Charlotte Street Foundation

Great Accommodations is a participatory exhibition project spearheaded by Kansas City based artist Jamie Burkart that highlights the Missouri River within Kansas City, utilizes the central rivers as a social network, and imagines lifestyles for cities on the water.  The exhibition runs September 1-October 3 at Paragraph + Project Space, 21-23 East 12th Street,  with special extended hours: Tuesday-Sunday, 9am-6pm. Third Friday reception is September 18, 6-9pm, with artist remarks at 6pm.

Burkart’s multi-component, rhizomatic, immersive installation will assume the form of a kind of living museum, housed within a massive inflatable environment filling Paragraph and Project Space. It will include interactive video installations, participatory sculptural experiences, computer programs, community projects, and “working” documentation.  Much of the show is made from recycled materials collected by businesses and individuals around the Kansas City area.

Together with collaborator Suzanne Hogan, Burkart has mailed hundreds of letters and placed targeted Facebook advertisements to reach people and places located along the Missouri, Mississippi, Arkansas and Ohio rivers, inviting individuals to contribute their stories and perspectives of life on the river as part of the project. “I want this exhibition to become a space where people from every city up and downstream from Kansas City can come and write their own histories together,” says Burkart. Read complete press release.

Check out Jamie’s Photostream here!

More about Burkart’s river projects:

“In the name of art, go with the flow” in KC Star; “When Artists Turn Huck Finn”  in The Pitch. Read review in Review.

First Friday at la Esquina, 1000 West 25th,  is all about mediating virtual information. The free evening kicks off at 7:30 with While We Were Working, a one-hour program of YouTube selections curated by artists Eric Fleischauer (Chicago) and Robert Snowden (New York). “Digging in deep, past the recognizable, recommended, and promoted selections, we have compiled a range of videos that provoke and articulate YouTube’s role as an artist resource, venue, and medium,” they write. Their program folds together video featuring such cultural icons as Barack Obama, David Lee Roth, John Cage, Charlie Rose, Nicholas Cage, A-ha, and Picasso’s Guernica; cultural phenomenon such as Japanese train loading, wave pools, and QVC television; and a range of highly idiosyncratic performances, experiments and activities that emblematize the wildly eclectic, populist nature of YouTube.

At 8:30 is the launch of INFOBAHN, a new event series where invited presenters will each share approximately 15-minutes worth of selections culled from the vast field of web-based information in response to a given theme. INFOBAHN is about information, inspiration, and personal interest; the process of searching, navigating, discovering, making choices; and the unique structure and ever expanding virtual terrain that is the internet. The theme for INFOBAHN Episode I is “Secret.” Presenters include Ari Fish, Miguel Rivera, Lisa Marie Evans, Dirk Cowan, Paul Shortt, and Deanna Skedel.

Read complete press release.  POST EVENT UPDATE!: INFOBAHN Episode I links.

On Sunday, August 23 at la Esquina, designer and artist Jon Fulton Adams will premier his Spring 2010 Menswear collection under his label “Queen’s Rocket.” Trained in Fashion from the Savannah College of Art and Design, Adams’ aesthetic combines Edwardian and Steampunk styles, translated for the modern Dandy. Ron Megee will produce and direct the event, Shawn Sorrell will serve as artistic director, and David Wayne Reed will be the evening’s emcee. A concert by Cody Wyoming and John Ferguson’s band The Monitor, and music from d.j. Alan, will be performed in addition to the fashion presentation.

Doors open at 7:45 p.m. The runway show begins at 9:00 p.m. V.I.P. tickets to the event are $10, available at the door the evening of the event. Admission includes an exotic drink bar, dancing, the runway event, and several surprises. Read full press release.

Click here to view the Present Magazine photo-journal of the show.

Click here to view the Ink Magazine article about the Queen’s Rocket fashion line premiere.