YANNIS TSAROUCHIS: DANCING IN REAL LIFE - EXHIBITION GUIDE - Wrightwood 659
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YANNIS TSAROUCHIS:
DANCING IN REAL LIFE
EXHIBITION GUIDE
SPRING/SUMMER 2021 1
FOURTH FLOOR
HEALTH AND SAFETY AT WRIGHTWOOD 659
THIRD FLOOR
The health and safety of our visitors and staff is our priority. In an effort
to reduce the risk of spread of COVID-19, we have adopted the following
measures based on CDC, state, and city guidelines:
• Improved air filtration in the building
SECOND FLOOR
• Hand sanitizing stations on each floor
• Thorough cleaning of high-touch surfaces throughout the day
• Reduced gallery occupancy with timed entry
• Required mask-wearing while in the gallery
GALLERY
FIRS T FLOOR
ENTRANCE
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OFFICES
(GALLERY STAFF ONLY) In order to ensure the safety and well-being of staff and fellow guests, we
ask that visitors:
• Read and follow signage carefully
EXHIBITION BY THEME • Wear a mask and use the hand sanitizer provided in the gallery
LEGEND
PROPER PLACEMENT: THE FOLLOWING ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE:
Rise in the East, Set in the West RESTROOM
Disquieting Muses
WATER FOUNTAIN
Some Butterflies and Lovely White Flowers
Olympians Dancing in Real Life ELEVATOR • Maintain a distance of at least 6 feet to other visitors or groups
Dionysiac Visions • Use the stairs when possible, or limit the elevator to two people
Allegory and Self COAT/BAG ROOM • Stay home if experiencing symptoms related to COVID-19
BHUTAN: A Photographic Essay CATALOG PICK-UP
For further information and specific details on how we are playing it safe,
COVER: Yannis Tsarouchis. Figures for Zeimbekiko dance. 1970s, Pen on paper. © Yannis Tsarouchis Foundation visit wrightwood659.org.
1 2
Wrightwood 659 is honored to host Yannis Tsarouchis: Dancing in Real military servicemen and extracted
Life, featuring one of the most beloved Greek painters of the 20th century. beauty from their coarseness. The
Jointly curated by Androniki Gripari, Chair of the Yannis Tsarouchis duality of Tsarouchis’s work ties the
Foundation in Athens, and Adam Szymczyk, former Artistic Director of East to the West, the working class
Documenta 14. With over 200 original pieces, this long overdue exhibition is to the bourgeois, and the common
the first comprehensive survey of Tsarouchis’s work beyond Greek borders. to the divine.
Tsarouchis (1910-89) used painting to radically interrogate Greek We are thrilled to connect a new
nationalism, substantiating his work with centuries of cultural knowledge audience to this profound and
from the Greco-Roman world through the fall of the military Junta (1967-74) complicated artist. As you explore
and the establishment of the Third Hellenic Republic. He coded tradition in the exhibition, we encourage you
the new language of modernism, connecting the work of Matisse to shadow to admire Tsarouchis’s imagery
puppet theater. As a leading voice from the Thirties Generation, Tsarouchis and look deeply into the allegory EXHIBITION
teetered between a Western celebration of classical antiquity and the of his work. CATALOG
Eastern traditions originating in the Byzantine Empire. His multifaceted Yannis Tsarouchis: Dancing
work collaged narrative and style from disparate periods to define his own – Brad White
in Real Life is accompanied
inclusive vision of Greekness. COO, Wrightwood 659
by a comprehensive, richly
illustrated volume of the
Drawing from an interdisciplinary canon, he interpreted the writing of poet
same name. Published by
Constantine P. Cavafy, and designed the theatrical sets and costumes for
Sternberg Press, Berlin,
Maria Callas. The title, Dancing in Real Life reflects on Tsarouchis’s interest
it will be available for
in dance forms and how they connect to daily experience, including the
zeimbekiko, a solo dance from Asia Minor previously performed exclusively by The exhibition Yannis Tsarouchis:Dancing in purchase at Wrightwood
men, and uses this form as an entry point into his gaze upon the male body.
Real Life is organized by theYannis Tsarouchis 659 during your visit.
Foundation, Athens.Support for the exhibition is
Taking a considerable risk in the era that revered uniform, Tsarouchis portrayed provided by Alphawood Foundation Chicago.
3 4TIMELINE
LIFE HISTORY LIFE HISTORY
Born in Piraeus. 1910 1933 The 4th CIAM (International Congress
of Modern Architecture) in Athens.
1913 King George I assassinated in
Thessaloniki. The Balkan Wars end Produces drawings and paintings 1934
Many regions were incorporated in the inspired by his exposure to avant garde
Kingdom of Greece which doubled its art and writes surrealist poems that will
size and population. remain unpublished until 1980. He will
return to an experimental Ballet libretto
1914 Start of World War I. he wrote in that period only in 1971, in
a series of drawings of set and costume
1922 Asia Minor Catastrophe. Over one
designs for Ballet A and Ballet B.
million refugees arrive in Greece,
bringing radical change. The Monarchy
is abolished the following year. Visits Paris for the first time to explore the 1935 Failed military coup and restoration
work of modernist European artists and of the monarchy in Greece.
Meets the choreographer, 1926 meets Matisse.
Eva Palmer-Sikelianos. Paints the series Cyclists, inspired by 1936 Dictatorship under Ioannis Metaxas
cycling events in France. Back in Greece, with the support of King George II.
Meets Sotiris Spatharis, master of 1927 First Delphic Festival organized he connects the colors used by Spatharis
shadow puppet theater. by Eva Palmer-Sikelianos and poet and Dedousaros in Karagiozis posters,
Angelos Sikelianos ushers in a revival to Matisse.
of classical theater.
Expands his interest in theater designing 1937
Studies at the Athens School of Fine Arts 1928 sets and costumes with the Kotopouli
and begins his first professional work theater company.
for the theatre: Maurice Maeterlinck’s
Princess Maleine, directed by Fotos First solo exhibition in Athens includes 1938
Politis for the Drama School of the early paintings and work from his
National Theatre. stage designs.
Studies Byzantine painting while 1930 After copying the Head of Medusa from 1939 Start of World War II.
assisting Fotis Kontoglou. the Archeological Museum of Piraeus,
he starts to paint from life.
Learns to weave on the loom from Eva 1931 Drafted into WWII on the Albanian front. 1940 Greece enters World War II.
Palmer-Sikelianos, learns Byzantine He continues to paint.
musical notation and copies Fayum
Portraits. 1941 Germany occupies Greece.
Studies under Constantinos Parthenis 1932 Paints The Arrest of Three Communists 1944 Liberation of Athens and beginning of
at Athens School of Fine Arts. during the first days of the Dekemvriana the bloody Dekemvriana (December
conflict. Conflict) in Athens.
5 6LIFE HISTORY LIFE HISTORY
1946 Start of the Greek Civil War. His French translation of Euripides’ The 1969 George Seferis publicly condemns
Bacchae is performed at the Avignon the dictatorship.
Co-founds the Armos group with painters 1949 End of the Greek Civil War. Festival, directed by Jean - Louis Thamin.
from the Thirties Generation with Nikos
Hadjikyriakos-Ghika, Yannis Moralis, 1971 Death of George Seferis turns into a
Nikos Engonopoulos, Nikos Nikolaou. demonstration against the dictatorship.
After solo exhibitions in Paris and 1951
London, he begins to receive Frequently returns to Greece after the 1974 Fall of the Junta.
international acclaim. fall of the Junta. The following year he
produces a large body of work on the
zeimbekiko dance. The Il Gabbiano
In an exhibition with the Armos group, 1952 gallery organizes his solo exhibition
his work Seated Sailor and Reclining in Rome.
Nude offends the Greek military and
is removed. Mounts a production of The Trojan 1977
Women by Euripides, translated,
One of three Greek artists nominated 1957 directed, and designed by himself in
for the Guggenheim Prize. an Athens parking lot.
Moves back to Greece.
He participates in the Venice Biennale 1958 Police measures are enacted against
and designs the sets and costumes for the Greek ‘Teddy Boys’ for provocative Establishes the Yannis Tsarouchis 1981
Luigi Cherubini’s Medea at the Dallas and offensive behavior. Foundation and donates his house in
Civic Opera, Texas, Directed by Alexis Marousi along with many of his works.
Minotis. The play features Maria Callas His foundation hosts its first exhibition
and they become friends. He shifts his the following year. He exhibits at the
focus to theater production. Archeological Museum of Thessaloniki,
the only major survey of his work in a
Collaborates with Theatro Technis 1959 Greek museum during his lifetime.
and designs the sets and costumes
for Aristophanes’ The Birds performed Exhibition of his works titled Zeimbekika
at the Herod Atticus Theatre in Athens. at the Zoumboulakis Galleries. He
The production provokes strong mounts, directs, translates, and designs
protests. The remaining performances sets and costumes for Seven against
are canceled. Thebes by Aeschylus, in Thebes, in
a field specially transformed for the
Starts painting again. Solo exhibition 1961 performance.
at Zoumboulakis Galleries.
Continues to paint despite being 1984
The Birds is performed at the Sarah 1962 afflicted with Parkinson’s disease.
Bernhard Theatre in Paris. It is awarded a He moves back to Greece.
prize by the Theatre of Nations Festival. The first four collections of Tsarouchis’s 1986
texts are published by Kastaniotis
1963 First Pacifist Rally from Marathon to Editions.
Athens is banned by the police. A
leftwing MP Grigoris Lambrakis is the Dies in Athens. 1989
only participant marching all the way.
He is assassinated by far-right extremists
in Thessaloniki after delivering a speech
at a rally against Vietnam war later
IMAGE, PREVIOUS PAGE: Yannis Tsarouchis, Dancing
that year. His funeral turns into mass
in Real Life and in Theatre, 1963-1968, oil on canvas.
demonstration against the rightwing © Yannis Tsarouchis Foundation
government.
TIMELINE: is based on/is an edited version of the
In self-exile, Tsarouchis moves to Paris 1967 Military coup—many Greek artists and timeline included in the Yannis Tsarouchis 1910–1989,
with all his work. writers self-exile to retain intellectual exh. cat., Benaki Museum, ed. Niki Gripari, Marina
freedom. Often called the Greek Junta. Geroulanou, and Tassos Sakellaropoulos (Athens,
2009), pp. 378–404.
7 8PROLOGUE
Yannis Tsarouchis (1910–89) was a also, the new languages of modern would photograph, draw, and paint His quiet and firm resistance
Greek painter whose multifarious art: cubism and surrealism. its dancers well into the 1980s. against conservative attitudes was
practice spanned seven decades propelled by his early liberating
from the 1920s to the 1980s. Thirty- His unorthodox and eclectic work Soon after returning to Athens, experience as an opera—and
two years after his death, the artist negotiates and makes visible a he departed for Paris in 1935, theater-goer while growing up in
remains under-recognized outside larger difference between Western where he became acutely aware a middle-class milieu of bourgeois
of Greece, while he is unanimously European modernism and the of his position on the crossroads families in Piraeus. As early as the
acclaimed as one of the most originality of its reception in the between, on the one hand, the late 1920s, Tsarouchis created his
important painters of the twentieth Mediterranean “East”—itself a regionalism and nationalism first actual set designs, and would
century in his native country. part of the Global South. manifest in revivalist tendencies continue working in the theater
This substantial exhibition aims in Greek art at the time, until the 1980s in various roles:
to introduce the work of Yannis In the mid-1930s, the artist and, on the other hand, the as set and costume designer, but
Tsarouchis to audiences in the US traveled to Asia Minor to see internationalist aspirations of also occasionally as the director
and internationally for the first time. the newly uncovered mosaics the avant-garde. Instead of of his own stage projects. Aside
of the Hagia Sophia and to choosing between the two, from these radical experiments,
Tsarouchis studied art at the attend a major festival of Balkan Tsarouchis embarked on his own he worked for the theater both
Athens School of Fine Arts and Mediterranean cultures in path in a groundbreaking series in Greece and abroad, making,
(1928–34), voraciously absorbing Istanbul. On a ship from Izmir to of male portraits and nudes among many other commissions,
and transforming a variety of Istanbul, Tsarouchis witnessed a painted between 1934 and early the costumes and sets for the
influences—among them Greek performance of the zeimbekiko, 1940, set in real interiors. These groundbreaking performance
vernacular traditions including a dance characterized by an works constituted a pioneering, of Maria Callas as Medea at the
crafts, costumes, and ornaments emotional, improvised expression radical recoding of conventional Dallas Civic Opera in 1958 and the
researched and copied during of individual gestures set within gender roles and hierarchies set designs for Samuel Beckett’s
field trips; Ancient Greek and Early the restrained vocabulary of highly represented in 1930s modernism plays in Paris and Thessaloniki.
Christian art; Byzantine mosaics, codified movements. The affective and went against the dominant
frescoes, and icon painting; Greek power of the zeimbekiko left a traditions of heteronormative art Disappointed with the stale social
shadow theater—Karagiozis; and lasting influence on Tsarouchis; he of that era. climate and mediocre critical
9 10reception of his work in Greece, he Tsarouchis ignored artistic
made up his mind to go into exile fashions of his day, keeping at a
to Paris in 1967, the same year that distance from his contemporaries
the Greek military Junta overtook and instead creating a world of
the government, remaining in thoughts, emotions, and imagery
power until 1974. In 1966, with that was unmistakably his own.
a sense of premonition, he had He dodged expectations and was
portrayed a Military Policeman a true postmodern artist avant
Arresting Eros, an allegory of la lettre, constantly brushing up
queer resistance to repression and against the grain of his time, fully
conservative politics. aware of the fact that his work
would only be appreciated in
From the mid-1970s, he split his the future.
time between Paris and Athens.
In 1981, he created the Yannis
Tsarouchis Foundation and donated
to it a large number of important
works spanning his entire career,
as well as the house he had built
in the mid-1960s in the Athenian
district of Marousi as his studio
and future museum. To this day,
the Foundation remains active
in preserving, researching, and
promoting Yannis Tsarouchis’s work.
Yannis Tsarouchis: Dancing in Real
Life is organized around several
recurring subjects and structural
EXHIBITION
devices present in Tsarouchis’s
art: theater as a machine of
image production; dance as an
BY SECTION
embodiment of realness; staging IMAGE, PREVIOUS PAGE:
of the Other Self in portraiture; Yannis Tsarouchis, Youth Asleep by the Sea, 1965,
watercolor on paper. © Yannis Tsarouchis Foundation
the invention of new allegories; IMAGE, THIS PAGE:
landscape as introspection; as well Yannis Tsarouchis, The First Copy of the Medusa
of Piraeus, 1939-1940, gouache on paper. IMAGE: Yannis Tsarouchis, Winged Spirit Buttoning His Underpants,
as difference and iteration. © Yannis Tsarouchis Foundation 1966, acrylic on paper. © Yannis Tsarouchis Foundation
11 12RISE IN THE EAST, DISQUIETING MUSES
SET IN THE WEST “a true follower of the Greeks does not maintain forms,
“...where the light is silver and gold” but becomes proportionally Greek by loving boundlessly.”
Here enters the Sailor of Piraeus. home close to the sea. Tsarouchis
Yannis Tsarouchis was a son of came of age in a conflicted Greek
merchants born in a neoclassical state freed from the Ottoman
Empire and bound to an older
Byzantine heritage rooted in
memories of its former capital,
Constantinople—the modern city of
Istanbul. While attending the Athens
School of Fine Arts in the late
1920s and early 1930s, Tsarouchis
took an apprenticeship with Fotis
Kontoglou who trained him in the
traditions of icon painting. The
frontal facing portraits, shallow
surfaces, and religious iconography
would serve as a foundational Tsarouchis envisioned a world that modernism with Greek vernacular.
reference spanning Tsarouchis’s celebrated the sensual body as He tied the grace of French
career. After a trip to the Balkan a form of creative power. Brilliant cyclists to Evzonoi rebels who
Festival of 1934, he diverged from muses transitioned in and out of his reclaimed Greece from an Ottoman
the rigid practices of Kontoglou and practice from his tailored servicemen occupation, marking a shift in
shifted his gaze to the emerging confronted with global war to the Tsarouchis’s gaze onto the athletic
surrealist, cubist, and fauvist young, long haired revolutionaries male body. Akin to the artist of
practices of the Western avant- of 1970s France. The abstract task classical antiquity, Tsarouchis
garde. Despite their differences in of composing light, color, and form acknowledges the duality of the
methodology, Tsarouchis held on onto a surface informed Tsarouchis’s athletic form, both sensual and
to the metaphorical string cast by objective respect for both realist capable of destruction.
Kontoglou to navigate the divided and nonrepresentational painting.
worlds of Greek identity. After meeting Henri Matisse and QUOTE: Y. Tsarouchis. E. D. Matthiopoulos,
“Observations with modest audacity on the life and
Alberto Giacometti during his 1935 work of Yannis Tsarouchis”
QUOTE: Y. Tsarouchis. Yannis Tsarouchis Foundation
trip to Paris and subsequent tour of IMAGE: Yannis Tsarouchis, Youth Wearing Pyjamas Posing
IMAGE: Yannis Tsarouchis, Sailor in the Sun, as a Statue from Olympia, 1938-39, pigments with animal
1968-1970, oil on canvas. © Yannis Tsarouchis Foundation Europe, Tsarouchis linked Western glue on canvas. © Yannis Tsarouchis Foundation
13 13 14C.P. CAVAFY
SOME BUTTERFLIES AND
LOVELY WHITE FLOWERS LOVELY WHITE FLOWERS
“Whether I paint men or flowers,
He went inside the café where they used to go together. I must reveal the divine spirit that lies within them.”
It was here, three months ago, that his friend had told him:
“We’re completely broke—the two of us so poor
The Metamorphoses
that we’re down to sitting in the cheapest places.
of Apuleius (2nd c.
I have to tell you straight out—
AD). This ancient tale
I can’t go around with you any more.
follows two lovers who
I want you to know, somebody else is after me.”
meet under the cover
The “somebody else” had promised him two suits,
of darkness to obscure
some silk handkerchiefs. To get his friend back,
their identity, one a
he himself went through hell rounding up twenty pounds.
mortal, the other a
His friend came back to him for the twenty pounds—
god. The unwavering
but along with that, for their old intimacy,
dedication of the
their old love, for the deep feeling between them.
beautiful Psyche leads
The “somebody else” was a liar, a real bum:
her to suicide. On the
he’d ordered only one suit for his friend,
brink of death, Eros
and that under pressure, after much begging.
saves Psyche and
But now he doesn’t want the suits any longer,
grants her immortal
he doesn’t want the silk handkerchiefs at all,
life transforming her
or twenty pounds, or twenty piasters even.
into a god. As an
Sunday they buried him, at ten in the morning.
artist and a scholar,
Sunday they buried him, almost a week ago.
Tsarouchis benefits
He laid flowers on his cheap coffin,
Tsarouchis, an experienced from the ability to aesthetically
lovely white flowers, very much in keeping
costume designer, altered his mobilize layers of historical
with his beauty, his twenty-two years.
models by mounting winged narrative ranging from modern
When he went to the café that evening—
creations onto their backs. The poetry to accent oral histories—
he happened to have some vital business there—the same café
muscular forms of these young captured through artifacts and
where they used to go together: it was a knife in his heart,
men are softened by the curved Greco-Roman Theater.
that dingy café where they used to go together.
shapes emerging from their bodies.
Both butterfly and feathered wings
QUOTE: Y. Tsarouchis. A. Schina, “Flowers and Foliage
Republished with permission of Princeton University Press from C.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems, Revised Edition, trans.
signify a connection with the in the Paintings of Yannis Tsarouchis.”
Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard, ed. George Savidis (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), p. 166. Translation deities of Greek antiquity Eros and IMAGE: Yannis Tsarouchis, Two Men with Butterfly Wings
copyright © 1992 Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard; permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. and Black Shoes, 1965, oil on plywood, oil on veneer. ©
For reuse of these translations, please contact Princeton University Press. Psyche, famously intertwined in Yannis Tsarouchis Foundation
15 16OLYMPIANS DANCING GEORGE SEFERIS
IN REAL LIFE ACTORS, MIDDLE EAST
“I always saw these dances as sacred rites and I try to
convey their exalted character with reverence.” We put up theatres and tear them down
wherever we happen to find ourselves
and intimate dance. Tsarouchis we put up theatres and set the stage
belonged to a period in Greece but our fate always triumphs in the end
called the Generation of the and sweeps them away as it sweeps us too
Thirties, a group of poets, artist, actors and actors’ manager
and intellectuals defined loosely prompter and musicians all disappear
by their coming of age during the scattered to the five hungry winds.
Asia Minor Disaster of 1922 and Bodies, mats, wood, make-up
the subsequent refugee crisis rhymes, feelings, veils, jewellery
which followed. masks, sunsets, wails and howls
exclamations and suns rising
From the zeimbekiko and tsamiko
cast off helter-skelter along with us
dances, to the urban rebetiko
(where are we going? where are you going?)
music, they drew upon popular
nerves naked upon our skin
culture of the Greek working class.
like the stripes of an onager or zebra
The young, Greek avant-garde met
in cafes and redefined a modern exposed and naked, dry and burning
Hellenism, blurring the boundaries (when were we born? when buried/)
On a return trip from Izmir in 1934, of migration, class, and gender and taut like the strings of a lyre
a group of Zeybeks, dressed in old though none more acutely than incessantly humming. Look also
costumes, boarded Tsarouchis’s Tsarouchis. He neither rejected at our heart: a sponge
ship. He watched in awe as the or fully embraced Western ambling through the street and market-place
young men preformed strong abstraction or a dogma of ancient soaking up the blood and bile
improvisational choreography art but mediated a space between of both the tetrarch and the thief.
which transfigured their bodies the absolutes of his era.
into divine and humble warriors. Middle East, August ’43
Tsarouchis’s long and sincere
connection to zeimbekiko dance QUOTE: Y. Tsarouchis. E. D. Matthiopoulos,
“Observations with modest audacity on the life and
would emerge in future works work of Yannis Tsarouchis”
Originally published in Logbook II (1945). Republished with permission of Princeton University Press from George Seferis:
as he captured the desires of IMAGE: Yannis Tsarouchis, Zeimbekiko Dance with Night Collected Poems, Revised Edition, trans. Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
Blossoming Jasmine and Calla Lilies, 1978, gouache on 1995), p. 266. Copyright © 1995 Princeton University Press; permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.
men preforming the serene paper. © Yannis Tsarouchis Foundation For reuse of these translations, please contact Princeton University Press.
17 18DIONYSIAC VISIONS ALLEGORY AND SELF
“...a man who has lived the drama of modern art “I am preparing the scenery of my life.”
with all the power of his soul.”
of Eva Palmer- Like a message written
Sikelianos, a in a bottle and cast into
co-revivalist of the the endless sea of time,
Delphic festival, he Tsarouchis used painting as
discovered open a vessel for intergenerational
air theater and later communication. He believed
took this approach the work of an artist writes
a step further in their truest tale, and by
1977 by moving his observing the material and
production of The aesthetic references of a
Trojan Woman into work, the personal and
Tsarouchis identified theater as a vacant Athenian parking lot. societal views can be
visual acts of poetry, like a dream understood. Nevertheless,
rehearsed in real life. From Maurice Throughout his acclaimed career, there is no use in an unread his early “Poems” (1934-1937) in
Maeterlinck’s Princess Maléne Tsarouchis worked with theaters message. Despite his growing 1980. In 1981 he established the
to Orestes by Euripides, his across Europe and, among others, national and international acclaim, Yannis Tsarouchis Foundation in
passion for theatrical production designed the sets and costumes Tsarouchis only received one his Marousi home, self-built as
provided a foundation for his for Medea at the Dallas Civic retrospective exhibition in a Greek a variation on typical Athenian
career and punctuated his life. The Opera featuring Maria Callas, in museum toward the end of his life. neoclassical houses, to preserve
interdisciplinary dialogue between 1958. Fascinated with the work of the contextual atmosphere of
his paintings, costumes, and set Euripides, a decadent intellectual Suspicious of the dominant art his studio. With these measures,
designs profoundly influenced and one of the three ancient Greek historical views of his period, Tsarouchis hoped to connect to the
his experimentation of spatial tragedians Tsarouchis translated Tsarouchis took steps to care for future debates around his work—
composition. After Sotiris Spatharis, many of his works into modern the future of his heritage towards and mitigate the risk of his oeuvre
master of shadow theater, Greek. His theatrical interpretations the end of his career, ensuring falling into historical oblivion.
commissioned by Tsarouchis a radically reframed the ancient social the significance of his work would
life-sized painting of red curtains commentary. transcend his own life. He placed
framing a landscape, he used himself in dialog with masters QUOTE: Y. Tsarouchis. E. D. Matthiopoulos,
this work as a prop to frame his QUOTE: Y. Tsarouchis. Yannis Tsarouchis Foundation ranging from Titian to Vermeer, “Observations with modest audacity on the life and
work of Yannis Tsarouchis”
subjects, artificially flattening the IMAGE: Yannis Tsarouchis, Set Design for As You Like It by embedding himself between the
William Shakespeare, 1937, watercolor on paper. © Yannis IMAGE: Yannis Tsarouchis, Copying Titian, 1971, oil on
space. Through the acquaintance Tsarouchis Foundation present and the past. He published canvas. © Yannis Tsarouchis Foundation
19 20COMING THIS FALL
ROMANTICISM
BHUTAN
A P H O T O G R A P H I C E S S AY
IN RUIN:
TWO LOST WORKS OF
SULLIVAN AND WRIGHT
In the years spanning 1988 At Wrightwood 659, the book
to 2002, computer scientist is displayed along a concrete THE GARRICK: THE LARKIN:
and former MIT professor wall on the fourth floor. Folded,
ADLER & SULLIVAN’S FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT’S
Michael Hawley led a team of it measures 5 x 7 feet but, at LOST MASTERPIECE MODERN ICON
photographers, publishers, and the gallery, displayed in its full
students through the Himalayan unfolded length, visitors can
kingdom of Bhutan to document walk along its span of 155 linear
daily life. The four expeditions feet and see for themselves OPENING AT WRIGHTWOOD 659
they took resulted in an archive not only the visual but also the SEPTEMBER 23, 2021
of photographs of the country’s physical extent of the project.
people, landscapes, and cultural The pages, with their super- SIGN UP FOR UPDATES AT:
practices which the non-profit
Friendly Planet later published
saturated colors and life-sized
Wrightwood659.org
portraits, vibrantly represent
in a large book entitled Bhutan: the people and geography
A Visual Odyssey Across the Last of Bhutan. Financial support for Romanticism in Ruin:
Two Lost Works of Sullivan and Wright
Himalayan Kingdom. is provided by Alphawood Foundation Chicago.
21 22We have reduced gallery Wrightwood 659’s Educators
hours for this exhibition are located throughout
in order to provide the highest the building to answer your
quality gallery experience: questions. Their backgrounds
in art, architecture, and social Installation view of Balkrishna Doshi, Architecture for the People at Wrightwood 659. 2020.
THROUGH JULY 31, 2021 movements provide unique insights
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Open: 10:00am - 12:00pm Reservations are required and are facility at Wrightwood 659, n Strollers are not permitted in the
Closed: 12:00pm - 1:00pm available at wrightwood659.org. and on-street parking is difficult. galleries but may be parked in
Open: 1:00pm - 3:00pm If you must drive, there is paid the coat check room.
Closed: 3:00pm - 3:30pm Wrightwood 659 is parking located at the Ann &
Open: 3:30pm - 5:30pm committed to providing Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital Wrightwood 659 reserves the right
inclusive experiences for all of Chicago Outpatient Center, to not allow any bag, parcel, or other
Each block is limited to 24 guests. audiences. Please call 773.437.6601 2515 N. Clark Street. item to be brought into the building,
Tickets are available for $15 at or email info@wrightwood659.org and to deal with unattended
tickets.wrightwood659.org/events. for access services. Service animals Please help us protect the artworks objects in such a way as we consider
All visitors must provide a ticket for specially trained to assist a person by respecting the following: appropriate. Wrightwood 659 also
entry. Visitors should plan to appear with a disability are welcome at reserves the right to deny admission
at the time noted on the ticket Wrightwood 659. n Children of all ages are welcome,
to or remove any person wearing
for admission to the gallery. No however, those under 16 years
attire that we consider inappropriate
refunds can be given to guests who Enjoy FREE wireless Internet of age must be accompanied by
do not arrive at the appointed time. or that could detract from the
access at Wrightwood 659. an adult.
No walk-ups can be admitted. experience of other visitors.
Look for “Wrightwood 659 Guest” n Do not touch the art.
in your settings on your Wi-Fi- n Do not eat or drink in the
enabled device. galleries.
23 24YANNIS TSAROUCHIS:
DANCING IN REAL LIFE
Wrightwood 659’s presentation of Yannis Tsarouchis: Dancing in Real Life is
made possible by support from Alphawood Exhibitions.
Alphawood Foundation Registrar
James D. McDonough Angela Steinmetz
Executive Director JWSC LLC
Melissa Terrell
Office and Grants Manager Graphic Design
Michael Garzel A BO U T W R I G H T WO O D 659
Wrightwood 659 Graphic Design + Photography
Brad White
Interim Chief Operating Officer Media and Public Relations
Wrightwood 659 is a new In a city rich with art institutions
Devin Gora MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS:
Building Operations Coordinator Samir Bitar
exhibition space conceived for and internationally known for
Yaumu Huang The Art of Consulting the presentation of exhibitions its architecture, Wrightwood
Manager, Exhibition Planning & Design
LOCAL PRESS RELATIONS: of architecture and of socially 659 is designed as a site for
Dan Hutchins
Beth Silverman, Louise Yingduo Liu
Building Operations Manager engaged art. It is designed contemplative experiences of art
The Silverman Group, Inc.
Ashley Janke by Pritzker Prize-winning and architecture, and as a place
Program & Education Coordinator NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL PRESS:
Justin Latta Betsy Ennis, Lucy O’Brien architect Tadao Ando, who has to engage with the pressing
Chief Technology Officer Ennis O’Brien LLC
transformed a 1920s building social issues of our time. Located
Andy Lopez
Building Operations Custodial Supervisor Special Thanks to the Following with his signature concrete in Chicago’s Lincoln Park
Cecília Resende Santos Benaki Museum forms and poetic treatment of neighborhood, it is a private,
Guest Services Coordinator Move Art
natural light. non-commercial initiative
The National Gallery –
Curatorial envisioned as an integral part
Alexandros Soutsos Museum
Adam Szymczyk of the cultural and civic fabric of
Steve Rososky — Video Production Stay up-to-date on new
Androniki Gripari
Harriet Stratis — Art Conservation Chicago, as well as a new kind of
website content and upcoming
Yannis Tsarouchis Foundation Michael Tropea Photography arts space and cultural resource.
exhibitions. Subscribe at
Violetta Koronaiou US Art, Chicago
Vasso Tzouti Jeff Stafford & Crew wrightwood659.org
25 26Wrightwood 659 was established, in part, to provide a site for
exhibitions devoted to architecture, itself a civic practice, and to
the art that grapples with the pressing issues of our day.
27You can also read
