Hyde Park Art Center announces two major solo exhibitions
The Metamorphosis of Gabriel Villa
April 26 – July 17
Planting and Maintaining a Perennial Garden: Shrouds by Faheem Majeed
May 3 – July 17
CHICAGO (March 4, 2021)—Hyde Park Art Center, the renowned non-profit hub for contemporary art located on Chicago’s vibrant South Side, announces two major new solo exhibitions opening this Spring: The Metamorphosis of Gabriel Villa, April 26 – July 17, and Planting and Maintaining a Perennial Garden: Shrouds by Faheem Majeed, May 3 – July 17, both curated by Allison Peters Quinn, Art Center Director of Exhibition & Residency Program. For more information on the exhibitions and related public programs, visit hydeparkart.org.
The Metamorphosis of Gabriel Villa introduces Villa’s new direction from painting into installation and clay sculpture created during his Jackman Goldwasser Residency at Hyde Park Art Center, along with previous paintings. Through an extensive studio and public art practice, Villa seeks to seamlessly translate the language of Mexican traditions and the personal, urban American experience into charged intimate narratives. Villa’s subjects are ever evolving but always concentrate on psychological and social inequity in the multifaceted contemporary world. His stream of consciousness approach to painting and drawing expose the heightened reality found in everyday objects and places. ” This exhibition is partially supported by a grant from The Illinois Arts Council.
Gabriel Villa, a studio and public artist, was born and raised in the El Paso, Texas/Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, border region, and currently resides in Chicago. He was a 2018-19 Jack Goldwasser Artist in Residence at Hyde Park Art Center, and a recipient of the Elena Diaz-Verson Amos Eminent Scholar in Latin American Studies at Columbus State University, GA, 2017. He received his MFA from the University of Delaware, a BFA from Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, ME, and The New York Academy of Art, NY. Villa served at the National Museum of Mexican Art, from 2006-2011 as a Co-Curator for the Chicago Kraft Foods Gallery, and from 2005-2011 as the Director of Yollocalli Arts Reach, a youth initiative.
Planting and Maintaining a Perennial Garden: Shrouds by Faheem Majeed is an ambitious new installation and exhibition that furthers his investigation of culturally specific institutions by focusing on the history and memory of the historic South Side Community Art Center (SSCAC). The centerpiece of the exhibition will be a monumental charcoal rubbing of the SSCAC’s building facade at 3831 S. Michigan Ave. that Majeed has been working on since August 2020. Also incorporated, in addition to this new fabric work, is his ongoing series Planting and Maintaining a Perennial Garden, which reuses one set of cedar wood panels over many spaces. For this installation, the wooden planks, repurposed from the SSCAC’s Burroughs Gallery, will take the form of a platform that will both raise the massive building sized fabric rubbing on a pedestal, and be host to a performance by the Seldoms. In this exhibition, Majeed will debut his first video work on the Jackman Goldwasser Catwalk Facade featuring dancer Damon Green in movement with the shroud choreographed by Carrie Hanson in the SSCAC’s wood-paneled art gallery.
Faheem Majeed is a builder—literally and metaphorically. A resident of Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood, Majeed often looks to the material makeup of his neighborhood and surrounding areas as an entry point into larger questions around civic-mindedness, community activism, and institutional critique. As part of his studio practice, the artist transforms materials such as particle board, scrap metal and wood, and discarded signs and billboard remnants, breathing new life into these often overlooked and devalued materials. His broader engagement with the arts also involves arts administration, curation, and community facilitation, all which feed into his larger practice. From 2005-2011, Majeed served as Executive Director and Curator for the SSCAC. In this role he was responsible for managing operations, staff, programs, fundraising, curation, and archives for the SSCAC. During his time with the SSCAC, Majeed curated exhibitions of numerous artists including Elizabeth Catlett, Dr. David Driskell, Charles White, Jonathan Green, and Theaster Gates. Majeed received his BFA from Howard University and his MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).
Planting and Maintaining a Perennial Garden IV: Shrouds by Faheem Majeed is generously supported by The Joyce Foundation, The Terra Foundation for American Art, and The Illinois Arts Council.
Other exhibitions opening at Hyde Park Art Center in April include Irina Zadov: What time is it?, April 5 – May 1, 5-10 p.m., playing on the exterior of the Art Center building, and Maggie Crowley: Playmate, April 12 – June 5. For more information on all upcoming exhibitions and related public programs, please visit www.hydeparkart.org.
COVID-19-related safety protocols
Hyde Park Art Center views its community’s safety as the number one priority and is utilizing the guidance from the City and State to inform its reopening procedures including the requiring of masks to be worn in the building at all times; instituting extra cleaning and disinfecting procedures; wide availability of hand sanitizer throughout the building; and the careful configuring of exhibition hours so as to help regulate the number of people and maintain proper social distance in the Art Center at one time.
Admission and hours
Exhibition admission is free, and advance registration is required. For latest exhibition hours and advance registration, visit www.hydeparkart.org.
About the Hyde Park Art Center
Hyde Park Art Center, at 5020 South Cornell Avenue on Chicago’s vibrant South Side, is a hub for contemporary arts in Chicago, serving as a gathering and production space for artists and the broader community to cultivate ideas, impact social change, and connect with new networks. Since its inception in 1939, Hyde Park Art Center has grown from a small collective of quirky artists to establishing a strong legacy of innovative development and emerging as a unique Chicago arts institution with social impact. The Art Center functions as an amplifier for today and tomorrow’s creative voices, providing the space to cultivate and create new work and connections.
