Above: Shencheng Xu, Patience, Bronze, mixed media

Chimera

Call for Entries – Summer Members Exhibit
CSI Project Space Gallery

Deadline: Sunday, May 4, 2025
Drop off artwork: May 31 and June 1, from 1-5 pm
Opening Reception: Saturday, June 7, from 6-9 pm
Exhibition Dates: June 7 – July 18, 2025

Chimeras are hybrid creatures combining different animals into one creature, some examples which are combined with humans are a centaur (half horse, half human), a mermaid (half human, half fish), Anubis (half human, half jackal). Ganesha (half elephant, half human). Then there are creatures combining different animal parts, like Akhekh - A creature from Egyptian mythology with the body of an oryx and the wings and snout of a bird, and Hieracosphinx – A type of Sphinx that had a hawk head.

We are expanding the definition of Chimera for this exhibition to include any hybrid combining two of more of inanimate or biological objects, such as household objects, machinery, animal, botanical, fungal, or microscopic organisms that normally do not go together, but when combined become a hybrid.

This also has a reference to Dada and Surrealism, described very well with the famous line from Les Chants de Maldoror by the Comte de Lautréamont/Isidore Ducasse: “beautiful as a chance encounter on a dissecting table of a sewing-machine and an umbrella." So, inanimate objects as well as the biological are encouraged as part of any submission to this call.

Curator - Victoria Fuller

If selected for the exhibition, artists must be a current CSI member or sign-up for membership: www.chicagosculpture.org/become-a-member

Learn more about requirements and submit your entry here: https://forms.gle/PftsfpVDCrC4x66T9