A WINDOW TO EUROPE: THROUGH ART & LITERATURE
FEATURING MICHAL GAVISH
October 17 - November 2, 2021
Plain Sight DC and the EU National Institutes of Culture in Washington, DC present A Window to Europe: Through Literature and Art, a series of short exhibitions featuring eleven visual artists from the Washington, DC region who will create work in response to eleven books by European writers, as part of the 2021 Europe Readr project. In this exhibition, Michal Gavish creates work in response to Polish writer Julia Fiedorczuk’s book of poetry Psalms.
This exhibition is presented in partnership with EUNIC DC, the EU Delegation to the United States, and the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Washington.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION: Michal Gavish’s exhibition meditates on both Fiedorczuk’s poems and the original biblical Psalms that they are based on. Gavish draws from her background as a scientist to explore the body, identity, and the natural world, which the poet defines as “the metaphysics rooted in the experience of vulnerability,” on a microscopic level. Across a series of scrolls, Gavish dissects these abstract ideas, creating a visual language that exposes their tiny biological cells and genetic structures. The distance between these bands creates a rhythm in the space, splashing the artist’s own Psalms songs across the individual vertical strips.
Michal Gavish is a multimedia artist currently living and working in Washington, DC. She received her MFA in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute. Previously, she had earned a PhD in Physical Chemistry, which continues to influence her art and science practice. She has presented solo exhibitions at the Budapest Museum and Spinnerei in Leipzig, Germany, Humanities Gallery at LIU, Brooklyn, and Garrison Art Center in New York, Sandra Lee Gallery in San Francisco, and Hillyer Art Space in Washington, DC, to name a few. Her work has been exhibited in many group shows including at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Stanford University, ZeroOne Silicon Valley Biennale, Venus Knitting in Brooklyn, Sonoma Art Museum in California, Bogota Art Fair, Columbia, and more. Gavish writes reviews for SciArt Magazine and lectures extensively on art and science. She has curated group shows in the New York area and was awarded several artist residencies in New York City and throughout Europe.
Julia Fiedorczuk is a writer, poet, translator, researcher, a practitioner of ecocriticism, and author of the School of Ecopoetics’s program. An important topic in her works is the relationship between human beings and their planetary environment. She is affiliated with the Institute of English Studies at Warsaw University and has published essays, short story collections, and six volumes of poetry. The latest, Psalmy (Psalms), was awarded the Wisława Szymborska Prize, Poland’s most prestigious prize for poetry. Her works have been translated into over 20 languages.
A Window Through Europe
This exhibition is part of A Window to Europe: Through Literature and Art, a series of short exhibitions featuring eleven visual artists from the Washington, DC region who are creating work in response to eleven books by European writers, as part of the 2021 Europe Readr project. Featured artists are Hoesy Corona, Alanna Reeves, Mike Thron, Michal Gavish, Julie Wills, MK Bailey, Antonio McAfee, Emily Fussner, Stephanie Williams, Lionel Frazier White III, and Sobia Ahmad.
