The Shape of Things to Come
Curated by Paul D’Amato
The Shape of Things to Come is a limited edition print fundraiser for the Riverside Arts Center (RAC). It is a phrase that has been used by many artists, from H.G. Wells in 1933 to the Yardbirds in 1967. We invited 11 artists who have had exhibitions at the Arts Center to respond conceptually and formally to that phrase to create a set of unique images, which we have made into a limited edition of 20 inkjet prints.
The images have been printed on 11” x 17” Canson Arches 310 gsm paper and are signed, titled, and numbered by the artists. These prints will be available online for two weeks to raise funds to support programming at RAC, the epicenter for contemporary art in the western suburbs of Chicago.
The production of these prints was made possible by the generous support of Document, Chicago's preeminent digital print facility, and I.T. Supplies. In addition, they donated the amazing paper on which they are printed.
Make it stand out
Portfolios include all 11 prints signed & numbered
single prints
Single prints, 11” x 17” numbered 6-20 are available. Each print is signed by the artist.
Aimée Beaubien is an artist living and working in Chicago. Her cut-up photographic collages, installations, and artist books explore networks of meaning and association between the real and the ideal. A photographed plant, interlaced vine, and woven topography merge into fields of color and pattern and back again, expanding the ever more complicated sensations of reading a photograph and experiencing nature. Beaubien's work has been exhibited and published nationally and internationally. Aimée Beaubien is an Associate Professor of Photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL, where she has taught since 1997.
Anna Kunz makes works on paper, paintings, sculptures, and installations that utilize color as a material to facilitate relational experiences for viewers. Her work explores the perceptual instability of color and its contingency on light, time, distance, and perspective.
Recently commissioned projects include a suspended work for Helmut Jahn, alongside work by Alice Aycock and Chris Wood. Another large-scale commissioned work consists of a 7-piece painting as part of the William P Clements Junior collection at South West Texas University Medical Center's collection in the new Radiology Oncology wing. This year, Kunz has collaborated with Nina Sarin Arias to create a limited edition collection of garments for Winter 23.
Recently, Anna's work was included in "Singing in Unison," an N.Y. city-wide project curated by Phong H. Bui. Her next upcoming solo exhibition will be at Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, on January 23.Anna is represented by McCormick Gallery in Chicago, Galleri Urbane, Dallas, and Alexander Berggruen, NYC.
UPDATE: The remaining prints are available with the purchase of a portfolio found HERE
Azadeh Gholizadeh (b. 1982) received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2012) and a Master of Architecture and Urbanism from Iran University of Science & Technology (2009) in Tehran, Iran.Solo exhibitions of Gholizadeh's work include: Dawn to Dusk at Goldfinch in Chicago, Illinois; Oh Swallow, where do you live in Winter? At Apparatus Projects in Chicago, Illinois; and Within the Threshold at Chicago Artist Coalition's Bolt Space in Chicago, Illinois.Group exhibitions include Phonetic Fragments at Roots and Culture in Chicago; Contours of Imagination at stop-gap-projects, Columbia, MO; Ten x Ten at Homeroom in Collaboration with Chicago Composers Orchestra in Chicago, IL; Line curated by Claudine Ise at Riverside Art Center in Riverside, IL; After Junkspace at Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation in Chicago, IL; Reproducibles at Museo de Arte de Armenia, Colombia; and Reproducibles at Espacio El Dorado of Bogota in Bogota, Colombia.
Gholizadeh is a 2022 Chicago Artadia Awardee. Most recently, she was a recipient of the Hopper Prize in 2022.
Claire Ashley received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (USA) and her BFA (Hons) from Gray's School of Art (Aberdeen). Originally from Edinburgh, she is now Chicago based. She teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Department of Contemporary Practices and the Department of Painting and Drawing.
Ashley's work investigates inflatables such as painting, sculpture, installation, and performance costume. These works have been exhibited nationally and internationally in galleries, museums, site-specific installations, performances, and collaborations. In addition, her work has been featured on blogs such as Studio International, VICE, Hyperallergic, Artforum, and in magazines such as Sculpture Magazine, Art Papers, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Time Out Chicago, Yorkshire Post, and Condé Nast Traveler (European).
Kim Piotrowski is an abstract painter born in Buffalo, NY. She has lived in the Chicago area since arriving in 1984 to attend the School of the Art Institute, where she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and began her painting career.
For Piotrowski, color, surface, broad brushstrokes, and fine details are paramount in her abstractions. With both aggressive and gentle mark-making, Piotrowski deftly incorporates notions of order and chaos, tenderness, and violence, calm and anxiety, imbuing the right amounts of edginess, uncertainty, and mystery to keep herself inspired and her viewers engaged.
Kim Piotrowski's art has been featured in such venues as Grolle: Pass Projects in Wuppertal, Germany; Forum Gallery, NYC; Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta, GA; and Barbara Davis Gallery in Houston, TX. She has also exhibited extensively in the Chicago area at Cultivator Arts, Linda Warren Projects, Riverside Arts Center, 65Grand, Hyde Park Art Center, and most recently at the O'Connor Gallery at Dominican University.
Piotrowski is the recipient of such prestigious honors as the Artadia Grant, the Illinois Arts Council Visual Artist Grant, the IAC Artist Project Grant, the Sustainable Arts Foundation Artist Grant, and the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Grant. She has also been an artist in residence at Yaddo, Hambidge, Oxbow, and Ragdale.
Born in Bogotá, Colombia, Paola Cabal has lived in Chicago since 2001. A site-specific installation artist, Cabal is best known for her rigorous observational studies of daylight over time-movements the artist photographs on site, then paints directly into spaces trompe l'oeil-style using spray paint. As an artist and educator, Cabal is interested in the intersection between physics and perception and co-teaches a course called "Articulating Time and Space" alongside astrophysicist Kathryn Schaffer at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Accolades include a fellowship from the Illinois Arts Council and an Individual Artist award from the Richard H Driehaus Foundation. "What Means Light", the artist's 2020-21 installation at the Arts Club of Chicago, received critical acclaim at Bad at Sports and Los Angeles' Artillery Magazine. Cabal completed a joint commission for the Chicago Transit Authority and the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) in 2016 and was Artist in Residence at the Chicago Cultural Center in 2017. Recent installation sites include the Dock 6 Collective warehouse (Chicago), Selena Gallery (Brooklyn), The Chicago Cultural Center, DEMO Project Space (formerly in Springfield, IL, now demolished), the Sullivan Galleries at the School of the Art Institute, and the Riverside Art Center (Riverside, IL). She has been featured in articles for Chicago Woman Magazine, F News Magazine, and the Chicago Sun-Times. In addition, she has recently been reviewed in the Chicago Tribune, Art News Online, and NewCity Art.
Alvaro Sahagun was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico in 1982. He is an artist and educator who creates paintings, performances, and sculptures confronting the palpable inescapability of race, transforming them into acts of cultural reclamation. Like DNA strings of mestizaje, his practice confronts contradiction—Indian/conqueror, violence/unity, and ancient/contemporary. As an immigrant and former laborer, Luis seeks to reveal the aesthetics of relocation and transgenerational trauma by utilizing building materials such as silicone, lumber, drywall, concrete, and hardware as symbols representing working-class immigrants' country.
Alvaro cultivates civic activations for community members, students, and other educators. A unique element fueling his social art practice is his experience growing up feeling invisible to society because he was Brown, undocumented, and poor. This makes him privy to perceptions that most people have not been exposed to. He uses the residue of those traumas to guide the development of meaningful performances, public interventions, discussions, and workshops.
Anne Harris's paintings and drawings have been exhibited at venues ranging from Alexandre Gallery, DC Moore Gallery, and Nielsen Gallery to the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian Institute, The Portland Museum of Art, the California Center for Contemporary Art, and the North Dakota Museum of Art. In addition, her work is in such public collections as The Fogg Museum at Harvard, The Yale University Art Gallery, and The New York Public Library. Grants and awards include a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and an NEA Individual Artists Fellowship.
Harris is an Associate Professor in the Painting and Drawing Department at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She also is Chair of the Exhibition Committee at the Riverside Arts Center and has curated numerous exhibitions there. She also is the originator of The Mind's I—an expanding traveling drawing project she does with other artists, which is designed to investigate the complexities of perception and self-perception. Mind's I drawing events and exhibitions have taken place across the U.S. and internationally.
Bob Faust Described as "part artist, part designer, and part mediator," Bob Faust is Faust's principal and creative director, a Chicago-based art and design studio focused on cultural articulation. He is also the partner and design collaborator of artist Nick Cave, who together founded the dynamic, multi-use creative space called Facility. As an entity, it believes that art and design can create peace, build power, and change the world... that by fostering an environment and community built from your dreams, you will wake up daily within your destiny.
NewCity magazine honored Faust as "Best Breakthrough Design Artist" in 2017 and followed up in 2020, naming him and partner Nick Cave "Designers of the Moment." He has also been recognized as a design leader nationally and internationally by publications and institutions such as Communication Arts, NBC5 Chicago, the Society of Typographic Arts, and Under Consideration. Faust also serves on the Cultural Advisory Council for the City of Chicago, as well as the Chicago Dancemakers Forum Board of Directors and the School of the Art Institute's Fashion Council.
Jay Wolke is an artist and educator living in Chicago, Illinois. His photographic monographs include All Around the House: Photographs of American-Jewish Communal Life, 1998; Along the Divide: Photographs of the Dan Ryan Expressway, 2004; Architecture of Resignation: Photographs from the Mezzogiorno, 2011 and Same Dream Another Time, 2017. His works have been exhibited internationally and are in the permanent print collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York MOMA, the Art Institute of Chicago, and San Francisco MOMA, among others. His photographs have appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times Magazine, Guardian Magazine, Financial Times Magazine, Geo France, Exposure, Newsweek, Fortune, and the Village Voice. He is currently a Professor of Photography at
Columbia College Chicago, where he was Chair of the Art and Design Department from 2000-2005 and again from 2008-2013.
Matthew Girson has been exhibiting his work locally, nationally, and internationally since the mid-1990s. Aside from paintings and drawings, he has exhibited sculpture, sound art, and video. In 2006 he launched his perfume Blanc: A scent in ab•scent•ia and his signature typeface, Central Scotoma. In 2014 he adapted the letters between poets Nelly Sachs and Paul Celan into a theatrical production called Dear Poet, All Light which was performed in the Chicago Cultural Center. Upcoming exhibitions are planned for the Riverside Arts Center (Riverside, IL), the Suburban (Milwaukee, WI), and the Gallery at the Burren College of Art (Ballyvaughan, Ireland). In addition, he teaches painting, drawing, and seminars on contemporary art at DePaul University in Chicago.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What is a limited edition print?
It is a print made by mechanical means such as etching or lithograph — and now inkjet prints — that is guaranteed to have been reproduced a limited number of times. In this case, only 20 prints have been made. They are signed and numbered by the artist from #1 to #20. And that's it — when they are gone, there are no more.
How does this fundraiser support programming at RAC?
The Riverside Arts Center (RAC) is a nonprofit arts organization providing services to the public and artists. We offer creative opportunities that contribute to the health and well-being of our community and stimulate ideas and conversation around the arts. Our programs are funded partly by appeals like this one that invites people to support exhibitions, events, classes, artist studios, administration, etc. 100% of the sale of these prints will support all of that.
How will I receive the prints, and will they be framed?
The prints will be shipped by USPS, typically within 5 to 7 days after purchase, and will not be framed. Framing is always a personal choice and, as such, is up to the buyer. Prints can also be picked up directly from the RAC when it is open. Visit our website for the address and hours. www.riversideartscenter.com
RAC's MISSION:
The Riverside Arts Center strives to be the epicenter for contemporary art in the near-west suburbs of Chicago. Through exhibitions, education, artist studios, and public events, the RAC is an advocate for the vital role the arts play in nurturing community and amplifying diverse experiences, ideas, and backgrounds.
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