Museum-goers view a graphic design display in the Balzekas Museum’s new exhibit “BeLonging.” Credit: Provided
As a counterpoint on the north wall, there is a stunning rural photograph made by Monika Plioplyte.
Plioplyte, 35, is from Kaunas, Lithuania, and the youngest artist in the exhibit, called “BeLonging: Lithuanian Artists in Chicago 1900 to Now.” Plioplyte — pronounced pllio-ply — came to Chicago in 2017 to obtain her master’s of fine arts in print media at the School of the Art Institute. The 7-foot-tall, 4-foot-wide work is called “I For Nested Pattern.” The 2021 work features Plioplyte standing on a haystack near Vishta in southern Lithuania. The photo was made on the farmland where her grandfather grew up. She spent summers there as a little girl.
Plioplyte is wearing woven and collaged paper textiles in the portrait. Each figure is a risograph-printed cut-out that leans into Northern European pagan goddesses. Plioplyte deploys the concept of a nested pattern, a pattern within a pattern. The photography is done by her partner, Chicago musician Jonah Rapino.
“I take my clothes off, jump up, he gives me the paper textile and put it on,” Plioplyte said during a conversation in the gallery space. “It’s always me wearing it [paper latticework]. I always make a different type of textile to go with each different location. When I find a location, I judge the land color and the sky color.”
A five-minute sound piece was created in Piloplyte’s Little Village studio to accompany the photo. Her words on dreams and memories weave into “rounds” or “infinite canons” where the musical theme is sunrise and sundown. She discovered the songs on a Lithuanian folk record recorded in 1971 in the USSR.
For Lithuanians, “rounds” are archaic, mostly used for daily activities and ritual purposes and containing elements of pagan faith. Her QR code sound piece creates a spiritual aura inside the museum space. Close your eyes and you will hear mercy.
The Balzekas Museum hasn’t hosted an exhibit this comprehensive since it opened in 1966. “BeLonging” features nearly 30 artists and more than 100 works that include painting, drawing, sculpture, print media and more. The exhibit, up through May 17, is presented in six sections: Changing Chicago, Sacral Art, Art as Activism, Mythic Feminism, Designed in Chicago and Belonging.
“What we’re investigating is what it means to be an immigrant and how you figure out your place in the world,” Matranga said. “People from all three generations of immigrants are portrayed here. The first wave [1880-1920], a lot of us from the second wave [1946-55] and things from the third wave [1990-onward], Monika being an example of that.”
There are all kinds of discoveries in “BeLonging.” Dalia Ancevicius — also from Kaunas, Lithuania — arrived in America in 1949 at age 11. She became an industrial designer and worked for Chicago toy company Marvin Glass and Associates. The current Oak Lawn resident invented the popular 1964 slam-o-matic game “Hands Down.”
In 1981, Alexandra Eiva found work as a graphic designer at the CTA, where she designed the CTA logo that appears on city buses and trains.
But Plioplyte is the new breed.
“I work under the themes of the Lithuanian immigrant experience, gender identity and Baltic folklore,” she said. “But a lot of my work is very personal. I weave in mystical Baltic symbols. In Lithuania, you can’t get away from that. That pagan folklore is mixed up with Christianity. What did those people know that we don’t?”
Notably, Lithuania was Europe’s final pagan country, and wooden crosses are protected by UNESCO.
Plioplyte’s engaging “I For Nested Pattern” is an ongoing series.
“I literally dreamt it,” she said. “In my dream, I saw myself standing in this yellow field wearing this textile. In the morning, I woke my partner up and said, ‘We have to start this project ASAP.’ During COVID, we had time to go camping and gather locations. Illinois and Michigan, because of its flatness, and resemblance to Lithuania.
“I am still not finished with the series,” she said with a smile. “I’ve done nine. And it has been four years. Most were made in the Midwest. It’s difficult to get them right because I am faced with wind blowing my paper away, or rain. There’s no stillness in these flat plains.” But there’s always motion in the intrepid heart of Monika Plioplyte.
“BeLonging: Lithuanian Artists in Chicago 1900 to Now” will be on exhibit through May 17 at the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture, 6500 S. Pulaski Road.
Building on the momentum of the exhibit, the Balzekas Museum is opening a satellite location at 172 N. Michigan Ave. in the former Pauline Books and Media store. The debut event in the space will be an Oct. 29 lecture by Professor Mordechai Zalkin from Ben-Gurion University in Israel. He will speak on the relationship between the Jewish community and Lithuania.
For more information, visit the museum website.
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Publish date : 2024-10-18 06:15:00
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