Charlotte Street Foundation

The evening will feature live music performances by Brad Cox, Paul Rudy, and Mark Southerland, followed by the premier of the video documentary of WE!. See what you missed, or relive what you loved. The evening will conclude with a forum to meet the artists and discuss your experience of the project.

Date: Wednesday, December 14, 7pm
Venue: La Esquina, 1000 W. 25th St. KCMO 64108
Cost: $5 – $10 suggested donation

More details are in the press release!

Charlotte Street Foundation’s Urban Culture Project is excited to announce its first ever Biannual Open Studios Weekend, showcasing the work of artists in its Studio Residency Program for visual and performing artists. The 2-day event will include live music, dance, comedy improv, and cross-disciplinary performances, special sales, temporary installations, workshops, participatory activities, artist talks, and more, highlighting the work of 30 visual artists and 6 performing artists/ensembles awarded free studios for year-long terms through Charlotte Street’s competitive Urban Culture Project Studio Residency Program. All events are free and open to the public.

Dates: Friday, December 9, 5:30pm – 9:00pm
Saturday, December 10, 11:00am – 3:00pm

Studio Residency Venues:
Partnership Place / 906 Grand, 13th Floor
City Center Square / 1100 Main, 5th Floor
Town Pavilion / 1100 Walnut, 6th Floor

Visit theOpen Studios page for more information and a downloadable Open Studios program, including a map, brief descriptions of each artist’s studio, and a complete schedule of events and activities!

City Center Square and Charlotte Street Foundation are pleased to announce the upcoming debut of “AirMail,” a window installation by Kansas City-based artist Margaret Shelby.  To remain on view for approximately one year, the mail-themed installation was commissioned by City Center Square for its south-facing window on 12th Street, just west of Main, through an open call to artists facilitated by Charlotte Street Foundation.  It will be unveiled at a brief public ceremony on Friday, December 9 at 5pm.

The installation relates to the United States Post Office located within City Center Square, specifically taking as inspirations the personal nature of handwritten correspondence, the intimate process of folding and sending a letter, and the person-to-person transport and delivery of this correspondence via postal service.

Read all the details in the press release!

Charlotte Street Foundation’s Paragraph Gallery & Project Space present Augustina Eck (Ann Arbor, MI), Erika Lynne Hanson (Kansas City, MO), and Hillary Wiedemann (Oakland, CA).

Opening Reception: Friday, November 18, 6-9pm
Artists Talk: Saturday, November 19, noon
Exhibition Runs: November 18, 2011 – January 7, 2012
Gallery: Paragraph + Project Space / 21-23 East 12th St. KCMO 64105
Gallery Hours: Wed, Fri, Sat 12-5pm; Thurs 11-6pm

research, n.1

The act of searching carefully for or pursuing a specified thing or person; an instance of this.

At the core of these three artists’ works is a performative process: the artist self-consciously enacting the role of researcher, on a quest for new discovery. In all three cases, the artists are mining for information buried in original source material, which they pursue through acts of close interrogation, re-interpretation, and reenactment.The outcome of this searching takes the form of artworks including photographs, video and sound, sculpture, and installation. Though Eck, Hanson and Weidemann have focused on events and mediums that are disparate, themes of memory, notions of the sublime, perceptual shifts, and landscape connect their projects and form the bases for a conversation among their works.

Learn about all 3 artists, and their projects, in the press release!

Read a review from the KC Star.

Charlotte Street Foundation invites applications from artists wishing to be considered for the 2012 Charlotte Street Visual Artist Awards. These annual unrestricted cash grants recognize visual artists living in the Greater Kansas City Metro area who are creating outstanding artwork, and provide financial support, critical attention and increased exposure for these artists. All eligible artists are encouraged to apply. Three Awards of $10,000 each will be distributed.

Download the full details.

Charlotte Street Foundation is pleased to present the world premiere of STRANGER FRIEND. This multi-media production weaves together choreography and video by Leralee Whittle, music compositions by Paul Sprawl, and performance by Whittle, Sprawl and Stephanie Fellner, all currently based in Minneapolis.

Performance Dates: November 10, 11, 12, and 13
Curtain: 8 pm
Tickets: $15 at the door or $12 in advance through http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/203510
Venue: La Esquina, 1000 W. 25th St KCMO 64108

“In our dreams we are free to befriend strangers in a kaleidoscopic fantasy world, while in our waking lives we keep most strangers at a distance,” writes Whittle. “There are exceptions. The troubadour, the messenger, the bard, the lone cowboy or the outsider may be allowed to inspire our everyday lives with stories of the great beyond, whether distant land, or psychic depth. These iconic strangers inadvertently disrupt the status quo, causing us to think in new ways and broaden our horizons. This kind of stranger is, in fact, a friend. On the other hand, a person we regard as a friend may be excessively self important and obsessed with the task of belonging. She is actually a stranger.”

In STRANGER FRIEND, dancers, activated by music, excavate memories about union and separation, and re-contextualize standards of friendship and intimacy. The piece includes dances about female identity and the social dynamics between two “friends,” in which a female subconscious is contrasted with superficial identity induced by mass marketing’s homogenizing influence.  The ultra-material world here exists as a force of modern animism, revealing its power through trappings in “dances of possession.”

Ultimately, STRANGER FRIEND challenges imposed standards for intimacy by activating and entering a world of strangers, where truth is told and the imagination thrives.

Read all the details!

Charlotte Street Foundation and The Pistol are pleased to present Wham City Comedy Tour. Having made their mark on the DIY music and art scene, Baltimore’s Wham City collective is heading back out on the road this fall to change the face of comedy. Their two-hour variety show covers experimental theater, performance art, video, and stand-up.

Venue: Paragraph Gallery, 23 E. 12th St, KCMO 64105
Date: Wednesday, Nov.9; Door open 7pm, Show 8pm
Cost: $10 suggested donation

Since their inception in 2004, a sense of humor has always been important to the art of Wham City. But they only began tackling comedy head-on in 2010 when they mounted the first ever Wham City Comedy Tour which earned coverage in Spin Magazine, and it got them an invitation to perform on stage with Second City in October. It also spawned the immensely popular Wham City Comedy Night, an off-the-wall amateur comedy night hosted each month by Ben O’Brien and Mason Ross at the Zodiac in Baltimore.

For more information go to the Wham City website.

Kansas City based photographer Deanna Dikeman will present an artist talk about her experience at Art Omi International Artists Residency program in Upstate New York, which she attended this summer. Dikeman will speak about her work and experience at Art Omi and the impact of the residency on her art, career, and creative process.

Artists Talk: November 7 at 6pm, FREE
Gallery: La Esquina, 1000 W. 25th St. KCMO 64108

Each year, Charlotte Street sponsors one past Charlotte Street Visual Artist Award recipient at Art Omi. The International Artists Residency is a three week residency program for visual artists from around the world, which provides artists with a studio, living quarters and meals.  The Residency combines uninterrupted time to create with a stimulating atmosphere of exchange, where experimentation, discourse and collaboration are encouraged. Each year, a different critic-in-residence lives on campus with the artists, leading discussions and making one-on-one studio visits. Because of the proximity to New York City, residents are also visited by many prominent critics, gallerists, curators, and artists who travel to Art Omi. The residency culminates with an Open Studios day open to the general public.

Find out more about Art Omi and get all the details of Deanna’s Talk!

This event honors the work of playwright/director Kyle Hatley and composer James Mobberley, who received Charlotte Street Generative Performing Artist Awards of $7,500 each earlier this year. Hatley and Mobberley were selected for the Awards by a panel of regional and national performing arts professionals through a highly competitive, two-phase process. The event will feature live performances of work by both fellows.

Performance Date: October 22nd, Curtain at 8pm
Venue: H&R Block City Stage at Union Station
Tickets: FREE and open to the public; however, ticket reservation required. Reserve tickets at www.unionstation.org
After-Party: Pierpont’s at Union Station!  Plus, if you have dinner at Pierpont’s the evening of the performance, 10% of your food check will be donated to Charlotte Street! Dinner reservations are recommended.

For full details, including performance descriptions, read the press release!

Charlotte Street Foundation’s Urban Culture Project presents a joint presentation by the Kansas City Max Users Group and the Kansas City Electronic Music and Arts Alliance.

Date: Friday, October 21, 8pm
Venue: La Esquina, 1000 W. 25th St KCMO 64108
Donation: $10 donation is suggested

A Cup of Jamoma: A Collage of Music, Video, and Discussion featuring the artists and programmers behind Jamoma.

If you are a Live Music or Live Video Artist who uses or is interested in using Max/MSP/Jitter, you need to see what Jamoma is capable of.  Jamoma is a series of easy-to-use modules for use in Max/MSP/Jitter. They were designed around the principle that you want to spend more time creating you art and less time programming, debugging, and documenting.

A Cup of Jamoma features Jamoma contributors Nathan Wolek, Trond Lossius, and Cycling ‘74 Research Engineer Timothy Place. Come hear, see, and discuss what Jamoma can do and why it should be part of your creative process.

Find out more at www.kcema.net and www.jamoma.org