Installation 
FROM MIAMI, WITH LOVE(0)
November 30, 2011 —
December 1st through 4th: It’s time for the nation’s hottest art fair, Art Basel Miami, Beach, which draws artists, gallerists, collectors, and others from around the world to a balmy, frenetic art-overdose. Darin White provides an entertaining and detailed look at last year’s fair. Along with a number of other KC/Lawrence artists, he’s there again for 2011.
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OF PATTERNED COLOR AND LIGHT
The work of Leo Villareal is transformational. The artist alters harsh electronic lights into soft, spellbinding luminosities, computer code into organic forms, and pulses of electricity into exhilarating environments. The first major museum survey of his work from the past decade (an exhibition originating at the San Jose Museum of Art) is on view at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art through September 18.
FIRST FRIDAY FOLLOW-UP: AUGUST 2011
August’s installment of the First Friday Follow-Up takes a look at M.A. Alford’s work at Beggar’s Table; paintings by husband-and-wife team Chuck Hoffman and Peg Carlson-Hoffman at 19 Below; Waseem Touma’s “Internal Formations” installation at Plenum Space; the collaboration of Mara Baker and Rafael E. Vera at Cara and Cabezas Contemporary; and Jessica McGan’s “I …” series at the Base Gallery.
Indoor Playground: Waseem Touma
Waseem Touma’s installation is fully immersive, inviting close-up inspection and creating a sort of obstacle course through the gallery space.
WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
Ceramic artists Calder Kamin and Julie Malen present animals as playthings, companions, spectacle, and metaphor in their collaborative exhibition, “Urban Still Life,” on view at the KCAC’s Underground Gallery through June 10. The centerpiece installation contains 26 sculptures by both artists, and their other individual works are challenging and well-crafted as well. Being born out of a collaborative urge to document their experiences with animals, Kamin and Malen have tugged at a thread of how humans relate to animals.
JOINT MERGERS
Artist Waseem Touma, rather than indulging in cultural issues or differences, makes work that concentrates more on what we all have in common. Taking his cue from nature, by exploring and interpreting our connection to it metaphysically and creatively, he is more interested in nature’s presence within ourselves rather than our place in or impact on it. He received his BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2002 and has a solo exhibition with a strong installation at the RNG Gallery in Omaha, Nebraska.
BLUE CHIPS AND BIG TRUCKS
It’s now then-and-gone for “America: Now and Here,” which honored KC with being its first national venue on what is hoped to be a years-long project journey. It provided a month’s-worth of discussions, of music, film, poetry, and theatre events to inspire — from Eric Fischl’s colleague “blue chip” artists and our equally brilliant pool of local talent.
THE SPARKLE THAT FEEDS
“Bread and Glitter” is a local arts journal (online and in print) providing a forum where the “relationship between art, faith, cultural renewal, and local community can be celebrated.” Stemming from the Kansas City Boiler Room / Monarch Gallery artists’ interests and open to anyone, “B & G” hosted a release party and exhibition for its Volume 1, Issue 2 edition this spring. The resulting presentation provided a variety of thought-provoking, fascinating, and even humorous works — a show of glimmering stuff to feed an art-hungry soul.
The Other Sides of the World: Lydia Katharine Boehr
Lydia K. Boehr’s “Trip” deals with the blend of familiarity and unfamiliarity that comes from spending time abroad in a culture which shares our language but not our customs.
Simply Intuitive: Colby Tavernaro
Colby Tavernaro’s process is as intuitive as his arrangement: Scavenge and collect first, then see what wants to be with what.
OUTLINING OUR COLLECTIVE FOOTPRINT
“Humanature,” curated by B.j. Vogt and including the work of seven artists, draws humans into and out of nature. The artists show how we divide and conquer, how we imitate and commune with our environment. The work poses playful questions about how we do, can — and should — relate to our world. “Humanature” is on view at La Esquina through April 16.
Being and Becoming: Daniel Reneau
Daniel Reneau’s “To Be An” combines installation, sculpture and paintings into a colorful, eye-catching exploration of creativity and the ongoing creation of identity.
Layers of Newness: mariaurora (Maria Creyts)
The most recent show by mariaurora raises (and answers) an intriguing question: Is assembling a piece of art, and then photographing/extending it into something bigger than the original, a form of copying or the creation of an entirely new work?
The Cocoon Opens: Eugenia Ortiz
Eugenia Ortiz’s fiber sculpture installation serves as a visual reminder that while Nature has a fairly strict regimen for its emergences, the human growth experience is not always a smooth, uniform transition from dark to light, smaller to greater and closed to open.
Cutting Paper: Dave Loewenstein
There are no shades of gray in Dave Loewenstein’s tableaus, no third dimension to the characters in his works. There is only stark, clearly delineated black and white, heavy on visual metaphor.