Tag: art

Radical Clay Exhibit

My friend, who moved from Chicago to Boston last year, was in town last week, and we went to the Art Institute for the Thursday evening hours. We saw an exhibit I hadn’t seen yet – “Radical Clay,” which presented the works of Japanese contemporary female sculptors made of clay/porcelain. 

The exhibit is small, but all the artworks are extraordinary! Here are some pictures that I took and some from the official webpage. 

This one is called “Looking for a crush”
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Long Weekend

This Thanksgiving was not ideal, to put it mildly, so I am not going to talk about it. I am just hoping that next year, it will be better.

However, despite that fact, the long weekend was pretty productive. Boris came on Wednesday afternoon, and I told him right away that I would need lots of help around the house in general and to help me get ready for a very busy December in particular. He was indeed exceptionally helpful, and I felt supported in all possible ways.

Friday was our day in the Loop. We went to the Art Institute because there were three exhibits I wanted to see, and having how my schedule looks for the next month, I won’t have that many options. In fact, the Remedios Varo exhibit closes tomorrow, and I kept “not having time” for it. The Picasso drawings exhibit just opened, the same as Canova’s “Sketches in Clay.”

Overall, we didn’t like either of the exhibits that much:). Picasso’s exhibit is hype, but I was never very fond of him anyway, and this particular exhibit is all about his “dark side” and the Minotaurus, and I looked at all these drawings in horror.

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Wild Onion Market Fundraiser

I am a part of Wild Onion Market – I joined as an owner almost two years ago, and since then, donated several times. Now, our coop is in the final fundraising stretch, raising the remaining fund needed to open in December.

Today we had a fundraising event in the Rhapsody Theater. I bought two tickets because I felt I could do at least that, and took my mom there, since the theater is just two blocks away from her building. I was hoping to catch a program, but when we came thee at six, they told us that the programmimg won’t start till 8 PM, and I was not ready to stay that long.

I didn’t plan to participate in either silent auction or the live one, but since I had time, I decided to check out the silen auction items. To my surprise, I saw that a painting with the estimated price of $350 and initial bid of $75 didn’t get any bids. I quickly put a $100, and nobody put anything after me! That way, completely unexpectedly, I became an owner of this beautiful painting:

Camille Claudel Exhibit

Just back from the Art Institute, where I saw a Camille Claudel exhibit. It’s amazing. I am shocked, sad, and ashamed of how little I knew about her! Like “everybody else,” I knew her name, but the only reason I knew it was in connection with August Rodin – like “everybody else.” She is always mentioned as his apprentice and his muse, and Rodin’s bust, created by Claudel, is his most known representation.

That’s who she was in my mind. Not trying to compare myself with geniuses, I still felt like I could relate to a female character developing professionally in the shadow of a more famous male figure, inevitably treated as “a secondary” both by others and herself.

In reality, however, Camille faces way more obstacles, starting from not being allowed to work with nude models as most females, followed by constant comparing her with Rodin to the point of her works being attributed to him.

She left Rodin’s workshop to be her own person and explore the subjects she wanted to explore, only to receive more criticism for nudity in her sculptures and not receive grants for any of her works to become a full-size artwork. Then, exhibiting the signs of a mental illness, destroying most of her works and spending thirty years in the psychiatric hospital. Her family insisted on her being institutionalized despite the doctor’s suggestions to take her home and reintegrate into the family.

She died in the hospital in 1943 when France was occupied, and she was reburied in a common grave, so there is no even a place to mark. Her works were almost forgotten, and her personal exhibits happened years after she passed away.

Her art is amazing and so distinct from Rodin’s works – now I know!

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Helsinki Day 3

We were so scared of the rain the day before that we ended up spending most of the day indoors visiting different museums.

The first one was a Burger House showing how well-off people in Helsinki lived in the second half of the 19th century.

With Anna at the Senat Square

Then we visited Aethenium Museum and then – The Helsinki City Museum.

Both of them had activities for kids, which made everybody happy. In fact, Nadia was so fascinated with the “classroom” exhibit in the Helsinki City Museum, she didn’t want to go anywhere else and stayed there almost until the museum closed 🙂

Anna at the classroom piano

All these exhibits plus more ice cream made the day, and we were glad we didn’t plan anything else!

Art Institute With ODS

Last Thursday, I took a group of youth from the Open Door Shelter to the Art Institute. We used to go there on Thursday nights relatively regularly, but it didn’t happen for a while, and I was very excited to resume this activity.

Yes, as usual, they were delayed to the point that we only had an hour and fifteen minutes left for the museum, and yes, as usual, people got lost on the way (this time, things were complicated by the fact that one person from our group had a double stroller, which meant that we had to search for elevators, which is not an easy task, especially in the older part of the museum.

But with all that being said, and with the fact that nobody except for our volunteer coordinator had been to the Art Institute before, it was a smashing success. At least, that’s what I think. I enjoyed every minute of this outing. Each time I take a group from the shelter to the museum, they surprise me with how they interpret art, how attentive they are to details, and how the art makes them feel. One young man answering my questions about whether he saw that it’s spring in the picture answered with a three-minute monologue telling me about all the things he saw (and I didn’t!) about this landscape. I was listening with my jar dropped!

Also, all of them realized how gigantic the place was and how many things one could see, and everybody resented coming so late. I was glad that I had a chance to spend some “one-on-one” time with three people from the group and listen to their perspectives. One of them replied to my question whether did she know who Van Gough was, replied: I received a very good education! My mother is an artist. But honestly, it didn’t matter: some of them didn’t hear Van Gough’s name before, some knew his works, but no matter what, their insights were amazing.

I hope we can go one more time when I am back form Finland!

Beautification

I am moving through my To-Do list. 

After all the lights were put up, I asked the handyman to change the wiring of the lights so that I won’t have a string of lights down to the plug, which he did. Also, Boris replaced the remaining locks, and now finally, I have all four locks opening by one key, and all the locks are working!

I finished planting, and the flowerbeds look amazing. And I have the artwork on the wall, something I have wanted to have since I moved here! 

Most of my neighbors have some artwork, but the people who lived in this apartment before removed whatever they had on the wall, so I could only see the remaining screws. I was looking for something I could place on the wall for the past two summers and finally found something three weeks ago at the Greenleaf Art Center Open House.

This art was absolutely not like what I envisioned when I was thinking about this hypothetical art on my wall, but I saw it and loved it! Initially, I eyed another piece, which was monochrome, but when I talked to the artist and showed her a picture of the wall and a balcony, I suddenly thought that the other board, with pink elements, would look better. 

Angela (that was the artist’s name) agreed to put an extra protection coating on the board, and we agreed that I would pick it up in two weeks. Now, the board is there, and my balcony looks perfect, and I am ready to enjoy the summer!

Saturday – As Planned!

That’s the most amazing fact about today – I did pretty much everything I wanted, and som more!

Long (ish) bike ride in the morning:

My cleaning lady came to wash the windows, and this year, we were also to open all of them. While she was washing the windows, I did a big portion of my emails and started my submissions to PG Conf NYC. Then I went down to Jarvis square fair and bought a lot of plants for my balcony and for our courtyard vegetable garden. Then I hung out for a little bit at the fair, chatted with the neighbors who also went down there, bought a crazy artisan doughnut

and hurried to the Abortion Protection rally (and finished my conference submissions on the CTA)

After the rally was over, I went straight to the Switch on Summer event (Switching on the Buckingham fountain). Last year, I came there too early and as a result, didn’t stay till the actual turning on the fountain (it was too hot). This time, I came at about 1-15, and it was perfect!

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A Weekend Of Cultural Activities

I had my girls over this weekend, and that was the most cultural activities we ever had in one and a half days!

We went to the CSO for Kids concert, which was the first time for Kira. Straight from there, we went to the Art Institute and saw the Dali exhibit (Nadia actually liked it, and even Kira showed some interest). Fortunately, the Art Institute recently reopened its cafe, so we had lunch there and then headed to the Ryan educational center, where Nadia made a collage on the Salvador Dali theme. As always, we spent a really long time there and started to head out only when they were about to close.

We then walked to the Bean and then to the Chicago Cultural Center and stopped there to see a Tiffany Dome.

On Sunday, Nadia and I went to Joffrey Ballet to see “The Little Mermaid,” a ballet composed by Lera Auerbach. Everything about this piece is amazing: the music, the choreography, the instruments, the costumes, and most importantly, how the fairy tale is interpreted.

I read the synopsis to Nadia while we were waiting for the train, and while I was reading, I thought: well, this does not look like a ballet for kids. When I finished reading and said: so that’s a very sad story, Nadia asked: why is it sad? And then I thought that probably she is right because at the end, both the Poet and the Little Mermaid found new meaning in their lives.

I found a very interesting link where Lera Auerbach talks about the score and how she chose the instrument for the Mermaid’s voice.

Here are a couple of pictures I found. I do not think they convey how amazing this ballet is, but it is at least something!

This promotional video gives at least some impression of how it feels – imagine 2.5 hours of such intensity!

And imagine Nadia sitting through it, watching!

First Kings Of Europe

This Field Museums exhibit tells the story of the first kingdoms on the Balkan peninsular.

The international group of museum curators and historians started to work on putting it together back in 2015. Everybody knows what happened next, but this exhibit faced more challenges than any other, including expiring grants. Now, the exhibit is finally here, at the Field Museum, showing the historical objects from ten different museums in different countries, 700 objects which were never displayed together,

The whole exhibit is set up like a giant book, so that you walk through and turn the pages.

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