TAC-KC: 01.27.12

Tracy's Art Calendar — Kansas City Metro for January 27, 2012

It's Final Friday in Lawrence

Jori Louise Chevelle, (title unknown); new work at Teller's Gallery curated by The Invisible Hand Gallery.
Image: courtesy of the artist, via Adam Smith at The Invisible Hand Gallery; may not be reproduced without permission

The Lawrence, Kansas, arts community has been hosting Final Friday with help from a variety of civic and cultural organizations. For a solid year, there was a comprehensive calendar of venues and exhibitions mailed around and published, but I have not been able to find it lately.

Be sure, though, that there are more venues open than listed here, and whether you live in Lawrence or drive out west for about an hour, a quality viewing experience awaits.

Here are some highlights (a few other details and exhibitions can be found on lawrence.com here; the most comprehensive listing is at Final Fridays Lawrence):

A Search for Self
Jori Louise Chevelle
at Teller's restaurant gallery, 746 Massachusetts Street, Lawrence, Kansas: 785-843-4111

Final Friday: January 27, 6-8 p.m. (opened January 24), curated by The Invisible Hand Gallery
Open most of the time all week (see site), through February 20, 2012
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Hay Wire
Hong Chun Zhang
at Lawrence Arts Center, 940 New Hampshire Street, Lawrence, Kansas: 785-843-2787

Final Friday Opening Reception: January 27, 5-9 p.m.
Open Monday-Saturday: 9 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sunday: 9 a.m.-5 p.m., through March 8, 2012
______

The Articulate Body
Jennifer Crupi
at Lawrence Arts Center, 940 New Hampshire Street, Lawrence, Kansas: 785-843-2787

Final Friday Opening Reception: January 27, 5-9 p.m.
Open Monday-Saturday: 9 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sunday: 9 a.m.-5 p.m., through March 8, 2012
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The Dannon Art Project:
an interactive installation in progress, sponsored by b.a.l.m. (who provides many more details here); Rex Hausmann creates a painting on the second floor of LAC through today, making a temporary studio space to be handed over to a series of artists who will add new works there, in hope of community response
at Lawrence Arts Center, 940 New Hampshire Street, Lawrence, Kansas: 785-843-2787

Final Friday Opening Reception: January 27, 5-9 p.m.
Open Monday-Saturday: 9 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sunday: 9 a.m.-5 p.m., through March 3, 2012
______

Shattered
Carla Aspenberg
at The Invisible Hand Gallery, 801.5-D Massachusetts Street, Lawrence, Kansas: 785-813-1803

Final Friday Opening Reception: January 27, 6-9 p.m.
Open Tuesday-Thursday: noon-5 p.m.; Friday, Saturday: noon-7 (later, of course, on FF), though unspecifed period

Togethers
Amber Hansen, Amy Kligman, Misha Kligman, and Nicholas Ward
at Wonder Fair, 803.5 Massachusetts Street, Lawrence, Kansas: 785-856-3247
Final Friday Opening Reception: Janyary 27, 6-10 p.m., with musical performance by Three Dads at 8 p.m.

Open Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday: noon-6 p.m.; Friday: noon-7 p.m. (later, of course, on FF); Saturday: 10 a.m. - 7 p.m., through February 19, 2012

PS, All opinions here are my own, and no one edits this, so any errors are also solely mine. Corrections are appreciated.

TAC-KC: 01.26.12

Tracy's Art Calendar — Kansas City for January 26, 2012
Does Art Writing Matter?

The Freight House Pedestrian Bridge was once the Pencoyd Railroad Bridge and was relocated a few years ago by the Kansas City architecture firm BNIM to provide a pedestrian connection from the north/back of Union Station down to the Freight House / Crossroads Arts District. Is it time for Kansas City's art writing likewise to be repurposed?
Image: photo by author, May 2011

Today — Monday the 23rd — is when Plug Projects would like to hear from you about whether you're interested in coming to their discussion on Thursday about the role of art writing, especially for Kansas City's community. Is it critical?

All are welcome; you don't have to be an artist or a writer to have an opinion to share. Click here to read more about Art Writing = Critical and how to RSVP.

Plug Projects is the curitorial collaborative of Cory Imig, Amy Kligman, Misha Kligman, Nicole Mauser, and Caleb Taylor, who run a studio/gallery space in the West Bottoms on Genessee (next to R Bar and across from the Livestock Exchange Building, itself full of artists' studios). The space just opened its first solo exhibition last Friday, MULTI-CHANNEL: an exhibition in flux by Andrew Jacob Schell, and it's an ongoing, Internet-involved, interactive one (which I have not seen yet).

Cory will be back from a recent trip to Oklahoma City, where she and writer Blair Schulman were part of the latest installment of the Oklahoma Art Writing and Curatorial Fellowship. I had the opportunity to participate in 2010 as a mentor (meaning, just one trip). It was one of those things I wish there had been more time for, indeed, and I'm looking forward to hearing what Cory and Blair have brought back so far.

Thursday's discussion, Art Writing = Critical, is being held in the Crossroads area, please note, and it's a "bring your own chair" affair. When I first read "BYOC," I thought, "coffee." And I always hear refrains of (Sir) Elton John's Rocket Man anytime I read about anything funded through the Rocket Grants program — Plug Projects is but one very cool creation to come from that Charlotte Street Foundation / Spencer Museum of Art collaboration (with money from the Andy Warhol Foundation).

Critical has at least two general meanings, one being "offering critique" and another, "crucial or important." If you pop over to the dictionary, you'll find a number of intriguing starting points for addressing whether or not Kansas City's art writing meets these definitions — which might get you started thinking about whether or not it needs to or should.

PS, All opinions here are my own, and no one edits this, so any errors are also solely mine. Corrections are appreciated.

TAC-KC: 01.22.12

Tracy's Art Calendar — Kansas City metro for January 22, 2012

Arlene Stern, Happy Hanukkah, ink and acrylic on canvas, 2.5"x3", 2011 (painted by mouth; Ms. Stern is a Village Shalom resident).
Image: courtesy of Sherri Jacobs, obatined via KCJMCA for press purposes / may not be reproduced without permission

The Epsten Gallery, part of the Kansas City Jewish Museum of Contemporary Art and housed within the Village Shalom senior living center, naturally has most of its exhibition openings on Sundays. It makes for a nice afternoon — never too early, finished before it's time to go make Sunday dinner or get ready for the work-week — and there hardly is ever a competing visual art event on the same day. Village Shalom celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, just as the Epsten Gallery celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2011.

As part of these milestones, the KCJMCA announced staffing changes last November: Executive Director Elieen Garry retired after 20 years of service. She received the well-deserived title of Emeritus and is an active member of the museum's Honorary Board.

In her place, the museum's curator since 2007, Marcus Cain, has stepped in, and I congratulate him. Artist, curator, and now, executive director. Well done. To provide him the space to continue to focus on developing programming and other aspects of running a successful gallery and community program, a new position for development director was added, too: welcome to Beti Weber Moskowitz, who started working amid final preparations for the popular UrbanSuburban annual auction last fall.

Here is what is on for this afternoon and at the gallery through February:

ARTicipation: Pop Up Studio
the gallery presents its first-ever exhibition of artwork created by residents of Village Shalom, including a series of workshops for them and members of the community to use the pop-up studio space in there for creating and sharing work: weekly activities continue until ARTcipation's closing date, and so ARTicipation work will become a part of each exhibition presented at the gallery all year
at The Epsten Gallery, 5500 West 123rd Street (at Nall), Overland Park, Kansas: 913-266-8413

Opening Reception: January 22, 1-4 p.m., with a graffiti wall by Sike Style/Phil Shafer and workshop with Art Therapist Nicole Martin; Artist Trading Cards for you to make; and the first opportunity for you and residents to sign up for free workshops or engage with any of the other self-guided project stations set up in the gallery. For a full (and sometimes changing) schedule of events, click here for a PDF from the museum and check back from time to time.
Open Tuesday-Friday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m.; Saturday, Sunday 1-4 p.m., through February 26, 2012
______

Notes:
Marcus was the editor of Review before my time there, as many of you know. You can read more about his work as an artist in this article archived on Present Magazine, which for six strong years provided a great online resource about Kansas City's culture. Thank you to Pete and Pam Dulin for keeping the archives active.

Ms. Weber Moskowitz is originally from Washington, Pennsylvania, and holds an MBA from Columbia University. She has a deep history with marketing campaigns and with the arts and has lived in the Kansas City area since 1986, when she moved here with her husband, Jules Moskowitz. From a KCJMCA press release: "Moskowitz worked at Horizon Group, a small marketing consulting firm, before hiring on at Hallmark Cards, where she worked for 10 years, first in New Product Development, and then strategic planning, focusing on trend analysis." She also "had been a Community Resource Consultant, a seasonal position, with United Way of Greater Kansas City  for the past three years, where she managed a series of successful fundraising campaigns" — so I have a welcomed confidence that her work for the KCJMCA will ensure its healthy future.

Rounding out and supporting this team is Abby Rufkahr (as of New Year's Eve, happily married and using a new last name — more due for congratulations!). I had the privilege to work with her at Review back when she was our graphic design intern. It was no surprise she landed "real jobs" right after gradutating from UMKC a few years ago.

PS, All opinions here are my own, and no one edits this, so any errors are also solely mine. Corrections are appreciated.

TAC-KC: 01.20.12

Tracy's Art Calendar — Kansas City for Friday, January 20, 2012

Andrew Jacob Schell, installation view of Transmitter, 2009.
Image: obtained courtesy of Plug Projects for media use / may not be reproduced without permission

Since Review magazine and its online presence have faded from Kansas City's arts community — which continues to thrive — and since, frankly, the most-read items on ereview.org statistically were the weekly calendar digests,* I've decided to continue to volunteer my efforts toward keeping us informed about what's going on locally in the visual arts.

Of course, I'm independent of any umbrella organization, and though I pledge to continue to abide by the best practices of journalism ethics and to respond to the critique and contributions of my peers, I make no apology for what may, at times, seem like random selection.**

Nothing can or probably should ever attempt to be entirely inclusive anyway. I believe a great deal of good can be accomplished through links to wheels that are already invented, so to speak — a lot of people have compiled exhibition-related information, and I don't intend to re-write it (edit it into another format)! I will never reprint text from someone else's press release without explicitly saying that that's what I'm doing (as in, using quotation marks and/or attribution). In fact, I probably will hardly ever reprint anything that is already online or is a PDF that can be linked to. Efficiency! (Unlike this introduction : )

That said, these are four five major exhibition openings going on tonight:

Black Thorns in the White Cube
Alexander Binder, Vincent Como, Terence Hannum, Karlynn Holland, Elodie Lesourd, Aaron Metté, Grant Willing, and Tereza Zelenkova; curated by Amelia Ishmael
at Paragraph Gallery, 23 East 12th Street, Kansas City, Missouri: 816-221-5115

Opening Reception: January 20, 6-9 p.m.
Curator's Talk: January 21, 4 p.m.
Additional Programs: TBA; this exhibition will reopen at Western Exhibition afterward (Chicago)
Open Wednesday, Friday, Saturday: noon-5 p.m.; Thursday: 11 a.m.-6 p.m., through March 3, 2012
______

Earth: Language and Symbols
Rex Hausmann and Jimmy Greenfield, with "Artists in Resonnance" Gina Adams, TR Ericsson, Matthew Farley, Jane Flanders, John Hachmeister, Elden Tefft, Maria Velasco, Baruch Vergara, and Shannon White; curated by Darin M. White
at Cara and Cabezas Contemporary, 1714 Holmes Street, Kansas City, Missouri

Opening Reception: January 20, 6-9 p.m.
Open First Friday: 6-9 p.m.; Saturday: 11 a.m.-5 p.m., through March 10, 2012
______

Good Thing I Used a Pseudonym
Work From a Three-Part Career: Frank Stack as Painter, Connoisseur, and Incognito as Graphic Novelist Foolbert Sturgeon; curated by Anne Thompson and Nathan Boyer
at Project Space, 21 East 12th Street, Kansas City, Missouri: 816-221-5115

Opening Reception: January 20, 6-9 p.m.
Discussion with the Artist and Curators: January 21, 2:30 p.m.
Open Wednesday, Friday, Saturday: noon-5 p.m.; Thursday: 11 a.m.-6 p.m., through March 3, 2012
______

Let's Change
Mariah Robertson
at Grand Arts, 1819 Grand Boulevard, Kansas City, Missouri: 816-421-6887

Opening Reception: January 20, 6-9 p.m.
Gallery Talk with the Artist: January 21, 2 p.m.
Open Thursday, Friday: 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday: 11 a.m.-5 p.m., through April 7, 2012
______

MULTI-CHANNEL: an exhibition in flux
Andrew Jacob Schell
at Plug Projects, 1613 Genessee Street, Kansas City, Missouri: 646-535-7584

Opening Reception: January 20, 6-9 p.m.
Intermediate Opening: February 17, 6-9 p.m.
Open Saturday: 10 a.m.-5 p.m., through March 3, 2012
______

Galleries are also open other hours, of course, if you call/email and make an appointment.


* Along with Steve Brisindine's daily column, ArtKC365, which he transformed at the beginning of this year and continues to write independently; Jerry Rapp's Rapp Sheet local films column; as well as a story about Archie Scott Gobber, due to heated comment threads, and ones about Peregrine Honig's appearance on Work of Art. People were especially interested in the 2009 summary of Art Basel Miami, too. Actually, besides the home page, the now-mostly-defunct Calls for Artists page received the most attention overall. In a later post, I'll write about the many streams of such information still available to you and also make a wish that someone might work on combining them once again into a single river of opps.

** Of course, I don't know everything, and I don't have unbounded time to search. In the coming days, I will be asking organizations and artists to consider including my new email address in their press distribution lists, in leiu of the one from my editor role at Review. I respect the relationships I've been privileged to establish with visual artists and those who support them — so I hope the connections continue.

PS, All opinions here are my own, and no one edits this, so any errors are also solely mine. Corrections are appreciated.