City Room™ - Arts / Culture - International Three to See

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International Three to See
Produced by Matthew Cunningham on Friday, January 11, 2008

A Maple Tree by Petronele Gerlikiene

Each week Chicago Public Radio’s Matt Cunningham brings us three cultural opportunities. This week, he takes a look at international artists.

The Cambodian American Heritage Museum is using its exhibition space to teach about the Khmer Culture. Carvings and sculptures highlight the country’s Buddhist faith, natural surroundings and contemporary culture.

Cambodian Music

A traditional Cambodian fiddle, known as the Tro, sits along side a xylophone like instrument called a Reneat. The exhibition also includes elaborate gold brocade costumes and banners laced with little brass bells.

ambi: Sounds of bells

Charles Daas is the director of the museum. He wants people to know art is thriving in Cambodia.

DAAS: What we’re talking about is really the rebirth of the Cambodian art and culture. Because, what we are talking about is a country that is rebuilding from a very tragic genocide in the 1970s. The so-called 'Killing Fields.'

The space includes a memorial to those who died during the reign of the Khmer Rouge. The permanent exhibition, Khmer Spirit is open weekdays 9 a.m.-5 p.m. at 2831 W. Lawrence Avenue, in Chicago.

Stop Two on this International Three To See is at the University of Chicago’s Renaissance Society. Czech artist Katerina Seda’s works question the very definition of art: Who can create it? And whom is Art for? This exhibition includes hundreds drawings by Seda’s grandmother, Jana. Jana worked for 33 years in a home goods store in the former Czechoslovakia. She remembered the inventory and prices of over 600 items sold there. And Katerina asked her grandmother to draw them. Black marker drawings of brooms, screwdrivers, chain link fences, watering cans and other objects fill the walls from floor to ceiling. But are these doodles art? Hamza Walker is the associate curator for the Renaissance Society.

WALKER: It doesn’t matter if it is a table saw or sandpaper. Both of them are sort of rendered in the same basic, direct approach and the quality of the line. You know, a really confident scale and approach.

The exhibition It Doesn’t Matter runs through February 10th at the Renaissance Society on South Ellis Avenue in Hyde Park.

The third stop of our Global Three To See takes us from one grandmother to another. Petronele Gerlikiene was born in Chicago in 1905 but moved to the Lithuanian Countryside as a child. After retiring, she moved to Vilnius, to live with her artist son. She visited museums and began creating 11 large scale tapestries. Six of these are currently on display at the Chicago Cultural Center. Vibrant colors and detailed embroidery techniques take us inside Gerlikiene’s creative mind. And what is that world? Here’s her granddaughter, Jurgita.

JURGITA: Full of temperament and joy. I think sometimes being ironic and sarcastic. And she jokes about things: about men and women and their relationships; about love triangles; and everyday lives.

The exhibition Embroidered Myths and Everyday Stories opens today and continues through April 6th at the Chicago Cultural Center.