ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
INDEX [1]
ART IS HARD (PROJECT EPILOGUE) by Stephanie Bloss
[1]
I RECOGNIZE THIS TOWN BUT IT SEEMS STRANGE TO ME by Jose Faus
[2]
ROBERT MORRIS, BULL WALL (1992) by Jeff Eaton
[3]
...AN ISLAND IN HIMSELF by Will Meier
[4]
SANDS OF TIME ARE EXPLORED IN A FUGUE STATE by Emily Kenyon
[4]
COLLAGE AS A MEANS TO UNIFY by Derek Dobbins
[5] WHERE DOES ART COME FROM? by Sarabeth Dunton [6]
ENTER/EXIT: INTERVIEWS WITH LEE PIECHOCKI AND JEFF EATON by Amy Kligman
[7]
CRITICAL COORDINATES by Lucas Wetzel
[8]
EXHALTED FOREVER by Halcombe Miller
[9]
ON MAP AS ART AT THE KEMPER by Elizabeth Schurman
[9]
A LIGHTBULB FOR DAVID SALLE by Blair Schulman
[10] CAN CONTEMPORARY ART LEARN SOMETHING FROM THE MUSIC INDUSTRY? by Melanie Mitchell [11] SEW GODDESS by Maria Ogedengbe [12] THOSE WHO WERE INVOLVED by Nika Winn [13] JOGGING: THE ACCEPTANCE OF A CULTURE IN DECLINE by Phillip Bakala [13] KANSAS CITY ZINES, A SNAPSHOT OF EXPERIMENTS IN PRACTICE by Jessica Hogan & Stephanie Iser ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
photo of The Roost, image courtesy of Brandon Frederick
ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
[1]
art is hard
I recognize this town
by Stephanie Bloss
by Jose Faus
Seeing the soft glow cast by the crocheted pods across the damp grey floor of The Roost was eerie when I crept down the old wooden steps, the night before INGRESS opened. The finality of the show loomed heavier than the shadows cast by the installations, knowing that this would be one of the last times I would be creeping around the venue in the early hours of the morning, seeing the show before anyone else, while simultaneously being terrified of every sound in the enormous, darkened basement.
I recognize this town but it seems strange to me. The streets retain most of the familiar names. Gathering places like (faux Power & Light, which is to say Downtown) Westport, the Plaza, Crown Center and the River Quay (now the City Market) still shout their uniqueness.
[PROJECT EPILOGUE]
Every person who identifies as an artist has heard the same thing a thousand times. You will never make any money. That your degree will probably turn out to be worthless, and that you will have a hard life, filled with rejection, and probable failure. Maybe your parents and friends were a bit more eloquent than mine, but the message is the same. Art is hard, like the song, or whatever. The West Bottoms has been struck with that cold fact twice in as many months…the closing of The Dolphin, a well-regarded venue that came as such a shock to the community, and subsequently, the closing of The Roost, which by comparison, closed its doors quietly and without ceremony. The Dolphin loomed like such an awe-inspiring juggernaut to the four of us at The Roost, and watching it close beside our frugal DIY venture was like watching the sinking of a lifeboat in the shadow of the Lusitania. Struggling young artists breed desperation, which is either a saving grace or the noose that hangs, when so many would take advantage of anyone so desperate for a chance. What will it take to let someone know that I am alive, that my work means something? For more than a year, we lived and breathed asbestos and black mold, changed buckets under a leaky roof, ducked kamikaze bats and scanned our eyes for ghosts in the old abandoned living space that occupied the topmost floor of The Roost, all to keep the space alive for the next show. I am not sure how many people knew that when walking into the soft glow of INGRESS when the show opened, and closed, on May 25th. While it was actually the second to last show, before the Bohemian release show on June 1st, the work spoke not only of the character of the West Bottoms itself, but also of the progression of a young artist through the varied stages in her life. It was a subtle, eerie relevance that lingered. None of this was ever supposed to be easy. So many venues open and close without anyone taking notice at all, year after year, in every major city, in every state. In Kansas City, with our ears to the ground, the final locking of those doors nearest us reverberate the loudest. I hope more than anyone to see The Roost open for a third time, I hope to see the West Bottoms continue to be a part of the Kansas City art community, and I hope to see more artists build something out of nothing inside of these old buildings, so many of which have been left to rot, unoccupied, in the shadow of downtown Kansas City. All of these trials and errors bring artists together, creating new ideas, new plans, new work, new voices. If anything is gained from the loss, it is undoubtedly the community that we have found, and the community that will come together for the new projects born out of this. If anyone gains anything from us, I hope it is to persist. Not every partnership is the right fit, not every piece you create will be better than the last, and not every project is perfect… until suddenly, one is.
but it seems strange to me
The city still offers tranquility alongside senseless violence. Corruption and generosity flourish in equal measure and tolerance fights bravely against ignorance while the racial divide continues to plague us. The weather is delightful to dreadful and delightful again sometimes in one day. And we still bemoan a commuter train that never comes (not withstanding a faux one in downtown) and driving remains the biggest pain in the ass, and the bureaucracy serves the interest of developers and the skyline still seems small in comparison to others. But change has come and it breams from all places one chooses to look at. Take food. I remember the novelty of Mexican restaurants. Sure there were some but they were in specific areas. The preponderance was Chinese. Now most folk have their favorite Mexican restaurant and they boast their own regional touches. Chinese eateries now offer regional foods and compete with Korean and Thai. There are Indian, Somali, Ethiopian, Persian Egyptian, Moroccan and vegetarian. I can’t even begin to count the number of barbecue joints around. I dare you to drive from say Metcalf and I-35 north to Prospect and I-70 east and see if you don’t come up with at least twenty locations less than a mile from that route, and yes I have eaten at all of them. When it comes to art, I can’t even begin to count the number of things I feel guilty about not attending. Why should guilt be a part of the equation? Because on any given night or week there are so many opportunities to see work exhibited, performed and created by friends that have stayed and chosen to create here. Sure the audience is lacking at times, and sure the monetary reward is lamentable but hell something is happening and it reflects well on this town. Success is always an orphan even if countless will claim parental rights. It is equal parts serendipity, opportunity, benign neglect, laziness, naïveté, stubbornness or downright dumb luck but it sure isn’t parented. It happens in the best way that bottom-up things come. Somebody said, “hey, I will do this here and in time like-minded people will follow suit.” People moved out of some shadows and into others renting huge or neglected, derelict spaces making creative decisions and commitments on a whim and a prayer. But the odd thing about all this, and don’t you dare call it a renaissance, is that there is much more room for opportunity and growth. And there is a terminus. Nothing kills creativity more than to stop and congratulate yourself for having arrived. Arrived where? Another town that took to art and decided this was the way that it became a destination? Better to crash because when you get to where you think you ought to be, you end up in Disneyland and at that point you really feel no guilt about showing up.
ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
photo of Robert Morris, Bull Wall, image courtesy of Misha Kligman
ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
[2]
robert morris, bull wall [1992]: by Jeff Eaton
Situated on a partially-paved median and set at a slight oblique angle in relation to the roadway entrance to the American Royal building and the Kemper Arena parking lot is the vast partition-like steel sculpture Bull Wall (1992) by the well-known minimal artist and Kansas City native Robert Morris. The “wall” is formed of two dark yet rusted steel panels at an intimidating scale of approximately sixteen feet high by eighty feet wide. The panels are set apart by about three feet, revealing interior bracing, lighting, and tubing. The panels feature fifteen rough cut-outs of profile views of bulls in different poses (standing, galloping, and bucking) sometimes overlapping and repeating. These large cut-outs, about three feet high by four feet wide, are located in the same place in both panels, which create windows or apertures through the work. The apertures serve to frame views of the environment surrounding Bull Wall: Empty Concrete Pickup trucks Massive white buildings Sky Flat Quiet Grey Echo Distant occasional sound: flapping metal, truck engines, men talking An awareness of this environment of the West Bottoms seems to be as important as the objectness of Bull Wall itself. There is a peculiar absence of life, which reflects the former use of this industrial land, particularly as the Kansas City Stockyards. The stockyards were a familiar but traumatic place for Morris, as he visited his father who worked there. In his recently published memoir of his youth in the Kansas City of the thirties and forties (Have I Reasons (Duke:2008)), Morris describes the overwhelming stenches and the incredible mess of the place. He remembers waiting alone for his father and observing mysterious men in strange uniforms. He recalls the muscular and powerful yet contained animals. Today, bulls continue to have a presence here, in the form of the American Royal rodeo, which Morris’ Bull Wall physically addresses. The bull’s intensity and it’s restraint is the primary activity of these events and is reflected in Morris’ double reference to the American Royal and to his memory of the stockyards. A view through the silhouettes of animals whose presence in this place is both primary yet absent acts as a kind of mise en abyme of Bull Wall itself. Bull Wall is in one sense an imposing division of space, an impressive pseudo-architecture, while in another sense it facilitates a reflection of the sculpture’s environment for the sake of becoming attune to a beingness, a situatedness.
ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
detail from Balder’s Bier, image courtesy of Russell Ferguson
ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
[3]
an island in himself by Will Meier Anyone who has ever conversed with artist Russell Ferguson knows how riddled his storytelling can be. Articulated from somewhere between notes-to-self and philosopher’s prose, a quick stroll through Ferguson’s mind can find itself derailed from any obvious path while he ties complexly tangential mental knots. In this way, the nonlinear narrative arcs of Ferguson’s dozen-or-so drawings on view at his earlyfall solo show, New World Ionas, at Telephonebooth Gallery make perfect sense. All completed within six months before the show’s opening, the dense networks of graphite weave in and out of reference to each other’s simultaneous plot lines– in which, like an altarpiece sequence with many Jesuses, exist several of Russell. Curator Tim Brown’s salon-style method serves this body of work particularly well, allowing the set of drawings as a whole to act as a variably navigable graphic novel of sorts. Ferguson revealed at Ionas’ opening that the work was part of an experiment pairing image and language which was not yet ready for the public (at least one drawing makes blatant use of composing with text, looking like a crossword puzzle in a hurricane). This is not unexplored territory for the artist; his Western Cargo book (1999) showcases a symbiosis of drawings, prints, and words. Content from that catalogue, however, exists in a vaguer territory than Ionas, which exhibits a highly specific set of intimate personal references of affinities and relationships, instead of just structures. From a squatting wild man caught in a violent wipe of lateral whiplash, to a female hand placed as a ghostly, delicate erasure on a younger Russell’s own, along with bagpiping kilts, Sputnik, a Stonehenge of Spitfire wings, a horse’s ass, Ionas’ inter–or rather intra–personal drama is surrounded by a framework of suddenly permeable spaces: the shrine-like architecture familiar from Ferguson’s earlier work. These new explorations’ aim, as the artist humbly puts it: to ‘see how figures would act in the structures’. Turns out, constructing the structures is their MO (particularly for the Russells). Then they congregate within and around their surroundings, sometimes reveling in celebration and other times frozen in moments of peculiar drama or banal routine. By populating the frameworks of previous creations in this new
context, Ferguson is seeking to humanize the architecture of his practice (ironically a spirit currently paralleled in real-life Architecture presently) and pull his artworks’ meanings back toward their real-life origins in his past. Out of turbulent rapids of individual moments, memories froth up and subside in a psychic cadence. Fogs of pattern and ‘macro-calligraphy’ begin to recede in the delineation of nameable things–things imagined into being just enough for their likeness to be recorded, mapped out, acted out, before their energy bleeds off into their graphically rhythmic surroundings. Discrete autobiographical, literary, and historical instances begin to coalesce and intertwine with one another. The reality depicted in the work here exists in an alternate universe, similar to less surreal graphic works by Neo Rauch but with a far more complex system of simultaneous perspectives–a timeless, emphatic present-tense constituted by an anachronistic stew of memory’s truths spiced with fiction. Compare Ferguson’s efforts to James Ensor’s in painting Christ’s Entry into Brussels in 1889. Most interesting about this already bizarre image is that it was painted in 1888–one big, extravagant, self-conscious ‘what-if ’. Ferguson’s works seem to be asking a similar question, i.e. What if that could’ve really happened like this? In the end, though, as interesting as it is to dig into the potential meaning of the work in New World Ionas–to try and figure out the events taking place whether in the end that leads anywhere or not–formally speaking these are some simply outstandingly interesting drawings. Florid and baroque, expressionistically sweeping yet staying true enough to representation to be pragmatically illustrative–always sparking up suddenly in flickers of detail–Ferguson’s graphite gestures crackle and pop with rich, harmonic contrast. His extensive index of marks creates dizzying illusionistic space, but most strikingly also has other sensorial effects, evoking odors, sounds, and sensations of movement not unlike the calligraphic renderings of Charles Birchfield as descended from Van Gogh. The synesthetic appeal all three of these artists’ images share truly renders them landscapes of the psyche–Ferguson’s land apparently now prime real estate for imagination’s habitation.
ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
Molly Garrett, installing “A Fugue State�, image courtesy of Molly Garrett
ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
[4]
the sands of time explored in “a fugue state”
collage as a means to unify
As viewers walk into Molly Garrett’s solo show, A Fugue State, time slows down compared to the rest of the crowded First Friday galleries. Dimly lit by a wall projection, the intimate space of the Rag and Bone gallery instantly sets a tone of introspection and personal nostalgia. The exhibition, largely consisting of family photos, black sand, and animation, conveys the passage of time and the effect time has on memory. The exhibition is made up of two pieces. Sediment is an interactive installation of eight photographs, framed in shadowboxes hung above one another, depicting figures in familiar spaces. The casual nature of the photos is reminiscent of family snapshots, suggesting a personal relationship between the artist and her subjects. On the floor beneath the photos, a deposit of black sand creates a long landscape interrupted by viewers’ footprints. The viewer is invited to interact with the piece by collecting the sand from the pile, and pouring the grains into each shadowbox. As the sand travels down the photo, it sticks to certain parts of the picture. Layer by layer, the sand abstracts that figure or background and creates a ghostly image. This action illustrates the idea of time fogging parts of our memories. The viewers’ role of expediting this process suggests that our memories can also be clouded by others’ influence. As stories are told to us about our past experiences, opinions are interjected and details are changed. The line between our actual memory and an altered story is blurred. Sand then collects in the bottom of the frame and, like an hourglass, trickles through small holes on the frame’s underside. As it drifts down the wall, the sand catches in shadowboxes hung below the first. These frames also have holes that allow the sand to continue its journey down the wall until it finally collects into a soft mound on the floor. This becomes the source from which viewers collect sand to feed back into the frames, creating an endless cycle. The installation’s counterpart is a projected animation called Shadows//Time. Using shadow puppetry and back-lit sand animation, the video consists of a female silhouette wiping away sand to reveal nostalgic images of what seem to be home videos. Like the installation, parts of the video are abstracted and made ghostly by the layers of sand. The animation is also endless, as it plays in a continuous loop.
During June’s First Fridays, Olivia Gibb showed work in an untitled dual exhibition with Danni Parelman at the 2018 Gallery. The range of prints and drawings (the largest spanning 4‘x4’) managed to entice passersby to the gallery space tucked behind an antique furniture sale. In Gibb’s body of work, her monochromatic woodcuts and digital prints of solemn women made use of collage as a means to unify the image rather than the other uses of collage such as creating whimsical imagery.
by Emily Kenyon
The show quietly but effectively includes the audience in a very personal experience. By supplying us with the tools and instructions to interact with her memories in Sediment, Garrett invites us into her conscience in a subtle yet powerful way. With such a small action, a careful bond is created between viewer and artist in a way that is difficult to achieve in a gallery setting. While these same ideas are carried into the animation Shadows//Time, the imagery seems a bit more distant from the artist. However, the overall tone is consistent in its meaning and intention. While A Fugue State may be a small show, its impact on the viewer has a great weight.
by Derek Dobbins
Classifying a work as a collage is easy for the gallery-goer to do. It either combines fragments of images, colors, shapes, etc. or it does not. However, there are many ways to collage beyond simply the idea of sticking pieces together. Man Ray experimented with painting techniques and cut outs of colored paper to create abstract color-blocked compositions, like in The Rope Dancer Accompanies Herself with Her Shadows (1916). Ray Johnson manipulated representational imagery to construct a visually-overloaded collage like in Untitled (Cupid with Canadian Mountie Postcard) (1974). And with his remake Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different? (1992), Richard Hamilton combined representational imagery to build a more unifying result, one that remained representational visually, but nonsensical in its content. Gibb’s method for collage-making reflects Hamilton’s. However, instead of literally piecing fragments together, Gibb drew and printed the fragments together. This acts similarly to an Adobe Photoshop filter by creating a similar mark or language throughout the entire piece and making it visually cohesive. The primary use of black in the work only furthers the unity of the image, and also gives a moody, almost goth-esque appeal to the mysterious women being depicted. Even though the image itself is made up of separate pieces such as a cactus, a crab, and a chair in her woodcut Limbo Is a Real Place (2012), Gibb constructs a narrative that feels simultaneously real and mysterious. Her ambiguity to subject and setting is mutually enhanced not only by the disparate content from collaging but also by the lack of iconic imagery and references. She does not use pages from magazines with familiar advertisements, but instead draws upon her own collection of images. In works like Gibb’s Medallion I (2012), the woman being depicted has an anonymous or universal quality whereas Hamilton’s Study for a Fashion Plate 69 (1969) shows a woman who wears makeup and is the stereotypical ideal of beauty—a model from a magazine. The tension between the unfamiliar fragments within the overall unity of the composition is successful in intriguing Gibb’s audience and begs more questions than answers.
ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
Still from Fragments of Space, image courtesy of Barry Anderson
ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
[5]
where does art come from?
by Sarabeth Dunton Some may say it starts in your toes. An electric impulse, a desire to cultivate movements that whisper into action, the seeking of the original gesture. First in the toes, then in the arches, and finally the heels rise up and pump forth in a barely perceptible twitch toward something new, staggering into the sea to drown out the assumed choreography. Others may feel it in their knees. Praying daily, lurching earthbound and digging in. Constant attempts to stand upright leave them knobby and bruised. That brute, gravity, undermining attempts toward levity. They settle back down in the dirt, the concrete of the studio floor, the asphalt of asceticism and aesthetics. A slow drudge, they pull from the land, the experience, and their extremities speak to them about the world. Maybe it comes from the pelvis. We connect with the grass seed and cycle like a prairie burn. A seed is planted. Warmth from the organs splits the cells and they multiply and regenerate, until a sprout pushes through. Time lapses, and the one sprout turns to many, the field is lush and green and tangled. Then we burn, burn, burn. The spark of death originating from the seed of life. The fire rushes on and all that’s left is the ash. That is what we give to the world, a layer of ashy residue, while underneath the soil lies the seed. That seed we claim for ourselves. So that we can bring about the process over and over again, using the burnt bits, churning them back into the soil so that we may seed again. Then, perhaps, it moves upward, climbing the spine. Each vertebra a pebble. We seek to build mountains, but know we must start with a stone. The pebble is where the energy lies, weakly, each shard teaming up with another and another, suddenly striking a certain immensity. But the maker can handle it, because they know it is just a small pebble in their hand. They have to be careful when thumbing it, turning it around and around in the palm of their hand, not to let it erode into dust. The artist knows they must be tender, preserve it just so, so it might join the others, might climb the spine, might become the mountain. Maybe this is all too lofty. Maybe it sits in our gut, in the grit of the intestine, chemical and bacterial processes purely biological, toeing the line between symbiotic and parasitic. Here we have two options. One, be blind, thoughtless, stop looking outward and play. Two, be blind, thoughtless, stop looking inward and observe. The romantics will claim that it’s all in your heart. They advise you to break your heart over and over again. Take the shards and put them in your work. Leave pieces of you all over your work, all over the world, and collect them like breadcrumbs when you’re lost and hungry. No, that’s all too dramatic! It comes from your lungs. A steady inhale and exhale, timely and reliable. Continue to work doggedly, gasping, until that shutter snap flashes, and the moment arrives that takes all the breath away. What about your brain you say? The keeper of all things, the engineer behind the locomotion. Maybe the key is to research and surround yourself with texts, images, and biography. Build a compendium of other’s experience, a temple of heroes. Try to breath with their breath, see with their eyes, move with their body. Consume their knowledge until it seeps into your intestines and flows through your blood. It’s probably more mystical than that, though. Probably, you should just sit very, very still. Do nothing. Make nothing. Until you cannot make or do nothing anymore, until you feel it again in your toes.
ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
No One Would Survive This Foolish Prank,/ Oil, Acrylic, Enamel and Sculpey on panel/ 14”x11”/2013/ artwork and photo credit, Lee Piechocki
ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
[6]
enter/exit:
interviews with lee piechocki and jeff eaton questions by amy kligman
Lee Piechocki- (Exit)
Jeff Eaton - (Enter)
AK: How do you feel your work has been affected by your time in Kansas City?
AK: Why did you originally leave KC, and what at brought you back?
LP: I left Kansas City only two months ago, and I feel the ways in which my time spent there has affected, and will continue to affect, my work will reveal themselves more clearly over time. I can say it was a time of incubation and for slow burning ideas. I really lived in Kansas City, and life time is very different from schooltime – which is what my clock is set to currently. Lifetime is much slower. In KC I thought as much abouthow I am living as what am I making. There, I learned to work while working. I learned that work and play don’t have to be separated. I learned that energy in artwork is essential and that enthusiasm while making is contagious while viewing. I learned how to start something and, eventually, how to follow through. I learned to trust my intuitions, act, and then question the hell out of them. (You can follow this three-step process in any order). Doubt and uncertainty are essential to moving forward. Keep it simple is a good mantra to have. “Open yourself up to the possibilities of the Universe” is also a good mantra to have. Maintaining curiosity can require hard work but is the single most important thing.
JE: I grew up in KC, so by the time I’d reached my final year at KCAI, I was eager to move on. I had committed myself to going immediately to grad school in NYC, so the fall after graduating from KCAI in 2007; I began the MFA/MA program at SUNY Purchase. I left KC with the intention of eventually returning. I was interested in the idea of coming back to contribute something meaningful that was informed by my time in NYC. Also, a lot of “life” things happened. I got married, got a real job (as Curatorial Associate/ Archivist at White Columns), and had a son. Raising our son in NYC was proving increasingly difficult and we wanted to be closer to our families, so we started searching for opportunities to relocate back to the Midwest. My wife was hired at UMKC, which brought us back to KC at the beginning of 2013.
AK: Who that you met in Kansas City made the most impact in your work or career, and how did it affect you and your work in a lasting way? LP: For sure the most influential on my work were friends - the informal conversations with them were truly priceless. In addition, I saw a few amazing artist talks at Grand Arts that stuck with me – Annie Lapin in 2008, and Ryan Mosley in 2010. Also, Allessandro Magnasco – he made a funny little painting toward the end of the 17th century called Campfire Scene With Vagabond and Militiaman – which I would walk over to the Nelson Atkins to view several times a week. AK: If we end up in Richmond, what should we be sure to see/do? LP: Walk across the super cool hanging pedestrian bridge to Belle Isle. If its summer go swimming in the James at Texas Beach. Go to St John’s Episcopal Church in Church Hill – the famous location of Patrick Henry’s famous words – “Give me liberty, or give me death!” Take a stroll through Hollywood Cemetery. Get the tofu sandwich at Ipanema and a cup of coffee at Lamp Lighter. Check out Cary Rowland Gallery, and of course, stop in the VCU Graduate Painting studios at 1000 West Broad Street to see some really exciting weird stuff and say hi to me. AK: What’s been your most exciting arts-related discovery in Richmond? The writings of Kaja Silverman, Jose Lorca, Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ariana Reines, Rainer Maria Rilke, Lou AndreasSalome, and poetry in general. Also screen-printing and the Bakersfield Sound.
AK: How has living in another city impacted your practice or work? JE: My lifestyle living in NYC has defined my studio practice. Recently, my work has been predicated by the act of regularly walking around NYC and collecting exhibition postcards, posters, and other printed ephemera from galleries that I then reuse through assemblage. The relationship between having experiences with artwork and making things in the studio was a very special and fluid one (especially since I also worked at a gallery), but since I’m in a new situation, I have a totally different relationship with that material. This has forced me to make work in a different way, which has been a challenge, but I am finding that this has facilitated greater consideration of broader ideas about my relationship to image-making, context, and experience. AK: How have things changed since you lived here before? JE: Moving back has been somewhat strange. In a sense, it feels as if I’ve returned to a completely different place, especially socially, because my closest friends have moved elsewhere since I’ve been away. Also, I’ve been confronted by my memories of the place I grew up in, which has felt more abrupt than sentimental. This is all a bit odd, but on the other hand, returning has facilitated many exciting new relationships as well as reuniting with people I haven’t engaged with since my time at KCAI. Upon returning, I also experienced many spaces and programs ending (Dolphin, Electromediascope, etc.). These were largely surprises to me, but simultaneously learning of new galleries and initiatives has been really exciting. I’m especially interested in the programming that is developing at places like Bill Brady, City Ice Arts, and Front/Space. I also get the sense that there are shifting attitudes at the museum level, which I genuinely hope will result in the presentation of more challenging and significant contemporary work than has been exhibited in recent years.
ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
Keep Yer Covenants, image courtesy of Ricky Allman
ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
[7]
Critical Coordinates by Lucas Wetzel
It has been always a search for ‘the beautiful illusion.’ Very well. I am not in search of ‘the beautiful illusion’ — William Carlos Williams, Spring and All
Every time I visit the gallery we talk about your lucid dreams. Usually of escape, by air or water, a grown-up Moses floating down the Missouri in a raft made of record crates. Your artwork is full of windows, viaducts, conduits, on and off ramps, on and on. You found inroads I never knew existed. Put your hand on the pillar and feel the traffic. Hear the train whistles whistle through your reed pipe. Years from now, when these highways are quiet, I wonder if we’ll be nostalgic for them the way we are today for rivers. The thunder rolls in from the hills, shakes the dust off the buildings, like a cracked subwoofer in a sub-tracted wilderness. The old world is disappearing, the aquifer is draining, and I know the depth of your need to hurry. The city is being replaced with itself. It’s no longer in fashion to call this a cowtown, but we’re still outnumbered by several million. Do we really need to be somewhere else? Or do we already live in an urban flatland with open doors and porous borders. Anticipation is our capital. Be reckless and keep your eyes open. You lose 100% of the staring contests you don’t enter. Leave an impression, make your mark. Press your pin-pricked thumb on the scanner and save to CMYK. You can’t go home again, but you can create. Under the carefree canopy to which we hold the tentstakes. May your artist’s statements speak for themselves. May I never see you again, such as you are. Your coordinates are critical and of no consequence. Congratulations. Welcome home.
ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
Rises Zora Walking the Urban Labyrnth, “Exhalted Forever” / image courtesy of Charlotte Street Foundation
ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
[8]
EXHALTED FOREVER by Halcombe Miller
Evolution has afforded us the ability to distance ourselves from the ground by planting both feet and elevating our craniums and eyes. Evolution has also allowed us to become fleshy kings and queens who can saunter leisurely with little to no fear of pouncing predators: we can simply take in the view. But when was the last time you remember walking with intention? I’m not talking about the kind of intention that goes into power walking to work, nor am I referring to the jubilant walking during First Friday. I’m talking about the kind of walking Thoreau practiced. He didn’t just want to get from point A to point B on foot; he wanted to feel the pleasure of placing one foot in front of the other in the beauty of nature. This is where those of us who dwell in the city get, well, hosed. While we’re busy jetting from one building to another, on and off buses and bikes, running down the sidewalk to make a lunch meeting or dinner date, we’ve forgotten that, when it comes to locomotion, we’ve got a pretty sweet set-up. Instead, we look down. We ignore the urban scenery. We rush. I’m guilty of all of the above, but I was given a rare opportunity to put all of this in check during Exalted Forever, a blind walk through Kansas City. The walk was concocted by Ghyman Johnson, Megan Mantia and Leone Reeves as part of Rises Zora: Walking the Urban Labyrinth – an interdisciplinary project curated by Jamilee Polson Lacy (2012 Charlotte Street Foundation curator-in-residence). Exalted Forever began with delicious mystery as participants were left rather clueless until receiving a package in the mail containing a black cape, a small lapel pin, simple instructions for face painting and notes on getting to the event location. As I explored these puzzling contents my immense intrigue outweighed the voice of the control freak who wanted to know what was going to happen when I arrived at the green dumpster in Roanoke Park, my face painted like a puppy and black cape in tow, at 7:25pm. I arrived at my location, along with nine others, and our guide inducted us into the walk. He sounded a whistle into the air and a troop of people, monochrome in black capelets with shrouded mouths, approached us in single file and organically fell into sets of two: one of us (walkers) and one of them (seers). The seers applied blind folds draped with strips of long black hair and wedged dimpled rocks between our firmly locked palms. My seer was everything now. Silently we begin to walk. I closed my masked eyes as my legs started moving and I felt my own sincerity: I was committed to walking with intention. I settled into my minds’ eye and felt a sudden wave of liberation. My facial muscles released, my eyelids rested, my throat and vocal chords relaxed, and the relishing began. I was in awe of this unanticipated response and somewhat leery of the immediate confidence I had in my seer. But I began to fall in love with the quiet and the relinquishing of control. I didn’t know where I was, I didn’t know who was around me, I didn’t need to speak, and if the terrain became tenuous I only needed to listen. The landscape ceased to be Kansas City. Instead it became my own headspace, the Thoreau-ean fields of my mind. I delved deeper into the ethereal sensation of handing over control and disappearing in plain sight. It was intoxicating. For perhaps the first time since childhood I took small, bitty steps. I didn’t race to my destination; I didn’t have one. I walked with my head posed up and not down; there was nothing to see or fear. The refreshment of walking on primal auto-pilot, but with feet falling to the ground with presence and care, was a foreign gem. Walking with intention felt whole and alive. And as my blindfold was lifted, and the walk came to a close, I mourned the loss of that wholeness while I rejoiced in the experience. There is much awe to be felt in walking, but that awe slips from our minds when we neglect our humanity and the labyrinth of landscape around us. So close your eyes and touch your soles to the ground; one foot and then the other. And then raise your lids as you lift your chin from your chest, and open yourself to our solo-mammalian ability: to walk upright with eyes wide. There is freedom in walking with intention; indeed, there is the chance to be Exalted Forever. ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
Joyce Kozloff, Targets (detail), 2000; acrylic on canvas with a wook frame, 108 inches diameter , courtesy of the artist and DC Moore Gallery, NY
ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
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on “map as art” at the kemper
A Lightbulb for david salle
by Elizabeth Schurman
by Blair Schulman
The pieces that hang in galleries are like stars. They hang there like the stars do, divinely glued where they belong. I know books are not spat out fully formed. I know that books come in blobs and spits and sprints and marathons, out my mind and through my keyboard.
Located in the Bloch Building’s permanent collection at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art are many paintings that you might stand in front of for a good, long time. Franz Kline’s Turin (1960) is one of those. This painting reminds me of Los Angeles; I never tire of its multi-level, superhighway-like feel; abstract in composition and challenging to maneuver. This painting, like much of Kline’s works, has an exhaustive feeling too. The thick strokes going here, there, and everywhere always leaves me feeling as if I have covered a lot of ground by just looking at iit.
When it’s not your field, you can look at the results with clearer eyes. A well organized and well hung art show is its own little country, couldn’t be any other way. The map inspired show at the Kemper reminded me of a map of Oz I’d seen printed in my paperback. China town, that is, a town made of china people. The munchkin village, of course, and the Emerald City, and the Great Desert all around, protecting it. There were ink assemblages like Pollocks in 3-D, and there was a world map of Jesus-alia, maps rendered in embroidery and beads, lady things making a manly statement about what’s where, ink drawings in a bracelet chain, all settled in the color of salmon. The best part is ducking inside a sphere, inside where you will be the earth’s core, looking out at the planet. There are mustard-family images of places the United States has bombed, sad, yes, but I am such a fan of the installation, anything I can be inside of, crawl around in, that even if it is sad, my delight overwhelms, and right away I was wanting to build my own. You know those pieces, looking so nonchalant on the walls of museums, came in blurry and like grown-up teeth, pushing other things out, but then there is the miracle that they became something that works. You know they left dirty fingers and glue smears and scraps of thread. Back to my cuts and pastes and deletes and filling in of colors and attitudes. Back to work. I don’t know what’s where.
There are many other paintings I acknowledge, greet respectfully or walk past. But there is one piece that always makes me wonder, although I have little affection for it; who replaces the burned out bulbs in David Salles’ Diabolical Life Restoring Machines, (1987)? Is it unplugged at night, did Salle leave instructions on the type of bulb to be used for replacement, or does someone in an upstairs office make a judgment call and say to use whatever is in the janitor’s closet? Perhaps the light bulbs are meant to spotlight the covetousness that exemplifies this particular period, ushering in an ‘Us versus Them’ mentality that has yet to abate. An idea of class separation can also be construed. To keep the bulbs burning brightly there is a backstage operation ensuring its viability. Ostensibly, it is the after-hours workers providing the power for those who possess and dictate. The painting itself provides a good example of 1980s cultural separateness. Because none of the images seems to be acknowledging one another it appears as coldly indifferent, and highlights the flashy, self-involved Reagan era in which it was created. An aloofness of design and content also confronts the aging baby boomers, firmly shutting the door on 1960s America ‘We’ generation. Any remnant of the 1970’s spiritual realization movement is nowhere to be found in this piece and leaves me cold. Diabolical Life Restoring Machines marks a moment in history that should be acknowledged. The work’s disparate elements and clunky juxtaposition might explain the selfishness of one generation evolving into a technologically-reliant, increasingly tense, generation. One that is consistently sharing information with itself, yet becoming further isolated from one another.
ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
Black House Collective Performance, image courtesy of Charlotte Street Foundation
ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
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Can Contemporary Artists Learn Something from the Music Industry? By Melaney Ann Mitchell The “like” and or “attention” economy has allowed me to recognize an apparent tip in the value of physical art objects. Similar the shifts in the music industry, file sharing and the digital have shifted viewership. Those of us consuming these bytes of data, and instantaneously reviewing it, are creating the new system; the audience is the new institution. As artists, this is a tough thing to even consider, as were brought through school trained to play by the games of the gallery system that we know is hyper exclusive. “It’s a model designed to please one audience — an elite circle of tastemakers. And one general audience, by and large, has a perspective and vision of the world that any given artist either does or does not slip into.” – The Social Ties That Unbind by An Xiao The current system doesn’t work. A larger group and often chain of command consisting of the curator, the museum board, and filtration systems that work out total cost and revenue define a work of art’s context in a gallery or museum. These large-scale institutions need so many checks and balances- through a need for monetary exchange- that affect what is presented for the audience. If this is the case, why should the general public care as to what the bureaucratic system’s needs are for exhibitions when we can readily access the images we want to look at online. Now the current institution of art lends itself to a structure of investors, collectors, and a need to support a work of art’s “provenance”. There is a sense of history that needs to be constantly observed. Online, it is not the case. Often an image of a work of art will have no link to the originator and it will appear in a multitude of contexts before potentially linking back to the source. With an image’s lack of provenance and increasing ubiquity, the value that the art institution places on an images scarcity (i.e. not taking images at
an exhibition) is being challenged. Oddly enough, museums now are shifting to encourage smartphone use in the galleries with interactive QR codes that are meant to help engage the viewers more directly with a work of art. In Kansas City, where I am located, the institutions are recognizing the power of bringing the community into the space of art. Museums specifically are highlighting a desire to become spaces of public incubation “ovens instead of refrigerators”. The Nelson-Atkins in particular is striving to create programming that brings a larger audience to the museum and asks that this uncommon public interact with the art. This outreach is going to open up opportunities for learning, additional public programming, and expand the museums overall donor base. Artists as individuals may not see the value in expanding audience access. The number of reblogs your drawing gets is just a number, it won’t lead anywhere right? This is where I think that we need to take a hint at how access to music online totally shifted the industry paradigm. For the longest time, the amount of records a particular artist sold was what drove the merchandise, touring, and production costs. In the past 10 years, we have seen how illegal downloading, online streaming, and music community building has done to bands and to the labels themselves. The music, the thing that defines who they are as artists, is on the lowest end of the profit totem pole.
pre-ordered gifts for backers of her album, art book, and tour. Each tier of support gave something more to the supporter. The system of reciprocity worked to give her freedom and independence. The art market is still going to favor a certain top tier of artists, and the system is broken. Rather than trying to fix the system, why don’t we take advantage of the structures we have been dealt? Let’s take a hint from the music industry: If we build value through a personal brand, let’s make that a work in itself. Let’s build up our identities by curating the things we like, let’s make art books, let’s write, lets create public programming, lets teach diy seminars, things that build communal support. If we create a brand that is strong enough to sustain an audience that not only understands our work and believes in where we are coming from then we will also create a whole new market and generation that cares about art because art actually gives something back to them. Even if it means selling 100 art books and no paintings, if we can sustain studio practices through a model of reciprocity shouldn’t we take advantage of it?
Bands are taking advantage of the potential of the attention economy and putting their music on Spotify, going for a paywhat-you-want model a la Radiohead-, or giving it out for free just to get listens. Most of the profit is being made through touring, merchandise, and adsense revenue from videos. It has shifted to the exact opposite structure as before, and visual artists need to take note. Last year, musician Amanda Palmer managed to raise nearly 1.2 million dollars by offering ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
Maria Ogendengbe: detail of Yemaya; color archival photo panorama picturing ensemble designed & sewn by the artist, 17�x80�, 2013
ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
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Sew Goddess
the journey behind work created in Kansas City for the exhibit Bespoken, held at Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Metropolitan Campus gallery (in the NYC area) from January 9- February 8, 2013
by Maria Ogedengbe
With Africa and Africans, I share a passion for textiles, and the African practice of made-to-measure clothing has also influenced my work recently. In 2011, Nigeria was reeling me in. Some thought I was out of my mind when I booked the trip, however pricks of the nurse’s needles in the months before departure lent me a certain invincibility. When I boarded the Lagos-bound plane in Houston, it was as though I was in Africa already. Brushes with Nigerians had hinted at the resounding character of the nation, is Nigeria so different because few travel there? Scarcity of internet along with scratchy lines and strong accents presented challenges to laying plans from afar. Yet the country opened up after my arrival: anyone passing said “you are welcome” (I was obviously from someplace else). Years ahead I knew that textiles would be my connection to West Africa during an artist’s residency there. As I wended from the University of Lagos to Oshogbo to rural Kogi State and back to Lagos - and from late 2011 into 2012, I patterned and dyed yards of fabric. I observed a young batik artist in Oshogbo wring her hands, her eye on the drive; her tailor was late… Passing along the Ogidi-Oshogbo road, we were discussing incantations and oracles when a woman wearing an ensemble cut from cloth depicting rolling tires appeared. “Are there rubber factories in Nigeria?” “Yes, Dunlop.” Drawing closer to Oshogbo, we pass the chicken and catfish farm where coops are situated over ponds, then we come to a restaurant where catfish stew is on offer for about 50 cents. In a windowless dining room, we rinse our right hands in water from a colorful kettle before and after supping. Outside, a woman bending forward at the waist balances a baby with its belly to her back and then wraps him to her with a length of fabric.
She mentions that you need to keep an eye on your tailor to insure he doesn’t help himself to some of the cloth for your job. I had several yards of an intricate sity tie & dye for an outfit, and a professor at UniLag helped me identify a suitable tailor; the wrong tailor could spoil your fabric, he pointed out. We ascended through dark corridors to the tailor’s sunlit yellow workspace. A price was negotiated and my measurements noted. When I ask if I can take the tailor’s photo, she dons a wig, wraps the tape measure around her neck, and strikes a pose with notebook in hand. Back in my Kansas City studio I take measurements for a model from Cameroon, she assures her German companion that this is how things are done in Africa. Later, I’m in Johnson County working with a Paris-trained Congolese dressmaker. To adjust sizes, she modifies my designs by drawing out pattern shapes directly onto my fabric with a slice of colored chalk. Bespoken, the title for my 2013 solo exhibition at the Fairleigh Dickinson University College Art Gallery, means custom made or made-to-measure. Large photos spilled over walls alongside my hand-sewn bespoke clothing subjects they picture. Photos and their respective subjects were hung just out of view of one another, and clothing ensembles were suspended on hangers to suggest gallery goers in garb that outshone the wearer. Among the panorama-style photos shown is the 17” high x 76” wide Yemaya that portrays a frenetic river of pattern through picturing a dress, sewn from an orange & blue wax print, laid over a hand-woven blue aso oke shawl. Artist Twins Seven-Seven explained that according to traditional Yoruba beliefs, the mermaid goddess Yemaya appears in rivers when fish swim together to create the shape of a woman.
At the art gallery in Lagos, Niké recounts stories pictured in a few of her batiks I purchased along the way. ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
The Rats, image courtesy of Nika Winn
ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
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Those Who were Involved by Nika Winn
Part I: The Trout The trout is a sweet and passive being who has been tragically cursed with stupidity. Everyday the trout wakes up swims and sleeps with no real purpose. The most eventful part of the trout’s day is being in the presence of the toast that floats above their scaly scalps. People toss the toast into the water as a form of entertainment; however, the Trout sees it as something much more. The toast disintegrates and disperses soggy bits across the undulating surface of the water. “This is MAGICAL” – so the Trout think. The toast is their sun and their deity. When the bits of toast flutter down further into the watery climate, they get wedged into the cracks of the Trout’s scales. To them it is an honor to be so privileged to eat and wear soggy toast. It is a BLESSING.
make them appear to be biologically prone to snooping but they like to think they look sophisticated. Their best feature by far is their feathers; they are known as the softest material to be found in this world. They plump themselves naturally to create volumes that no hairdryer could ever manage. It is these feathers that they ruffle to create their own Shakespearean collars and petticoats. The storks are known for their cultivation of the theatrical and musical arts. They rope the Trout together to create an across seas transport to bring their cousins from afar to star in their extraordinary productions. As they coo and caa into the amphitheater, one has to wonder if they are aware of the other bird ruffling its feathers next to them.
This regular schedule of uselessness and worship gives the Trout quite a lot of satisfaction. However, a recent tragedy resulted in the storks enslaving the trout to do their bidding. Despite the recent decline in their quality of life the trout are doing fine. They are not very fond of the storks and would plot against them if only they knew how.
Part III: The Cucumbers Is it a mystic or is it just lazy? The way it levitates makes it an enemy of the state as well as a tourist attraction. Its green skin absorbs the light that lays over it like a thin blanket, which may conceal the strings that support it. Dissections have been conducted on this mysterious thing but nothing notable has been found. Perhaps, if they would just ask it, they would learn how much it loves the beach.
Part II: The Storks It is important that we establish the Stork’s appearance before we discuss any other aspect of this creature. The Storks take great pride in their looks and prefer conversations to revolve around the topic. Each Stork is equipped with an awkward set of webbed feet, which lead into the long spindly legs, all painted an obscene shade of orange. Their beady eyes and prodding beaks
Part IV: The Rats Lowlife ruffians, vulgar thieves and bandits are some of the names the Rats frequently go by. Although, the Rats usually just call themselves Rats. Unlike the Trout, the Rats get a thrill out of pranks and revenge. They are quick with their wit and apt at brainteasers. They enjoy some downtime activities, such as late night television and the occasional fishing trip.
Lately, rumor has it that Stork feathers are in fact an aphrodisiac. How it really works is a mystery, all the Rats know is that they can pluck the bastards in the night and sell a sack full of feathers for a comfortable sum. The Storks would act on this recent crime if only the newly bald victims would come out of hiding and bring the issue to light. The worst event to befall on the Rats thus far was the intentional poison leak. The putrid atmosphere the poison created veiled the world in a green light. The Rats watched from their front door as the vapors and liquid traversed the floorboards, steadily creeping towards their home. It could have ended very badly but the Rats picked up their belongings and ventured out into the backyard, escaping through that unknown hole that causes a draft in the house. Part V: The Ants The Ants are adept at sneaking and taking what they need and not what they want. Once they accidentally crashed the Storks’ cocktail party. Nonetheless, the Storks were very offended and soon made a snack of them all. The Ants maintained their stoic nature as those unwieldy beaks scooped them up. They never once made a noise, the perfect example of a reverent martyr.
ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
Artselfie by Lifetouch Capturing Precious, image courtesy of Miles Fermin
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Jogging
Kansas City Zines:
by Phillip Bakala
by Jessica Hogan and Stephanie Iser
As the tangles of Post-Modernism continue to reflect upon our nation as a culture in decline, it becomes important to consider the political and social implications of an art form that embraces or submits to this declination.
Zines, you are reading one right now! Zines are the preferred format within DIY, radical, arts, and collectivists subcultures due to their affordability which directly encourages inclusivity and participation. Zines have an authenticity that other more mainstream publications lack. Since zines are independently published there are no higher ups, censors, or “right way” of creating them. Each zine is unique which reflects the diverse community of people who create them. Be it photos, prose, collage, reviews, personal, political, commentary, or comics each zine has a voice and a huge part of zine culture is encouraging others to find and xerox theirs, or if nothing else support the people whose driving force it is to do so.
The acceptance of a Culture in Decline
Today, the nature of Tumblr and the growing phenomenon of Brad Troemel’s brainchild, Jogging, functions as a proposal of this state. Since the blog began as a platform for user-generated content, individuals submit works in the format that Troemel determined when it was originally run by him alone. Focusing on Jogging’s most recent exhibition as a newly formed artist collective, Soon, at Still House in Brooklyn NY, I will be examining the way in which the trends introduced affect an idea of progress. The majority of the work presented is composed out of perishable materials or corporate products. In one piece titled, Hot Topic Hair Extensions Discovered In Polar Ice Cap, a pillar of ice rises out of a base of gravel encased in Plexiglas with multicolored hair extensions dangling in pairs arranged symmetrically along its surface. Another piece, titled Rationed Water, involves four 5-gallon jugs of water supporting a flat plane of tempered glass. A hydrophobic coating upon the glass supports a rectangular blue to green gradient composed of Gatorade. Yet another, titled, P.H.I.S.H: Pink Hydrographic Integrated Fish Swims Horizontally, involves six dead piranhas coated in a pink camouflage film, each of which is drilled into the wall while blood and other fluids drip down its surface. This group of cynical, politically and socially subversive work presents a direct reflection of our nation’s habits of consumption and production, the disproportionate sense of temporality that is so imbued in our present moment. We face our continually confused expectation of stability with an increasingly pessimistic attitude – as if the length of time spent with the stench of rotting fish was worth the initial image. The entropic gesture is deliberately indicative of consequence whose effect lasts longer than whatever it may have been worth at the beginning. Even the show’s title, Soon, implies a foreboding sense of the quickly expiring world we have created for ourselves. The thought that maybe hundreds of years from now, after our unsustainable habits destroy ourselves, Hot Topic hair extensions may be the only traces left as an indication of our culture is an idea that propounds art-making – in any form - pointless. Soon posits the decline of our culture alongside the “death of art”. The work presented is composed of culturally accessible and recognizable objects. From a square sheet of cabbage and plastic titled, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Water to a dented car door mounted on the wall titled, Honda Civic Crashes Into Vintage Saturn, Sexting While Driving, the work is presented with a flippancy not only toward its audience but also regarding the culture it criticizes. The use of literal corporate objects is appropriately “post-pop” in that while the artists of Pop Art profited from referencing pop culture in an art historical atmosphere (paint on canvas, etc), these artists have replaced the art historical platform altogether with the expiring pop-culture objects themselves. Like many young artists of today, the anticipation of a future without a preservation of the past is a provocatively fresh idea that is being manifested here. Similarly, the perishable and commonplace nature of the work presented reflects upon the history of patronage and magnitude of capital that passes through the art world. The fine line between embracing the future of art amongst a cultural decline and contributing to the declination itself is perhaps the most loaded question this work is presenting. Can branding strategies appropriately replace existing art-historical platforms? Does the subversion of history leave opportunity or absence? Certainly Troemel’s presence has had an explosively trend-setting effect on Tumblr and Internet art in general. Though a positive/negative judgment is at this point irrelevant, the alignment of art with the phenomena of Internet memes and YOLO culture will undoubtedly effect artistic and social practices in the future.
A Snapshot of Experiments in Practice
Zines, especially in cities where they have yet to become a staple in the print and local communities, are like treasures...little time capsules often found wedged between two books at a coffee shop free shelf or gifts given by friends whose time and thoughts were translated into a package bound with staples and smelling of freshly inked paper. This past year has witnessed a shift in the rarity of zines in Kansas City. This is partially due to a collective group of zine makers that have begun meeting monthly and holding workshops to provide a network for one another. The Kansas City Zine Collective along with helpful small business and zine distributors is laying the groundwork for the birth of what could be a burgeoning zine community. Collective members are working to create distribution points in the form of free information boxes that will offer free books in addition to zines and radical newspapers from across the nation as well as flyers about local happenings. A pop up zine library is being created from the ashes of materials that formerly belonged to the Crossroads Infoshop Radical Library and Bookstore. Double Rainbow Books opened a zine and art book store in the City Ice Arts building and features a section of local self-published works. Pioneer’s Press, a well-known zine distributor located close to our own backyard in Lansing, KS, has won a Rocket Grant to create a mobile zine store and art gallery. The Kansas City Public Library will soon be releasing the first issue of Unheard voices, a new teen-created zine that includes voices of incarcerated youth. Meanwhile, zine creators continue to publish their works, adding to the regional zine conversation. These zines have strong roots in the local arts, DIY punk, and grassroots activist communities. XO Press delivers punk zines that share tour diaries, music centered writings, and nihilistic philosophies with a bit of shock value. Stinkeye delivers DIY punk ethos with thoughtful socio political commentary as well as informative DIY tips and creative collages. Operations Manual, Behind the Stove, and Sprouted Ink zines are created by current and former activists and range from personal stories about mental health to the political. Art zines heavy in visual design and poetry such as Swoon, Beefstik, and Not Sorry as well as the comic zines of K.Wroten have been bridging the gap between the arts and punk communities via zines. Some artists use zines to accompany their works, such as Luke Rocha who presents found archival images in both videos and zines to express pressing and intriguing messages about local culture. A newer trend is to use zines to go beyond a niche readership and connect with a broader audience as seen with Infoduct, The Bohemian, and Undercurrent, all zines about Kansas City. Kansas City zines bring with them their challenges. If one were to create in this medium, they might face a stigma about zines being too edgy and even offensive. A look at zines published in our local history confirms this stereotype as being somewhat true as evidenced by zines with shocking images and flippant content that was probably meant for a fringe audience. Zines that want to broaden their readership and take a more welcoming angle in subject matter and stylistic expression can be seen as forging into new territory and changing the regional zine conversation to be more inclusive. An additional criticism of Kansas City zine culture is that the current published voices are somewhat homogenous coming primarily from the punk and arts scene and an all-white cast without a self-identifying focus on sexuality and gender. Attempts have been made to address this issue by Stink Eye’s zine artist and the facilitators of the EQUAL youth empowerment summit which have called for voices of the Queer community to publish zines and be more visible in local DIY movements. EQUAL is currently publishing a zine from the voices of Queer youth which will be distributed to queers and allies. While there is a growing momentum and popularity of zine culture in town questions on the Kansas City zine collective, zine artists, and zine readers’ minds may be; how can we expand the published voices in our zine community so that it reflects voices other than our own? Are there things we can do to be more inclusive and welcoming of marginalized groups and voices that might want to add their ideas to the zine movement? How can we support our independent endeavors in a way that enriches the community? ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013
ISSUE / fall/winter 2012/2013 ISSUE01 02 / spring-fall 2013
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81/2 x 11... Issue 2: Introducing....guest editors! Hey look! The Second Issue is finally out! We know what you’re thinking (... “well that took awhile”). And you’re right! But we’re happy to announce that there’s a great reason why. In the middle of producing this issue, we decided to shift to having each issue associated with a guest editor. This way, contributors to 81/2 x 11 get exposed to different kinds of feedback every issue, and its coming from valuable, experienced editors from different publication backgrounds (not from us Plugfolk, who will still be designing, producing, & facilitating). This issue of 81/2 x11was thusly guest edited by Kelsey Karper, from the Oklahoma Visual Artists Coalition. Karper came to OVAC in 2006. As editor of OVAC’s bi-monthly publication Art Focus Oklahoma, she works to promote the art and artists of Oklahoma and to develop audience interest in the arts. Karper also organizes OVAC’s Artist Survival Kit program, offering professional development for artists all over the state. She manages all marketing and public relations for the organization. Thank you Kelsey, for all of your hard work, and to everyone who contributed to Issue #2. The next issue will be for Jan-July of 2014. Start writing now! We’ll have two call for submissions, one in March, and in June. We’ll announce the next guest editor with the call for submissions in March. Thanks again, Kansas City! PLUG PROJECTS
81/2 x 11 & PLUG PROJECTS MADE POSSIBLE WITH SUPPORT FROM:
and normal, everyday people who donate to Plug via Fractured Atlas. You too can pledge your tax-deductable support from the link on our website, at http://www.plugprojects.com ISSUE 02 / spring-fall 2013