CHICAGO, IL.- The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago presents Ania Jaworska’s first solo show, which runs concurrently with the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial. A trained architect and designer with an imaginative style, Jaworska uses humor and irony to consider the history of architecture and its impact on society through prints, drawings, scale models, and functional objects. The exhibition features two new projects that are distinct works of art and architectural proposals for larger structures. Jaworska explores a stage in the architect’s process—the creation of forms that might become larger, built structures. Organized by Grace Deveney, MCA Curatorial Fellow, the exhibition runs from August 25, 2015, to January 31, 2016.

In the first project, Jaworska creates a site-specific installation of black sculptures that reference common architectural elements such as arches, obelisks, gates, and signs. These objects are removed from their usual context and set in a gallery space that is painted black, as if a darkened void. In this new environment the structures lose their architectural functions, and instead are comical minimalist forms. The second series features a series of screen prints of architectural columns, both from history and the present day. This series catalogues the evolution of columns from symbols of power and status to open ended forms that are often constructed with irony or cynicism.

Ania Jaworska is a lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago. She received master’s degrees in architecture from Cracow University of Technology in Poland and the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. Her work has been shown at the Graham Foundation; the Chicago Cultural Center; as part of 13178 Moran Street: Grounds for Detroit in Common Ground; and at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice.