CHICAGO SCULPTOR MIKLOS P. SIMON 20 YEAR RETROSPECTIVE

CHICAGO SCULPTOR MIKLOS P. SIMON INVITED TO NOTRE DAME ISIS GALLERY FOR 20 YEAR RETROSPECTIVE, Round and Round We Go, Cycles in Art



CHICAGO (September 10, 2008) – Chicago-based sculptor Miklos P. Simon has been invited by the Art & Design Department of the University of Notre Dame to exhibit work at the ISIS Gallery on the Notre Dame Campus. The show will open on September 25 and will run through October 23. This one-man show marks the 20th anniversary of attending Notre Dame and is a retrospective of his body of work.


Miklos P. Simon is a Hungarian-American, an artist and educator born 1960 in Zalaegerszeg, Hungary. (Birthplace of the famous Hungarian Sculptor Zsigmond Kisfaludi Strobl) After four years in the School of the Arts at Pecs, and one-year additional study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest, he left his homeland for the United States and settled in Chicago.

He continued his studies at the University of Illinois Chicago campus and later earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Simon Miklos was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1987. The following year, he enrolled in the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of Notre Dame.

"The title of the show is 'Round and Round We Go, Cycles in Art' and I am exploring the cycle and internal revolutions of myself as an artist – from the perspective of deflecting from Hungary to my current life as a naturalized American, as well as the smaller, more mundane rotations and orbits experienced – what emerges is a re-thinking of my body of work and new whimsical installations that explore the literal and figurative play of cycles," said Simon.

Opening night is September 25, 2008 at 6:30pm with an artist lecture followed by a reception – open to the public and runs through October 23, 2008. Isis Gallery is located on the Campus University of Notre Dame, ISIS Gallery (located in O'Shaughnessy Hall) Notre Dame, IN 46556. Phone: (574) 631-7085. Accessible by the Metra South Shore Line (http://www.nictd.com/).

Since graduation he has taught art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Chicago. Since the fall of 1999, he has been a part-time faculty member at Columbia College Chicago. He has participated in numerous national, international, group and solo exhibitions such as with SOFA Chicago, Art Chicago/Thomas Blackman & Associates Gallery and Fernando Silio Galeria de Arte, Santander, Spain, and at Liget Gallery, Budapest, Hungary. He is the principal of Simon Sculpture Studios and has received commissions for the Naval Monument in D.C., Roosevelt Road Viaduct Project, and his work appears in many Chicago-area architectural buildings and public displays including the Fine Arts Building, Harold Washington Library, Garfield Park Conservatory, The National Kidney Foundation (read about here) and the Looking Glass Theatre Company.




MIKLOS P. SIMON Artist Statement

In my most recent work I am posing individual questions or problems per piece, not so much as developing a theme. With materials such as electric fans, charcoal, garden hose or a man‘s wool flannel suit, I realize in objects, installations, and performance pieces personal, cultural or purely aesthetic issues. A few of these works explore impossibilities, others are therapeutic and some are humorous.



For example, the impossible manifests itself in the piece „Suit of a man who was cut in half and survived“. The viewer is faced with an impossible truth or a contradiction. The suit has been tailored to be worn by someone who has been split in half. „My Private Island“, a private space defined by a garden hose, is a tongue-in-cheek metaphor of the need for escape and refuge. A vacation delineated on the gallery floor.

MIKLOS P. SIMON Website = http://www.miklospsimon.com/index.html