“Artists for Ukraine: Transforming Ammo Boxes into Icons,” a powerful installation of three Ukrainian icons painted on the boards of ammunition boxes by Oleksandr Klymenko and Sofia Atlantova, a husband-wife artistic team from Kyiv, Ukraine, will be on view from November 3 through February 13, 2023, at the Museum of Russian Icons, 203 Union St., Clinton, Massachusetts. They’re part of the ongoing “Buy an Icon — Save a Life” project originally created in response to Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine after Klymenko found empty wooden ammunition boxes from combat zones and noted their resemblance to icon boards (doski). By repurposing the panels, the project strives, in the artist’s words, to “transform death (symbolized by ammo boxes) into life (traditionally symbolized by icons in Ukrainian culture). The goal, this victory of life over death, happens not only on the figurative and symbolic level but also in reality through these icons on ammo boxes.” The goal of their exhibition is to help raise monies for the Pirogov First Volunteer Mobile Hospital in Ukraine’s Donbas region.
Over the past decade, Holy Cross alumni Brad Schuller, ‘03 and Gabrielle Schuller, ’02 have been building a collection of emerging West Coast artists. “See You Through It,” an exhibition of some of those works, including paintings, sculptures and mixed-media artworks by Adam Bateman, Razvan Boar, Owen Fu, Brandon Landers, Victor Machado, Tala Madani, Mando Marie, Simphiwe Ndzube, Mike Shultis, Adam Stamp, William Stockman, Helen Teede and Mike Womack, opens November 7 and runs through December 17 at the Cantor Art Gallery at the newly-opened Prior Performing Arts Center at the College of the Holy Cross, 1 College St., Worcester, Massachusetts. “Their dynamic collection includes paintings, sculptures and mixed-media artworks, by artists whose work broadly considers the self in modern society. Through often unnerving images, the artists utilize disruption and humor to navigate some of the most profound and intimate subjects.”
Zoë Friend has turned a “fear of things and her ever-evolving relationship with compulsion” into her first solo exhibition, “Ataxophilia,” which will be on view from November 9 through December 11 at Boston Sculptors Gallery, 486 Harrison Ave., Boston, Massachusetts. Named after a clinical condition described as “a fear of clutter or messy surroundings,” the exhibition features assemblage sculptural works made from disposable items, including plastic utensils, cheap costume jewelry and fake fauna that Friend turns into highly ornate and sumptuous motifs. Her show coincides with “Ellen Schön: New Directions Home.”
“Monochrome,” an exhibition featuring contemporary figurative artists’ search for expression and meaning within a single-color or limited palette opens November 11 and continues through February 19, 2023 at the Chauncey-Stillman Gallery at Lyme Academy of Fine Arts, 84 Lyme St., Old Lyme, Connecticut. The show features over 30 works in a variety of media by figurative artists Steven Assael, Chris Gallego, Michael Grimaldi, Amaya Gurpide, Jefferson Hayman, Yuriy Ibragimov and Alex Kanevsky as well as a painting by 19th-century American artist Edwin Lord Weeks. “It’s interesting to see the use of monochrome today in art, film, and photography,” said Gurpide, the show’s co-curator (with Jordan Sokol). “It has become an aesthetic choice that does not necessarily respond to a particular time in history, or reflect a lack of technology, but rather is being explored as a distinctive narrative tool.”
Cey Adams initially grabbed widespread attention as a graffiti artist on the streets and subway cars of New York City almost a half-century ago; his subsequent career stands as a blueprint for young artists looking to take their artwork from the streets into galleries and clothing boardrooms. “Adams would go on to create visual identities for some of Hip-Hop’s foundational acts as the founding Creative Director of Def Jam Recordings and establish a robust contemporary fine art practice.” His career is celebrated in “Cey Adams, Departure: 40 Years of Art and Design,” an exhibition of original artworks, photographs and video whose viewing is enhanced by a mega mix soundtrack by DJ 7L, that’s on view through December 11 at the Stone Gallery of the Boston University Art Galleries, 855 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, Massachusetts.
Billed as the first exhibition fully dedicated to the sculpture of Nigerian artist Moshood Olúṣọmọ Bámigbóyè (ca. 1885–1975), “Bámigbóyè: A Master Sculptor of the Yorùbá Tradition,” reunites masterworks housed in collections in the United States, Europe and Nigeria at the Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St. (at York Street), New Haven, Connecticut. Considered “one of the greatest carvers of his generation,” James Green, the Frances and Benjamin Benenson Foundation Associate Curator of African Art at the gallery, has assembled a collection that presents Bámigbóyè as part of a woodcarving tradition that flourished during a time of great societal upheaval in Nigeria. The show is on view through January 8, 2023.
“And So Did Pleasure Take the Hand of Sorrow and They Wandered Through the Land of Joy,” on view through March 18, 2023 at the Bates College Museum of Art, Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St., Lewiston, Maine, “is the result of a challenging invitation to eight contemporary artists (Eric Aho, Jack Balas, Katherine Bradford, Jennifer Coates, Lois Dodd, Mark Milroy, John O’Reilly, and Dan Schein) — take one of their own works and select one of 100 plus drawings in the museum’s Marsden Hartley Memorial Collection to be exhibited side-by-side. “Great artists impact subsequent generations of artists, and that is evident in this exhibition,” noted Bates Director and exhibition curator Dan Mills. “’And So Did Pleasure…’ includes the work of accomplished artists ranging in age from their 30s to 90s who, rather than imitating Hartley, make work resonating with it in style, subject, idea and locale.”