In Eichhorn’s “Cats & Plants” series on display here, cut-out foam core cats are adorned with bizarre arrangements of houseplants: a thorny totem of cacti piled high upon the animal’s head, or spiralling echeveria succulents where the eyes should be. In these works, Eichhorn juxtaposes two of the most common ways we incorporate elements of nature into our human world, giving viewers an unexpected recasting of a familiar, domestic condition.
For Gunjan Kumar, too, laborious precision is the basis for art making, though for Kumar, that labor serves a symbolic purpose. Kumar’s works in “Sedimented” feature the unmistakable, deep golden hue of turmeric. Combining the turmeric powder with organic glues, fabric, paper and minerals, the artist creates symmetrical grids and spirals of turmeric cones. These cones are formed by hand, in a repetitive circular motion –a process that signifies the unification of beginning and end. Kumar draws from the visual and cultural traditions of India, where she was born, and as these influences are filtered through her making process, they result in a thoroughly transcendent and sublime aesthetic experience.
The content of materials is likewise crucial for Judith Mullen, who combines organic and inorganic media in her sculptural works, manifesting the sensation of having one foot in the natural world, and one in the human. Clay and tree branches are treated in the same manner as steel wool and Styrofoam, merging into airy, rather precarious objects. The artist likens these abstracted yet markedly physical pieces to the way in which our human consciousness contends with the instability of memory and the substantiality of the present. Mullen’s works here blur the distinctions between many seemingly disparate ideas, at once recognizable yet fantastical.
Toby Zallman’s commingling of nature and manmade imparts a distinctly environmentalist message via her multimedia installations and wallbound images. In Untitled PB4, innumerable, disposable plastic shopping bags are shredded, twisted and wound with steel mesh, composing a vaguely botanical, alien landscape. The texture of the bags has been transformed, though by no means have their environmentally dangerous characteristics been expunged from the meaning of Zallman’s works. Like her three-dimensional pieces, Zallman’s graphite and photographic works on paper are visually dynamic and enticing in their treatment of the plastic bag; however, underlying that beauty and material ingenuity lies a palpable sensation of danger and hazard.
Order catalog – HERE
Photos from the opening – HERE
Opening Reception
