Charlotte Street Foundation

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.”

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.

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. 

Voices of Community + Loneliness, on Saturday, May 22, 1pm at Paragraph, 23 East 12th Street, features writers and performers responding to Paragraph exhibition’s themes. The program, free and open to the public, features Gina Kaufmann’s “Status Report,” for which Ron Megee, Rita Brinkerhoff and Kaufmann will stand on soap boxes, shouting real Facebook status updates onto the street to greet visitors. By adapting online behavior to a physical space, visitors will get to see the humor, loneliness and occasional beauty of broadcasting unrelated sentiments into a shared void. Concluding “Status Report,” Pitch Managing Editor Scott Wilson will speak about how people behave differently in the dark. The program also features a presentation of poetry inspired by the exhibition theme and organized by Glenn North, Poet-in-Residence at the American Jazz Museum. Featured poets are North, Robert Brown, Taylor Brown, and Camiel J. Irving.

The evening of May 22, at 8pm at The Brick, 1727 Megee, Gina Kaufmann hosts Storytelling: Community + Loneliness, a night of stories about the unexpected ways in which feelings of loneliness and feelings of belonging can intersect.  Storytellers featured include Rolf Potts, Kaite Mediatore Stover, Beth Byrd-Lonski,  Frankie Krainz, Meshel Cook, Hadley Johnson, and Brian Busby.

On Saturday, May 8, 7:30 pm at la Esquina, 1000 West 25th Street, BD Collier, Founder and President of The Society for a Re-Natural Environment, will give a multi-media presentation titled, “On the Impact of Flying Carp.” The presentation, free and open to the public, will address the natural history of invasive Asian carp, their impact on North American waterways, and possible solutions to the problem. The presentation will focus primarily on the silver or flying carp whose population has been rapidly expanding in mid-western waterways since the 1980′s and the threat they pose to the Great Lakes ecosystem.

BD Collier is a re-naturalist, educator and artist. As Founder and President of the Society for a Re-Natural Environment he gives presentations, creates exhibitions, and engages in sanctioned and unsanctioned public works to increase understanding of and connection to the non-human natural world. He also works to educate people about how humans have shaped the ecosystems they live in. Collier  has exhibited widely in the U.S. and abroad including: Neues Museum Weserberg Bremen, in Germany; Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art; Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales, Havana, Cuba; University of Houston; 60 Wall Gallery, Deutsche Bank NYC; University of Kansas Natural History Museum and Paragraph Gallery in Kansas City, MO. Collier’s work has been written about in numerous publications including: Art in America, The New York Times, Afterimage, Orion: Nature, Culture, Place, Domus, and Art Papers Magazine. He earned his MFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He currently lives and works in Bloomington, IL.

For more about Collier and the The Society for a Re-Natural Environment, visit http://societyrne.net/

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.

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.

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.