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.

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.”

Community + Loneliness, opening at Paragraph, 23 East 12th Street on May 21, 6-9pm (with curator remarks at 6:30pm), examines the conflict between desire for community and lifestyle and personal choices that undermine the fulfillment of this desire.  “In American culture, there is a desire for community, but also a lifestyle that does not support building communities,” writes curator Angela Lopez.  “This culture in many ways supports forgetting individual roots…. The first solution to ‘Starting over’ is to move. Further, the marketing of convenience seems to pull people apart in more ways than it brings them together… it promises more time to spend with family, friends, etc.,  however in many ways, it takes away the possibility of neighborhood communities.  In a transient culture, it is difficult to maintain stable reliable relationships.”

Community + Loneliness features artists whose work expresses a sense of loneliness stemming from isolation from or within a community, as well as works that speak to community identification and attempts toward community building.  Artists are Miki Baird, Amy Casey, AJ Halbrook, Peregrine Honig, Amy Kligman, Michael Lopez, Hugh Merrill, Charlie Mylie, Jason Needham, Anne Pearce, Sean Semones, Drew Roth,  Rachel Wetchensky, and Whoop Dee Doo.

The exhibition runs May 21-June 26, with gallery hours Thursdays & Saturdays, 12-5pm. Read full press release.

See KC Free Press coverage.

See article in Review.

Troost Troost Troost is a collaborative project of University of Kansas School of Architecture, Design and Planning, the Kansas City Art Institute Graphic Design Department, and el dorado inc, which explores the present and future of Troost Avenue.  It opens at Project Space, 21 East 12th Street, on Friday May 21, 6-9pm, and runs through June 12.

What is Troost Avenue in 2010?  And what role might architecture play in shaping its future?  Which pieces of its history, physical and cultural fabric are important to carry forward? Troost, Troost, Troost encompasses a series of iterative architectural proposals exploring the potential of an incremental infill approach to revitalizing Troost Avenue, with a program including a public radio station, a branch library, a community bank, an urban Habitat ReStore, and mixed-use commercial and residential development  on the section of Troost Avenue from 39th Street to Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard.  Also included are video essays and graphic design work that explore the critical issue of understanding Troost for what it is today. 

Exhibition hours at Thursdays + Saturdays, 12-5pm. Read full press release. 

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.

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.

Cumulus, a multi-media, multi-disciplinary exhibition featuring select projects developed by current UCP Studio Residents, continues with the addition of new artworks and projects. New features debuting at the Third Friday opening on February 19, 6-9 pm at Paragraph, 23 E. 12th. include The Wizard Ningxt, an eccentric character embodied by Aaron Storck, who will offer stir-fry, drinks, and poetry to gallery visitors from temporary housing structure at the gallery’s entrance, and a rotating exhibition curated by Erica Mahinay within Paragraph featuring works by Storck, Caleb Taylor, Samantha Persons, Lori Yonley, Kat Dison, Luke Rocha, Darwin Arevalo, Erica Mahinay, Charlie Mylie and Timothy Amundson.

In nearby Oppenstein Park, 12th and Walnut, Elaina Wendt Michalski will debut Exit, composed of two life-size figure sculptures, based on homeless youth. Made of unfired clay, these figures, left vulnerable to the elements, are inspired and informed by Michalski’s interaction with members of Synergy Services, a youth homeless shelter in the Kansas City area.  In addition Lori Yonley will welcome visitors once again to Give and Take, an ever-revolving collection of 5×5 collaborative drawings, and on the street Kurt Flecksing and Sean M. Starowitz will again fire up the S’mores Vending Cart, supplying a taste of campfire nostalgia and accumulating funds to award to future artists’ projects.

Additional Cumulus Events:
Saturday, February 20th, 1-2:30pm: Critique dialogue led by Barbara O’Brien, Curator, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and Julie Farstad, Painting Professor, Kansas City Art Institute.
Wednesday, February 24, starts at 6pm: Potluck Drawing session, Reperformance organized by Charlie Mylie (7pm), & The Four Seasons, a performance collabioration by Jane Gotch, Tim Amundson, Erica Mahinay.

Read full press release. Read Kansas City Star review. Read KC Free Press article.

See Fox4-TV interview with Elaina Wendt Michalski.

Sofa Kingdom in the Valley of Comic Sans, a new, site-specific installation by Kansas City based artists Timothy Amundson and Charlie Mylie, opens at Urban Culture Project Space, 21 East 12th Street, Friday February 19, 6-9pm. It runs through March 6, 2010.

Amundson and Mylie, both artists in UCP’s Studio Residency Program, are generating “an interactive, performative space of play.” This multi-media environment is envisioned as a platform for “improvisations, cooperations, and transformations,” whereby “actors become sculptures, performative games become improvisational dance, paintings become platforms, drawings become instructions, objects become tasks, formal sculptures become architectural interventions, and viewing becomes experience.”  Over the course of the evening, such array of transformations will unfold, with such materials as wood, fabric, guitars, electric fans, fermenting wine, pedestals, lights, plants, paint, play-dough, diverse found objects, and human beings as cast as active players in a real-time theatrical event. Read full press release.

Commodity, Commotion, Communication, an installation of new work by Kansas City based artist and Urban Culture Project Studio Resident Samantha “Sammy” Persons, opens at Urban Culture Project Space, 21 East 12th Street, with a Third Friday reception on January 15, 6-9pm; artist remarks at 6pm.

A manipulator of signs more than a producer of art objects, Persons constructs “paintings” and interactive sculptural environments  from materials drawn from her own lifetime and which signal the difference between Art and non- art identified objects—her materials palette includes house paint, vinyl letters, art books and catalogs, bendy straws, , air fresheners, life-sized Hanna Montana Stickers, highlighters, and glitter, among much else.  In part, Persons’ calculated barrage of fragments and collaged images signifies the saturation of text/media in contemporary culture. At the same time, this field of partial and re-contextualized information is meant to position the viewer as an active reader of messages rather than passive contemplator of the aesthetic or consumer of the spectacular.  Further, by appropriating traditionally gendered materials, such as 2 by 4’s, which she paints bright pink, as well as by building up the surfaces of painting with stickers, which have a long historical correlation to femininity and decoration, the artist seeks to heighten tension between masculine  support and feminine façade, destabilizing our standard readings of familiar products and materials.

Also upcoming:  Tea Party – Conversation, an open dialogue with Sammy Persons, Kurt Flecksing, Lynley Farris, and Robert Heishman at Project Space on Wednesday, January 27, 7pm. Free & open to the public. Read full press release.

Read review in The Pitch.

Read review in Review.