Micropolis: Simona Schaffer
Opening Friday May 14, 2004 from 6-10pm
show runs from May 14 - June 5
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“Convinced
that art is something more than a beautiful and useless object,
Simona Schaffer’s work "whas made not to please, but
to spread consciousness", begin to generate curiosity of
the people, and especially to whom need an alternative to popular
culture. The artist criticizes institutions of art, because she
considers that all the possibilities have not been opened so
that the everyday Mexican citizen can attend the museums, which
have always been handled by elitist criteria.” Rene Mayoral,
Arts and Culture Editor, “Que Politico”, Mexico City,
(translated from Spanish).
Simona art for sale!
email if interested or stop by
polvo art studio saturdays noon-5pm, or call (773)344-1940
All work is mixed media on plexi, metal
and wood.
 $100 |
 $175 |
 $175 |
 not for sale |
 $100 |
 $175 |
 SOLD |
 $175 |
“Simona
Schaffer deals with topics that inevitably take us into a world of
drugs, raped and unhappy characters that question human existence
itself. Her artistic proposal is to rescue the social role of art,
confronting the public the way Mexican collective art groups did,
working with different materials, recycling them, searching for responses.” – Jose
Zuniga, independent visual artist, Mexico City, Mexico (translated
from Spanish).
 $125 |
 $175 |
 not for sale |
 $150 |
 SOLD |
 $150 |
 $175 |
 $175 |
 $175 |
 $175 |
 $175 |
 $175 |
Documentation from Mexico City 2003
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Start the summer right with Polvo Art Studio! Please come and view our upcoming show “Micropolis” with a special exhibition of photographs documenting the public works by Mexico City-based artist Simona Schaffer. These public works are “socio-engaged” following the tradition of 1970’s Mexican public artists. These installations entitled “Micropolis” were set in the everyday life of Mexico City. Schaffer describes her public works: “Micropolis consisted of six walls representing the buildings of a housing project. In the walls are windows, inside of which, different screens of every day urban life can be seen. The characters are made of enameled metal, and set in little scenarios that reproduce street settings. Housing projects have become a sign of overpopulation and a symbol of the architecture of the 20th century. Micropolis questions the way housing demand has been resolved in most Latin American cities.”
On Friday, May 14, Polvo Art
Studio invites you to welcome Simona Schaffer with her first solo exhibition
in Chicago! The reception for the artist
and exhibit begins at 6:00 pm until 10:00 pm. Schaffer attended the National
University Autonomous of Mexico (Mexico City) and received a Bachelor’s
of Fine Arts degree in Visual Art. Schaffer has participated in numerous
group exhibits in Mexico since 1995, noteworthy in Chicago; she participated
and coordinated with the "Arte Chilango" exhibit with Galeria
Tinta Roja and Sol Studio plus her participation with the "Around
the Coyote" Festivals. In Mexico, she exhibited work in art festivals
and cultural spaces in the state of Vera Cruz and in Mexico City.
Micropolis
Micropolis is the result of serious research on Mexican public art,
undertaken as part of a thesis project for a Bachelor’s Degree
in Visual Arts entitled “The groups: a link in the chain of
Mexican Public Art”. The thesis text contained a historical
review of the collective public art movement in Mexico City during
the 1970’s.
In its original form this sculpture/installation was
made up of six panels representing the buildings of a housing project.
The artist’s
goal was to generate awareness of some of the problems produced by
overcrowding in urban settings.
These pieces are attractive because they make the viewer uncomfortable.
The characters, drawn, engraved or painted on enameled metal, with
rough techniques, are dramatic, frustrated beings, frightened and
hungry for love, in prison-like dwellings; painted with clashing
colors that fight each other in an anarchical world of shapes and
textures, reminiscent of the expressionist painter Soutine, a mad
visionary of human poverty, and at the same time, full of tenderness,
who translated his anguish in exalted colors.
Simona also deals with topics that inevitably take us into the world of drugs, of raped and unhappy characters that question human existence itself.
The artistic proposal is to rescue the social role of art, confronting the public the way the Mexican collective art groups did, working with diferent materials, reciclying them, searching for responses.
Based on this concept, Simona takes us to places that are both the motifs for her art and a search for answers from the public as it contemplates the mirror of reality that she portrays.
José Zúñiga
Painter
México,
marzo 2003.
Polvo Art Studio
1458 W. 18th ST 1R
Chicago, IL 60608
773.344.1940
http://www.polvo.org