Art Hidden Beneath The Sugar Sweat: KC First Fridays

Cotton candy treats at Front/Space

This summer Kansas City has once more filled the streets of the Crossroads Arts

District with cotton candy hauling, iPhone selfie taking, snap-back wearing,

sweaty too-close-for comfort crowds. The few miles of mixed use real estate

area the Crossroads makes up contains everything from traditional commercial

galleries, pop ups, and artist-run spaces. While there are a lot of bodies to weave

into the tight gallery corners and form food cart lines down the streets, it leaves

me to wonder if they are here to be a part of Kansas City’s art culture or to just

be entertained. Typically, art gallery openings are stages set for artists to meet

collectors and celebrate a specific duration of the artists’ work. The scale of First

Friday is far from that cocktail party atmosphere. Instead it has become an

attraction for tourists and suburbanites, and rightfully so. A free event with the

opportunity to experience something outside of cul-de-sack lifestyle.

Kansas City is transformed on the surface into an active bohemian metropolis

filled with people willing to engage with art.

remnants of the art party near Leedyville

In the latter part of the 20th century most industry shifted internationally. With

the movement of jobs, most midwestern cities experienced a large suburban

flight. Cheap rent drew Kansas City artists back into these downtown spaces that

were once left behind. Now the Crossroads is booming and reactivated through

art’s creative placemaking; however, that “place” has become less about artists

and more about promoting real estate, along with the plethora of other corporate

enterprises. The engagement with culture is left to the bystander. I spotted a

woman outside a flower shop gallery peering in through the window to look at

nude figure drawings. Her friends in matching Royals jerseys were busy perusing

the craft table outside; potentially purchasing reclaimed wood pieces painted to

cheer “Jayhawk Rock Chalk”. This woman on the other hand tried to usher her

friends to join her in the space to no avail. Modern and Contemporary Art has a

tendency to make people feel as though they just don’t get it or that galleries are

sacred spaces where they don’t belong. Perhaps, First Friday is about creating a

different experience. Among the impromptu DJ sets, fire breathers, and

hula hoop dancers it seems there is an opportunity here for artists and critics to

turn this hodge-podge into something better than what we have grown to

expect.

street vendor “Rock Chalk Jayhawk” sign

There was a lot of hype around The Art of Data exhibition in June at the new Arts

KC building. Inside it, the exhibition was designed to visually showcase data

utilized in large-scale decision making by city planners. An attempt for politicians

to engage critically with artists, and thus, the community. However ambitious

this potential conversation strived to be, the exhibition was thrown completely

out of balance by classic cars placed in the center of the gallery. Looking at the

work for longer than twenty seconds was impossible due to the conveyor belt of

people pushing everyone along. With each short glimpse, the data felt like it was

being used no different than a disjointed powerpoint presentation. All the work

was so visually disparate from the content it appeared more like a loose prompt

for the artists with little consideration of outcome. Thoroughly dividing the space

and removing the cars could have made for an opportunity to be more critical of

how the individual works flowed together. When looking at The Art of Data as a

whole, an immediate comparison is drawn to You Can’t Hurry Love, an exhibition

last summer at fellow Crossroads’ gallery Front/Space. Off center from the main

drag of Southwest Boulevard and Baltimore, Front/Space is an incredibly small

artist-run gallery. Because of it’s size Front/Space was able to take advantage of

curating a data microcosm.You Can’t Hurry Love, featuring Sean Starowitz,

Matthew Hayden, Nate Kautzer, Andrew Lyles, Taylor Pruitt, and Jessica N

Rogers, showcased city data that highlighted real world problems. Food deserts,

abandoned homes, and a lack of important public spaces, such as parks were all

part of the exhibition’s conceptual engagement. You Can’t Hurry Love presented

data in its raw form next to the artists’ own experimental solutions in formats

such as public art projects, new community organizations, and the release of a

book on art, literature, and civics. It seems that artist-run spaces or galleries

allowing full artistic takeover are the places that create experiences that

keep First Friday from spiraling into a complete carnival. Another instance of

successful artistic takeover occurred on May First Friday at Leedy- Volukos Art C

enter. On a street lined with food trucks and photo booths, hidden amongst the

hovering crowds is Leedy Voulkos Art Center. At the Art Center, many different

exhibitions are presented throughout a conveyor of galleries with no clear

curatorial conversation. Typically what I see here is the work of every Kansas City

Art Institute Foundation year professor mingled next to unknown artists that are

thematically the polar opposite. Art placed in close proximity needs to have some

similar thread of visual or conceptual content. Nonlinear can be interesting but

this is usually just confusing. All gallery rooms at Leedy Voulkos are connected by

doorways that lead you from one gallery and into another but with no specific

flow to that movement. Some exhibitions starting from one end, others ending

opposite the entryway where wall text is placed. All of these disparate choices

continue a disappointing mission to experience great art.

Laundry Day was Last Week image courtesy of Kadie Nugent

Leedy-Voulkos recently opened up the downstairs space specifically for local

undergraduate student work. This windowless unit was transformed this May by

fiber artist Kadie Nugent into a large-scale interactive drawing sculpture hybrid

of a woman’s bedroom. With black and white objects breaking up the scale of the

marks, it was easy to become immersed in this monochromatic world. The depth

of the mark-making was intense and overwhelming. One could not even step into

the space without first putting covers on their shoes and greeting the artist.

Laundry Day was Last Week image courtesy of Kadie Nugent

It was found, an exhibition in the middle of all the chaos with a clear entry point,

a limitation on number of people, and a truly curated story to walk through.

Nugent’s installation shifted my perception. Maybe First Friday isn’t all bad, and

quite possibly there are situations to participate and interact with these

diamonds in the rough. Regardless of what kind of side show entertainment

exists and what people’s motives are for coming, I think First Friday is an

opportunity. It’s a chance for us to take it for what it is, and maybe flip it on its

head. With thousands of people flooding the streets, there have to be some, like

that woman at the flower shop, with a genuine interest in engaging with art.

Art and artists are still going to exist in this district. Even as it pushes artist-run

and alternative spaces further from the centralized action, there are

opportunities for great things to be found. The party of First Friday isn’t going

anywhere and while these two separate camps seem divided there is potential

for crossover. A curated conversation that merges these groups could be the

space in which they find balance with one another.