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Summer Exhibitions at H&R Block Artspace
Join us to celebrate the opening of Artspace's summer exhibitions on June 8 from 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.! Main Gallery: "2018 Kansas City Flatfile & Digitalfile" A signature Artspace event, the "2018 Kansas City Flatfile & Digitalfile" is the 9th project in this popular biennial series. The Flatfile offers a uniquely intimate art viewing experience and a chance to discover new works by emerging and established Kansas City-based artists. Art lovers are invited to peruse flatfile cabinets filled with over 200 custom-made artist portfolios holding an excitingly diverse range of flat works, and a screening station will feature time-based works included in the Digitalfile. Guest curators will be invited to curate salon walls and queues each month, creating a dynamic and ever-changing experience. Guest curators for June will be Hesse McGraw, principal at el dorado inc. and Alex Priest, public engagement, marketing, and curatorial at el dorado inc. Studio Gallery: "Commonspace" Throughout 2018, the Artspace will be dedicating our Studio Gallery to "Commonspace." This project underscores the notion that the Artspace acts as a commons—a cultural resource available to all members of our community for collective benefit. Modeled as an exhibition of community action, "Commonspace" endeavors to facilitate “do-it-together” programs…
Find out more »In the Studio with Wilbur Niewald
In the Studio with Wilbur Niewald, a career-spanning solo exhibition by Wilbur Niewald, professor emeritus of painting at KCAI, opens August 8 at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Wilbur studied, taught, and for twenty-eight years, served as chair of the painting and printmaking departments. Exhibition location within the museum is Bloch Galleries, P30. Wilbur will also be giving a talk/gallery tour on the below two dates/times. Mark your calendars! Thurs. Sept. 27 6-7 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 21 2-3 p.m. The paintings of Wilbur Niewald have a deep and persistent connection to his lifetime home of Kansas City, and in a larger sense, to the history of painting itself. After developing a unique abstract language for his paintings in the fifties and sixties, Niewald began to paint in the representational style in 1970, and has continued exclusively in that vein in the decades since. His timeless still lifes, studio portraits, and landscapes are invariably executed through direct observation in a persistent endeavor to render familiar scenes with new clarity through repetition. Niewald’s devotion to his craft, and to the tradition of painting, is axiomatic in the 16 works included in his career-spanning solo exhibition, In the Studio with Wilbur Niewald, at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of…
Find out more »KCAI Alumni Biennial 2018
Complex narratives, expansive ideas and wide-ranging materials within new and recent work by the artists engage themes of culture, identity, history, art history, structure, architecture and space. Large-scale paintings, mixed media con1positions, prints, ceramic sculpture, and installation converge in the exhibition demonstrating a fascinating breadth of creative practice and concept by three distinct and distinguished artists to emerge from KCAI - Kahlil Irving ('15 Ceramics), China Marks ('70 Sculpture) & Melissa Vogley Woods ('92 Painting). A public grand opening on Wednesday, August 29, 5:30- 8 p.m. will include a brief Q&A conversation with featured artists, Melissa Vogley Woods and China Marks, and guest juror, Quang Bao, owner and founder of 1969 Gallery, New York, N.Y. at 6 p.m. Bao is also a featured speaker for the KCAI Current Perspectives lecture series on Thursday, August 30, 7 p.m. in Irving Auditorium.
Find out more »Inside/Out Mixed Media Works by Jason Pollen
INSIDE/OUT is comprised of Portals, Outliers, Descendants, Oracles, and Nomads. These series of works were inspired by a fascination with how surfaces can both conceal and reveal. Our skin acts as an envelope, hiding its precious contents; the earth we live on hides the fathomless depths of its molten core. Former KCAI Fiber Chair and world-renowned fiber artist Jason Pollen strives to make works whose surfaces intimate the deeper animating force that is the creative process. During a lifetime of dedicated practice, Jason has focused on the phenomena of color, light and shadow, movement and stillness. The works are successful if they prove to be thought- and feeling-provoking, and communicate fascination and delight. Opening Receptions: Friday, September 7 from 11:30 am - 1:00 pm & 5:00 - 8:00 pm
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