Charlotte Street Foundation

The 2010 Charlotte Street Visual Artist Awards exhibition, featuring the work of this year’s Awards recipients Ari Fish, Sonié Ruffin and Caleb Taylor, opens Friday, September 3, 6-9pm, at Grand Arts, 1819, and runs through October 30, with a gallery talk with the artists on Saturday, September 4, 2pm.  

Ari Fish will unveil a new series of garments in the context of an ethereal video installation. Projected onto white silk banners, Fish’s multi-channel video is combined with an original sound track and features a group of people practicing Qigong clad in matching robes constructed by Fish. Sonié Ruffin will show a range of new and recent quilts and fabric pieces, including new works exploring surface design through direct application of pigment, paint and screen-printed images. Included among Caleb Taylor’s  many new works on view will be a large-scale drawing in painted aluminum, realized with assistance from A. Zahner Company.

Each of these three artists received an unrestricted cash grant of $10,000 from Charlotte Street Foundation earlier this year. To date, Charlotte Street has recognized a total of 78 Kansas City based visual and generative performing artists, with a total of $490,500 in unrestricted cash grants distributed directly to the artists. Through its Awards, CSF seeks to contribute to the vitality of Kansas City’s art community and to enhance Kansas City’s desirability as a place for artists to work and live.

Read full press release.

Charlotte Street Foundation’s Urban Culture Project is pleased to present Things to be Next To, an exhibition collaboration with threewalls, Chicago.  Featuring recent and new work by Alberto Aguilar (Chicago), Peter Fagundo (Chicago), James Woodfill (Kansas City), and Warren Rosser (Kansas City), the exhibition will open Saturday, September 4, 6-9pm at CSF’s la Esquina (an Urban Culture Project venue), 1000 West 25th Street in Kansas City, running through October 15, and will then travel to threewalls in Chicago, November 5-December 11, 2010. Also on Saturday, September 4, la Esquina will host a roundtable discussion with the artists and curators at 3:30pm.

Co-curated by Kate Hackman (CSF) and Shannon Stratton (threewalls), this exhibition developed through extensive artist reviews and studio visits by each curator in the partner city.  One interest that emerged was in the nature of the cities themselves, and how the conditions of each place, including the characteristics and contexts of the artists’ studios, inform their practices. 

Alberto Aguilar and Peter Fagundo both work in their own homes, creating artworks that are intimate in scale and substance. Their work derives from, responds to, comments upon, and participates in the domestic realm, often involving collaborations with family members and knitted into a spectrum of daily life activities. In contrast, James Woodfill and Warren Rosser work in expansive, high-ceilinged studios in the kind of industrial building characteristic of downtown Kansas City. A sense of freedom—to make things, step back and sit with them awhile, make other things, then circle back around again—is  palpable in their works, which convey a sense of flux and sustained potential. Both artists’ works for this exhibition reference the domestic as well, with Rosser employing fabrics and rugs in cut shapes that recall dressmaking patterns, and Woodfill creating structures that suggest—and can readily function as—benches, desks, and screens.

Read full press release.

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In the four-day performance Kill to Hunt, Hunt to Kill, Kansas City-based artist and UCP Studio Resident Jason Dixon dares to call all artists liars and unveils the truth for the first time in art history through a monumental work entitled “The Truth.” A live performance and webcast from La Esquina / 1000 W 25th Street, Kansas City, MO 64108 at 8pm on Friday, August 20 (also live streaming at www.ustream.tv/channel/kill-to-hunt-hunt-to-kill)  begins this journey as “The Truth” is stretched in the gallery through absurd presentations and playful theatrics.

The event on August 20 will culminate in a tribal celebration and performance from musician/composer Hunter Long, following which the artist will take to the isolated woods of Missouri for three days with no food, shelter or basic amenities on an actual hunt using only tools formed from “The Truth” in an effort to salvage its namesake.  Photographer Josh Ferdinand will document this part of the performance only until his camera runs out of memory.

Finally, on August 24, 2010, 7pm, guests should bring their appetites as Dixon returns to La Esquina straight from the woods for a BBQ and potluck to share his kills, stories, and experiences from the hunt. Guests who don’t believe in the artist’s hunting prowess are welcome to bring their own food, and even feed the artist.

Read full press release.

Charlotte Street Foundation’s Urban Culture Project, in collaboration with City Center Square, seeks proposals from artists interested in being considered for a window installation commission. The commissioned work will occupy a large ground-floor window niche at City Center Square, located on the north side of the street just west of 12th and Main in downtown Kansas City.

In relation to the United States Post Office located within City Center Square, the installation should engage the theme of mail or the post office in some manner. Creative, innovative, artistic approaches to this subject are encouraged. The selected artist will be awarded a materials budget of $500 and an artist stipend of $500 to support the creation of the final project. The installation will remain on view for approximately one year.

Deadline for proposals is Monday, August 9, 2010. Click here for full details.

The Art through Architecture “Artboards” at Missouri Bank Crossroads, 125 Southwest Boulevard, will present commissioned images by KC artists Anne Lindberg and Paul Shortt, July-October, 2010.

Since the first day of 2010, Anne Lindberg has been taking at least one photograph each day in her home or wherever she travels, creating an intimate, cumulative mapping of personal space and record of private observations. Her pair of west-facing images, titled once a day 59 and 62, come from this series, and feature two views of curtains photographed at dusk.  “I wanted to lift these subtle, private images up into the public realm of the urban billboard, where they will hang in the sky day and night, transporting viewers to a different time of day, place, and mood,” said Lindberg.  “The mirror in one of the images again shifts the viewer’s perspective and position, creating a complex sense of time and space.”

Paul Shortt’s pair of east-facing images are two examples from a larger body of recent work titled Nimby’s, which involve the artist photographing yard signs he has made by hand and installed in undeveloped lots, empty houses, and along the roadside.  “The Nimby’s project gets its name from the term ‘Not In My Back Yard,’ a mindset of opposition to change,” says Shortt. “By hand-making the signs and text, I’m throwing into question the authority of signs, while giving the locations an authority and presence to be interpreted by the viewer. My hope in these images being on the billboards is that they will offer viewers lenses with which to reconsider the environments they drive by every day.”

An Art through Architecture “Art Achievement” project, the Missouri Bank “Artboards” are double-sided exterior billboards converted into a highly visible site for work by area artists. Since launching in late 2008, the “Artboards” have presented commissioned images by ten Kansas City area artists, with Lindberg and Shortt’s images bringing the number of artists to twelve.  For more about Art through Architecture, visit www.ArtArch.org. Read full press release.

Charlotte Street Foundation’s Urban Culture Project seeks applications from artists interested in being considered for its Studio Residency Program for both visual and performing artists. Applications are next due FRIDAY, JULY 16 (postmarked or delivered by 5pm to CSF’s offices, 1000 West 25th Street).

UCP’s Studio Residency Program has been providing free studio spaces since 2004 for talented and dedicated local visual artists in need of space in which to work. In 2009, UCP expanded the program to include performing artists, when it launched a new facility at City Center Square, 1100 Main, 5th floor.  The City Center Square facility provides space for both performing and visual artists (visual artists occupy small, private studios; performing artists share the use of a large, open rehearsal space that includes a platform stage and Marley floor), making for an environment conducive to cross-disciplinary collaboration and exchange. In addition to City Center Square, UCP’s Studio Residency Program also provides space to visual artists at pARTnership Place, 906 Grand, 13th floor.

The studios are granted to selected artists for one year terms. No full time students will be considered.

Download the call for performing artists and application requirements here.

Download the call for visual artists and application requirements here.

Final selections have been made for the first recipients of Rocket Grants, a brand new funding opportunity available to artists who live within an 80-mile radius of downtown Kansas City, which includes Lawrence, KS. Rocket Grants are specifically intended to encourage work that is inventive and “under the radar”, and that engages or benefits an audience somewhere other than in a museum or art gallery. The long-term goal of the program is to not only encourage emerging and non-traditional art practices in the Kansas City region, but also to contribute to a thriving artists’ community. Selections were therefore evaluated not only on the artistic merits of the proposed projects, but also on their capacity to stimulate further growth in a diverse and supportive art ecology.

Because some applicants requested less than the full $4,000, a total of 12 awards were granted. Click here for the list of selected artists and brief project summaries.

Rocket Grants are supported by a $40,000 regional regranting award from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and are implemented by a partnership between the Charlotte Street Foundation in Kansas City, and the Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence. The five-member panel responsible for selecting this year’s recipients from more than 80 applications was composed of national and local interdisciplinary artists and arts professionals, including Mel Ziegler, Adriane Herman, Hesse McGraw, So Yeon Park and Pat Alexander.

Read full press release. 

Read Kansas City Star article, “Rocket Grants Boost Local Artists…” by Alice Thorson, June 6, 2010.

Read in-depth descriptions of the 12 Rocket Grant supported projects.

Viva la Vida - A Celebration of Life & Community is a large group exhibition curated by Jenny Mendez, Director of Mattie Rhodes Art Gallery and Chairperson of the Guild of Latino Fine Arts (Azteca de Grater Kansas City). The show opens with a celebration on Friday June 4, 6-10pm at la Esquina, 1000 West 25th Street, featuring music, performance, food, and drink. It features many dozens of artworks of far-ranging media, including paintings, drawings, sculptures, ceramics, photographs, textile-based and mixed media pieces, all of which represent responses to and interpretations of the exhibition’s title. Many works reflect participating artists’ connections to the Latino community in Kansas City and elsewhere.

Featured artists include Rodolfo Marron, Juan Moya, Jessica Manco, John Hernandez, Miriam Feingold, Israel Garcia, Adolfo Martinez, Alisha Gambino, Arzie Umali, Jason Sierra, Thomas Woodward, Dominic Murillo, Robert Tapley Bustamante, Sammy Persons, Darwin Arevalo, Luke Rocha, Susan Moveno, Elaina Wendt Michalski, Anthony Oropeza, Monique Salazar and many others.

The exhibition runs through July 10, with hours Thursdays & Saturdays, 12-5pm.

Additional events: June 18, 7pm:  Chicano Film Night, with feature film La Vida Loca. Evening includes “Best Dressed Chola Contest.” $5 donation covers one drink and all you can eat popcorn.  Other snacks and drinks will also be available.

June 30, 5:30: Viva la Vida Artist/Curator Talk.

Read full press release. 

Read front page June 27 Kansas City Star Sunday Arts feature by Alice Thorson, “Latino Artists Celebrate Culture and Community at la Esquina and All Around Town.” 

Read front page June 27 Kansas City Star Sunday Arts feature by Alice Thorson, “Recognition Flows in for Adolfo Martinez.”

The 2010 Charlotte Street Foundation Generative Performing Awards Fellows are composer/musician Brad Cox and cross-disciplinary director/writer/performer Stephanie Roberts.  Selected through a competitive, two-phased process by a panel of area performing arts professionals, they will receive unrestricted cash Awards of $6,500 each. A public performance of their work is planned for fall, 2010.

With these latest awards, Charlotte Street  has now recognized a total of 78 Kansas City based visual and generative performing artists, with a total of $490,500 in unrestricted cash grants distributed directly to the artists. Through its Awards programs, CSF seeks to contribute to the vitality of Kansas City’s art community and to enhance Kansas City’s desirability as a place for artists to work and live.

The 2010 Generative Performing Awards Advisors responsible for selecting the recipients included David Ford, multi-disciplinary artist;  Michael Joy, Director of Artists and Educational Programs, Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey; Joette Pelster, Executive Director, Coterie Theatre; Managing Director, Kansas City Repertory Theatre; and Paul Rudy, Professor of Composition, UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance

Read full press release, including more about 2010 Fellows Brad Cox and Stephanie Roberts.

Read Kansas City Star article, “Performance artists win Charlotte Street Awards,” by Chuck Furlong, May 23, 2010.

As part of Third Friday Art Downtown June 18, UCP presents Event Horizons, a touring program of new work by film, video, and new media artists Thomas Comerford (Chicago), and Sabine Gruffat & Bill Brown (Madison, Wisconsin), at Project Space, 21 East 12th Street, 8pm (suggested donation, $5). The event will run approximately 2 hours.

This program includes a screening of Comerford’s The Indian Boundary Line, which follows a road in Chicago, Rogers Avenue, that traces the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis boundary between the United States and “Indian Territory.” In doing so, it examines the collision between the vernacular landscape and the symbolic one, and suggests how this land and its history are an index for the shifting inhabitants, relationships, boundaries and ideas of landscape — as well as the consequences — which have accompanied the transformation of the “New World.”

Also featured is Gruffat & Brown’s Time Machine, a multimedia live performance in which the artists explore new way of telling stories with technologies that are both cutting edge and obsolete, including slide projector, analog video switcher, record player, digital video projector, and computer.  During the performance, the stage becomes the control panel for an immense ship and the projection screen a window through which different spaces and times are visualized, as Gruffat and Brown assume the role of space-time tourists driven by an exploratory urge.

Read full press release.