New Exhibitions Start February 25 & 26

Claimed

Opening: Friday, February 25, 5 – 7 pm

Chicago Artists Coalition (CAC)

Claimed is a solo exhibition by interdisciplinary artist Selva Aparicio that leverages themes of death, memory, and mourning to breathe new life into the forgotten. It exposes the inherent failings of a system that disproportionately relegates impoverished, disabled, and non-white Americans to anonymous, inaccessible mass graves like New York City’s Hart Island each year. Devoid of all traces of traditional ritual and remembrance, the pine casket, synonymous with pauper’s graves and potter’s fields, forms the heart of Aparicio’s installation.

Searching For an Exit

Friday, February 25, 5:30 – 6:30 pm

International Museum of Surgical Science

Anastasia Sitnikova (b. 1979, Russia) is a Chicago artist and art educator. Born at the very end of the Cold War era, Sitnikova experienced a period of turbulence between the USSR and new Russia, which shaped her interest in utopian and dystopian ideas. Her art is much driven by the curiosity about human nature and social relations as a representation of inner self and outer world, subconscious and conscious, correspondingly. Sitnikova creates large-scale installations to illustrate, activate and explore these ideas.

Abstraction as Metaphor: The Paintings of Kathie Shaw and Corey Postiglione

February 26

Evanston Art Center

The work of Corey Postiglione and Kathie Shaw is not only about itself and the sheer formal optical experience uncomplicated by any outside issues.  The use of abstract imagery readily embraces issues such as themes of globalization, not only for the individual, but for the society at large.  For these two artists the resultant dynamics of spiritual, societal, cultural, and environmental degradation is represented in the metaphoric language of abstract art.

CALIBRATION MATRIX

February 26

ENGAGE Projects

ENGAGE Projects is pleased to present CALIBRATION MATRIX, a solo show featuring new sculptural works in glass by Andrew Bearnot. This exhibition draws on Bearnot’s background in materials science and glassworking, introducing a vocabulary of forms which extend the artist’s investigation of calibration as a formal, philosophical, and political subject. Constantly shifting when viewed from different perspectives, the glass objects point to Bearnot’s interest in queer phenomenology and metaphysics.

Meriem Bennani: Life on the CAPS

Opening: Saturday, February 26, 12 – 6 pm

The Renaissance Society

The Renaissance Society presents the debut of a new film by New York-based artist Meriem Bennani(b. 1988, Rabat, Morocco). Life on the CAPS is the next chapter of a series of films set in the future that depict the inhabitants of CAPS, an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean where refugees and immigrants “illegally” traversing international borders are held by the US Troopers. Playful and poignant, this multi-dimensional narrative continues Bennani’s exploration of displacement, biotechnology, and privacy through world-building and formal experimentation.

Uncommon Prints x Common Matrices

Opening: Saturday, February 26, 4 – 7 pm

Woman Made Gallery

Woman Made Gallery is excited to announce Uncommon Prints x Common Matrices juried by Cathie Ruggie Saunders. Uncommon Prints x Common Matrices is a group exhibition featuring the artwork of 28 women and non-binary artists exploring the concept and techniques of a transfer in unexpected ways and across mediums. 

An Instrument in the Shape of a Woman

February 26

Chicago Cultural Center

An exhibition by Leslie Baum, Diana Christiansen and Selina Trepp with Annie Morse suggests an alternate universe, at once familiar and surreal, seen through the prism of their invention. Echoes of landscape, still life and psychological portraiture reside in resolutely abstract works.

Jake Troyli: Slow Clap

February 26

Monique Meloche Gallery

Jake Troyli investigates the construction of otherness and the commodification of the Black/Brown body, confronting and exploring labor capitalism and sweat equity as a demonstration of value. He makes energetic paintings, often featuring a self-portrait or avatar of himself embedded in engaging scenes, with a markedly classicist approach.

Blue Moon Collective Artist Exhibition

Opening: Saturday, February 26, 6 – 9 pm

Blue Moon Gallery