Charlotte Street Foundation

Arrival/Departure at la Esquina, 1000 W. 25th St, April 2-May 22 (opening reception, Friday, April 9, 6-9pm, with performance by Leone Reeves at 6pm, gallery talk to follow) brings together early career artists who recognize Kansas City as the site of their first significant contact with the art world, and as the place that launched them on careers as professional artists. Curated by art historian/professor Maria Buszek and artist Jonah Criswell, this exhibition brings back to Kansas City young Kansas City Art Institute alumni who have since gone on to build careers in other cities, as well as showcasing the work of peers who have remained here, or moved back to Kansas City after living and/or studying in other places.

Featured Artists:  Cortney Andrews (Brooklyn, NY) , Anthony Baab (Kansas City, MO), Jonah Criswell (Kansas City, MO), Peter Demos (Brooklyn, NY), Dennis Dotty (St. Louis) , Rachel Frank (Brooklyn, NY), Lauren McEntire (Kansas City, MO) , Martin Murphy (Astoria, NY), Shawn Powell (Astoria, NY), Leone Reeves (Kansas City, MO), Alexis Semtner (Brooklyn, NY).

Decisively broad, Arrival/Departure explores the faces and concerns of art today, in work ranging from installation, performance and sculpture to experimen­tal drawing, fiber based works, painting and photography. It encompasses such con­cerns as: the animal, abstraction, body and memory, causality, domesticity, pop culture and the sublime. Read full press release.

And join the curators and artists for a Current Perspectives presentation at Kansas City Art Institute, Thursday, April 8, 7pm, 4415 Warwick Blvd. Epperson Auditorium.

For three days at Urban Culture Project Space, 21 East 12th Street in downtown Kansas City, MO, Chicago-based art critic Lori Waxman will receive artists in need of art reviews under the auspices of her project, the “60 wrd/min art critic.” Reviews, which are free of charge, will be scheduled and written in twenty-five minute increments between the announced hours only: Thursday, April 15, 12-2:30pm & 4-6:30pm; Friday, April 16, 2:30-5pm & 6:30-9pm; and Saturday, April 17, 12-2:30pm & 4-6:30pm.

Artists may contact Lori Waxman beginning on Tuesday, April 6 to make an advance appointment by emailing critic@60wrdmin.org. These appointments will be scheduled on a first-come, first-served basis.  Additional details will be provided as appointments are scheduled.  Walk-in hours (no appointment necessary; first come first served) will be held Saturday, April 17, 12-2:30pm.

Reviews will be signed, published and ready for pick-up within the time frame of the performance. Artist, artwork, critic, and review will all exist in the same space simultaneously, thereby helping to demystify the art review process. The reviews will remain on view at Urban Culture Project Space through May 6. In addition, the reviews will be published by the Kansas City Star (in print and online at KansasCity.com) in the weeks following the performance.

This is a project of the Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program and  is being hosted in Kansas City by CSF/UCP and Grand Arts. Read full press release.

Read the completed reviews here.

Read the feature in the Kansas City Star.

You’re Such a Good Sport, March 19-May 6 at Paragraph & Project Space, 21-23 East 12th Street, focuses on artists’ work relating to sports and sports culture. Curated by artist/arts professional Michael Schonhoff, the exhibition represents both sport and art as deeply rooted into our definitions of ourselves, individually and culturally. Through visual artworks, performances, participatory activities, special events and public programs, You’re Such a Good Sport invites viewers and participants to discover commonalities within the meanings of gamesmanship and art-making.

The exhibition is divided into two parts: a group exhibition at Paragraph gallery and “The Training Room,” hosting a series of short-term projects in the adjacent Project Space. (Download complete Training Room Schedule here.) In addition to works by visual artists, You’re Such a Good Sport incorporates regional sports objects as well as specific sports-inspired exhibition furniture to create a lively, multi-faceted context and experience.  Areas of investigation include spectacle and audience roles, fanaticism and obsessivism, archetypes and gender roles, and the local historical and cultural contexts of arts and sports.

Artists featured at Paragraph include Matt Dehaemers, Robert Heishman, Megan Mantia, Mike Hill, Miki Baird, Pellom McDaniels, Brett Reif, Pablo Helguera, Chris Doyle, Phil Peterson, Ray Noland, Adriane Herman, Brian Reeves, Shelley Buffalo, Linda Trunzo, and Megan Gallant. Also featured are images and video borrowed from the Kansas City Museum, and reference materials from the Negro League Baseball Museum. In addition, Kansas City artist Alexander Austin will be creating a mural painting on gallery windows featuring local and national sports figures. A performance by Rah! Booty will be featured on opening night, March 19, at 7pm.

Artists undertaking projects in “The Training Room” include Andy Anima, Sean Starowitz, Jeff Harshbarger, Johnny Naugahyde, Json Myers, Jaclyn Senne & Stephen C. Proski, Mike Hill, Maria Calderon, Lori Waxman, Jenna Stanton, Lori Bury, Margaret Shelby, and Paul Shortt. Read full press release.

See KC Free Press article & pix.

See Review article featuring the exhibition by Ryan LeFerney.

Download Training Room schedule.

With support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Charlotte Street Foundation and the Spencer Museum of Art are partnering to fuel the dynamism of our region’s art ecology by providing direct support for innovative, experimental, artist-driven, and artist-centered projects. Rocket Grants will fund projects that exist outside of established institutions, occur outside of traditional forms of support, challenge traditional methods of production or presentation, add energy and diversity to the field of arts activity in our area, and provide opportunities for the creative growth of those involved. Grants will provide up to $4000 support for selected projects, with a maximum of $40,000 to be awarded in 2010.

Detailed guidelines + the 2010 Rocket Grants application may be downloaded here. (Scroll down the page to download guidelines and application form.) Application deadline is April 2, 2010. [Please note: Adobe now requires you have the latest version of Acrobat in order to save interactive PDFs. If you experience any difficulty saving your file, we hope you will download a free version at: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatpro/tryout.html.]

A series of information launch & question sessions are planned for January through March at a range of sites in the Kansas City and Lawrence areas; potential applicants are strongly encouraged to attend.

Sessions are: Thursday, January 21, 2010, 6pm at H&R Block Artspace at KCAI, 16 East 43rd Street, KCMO 64111; Saturday, January 23, 10am at Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, 1301 Mississippi Street, Lawrence, KS 66045; Saturday, January 23, 1pm at Haskell Indian Nations University, 1555 Indian Avenue, Lawrence, KS 66046; Thursday January 28, noon, at Operation Breakthrough, 3039 Troost Avenue, Kansas City 64109;  Saturday, February 6, 10am at Artist INC Training Room at UMKC Small Business and Technology Development Center, 4747 Troost Ave. Room 114, Kansas City MO 64110; Saturday, February 20, 7pm, Shane Evans Dream Studio, 711 East 31st Street, Kansas City, MO 64109; Tuesday March 2, 6pm, YWCA, 1017 North 6th Street, Kansas City, KS 66101.

FINAL SESSIONS!!!: Friday March 19th, 5pm, Mattie Rhodes North East Satellite, 148 N. Topping Ave., Kansas City, MO 64123, 816 241 3780; Sunday March 21, 2pm, Hudson Auditorium at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 12345 College Blvd, Overland Park, KS 66210, (913) 469-3000.