Charlotte Street Foundation

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. 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, which includes info about public programs and schedule for The Training Room.

New large-scale commissioned images by Kansas City based artists Michael Sinclair and Allan Winkler debut on Missouri Bank Crossroads Branch’s Art through Architecture “Artboards” at 125 Southwest Boulevard in time for First Friday March, 2010.

Michael Sinclair presents photographs taken at two Kansas City, Missouri parks: Blue Valley Park at East 23rd and Topping, and Loose Park at 52nd and Wornall. The two images (from a much larger body of Sinclair’s work focused on urban parks in the area) share a strong sense symmetry, emphasizing the carefully designed interplay of nature and culture in these places while also calling into relief the contrast between the two parks, one on the East side of the city, the other on the West. Allan Winkler presents images of two new black and white paper-cut artworks that offer a portrait of community; a lively, diverse neighborhood of friendly cohorts.  Titled “Community Meeting,” Winkler’s detailed pair of images exemplify the artist’s skillfulness in the medium of paper cutting as well as his ability to convey joy, delight, and a deep sense of humanity using the simplest of means.

An Art through Architecture “Art Achievement” project, the Missouri Bank “Artboards” launched fall 2008, when the building’s existing double-sided billboards were renovated and converted into a highly visible site for work by area artists as part of the bank’s purchase and renovation of the building to house its Crossroads Branch, completed by Helix Architecture + Design. Art through Architecture (AtA) is a partnership of American Institute of Architects-Kansas City and Charlotte Street Foundation designed to encourage collecting and commissioning work by Kansas City area artists through architectural practice. Read full press release.

Missouri Bank, BKS Real Estate, and Helix Architecture + Design have been awarded highest level “Art Achievement” by Art through Architecture (AtA) for commissioning “DREAM,” a new, site-specific art installation by Kansas City based artist Archie Scott Gobber. The project was commissioned as part of the architectural renovation of the historic former Star Motors building at 7 West 62nd Terrace in the Brookside neighborhood of Kansas City, MO.

Gobber’s installation animates one long wall of Missouri Bank’s new vehicular drive-thru, which runs straight through the center of the building. It features large-scale, hand-painted aluminum letters (each approx 93”x84”) spelling “DREAM,” which float off of a brightly painted, horizontally-striped background spanning the length of the drive-thru, some 90 feet long.

“DREAM is a spectacular addition to the building,” said Grant Burcham, President and CEO of Missouri Bank. “Not only does it make an ordinary drive-through extraordinary, it speaks to our entrepreneurial niche: entrepreneurs are dreamers by definition! We are very pleased with the public support we have received for participating in the Art through Architecture program for both our Crossroads bank, and our new Brookside bank,” he added. “The response has been so overwhelmingly positive, we would not consider another project without participating in the program.”

Read full press release. For more about Art through Architecture, a partnership of Charlotte Street and American Institute of Architects-Kansas City, visit www.artarch.org.

Charlotte Street Foundation is pleased to announce the selection of three Kansas City artists to receive unrestricted cash Awards of $10,000 each in 2010. Selected by a panel of local and national curators from a pool of 48 nominated artists, the recipients are Ari Fish, Sonie Ruffin and Caleb Taylor.

Charlotte Street Foundation has now recognized 71 Kansas City based visual artists with Charlotte Street Visual Artist Awards, with a total of $452,500 in unrestricted cash grants distributed directly to visual artists over thirteen years.  (An additional $25,000 has been awarded to five generative performing artists, through CSF’s Generative Performing Artists Awards launched in 2008.) An exhibition of the work of the 2010 Charlotte Street Visual Artist Awards Fellows will presented at Grand Arts in fall, 2010. Read full press release. Press about the 2010 Awards fellows (click each for link): Kansas City Star; KCUR-FM, Kansas City Free Press, Review.

Uncover the hilarious secret subtext of your favorite Saturday morning cartoon February 11 to March 7 in the Coterie At Night production of Spooky Dog: A Scooby-Doo-Like Mystery (Plagiarized, improvised and not for kiddies!), directed by CSF Generative Performing Award Fellow Ron Megee and performed evenings-only at la Esquina, 1000 W. 25th St. (On First Friday February 5, 6-8pm, the public is invited to a FREE sneak peak and party with the Mystery Gang. Meet the visual and performing artists and enjoy Spooky Dog’s favorite snacks and beverages. Rah Booty perform as special guests.)

The production, true to the Hanna-Barbera time period of the late ‘60s-early ‘70s, incorporates musical numbers, improvisation, and audience participation as it chronicles the uproarious and campy adventures of a dog detective named Spooky, his spaced-out hippie friend, and their gang. The teen-age mystery gang confronts criminals, but what do they do about their own burgeoning sexual desires? Or those tasty dog treats with unexpected side effects?  Or the penchant they suddenly have for busting a move?  This Coterie At Night production is PG-13 for language and sexual innuendo. Individuals under the age of 13 will not be admitted.  Spooky Dog is a co-production with the Coterie and UMKC Theatre’s professional training program.

Tickets  are $12 for all ages; $9 for Coterie season ticket holders. Discount Deal: 10 tix for $10 each – advance phone orders only. Tickets may be purchased by calling (816) 474-6552, online at www.coterietheatre.org, at the Coterie Box Office in Crown Center, or at the door 30 minutes prior to performance time. Read full press release. Watch YouTube clip. Read Kansas City Star review.

Charlotte Street Foundation is planning its first benefit party ever and, of course, wants artists of all disciplines to be at the center of it! For one night, *you are HERE will transform a downtown parking garage into an urban destination.  Individual parking spots will serve as the sites for art installations, live performances, and other artist-driven projects, as well as for food and drink stations, cocktail lounges, picnic areas, and other mobile elements. Our vision is of a high-energy party spreading throughout the parking garage, where guests of all walks of life mix and celebrate amidst and among a series of wildly diverse installations, destinations, happenings, and experiences. At the end of the night, everything packs up and drives away.

Proposals are invited from artists and creatives of all kinds interested in producing a *you are HERE destination for the benefit. You may submit a proposal as a solo artist or on behalf of a collaborative group. Download application info HERE. Deadline is March 15, 2010. The event is October 2, 2010.

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 additionm 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.

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.

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.

KcEMA KcEnnections brings together world-renowned artists from the region for a night of electronic music and visual art.  The February 5th concert features two movements from Daniel Asia and Kip Haaheim’s “Sacred and Profane,” with video by Janet Davidson-Hues. The texts for portions of this piece are drawn from the sayings of Rabbi Nachman of Bratislav, a leader of the Hassidic movement in 18th century Poland.  Paul Rudy will perform a variety of instruments as he accompanies tracks from his  “2012 Stories” CD series.  Rudy calls the series “a personal journey to come alive during an unprecedented time of awakening on our planet earth.”  Douglass Crockwell’s animations entitled “Glen Falls Sequence,” with a newly composed soundtrack by David Dvorin, bring a startling visual element to the concert.  Created over a nine-year period in the 1930’s, the “Glen Falls Sequence” is the result of numerous experimental and unorthodox techniques of animation, supplemented by Dvorin’s layered electronic music.

The Kansas City Electronic Music and Arts Alliance (KcEMA) was founded in 2007 to encourage and develop understanding and appreciation of electronic music and to create an expansive sense of community for electronic musicians and other artists in the Kansas City Area. Doors open at 7pm; $5 suggested donation at the door. UCP Studios at City Center Square, 1100 Main, 5th floor.  Read full press release. For more about KcEMA, visit http://www.kcema.net

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.