Reviews 
OF PATTERNED COLOR AND LIGHT(0)
September 12, 2011 —
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.
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‘ARTE Y OAXACA’
In April, two Kansas City exhibitions of drawings by Francisco Toledo brought Mexico City gallerists Armando Colina and Victor Acuña to the Kansas City Public Library for a discussion about Mexican art and Toledo’s work, hosted by Julián Zugazagoitia of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. The exchange was a privilege, bringing awareness of contemporary art from Mexcio to Kansas City. Toledo’s Oaxaca base is a city alive with new work and draws Kansas City artists there for inspiration.
HIDDEN BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
The Wichita Art Museum has brought out from its collection works that have been in storage for years; though there is no stated theme beyond “unseen for a while,” careful curation has grouped the 40-plus pantings, prints, and sculptures into vignettes that provoke thoughful connections. Many even have the timely feel of summer; it is well worth your time to come and see Calder, Cottingham, Christopher, Leon Kelly, Grilley, and more. Opportunity knocks through October 23.
SOOTHSAYERS!
The latest exhibition at the Spray Booth Gallery continues a welcome risk-taking trend; titled literally, “Paintings and Drawings: New Works by Max Crutcher and Brook Hsu” show us the talents of two recent Kansas City Art Institute painting department graduates (2010) who both express their personal explorations into the processes of painting and drawing. In this way, they present their aesthetic and conceptual inheritance of the original modernist tradition.
EVERYDAY MAGIC
Amy Blakemore’s photographs are not mundane; rather, though her imagery may include everyday subject matter, her work is complex, her photographs engrossing in their contradictions: personal and universal, melancholic and sweet, eerie and wholesome. Her retrospective exhibition spanning 1988 to 2008, on view at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art through July 10, highlights her ability to transcend subject matter to reveal the allure, melancholy, and psychology of everyday life.
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.
DESTINATION: GREECE
The large well-lit gallery of the Lawrence Arts Center became the perfect venue for a recent exceptional exhibition. In some exhibitions, paintings may relate to each other but collectively say nothing — or say the same thing over and over. This exhibition has cohesion. The paintings relate well to each other, and each one is unique. In order to pull together this incredible group of paintings, Margo Kren used two themes from her trip to Greece: Christian-inspired chapel boxes and ancient Greek mythology.
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.
SAN ANTONIO, MEET LAWRENCE; LAWRENCE, MEET …
“The New Old San Antonio: Tales from the Little Big Town” showcases works by 33 artists who have strong ties to the city of San Antonio. They vary in theme, approach, and level of experience — but the pieces selected pieces work together as a whole. The resulting exhibition, which showed in San Antonio last month and is at the Lawrence Arts Center through June 17, is a mix of work that paints the city as a diverse and vibrant arts community.
VISUAL MUSIC: JAZZ IN PAINT, WORDS
It is jazz with paint: so describes Harold Smith’s latest exhibition, at the American Jazz Museum Changing Gallery — and these paintings are enhanced and reflected off of Glenn North’s poetry, jazz with words. “Colors of Jazz” is the latest in a strong series of exhibitions at this venue that elucidate and document the symbiotic and long-standing relationship between artists of many disciplines — and the universal nature of jazz.
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.
APPETITE FOR ART
Omaha, Nebraska, thrives with international injections such as that of German photographer Vera Mercer, who recently had her first solo gallery exhibition at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art. Her large-scale “Still Lifes” present her instinctive taste for global culture and a non-conformist, experimental approach to her art, placing her, in a word, at the head of the table.
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.
CRISP TAKE ON MODERNIST GRID
The exhibition run of “Not Here No There” at the Dolphin Gallery has been extended through April 22. Including the work of Matthew Kluber, Anne Lindberg, Colin C. Smith, James Woodfill, and Matt Wycoff, it succeeds in both re-visiting and re-booting the modernist grid, by showing it to us through technology, alternative media, and new-fashioned minimalism.