Rituals
CHICAGO, IL—The Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art is pleased to announce the opening of Rituals on December 4th, 2021 featuring works by artists Brenton Good, Mandy Cano-Villalobos, and Marissa Voytenko who have come together for their first joint exhibition. The present age has been defined by shirking customs, breaking traditions, and celebrating the informal. Yet it is through formal, practiced and ceremonial-like actions that contemporary artists Good, Cano-Villalobos, and Voytenko have found their expression. Though their work is varied in medium and approach, the three artists regard ritual as an integral part of their work. Hailing from Amish country in western Pennsylvania, Good’s hard-edged, checkerboard woodcut prints draw heavily from traditional quilt patterns. Meticulously planned and executed, his prints display multiple layers of historical color combinations. Cano-Villalobos honors her personal history, and our broader human history, through the collection of mementos assembled into shrine-like sculptures. Looking at these assemblages one can spot objects that connect the viewer with their own memories. With waxy encaustic paint, Voytenko creates images that are lyrically structured through the use of repeated shapes and lines.
Wassily Kandinsky's 1922 Sketchbook: A Selection
Kandinsky’s 1922 Bauhaus Sketchbook: A Selection
CHICAGO, IL—Chicago - The Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art is pleased to announce Kandinsky: The Rediscovered Bauhaus Sketchbook, an exhibition featuring 15 pages of a newly authenticated sketchbook used by the artist Wassily Kandinsky in 1922, when he was teaching at the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany. On view from October 16 through November 7, 2021, the exhibition will make available to the public the only loose pages from the 43-page sketchbook possible, without damage to the sketchbook itself. Kandinsky: The Rediscovered Bauhaus Sketchbook is presented in partnership with the National Museum “Kyiv Art Gallery” in Kyiv, Ukraine and is made possible through the generosity of the Khodorkovsky Family, the sketchbook’s owner.
Wassily Kandinsky (Moscow, 1866 - Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, 1944) is one of the most noted artists of the 20th century. An artist, art theorist and educator, he is often credited as a pioneer of abstraction. Kandinsky spent his youth in Odessa, Ukraine, graduating from the Grekov Odessa Art School. He then attended the University of Moscow, where he studied law and economics, from 1886-1892. He declined a teaching position in his field in Dorpat, today Tartu, Estonia in 1896 and moved to Munich to study art, first with Anton Azbe, followed by Franz von Stuck. While in Munich, Kandinsky began to move towards abstraction. He is widely known for his work with German artist Franz Marc (1880-1916) for the publication of the Blue Rider Almanach and its related exhibitions. His 1911 treatise Concerning the Spiritual in Art continues to be an important resource explaining the inner life of the artist and its relationship to non-objective forms. His forced return to Russia at the onset of World War I in 1914 was short-lived. He returned to Germany after the war and assumed a teaching position with the Bauhaus, where he remained until its closure by the Nazi government in 1933. Kandinsky then left for France, where he remained until his death. The sketchbook’s rediscovery corrects previous issues concerning the absence of known personal sketchbooks by the artist from 1922-1927. Provenance history suggests the existence of additional sketchbooks, as yet to be found.
For further inquiries, a book (hardback) documenting the authentication process will be available for purchase for $35 with an introduction by Nuno Viana. In addition to reproductions of all the sketches themselves, expert reports by Lisa Florman, Reinhold Heller, Dmytro Horbachev, and Maria Valyaeva, are reprinted. A technical examination and analysis report from the Conservation Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC.) is also included.
The Horizon is a Circle: Ricardo Manuel Díaz and Margarita Fainshtein
The Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art is honored to present paintings by Chicago based artist Ricardo Manuel Díaz and printed works by Nova Scotian artist Margarita Fainshtein in The Horizon is a Circle, a two person exhibition that contemplates displacement, a sense of place, and what home means across geographic borders and cultures. Díaz, a longtime Cuban political refugee, reflects upon the nuances and challenges associated with coping with family left behind, adjusting to a new way of life, economic distress, and degrees of acceptance. Fainshtein, thrice transplanted from Ukraine, to Israel, to Nova Scotia invites visitors to assume active roles as an 'observer' or 'participant', paralleling conditions of the seeming acceptance of official political citizenship and the reality of cultural discrimination. How welcome can one feel in a country tainted with disdain for those unlike the majority? How do deep-seated attitudes embedded in history continue intergenerationally and affect family? Both artists bring awareness to these and other issues as they explore what it means to bridge past and present across cultures - gathering information about how one exists in the world, what gets internalized with time, and what gets fixed in one's memory. The Horizon is a Circle will be on view through August 22, 2021 and a catalogue will be published in conjunction with the exhibition.
Abstraction as Metaphor
Painting, including abstraction, has probably been around too long to hold surprises, at least in the area of pictorial innovation, which was its hallmark historically. This could be regarded as the current challenge for abstraction in particular. Whereas painting continues unabated with no signs of disappearing, the question remains how to make it vital, not only in terms of pictorial seduction, but also in the area of content. This is one of the particular dilemmas for abstraction.
Postiglione and Shaw's work is not only about itself and the sheer formal optical experience uncomplicated by any outside issues. Their use of abstract imagery readily embraces issues such as themes of globalization and the resultant dynamics of societal, cultural, and environmental degradation. All of this metaphoric content is represented in the language of abstract art.
Corey Postiglione and Kathie Shaw have been fortunate to share a studio, where they interact around ideas, techniques and motivations. Although different stylistically, the consequence of a shared space are essential to both artists.
Work, People, Art: Selections from the Works Progress Administration Collection of the Illinois State Museum
The Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art is proud to present Work, People, Art in partnership with the Illinois State Museum. The exhibition features 38 paintings, prints, and photographs made under the Federal Art Project (FAP) from the Illinois State Museum’s permanent collection.
Michel Andreenko and Ukrainian artists in Paris
Michel Andreenko and Ukrainian Artists in Paris is curated by Adrienne Kochman, in anticipation of the exhibition Michel Andreenko:Revisited. A survey of his career – from theatrical set designs and non-representational work of the 1920s, surrealistic naturalism, his Vanishing Paris series of the 1940s-1950s and return to non-representation in the mid-1950s will be represented through the largest collection of his work in the United States, loaned by Drs. Alexandra and Andrew Ilkiw. The exhibition, postponed a year due to the pandemic, will open in Spring 2021. A catalogue is already available through UIMA.
Not Afraid
In their two-person exhibition, Not Afraid, Janice Elkins and Gina Lee Robbins have created a symphony of canvases, sculptures and installations that render the human experience in abstracted, yet vividly emotional ways. Using bold imagery, fractured form, and rich layers of texture, Elkins and Robbins have captured an uncensored psychological response to these restrictive and bewildering times.
On view February 20- April 18, 2021