about margarita

Bronx artist and social impact design alien Margarita Korol was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine and grew up across Chicagoland. She’s usually making art and building community in uptown NYC and NYS.

Born the week of Chernobyl in Ukraine to Jewish refuseniks (political refugees fleeing oppressive Soviet persecution in the 70s and 80s), Margarita’s focus on reminding individuals of their responsibility to their power in disadvantaged struggles against the social and political systems around them is an ongoing theme in her work. 

She began exhibiting in New York in 2011 when she launched the “Transparency Project” at the KGB Bar to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl. In 2012, the publication of her book “Spoils of War: Ode to a Refusenik Mother” led to a solo show during New York’s Russian Heritage Month at The National Arts Club as well as a City of New York Citation of Worth for art, design, and writing.

A Chicago girl from her thick yaccent to her realness, Korol was named that city’s Best New Visual Artist in 2013 by the Chicago Reader. She has shown her “Immigrating City” installation at Chicago’s Ravenswood Tap gallery in 2007 and her “Die, Mauer” installation at Harper College’s 20th anniversary commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 2009.

Korol’s work is held in private and public collections including the DANK Haus German American Cultural Center Chicago and Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz Cultural Center New York. She has been Artist in Residence at Intel’s Maker Education Initiative. She learned her crafts in her MFA in Design for Social Innovation (School of Visual Arts), BS in Anthropology (Loyola University Chicago, Charles University Prague), Associates in Anthropology (College of Lake County, Illinois), High School Art with Jim Savage at Vernon Hills High School in Illinois, and The Village Art School in Skokie, Illinois.  Her recent work includes designing communications for equitable access to education at East Harlem schools (2022-2024), and founding AdaptLab Productions in partnership with JCC Manhattan's Center for Special Needs (2016-2018)—a video production house supporting the careers and works of filmmakers with learning differences, and also designing experiential access points to post-Soviet immigrants' Jewish heritage that they were separated from under Soviet oppression (2019-2021). She now focuses on tapping into ancient Jewish wisdom for relevant insights to help humans navigate the rocky tundra of current times, and serves as a synagogue Communications Director in New York.

 community projects

art exhibits

art collabs/ commissions

press

2021 October Join featured rockstar featured guest Margarita Korol for an artistic exploration of Lech L’cha including a lens of grief that we don’t always talk about (it’s hard to leave places and people behind!). Margarita also introduced us to the very special history of Russian-speaking immigrants and how there are incredible communities of Russian-Speaking Jews all over America! 

2018 May The co-founder of Adapt Lab Filmmakers, Margarita Korol, originally volunteered as a job coach at the JCC Manhattan's Center for Special Needs - where she quickly learned the harsh reality of job placement agencies for only administrative roles. She saw passion in a couple of her clients, Leigh Silver and Andrew Johnson, that craved for a career with creative skills. She wanted to expand what was possible in her scope of reach of creating a video production company and further challenge what the film industry could accept. Thus, with her new helping hands and some community organization, AdaptLab Filmmakers was born.  

 2017 June 29 dOGUMENTA runs August 11 to 13 at Brookfield Place in downtown Manhattan. The show will feature works commissioned by 10 New York City artists—Eleanna Anagnos, Graham Caldwell, Kathryn Cornelius, Merav Ezer, Eric Hibit, Margarita Korol, Tibi Tibi Neuspiel, Noah Scalin, Dana Sherwood and Paul Vinet—geared specifically toward canines...Korol, for example, is addressing the anxiety and fear dogs experience incorporating  recordings of “murmured sweet nothings” that she uses to comfort her own dog. 

 2017 June Arts Brookfield: America’s first art exhibition for dogs, dOGUMENTA, opens at Brookfield Place New York this August! Not by or about dogs, dOGUMENTA is a curated art show for dogs. The exhibition is the first in America to ask artists to address the canine community’s concerns, interests and worldview and to make artwork catering to a four-legged sensibility.

26 May 2015 DSI Faculty Lina Srivastava and students Margarita Korol & David Rojas co-production of the exhibition “Priya’s Shakti” featured on MSNBC. In this technologically innovative and wildly popular interactive comic book, Priya’s Shakti, a gang-rape survivor-turned-superhero, demonstrates strength, courage and womanhood through artist Ram Devineni’s walk-in comic book.

24 January 2014 You & Me on WCIU Channel 26 Chicago: Talk segment features Margarita's illustration in coverage on Jewrotica.org

 21 January 2014 WGN9 News Chicago: 9 at 9 segment features Margarita's illustration in coverage on Jewrotica.org

31 December 2013 Intel iQ: Makers Disrupt Retail Store Status Quo. "Margarita Korol, a Tech Disruptor inside the Intel Experience store in Chicago said that it’s not about sharing the final product, whether it be a portrait made of a computer motherboard or a chandelier created with old VHS tape, plugs and colorful cables. It’s about sharing the experience. Rather than DIY or Do It Yourself it's becoming DIT or Do It Together."

4 December 2013 DNAinfo: Intel Pop-Up Shop Offers Free Events, Electronics Recycling: The store has partnered with Interurban Cafe and Pastry Shop and visual artist Margarita Korol. "Artist Margarita Korol, 27, who lives in Old Town and was voted The Reader's best new visual artist of 2013, is also in the shop one to two days a week as a "tech disrupter," interacting with kids as she takes apart old electronics and makes them into art. Those local, neighborhood partnerships were the reason Lincoln Park was chosen as the location, said Sean Ludick, general manager of sales and channel development for Intel."

2 December 2013 AmyTaraKoch.com: My Intel Chicago Experience "Technology is an art form. To celebrate artists, Intel invited “tech disruptor” Margarita Korol to transform old tech gadgets into art. Watching her work was a highlight of my experience. "

19 August 2013 Hyperallergic: The Making of Urban Agitpop. "CHICAGO — The self-proclaimed title of “urban pop artist” suits Margarita Korol well. As the one-woman artist/president of her creative practice, Korol blatantly straddles the world of commercial, pop, and fine art, and she’s as much at home in being distributed at Occupy Wall Street’s Zuccotti Park as she is in a new video for Chicago-based rapper Chella H. Is it pop art, or pop propaganda, or does it even matter? The phrase “What Would Warhol Say?” (WWWS) comes to mind, and then I wonder if my categories of what makes something art need to once again become even broader."

20 June 2013 Chicago Reader's People's Choice Best New Visual Artist: Margarita Korol

4 June 2013 The New York Post: Art and Soul: The Brownstone exhibits highlight Jewish Russian talent. "Margarita Korol, a 27-year-old Jewish visual artist who has already made her debut in New York City and is a popular figure here, will be sharing her exhibit, "Spoils of War: Ode to a Refusenik Mother" with audiences. The poster series of visual art and paintings was inspired by the plight of her family, part of an activist community from Kharkov, Russia(1). "They were treated as third-class citizens," says Korol. "My mother and I were eventually allowed to leave in 1988, when we came to America(2)." Consequently, "Many Soviet Jews don't want to bring that history here. They don't want to be seen as victims," says Korol. With a bachelor of science in cultural anthropology from Loyola College in Chicago(3), Korol eventually came to New York in 2010 to work in the art department of a Jewish magazine here. "There I received an arts fellowship to put together a book, which encompasses both poetry and art(4). My main audience is my siblings — the people of my generation who are the children of immigrants who came here and accelerated their positions here from victim to victor. It's a call to action to make a future that doesn't ignore the past and all the effort that's been put forth," says Korol. Korol's graphic art posters feature images of her mother, Stain and Hitler, all superimposed on each other(5). "There's lots of nostalgic imagery. It's both multicultural and multimedia. it's supposed to be accessible and communicate with an audience of today," she says." (Notes: (1)Kharkov is a city in the Ukraine. (2)Margarita's maternal family was cleared to leave in 1987 when she was 1 year old. However, she and her mother stayed behind and eventually left together the following year. (3)Loyola University Chicago (4)Margarita received a COJECO BluePrint Fellowship while working at Tablet Magazine. (5)A poster in the series features images of Hitler and Stalin superimposed onto one another, while other posters feature the artist's refusenik family.)

19 April 2013 Fox News Detroit: Musical performance by LA's Palter Ego features Margarita's album art on screen

22 February 2013 The Paris Review: DFW: the Trading Card, and Other News. The Paris Review features Margarita's portrait of David Foster Wallace, designed for Vol. 1 Brooklyn online literary magazine when she was Art Director in 2011.  

17 February 2013 Heritage Radio Network: Margarita Guest Hosts on the Mike & Judy Show. "All chaos breaks loose this week on The Mike & Judy Show, as Mike Edison is joined in studio by Margarita Korol, Founder & Artist President at Urban Pop Art Projects, and Brandon Hoy AKA MC Todd. Tune in for live performances from both guests, and conversations about pot, booty and internet art. Find more of Margarita's work at Urban Pop Artist and listen to MC Todd's debut album "Damn Near 40 Years in the Making" here. This program was sponsored by Roberta's Pizza."

12 February 2013 Electric Literature: February Wanderers at the Franklin Park Reading Series. "To boot, Karolina Waclawiak brought Anya from How To Get Into The Twin Palms, Tim Horvath introduced us to Doll and Nachbor, and multimedia artist Margarita Korol paid tribute to her mother with a poem and accompanying slideshow. All five delivered; all five were awesome."

11 February 2013 Time Out New York Critic's Pick: Franklin Park Reading Series: Notable authors spin yarns at this Crown Heights series, which is curated by Penina Roth. All the selections in this month's installment, from Lars Iyer, Karolina Waclawiak, Tim Horvath, Dylan Nice and Margarita Korol, have something to do with wandering or wanderers.

11 February 2013 Hobart Literary Magazine: Dylan Nice events "LARS IYER (Spurious, Dogma and Exodus), KAROLINA WACLAWIAK (How to Get Into the Twin Palms), TIM HORVATH (Understories), DYLAN NICE (Other Kinds), and MARGARITA KOROL (Spoils of War: Ode to a Refusenik Mother)."

11 February 2013 Flavorpill: Franklin Park Reading Series "Karolina Waclawiak, Tim Horvath, and Dylan Nice, at our favorite Brooklyn reading series."

26 December 2012 NY Daily News: Book Party Announcement for Margarita Korol's Spoils of War: Ode to a Refusenik Mother

7 October 2012 Andrew Sullivan's The Dish: I See The Divine In The Love Of Others: "Margarita Korol, who lost her 14-year old brother Eli in a car accident, movinglyreflects on how she learned to endure suffering. She also explains the role Harold Kushner's When Bad Things Happen to Good People played in her grasping how vulnerability can be an occasion for grace" 

 5 October 2012 Tablet Magazine: Margarita Korol on Harold Kushner "Yesterday on Tablet, we ran a story by our former office muse and art guru Margarita Korol. Unfortunately, the site went down for a little bit in the afternoon and so we didn’t get a good chance to really draw proper focus on what is a really stunning piece of writing. In her essay, Korol writes about how meeting author Harold Kushner in the wake of the unexpected death of her brother"

1 October 2012 The New York Post: A Whole Latte Love: Freelance workers turn pick-me-ups into pickups at their local coffee shops "Margarita Korol is all too familiar with this scenario. A Washington Heights-based pop artist, she does much of her design work from coffee shops all over Manhattan — and is often approached by suitors whose opening remarks are usually comments about the art on her computer screen. Not that these intrusions bother her: “I rarely mind the nosiness,” says the 26-year-old. “As a freelancer, I like to get out, to be in public yet alone,” she adds."

 5 September 2012 The Jewish Daily Forward: Arts Festival Reinvents Brighton Beach "“Y-Love may not seem like a natural go-to as a headliner for a post-Soviet Jewish festival, but he approaches Judaism with a curiosity that is similar to our generation’s,” said organizer Margarita Korol, an “urban pop artist.”"

23 July 2013 31DaysOfAwesome: The Spoils of War and Horseradish Vodka "On day 4, I continued my AWESOME escapades by following my childhood friend (and her mama!) to a friend’s art exhibition showing at The National Arts Club near Gramercy Park. The name of the exhibit is Spoils of War: Ode to a Refusenik Mother; created by Margarita Korol.  The work was a thank you (as shown above) to Margarita’s mother who risked it all and moved from the Soviet Union in 1989 as a Refusenik (definition: term for Soviet Jews who were denied permission to emigrate abroad by the authorities of the former Soviet Union)  in order to give Margarita the life of opportunity and free speech."

15 June 2012 Tablet Magazine: Margarita Comes Of Age "Why should David Arquette have all the fun? Over at The Roll, Margarita Korol explains why she’s taking the plunge — and what you should get her to celebrate."

8 June 2012 Jewcy Magazine: Ode to a Refusenik Mother, From a Devoted Daughter: Jewcy’s Margarita Korol pays tribute to her mother and sheds light on the immigrant experience in new art exhibit "Jewcy’s own Margarita Korol unveiled her newest exhibit, Spoils of War: Ode to a Refusenik Mother, at New York’s National Arts Club. The exhibit, which sheds light on the immigrant experience, features Margarita’s moving poem (which you can read in full over at Tablet), transposed on her characteristic pop art prints, and runs through June 20. A mega mazel tov to our girl Margarita, the multi-talented and multi-tasking pop artist responsible for Jewcy’s graphics."

 6 June 2012 Tablet Magazine: Korol Pays Tribute to Her Refusenik Mamele: Tablet contributing artist opens show in Manhattan "We’re kvelling over contributing artist Margarita Korol, who was invited to exhibit her show, Spoils of War: Ode to a Refusenik Mother at the National Arts Club on Gramercy Square in Manhattan."

28 May 2012 Lincoln Square Ravenswood Chamber of Commerce: A Piece of Berlin in Lincoln Square "The DANK-Haus in Lincoln Square is currently hosting the Berlin Wall installation “Die, Mauer” an Urban Pop Art Project by Margarita Korol. “Die Mauer” is the German expression for “the Wall”. By setting a comma in between “Die”and “Mauer”, Margarita Korol introduces the English word “die” into the art project giving the audience an input to think! We love it!"

17 May 2012 Jewish Book Council: It Takes Two "Obviously, Margarita was the natural choice to create the cover for my essay collection. When asked what went into creating the vibrant image that introduced the text, she responded, “Heresy on the High Beamchanneled some of my favorite things: a strong female lead, ethnic struggle, and a Lisa Frank palette.”"

1 September 2011 Tablet Magazine: Touch The Sky "Margarita Korol, an artist and writer and Nextbook Press’ social media director, was brought from Ukraine to Chicago by a single mother and found herself chafing at the specific path to success laid out before her. Today in Tablet Magazine, she relates how she found another single-mom-raised Chitowner, one Kanye West, to be an inspiration for unapologetically forging your own path."

1 September 2011 Immigration Prof Blog: Kanye West Helps One Immigrant Find a Voice (Margarita Korol) "Here is an out of the ordinary immigrant story from Tablet Magazine.  Read "Graduation: A Jewish Ukrainian immigrant needed a voice to help reconcile her foreign past and her American future. She found it—in Kanye West."

12 July 2011 Chicago Pipeline: Ninth Annual Sound System Block Party Kicks Off with a Fundraiser Featuring 100 Local Artists "The group show, curated by Stuart Hall of the nearby RGB Lounge and Taylor Worthy, an art student who began organizing participating artists back in mid-May, features 100 donated works by 100 local artists, each of whom was given creative license to express what ‘a better world’ means to them on a 12×12 space, using a canvas or, in some cases, metal, wood, glass and fabric." See Margarita's donation here (bottom right multimedia piece).

27 October 2009 Chicago Tribune: Harper Art Installation Marks Anniversary of Berlin Wall Fall "Using wood and paint, Chicago artist Margarita Korol will rebuild the famous wall in vibrant colors that exhume the world views held by Berliners on both sides. The West side, with graffiti images borrowed from the original edifice, screams the experience of citizens in a walled-in city. The East side creatively expresses an entirely different set of images reflective of people caught in totalitarian communism."

Above: Immigrating City, 2007 celebrates Chicago's immigrants as well as the everyday commute to and from each other.  No matter how short or long the trip, the tapestry of how we show up for each other is beautiful.

At top: Imported Produce, 2007, 2024 celebrating the diversity that our varied immigrant origins cultivate in our day-to-day lives together in urban places.