Previews • Sep 13, 2023

New Exhibitions Open Sept 14

moniquemeloche

Opening: Thursday, Sep 14, 5 – 7 pm

Sep 14 – Oct 28 • West Town

Back to the Stars, the Biggers's fourth solo presentation with the gallery, showcases new artworks from his ever-evolving Chimera and Codex series, which juxtaposes figurative marble sculptures and quilt compositions. These new works bring aesthetic, poetic, and social insights to the intertwining stories embedded in material culture. Biggers’ creative processes recognize and conflate syncretic impulses between aesthetic expressions from seemingly disparate societies and histories, transforming them into rigorously formal and conceptual new works.

Biggers’ Chimera sculptures combine various African and European masks, busts, and figures that explore historical depictions of the body and their subsequent myths, narratives, archetypes, perceptions, and power.

Anna Kunz: ROSY

McCormick Gallery

Opening: Thursday, Sep 14, 2023 5 – 7 pm

Sep 14 – Oct 27 • West Loop

ROSY is a new body of work featuring thirty small oil paintings and eight works on paper. Anna has also installed one of her beautiful diaphanous, curtained installations — layers of dyed and printed textiles hanging from the ceiling before the gallery’s front window. The conversation between the arrangement of small oils and the undulating curtain of color serves as a reminder that immersiveness, architectural intervention (“softening,” as she puts it), and shared experience are crucial themes for Kunz. She intends her installations to create a social space that encourages reflection and invites multiple points of view — "Compassionate Geometry."

Harriet Monroe & the Open Door

Poetry Foundation

Opening: Thursday, Sep 14, 7 – 8 pm

Sep 14 – Jan 13, 2024 • River North

Harriet Monroe (1860–1936) was a poet, a critic, and the founding editor of Poetry magazine whose steadfast commitment to the art form and its creators altered the course of American literary history.

Harriet Monroe & the Open Door maps the evolution of Monroe’s editorial philosophy, locating it within the cultures and structures of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This exhibition includes original artwork by Lilli Carré alongside archival photographs, letters, and other documents from Monroe’s life.

Not Just Another Pretty Face

Hyde Park Art Center

Opening: Thursday, Sep 14, 6 – 8 pm

Sep 14 – Nov 5

The exhibition commemorates the 2020 and 2023 installments of the Not Just Another Pretty Face project. The triennial program, created by Hyde Park Art Center in the mid-1990s, allows the Art Center to play matchmaker for artists and potential art buyers. This dynamic project facilitates a fun and accessible commissioning process that builds lasting relationships between artists and patrons, creates a new base of support for artists, and invests in the vitality of Chicago’s cultural community. The completion of each installment is celebrated by an exhibition, a catalog documenting the process, and a lively event to unveil the finished pieces, which will make their way to the patrons’ homes following the exhibition.