An Artist's Perspective: Recent Episodes
KMUW
Curt Clonts says the current exhibition at Reuben Saunders Gallery is a real diversity of expression, beauty, and body adornment.
Curt Clonts visits with the director of the Ulrich Museum of Art at Wichita State University.
Curt Clonts says when he looks at Sheldon Draper's work, nothing seems a mistake, in the best possible way.
On Curt Clonts' porch there is a 60 year old set of rattan furniture, with cushions upholstered with blue and red Mexican blankets. There are potted plants and a few limestone sculptures out there as well.
Curt Clonts spoke with Ben Hutton at his Hutton Construction Corporation to learn more about the locally made art at his office.
Art commentator Curt Clonts says he's thankful for what the collaborative team behind 'Pee Wee's Playhouse' did for and to art.
Arts commentator Curt Clonts says the work of a Wichita artist should be experienced, if you have the chance.
KMUW commentator Curt Clonts says that despite not discussing color palette or dynamics, works in 'MISHMASH' seem to be made for each other.
"Clearly Indigenous: Native Visions Reimagined in Glass" cannot be adequately taken in with one visit.
Curt Clonts has five grandchildren, all girls. When each turned four, he brought them into his studio, turned on the music, and we would sit down and collaborate.
In the ‘80s and ‘90s, as an active artist without gallery representation, Curt Clonts had to take an aggressive do-it-yourself approach to promote himself.
Curt Clonts says the latest show at Mark Arts featuring ceramicist Brenda Lichman and painter Tim Stone is a lesson in dichotomies.
The Ulrich Museum's new exhibition is comprised of art created by the museum’s own staff members: Lydia Humphreys, James Porter, Joanna Ramondetta, Jo Reinert, and Austin Storie.
On Curt Clonts' porch there is a 60 year old set of rattan furniture, with cushions upholstered with blue and red Mexican blankets. There are potted plants and a few limestone sculptures out there as well.
The Wichita Art Museum has sold the sculpture by British artist Henry Moore titled “Working Model for Three Piece No. 3: Vertebrae” to a private investor for 10.5 million dollars. Curt Clonts is not a fan of the decision.
Curt Clonts recent art show featured paintings of birds. He tells us what birds mean to him and why he is okay with being called "the birdman."
“Fishateria” is as if Matisse smoked a boatload of cannabis, changed his name to Steve Fairchild, and then rendered 57 paintings for a children’s book. Well, you get the picture.
The label "un-German" by the Nazis eerily echoes some of the un-American war cries we hear today.
Curt Clonts visited Envision Arts Gallery this week and learned a great lesson while viewing the exhibitions.
We are lucky! Tonight is the First Friday Art Crawl for April in Wichita, and there are some fabulous shows to see!
After viewing "THE BEAST, or Self-Portrait" I came away thinking more about how people are treated in this country and about what he might do to help change that.
This week on An Artist's Perspective, commentator Curt Clonts justifies his need to collect.
The fabulous thing about a Mike Miller sculpture is it baffles the mind while making the viewer smile at the fantastical whimsy of the work.
“Fashioning Art from Paper” by Belgian artist Isabelle de Borchgrave is easily one of the finest shows Curt Clonts has seen at the Wichita Art Museum.
As you gaze at the many works in the Scholastic Art Awards exhibit, you realize that these students have poured all they have into each piece.
Commentator Curt Clonts looks at the woman behind much of the permanent collection at the Kansas African American Museum.
On An Artist's Perspective, commentator Curt Clonts give us a glimpse at his creative process.
Today on An Artist’s Perspective, KMUW commentator Curt Clonts This is 89-1, KMUW. Up next on An Artist's Perspective, commentator Curt Clonts has suggestion for artistic resolutions.
Today on An Artist’s Perspective, KMUW commentator Curt Clonts says a printmakers show at City Arts features the work of seasoned and talented makers.
KMUW arts commentator Curt Clonts says a new exhibit satisfies his love of paper as a medium.
On An Artist's Perspective, KMUW commentator Curt Clonts offers a look a the life of native Wichitan, actor and artist, Shirley Smith. Works from her estate will be available at a show and sale November 4.
KMUW commentator Curt Clonts explores a gallery space that focuses on artists of color.
KMUW commentator Curt Clonts says a new exhibition at the Ulrich Museum of Art is very inviting.
On An Artist's Perspective, commentator Curt Clonts give us a glimpse at his creative process.
The staff at the Ulrich Museum on the campus at Wichita State has given us a fantastic gift in the form of an exhibition titled Deep Dive: Selections from the Permanent Collection.
Curt Clonts says he is left marveling at only the sheer size of Beth Lipman's new sculpture.
KMUW arts commentator Curt Clonts says that a long-planned outdoor installation is finally taking shape.
On An Artist's Perspective, KMUW commentator Curt Clonts says a new exhibit is a "must-see."
On An Artist's Perspective, KMUW commentator recommends some First Friday art openings.
On An Artist's Perspective, KMUW commentator Curt Clonts looks at efforts to protect art and save Ukrainian heritage.
On An Artist's Perspective, KMUW commentator Curt Clonts explores a painting and its artist's effort to honor community and care.
On An Artist's Perspective, KMUW commentator Curt Clonts explores the work of a local artist.
On An Artist's Perspective, KMUW commentator Curt Clonts says a new exhibition at the Ulrich is quite powerful.
After months of thought, and 103 episodes, I have decided to leave my commentary post at KMUW.
The celebrated artist photographer Dimitris Skliris is back at it with a powerful exhibition that opened First Friday February at Tiffany Farha Design, 2820 E. Central.
I was reading an article recently about an up and coming artist in America named Vaughn Spann. He graduated with an MFA from Yale two years ago and his career is in maximum overdrive. His latest show sold out within a week of opening. His paintings sell from $20 to $90,000 each, depending on size.
After John D’Angelo resigned last April as Wichita’s Director of Arts and Cultural Services there was talk in the community that the position would likely be done away with and the duties turned over to the Parks and Recreation Department. Many in the city felt that this would result in sure disaster for the arts in Wichita.
If you are patient — and save some of your holiday spending money — you can enjoy one of the finest art-buying events, easily, of the last decade.
Every cool city, large or small, has an arts district. It’s a place with multiple art galleries, cool shops and restaurants, and a central square of a sort where people can hang out and get some sun and enjoy open-air celebrations.
Wichita artist Josh Tripoli might best be known for the murals he has created around the city. He works on a smaller scale, too, and recently completed a group of figurative paintings that are now on view in an exhibition titled “Lighthouse,” at Reuben Saunders Gallery.
Several years back I decided to begin a series of paintings where I revisited earlier approaches I had taken in my work in an effort to expand upon them and forge new avenues for myself. Perhaps the original ideas were failures to begin with or I had overthought the process all together, but my dear friend and fellow artist John Ernatt, upon critiquing these works, pronounced them “a major step backwards.”
There is always talk of art and how it marks time. One discipline transcends all of that and simply is time, or the essence of time.
Sometimes it’s essential that I reconnect with one of the great loves of my life. I stole away Sunday to meet her where I always do, at the Wichita Art Museum. She helps reconnect me to the core of what makes me search, and finally begin to scratch the crude lines which hopefully will become my better works.
My now adult daughters, Jessy and Carmen, were raised in the '80s and '90s. I remember feeling quite upset when I would think that my little girls would grow up and might not get equal opportunities in life that men tend to get.
Artist Charles Baughman is an explorer of nature. Staying outward bound in all climbs and places provided the fuel that powered his latest body of work he calls “Splatterscapes.”
When I am around other artists the subject of reading usually comes up. Most artists I know devour books and live on documentaries about artists. I keep a fair library in my studio but there are five books I always return to for inspiration.
I have a friend of 20 years named Roby who approached me recently and semi-reluctantly told me that he had taken up painting.
I moved back to Wichita from Texas in 1991 after having left in 1978. I had been a working artist in Texas but knew not one local artist upon my return to this, my hometown.
For many the mountains signify wayward abandon and escape. For others, an elevator to spiritualism or an ever upward path to enlightenment. The clergy will always write that they are the handiwork of God.
We collect clay work at our house, from functional pottery to earthenware sculptural objects. I’ve always been in love with the medium, but it should be noted that I am a painter only because I have never had a great ability with clay.
Marc Bosworth is royalty within the Wichita art scene. With an MFA in printmaking from WSU, he is a founder of the Famous Dead Artists Co-Op and co-founder of The Tractor Factory Gallery and Studio, both of which helped propel the explosive ‘90’s ICT art movement into what it is today.
In 1972, I was 13 years old. While art was on my mind, I had not yet come to grips with its full power.
I go to various art openings and always notice not only the work but how it is presented. Galleries and show spaces depend on the artist to arrive with art that is show ready, well framed, with reliable hanging hardware on the back.
Artist Kevin Mullins passed away unexpectedly last year in Wichita at the age of 68. His passing marked the end of an amazing life and prolific career that will become so apparent once you arrive and step into the retrospective show being given in his honor at the Ulrich Museum.
From February through March, the Fisch Haus had an artist in residence who recently moved back to North America from Scotland where she received her MLitt in Fine Art Practice from the Glasgow School of Art. She is Sukaina Kubba, an Iraqi-Canadian artist and architect.
Saturday, March 30, will mark the opening of the Georgia O’Keeffe exhibition at the Wichita Art Museum.To honor the occasion I will read a few passages from her letters to her husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz, taken from the book My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, edited by Sarah Greenough.
I was asked by a friend recently if I’ve ever stood before a work of art that brought me to my knees. I told him the story of a road trip I had taken years back, along with my wife, to view a group exhibition that one of our friends was involved with in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The Art and Design Advocates is a Wichita group that supports the WSU School of Art, Design, and Creative Industries and its students by providing funding for special needs, travel, and opportunities not financed through state or municipal funding. These funds help to enhance excellence within the art and design program.
I remember back in the mid '90s when selling a painting for $200 was a hard-fought victory. The idea that somebody would buy local art and wanted to live with it was cause for celebration among local artists. An artist could have an exhibition and if she or he walked away with $600 it was a real success.
Wichita artist Bill Goffrier told me that he has strategically steered clear of showing his art in larger spaces.Over the last year he has concentrated on getting his work into every local space he could manage, as directly and personally as possible, to promote his paintings to people who literally told him they were intimidated by the formal gallery scene. He says his latest show at CityArts is a chance to bridge the gap between folks he has reached through what he calls “indie-level” shows, social media postings, and the local art establishment.
A couple of weeks ago, Reuben Saunders, owner of a local art gallery that bears his name, took to social media with an idea to change the legendary Final Friday art crawl event to first Friday. Saunders finds that since most large cities offer a First Friday event it tends to confuse traveling art patrons and places us out of step with the national scene.
Do you feel like you got kicked around in 2018? I know I do. The political climate in the country is at an all-time low. I think people feel down. The “shock” volume has been on 10 for so long, over so many issues, that I think we, as a society, have gone tone deaf. Things just seem meaner.
In July of this year City Manager Robert Layton introduced budgetary ideas to Mayor Jeff Longwell and the City Council that proposed drastic cuts and eliminations of some libraries, public pools, Cowtown, and City Arts in order to “balance” the increased costs of our police force.
Wichita artist Wade Hampton earned his chops in the '90s as a member of The Famous Dead Artists. It took a lot of hype to get people interested in coming to art exhibitions and an artist had to crow like a rooster to make that happen.
Wichita artist Jim Simpson is a fisherman. Fishing and being out in nature is a mission for Mr. Simpson.
I went to artist John Boyd’s funeral back in 2012. Everyone who entered was handed a scroll of canvas on which was printed a self portrait of John in a priestly robe.
When I was a kid I was squirrelly and scared. I didn’t like school much and my parents were having marital problems back then. You could feel the tension in my house.
A friend of mine called me last week and said she was at an estate sale and had found something that caught her eye. She texted me a quick photo and I agreed she should buy it. She paid $200 for what is a signed Peter Max lithograph worth $3000.
If an artist is influenced by other artists, and I believe we all are, I would say that my biggest influences over the last decade have been painters and sculptors who happen to be women.
The Fiber Studio is preparing an intriguing show of two of Wichita’s great artists, Richard Thomas Siegman and Ginger Tarrer.
Wichita painter Charlotte Martin possesses great power, earthiness, and a sharp wit that flows into her work. These qualities show in the line and color that combine to make a Martin painting memorable and engrossing.
I have a solo show at the Sandzen Gallery in Lindsborg this November. So here’s a typical week for me in preparation for that gig:
Local artist Mike Miller is a super-prolific force. Possessing the work ethic of a 19th-century farmer, and a deep feeling for nature, Miller takes old farm machinery, discarded motors, gears, tree limbs, and hundred-pound rocks, then sculpts them into fully powered, automated works of art. These finished machines, combining man-made with nature, are both highly sophisticated and profoundly artful.
Before there was Final Friday in Wichita one could go out and experience art exhibit openings in local galleries at least three weekends per month. And there was time to take in the show and really enjoy the work because we weren’t fighting to get to all the exhibits before they closed. There might be an opening on Friday night and then another on Saturday night. And it meant constant openings throughout each month. It was exciting!
The City of Wichita has released its vague budget-cutting plan and CityArts is presented as a prime target. In the plan, buried on page 41, is a simple paragraph, under the heading “Cultural Funding” which states that arts in Wichita have evolved since CityArts was originally opened. And that one option is to restructure CityArts operations. Estimated savings: $100,000 to $300,000.
Well, the City of Wichita is planning to take a chain saw to Wichita CityArts—that beautiful three-story complex in Old Town next to the Warren Theater. They want to close the gallery space and the small boutique inside for starters, and who knows what else. CityArts is a 20-year-old entity and it is the rock and cornerstone of the entire Wichita arts community.
When a gallery in New York City has been in business for 15 years they say, “Wow, what a great run.” A 40-year gallery run in New York is almost unheard of. Now, when a Wichita man opens up a gallery and it lasts for 40 years he must be referred to as “Senex Artis” - the Latin for “The Old Man of Art.”
Artist Fred Wassall, born in 1904, moved to Wichita from his home of Birmingham, England, around 1926. He had visited his brother here and decided he liked the small town with the big city flair.
Painter Tim Stone is incendiary. At least in the annals of Kansas art. A Tim Stone painting is ‘60s surf contemporary meets New York savoir faire, blended in a Kansas tornado, and best viewed while listening to “Mother of Pearl” by Roxy Music, over and over again. Does that put it safely in a caviar tin for you?
An invitational or juried art show happens when an art entity chooses a known artist to select submitted artwork, these days via e-mail, from other artists around the country. These electronic submissions are chosen with no context or point of reference for either the piece or the submitting artist. The chosen works make up the show and the known artist then juries the show and awards winners.
I want so badly to label the type of work Wichita painter Jack Wilson does. But nothing quite fits.
Wichita artist Charlie Lavacek died on January 31st of this year. My friend Charlie chose to die on the day of a total lunar eclipse with a super-blue blood moon, a sky spectacle not seen in more than 150 years.
The Salina Biennial exhibition at the Salina Art Center is a super crisp show of technical and conceptual strength by 42 artists from 10 states up the middle of the country.
The new exhibition “Monet to Matisse,” now on view at the Wichita Art Museum, is lovely. On loan from the Brooklyn Museum, the show features 59 works from the French Moderns dating from 1850 through 1950.
Back in the late '90s I would occasionally hang out with the great Wichita painter Shirley Glickman. She would invite me to run errands with her in her white Volvo station wagon. She would randomly call me and invite me over for Sunday brunch.
I attended the opening of Kansas painter William Counter’s exhibition last Friday night at City Arts. The show is entitled “Red Stripe” and is an explosive exhibition. The show beckons the viewer through the front door with great color and message.
The news is out about the new and wonderful $22 million Mark Arts complex, which opened at Rock Road and 13th Street last week. I think we are extremely lucky to have this jewel in Wichita.
It’s now 2018! Happy New Year! I’d like to share my Arts Wish List for 2018 with you, so here it goes:
I am an artist. I chose this path many years ago. It is how I identify myself. This path is fraught with disaster.
I took a drive downtown yesterday to go to the home office of Emprise Bank. I wanted to take a look at some of the art featured in the collection known as “The Art of Emprise.”
Tomorrow begins the holiday season. I wish you all the best. You will be buying gifts. Why not buy art?
“The Broken Winter” is the title of Wichita artist Emily Brookover’s 4th solo show. I have long been a fan of Ms. Brookover’s work. I have never seen any artist approach graphite on paper with such crisp precision.
I recently read an article by world renowned painter David Salle in which he explained one of the things that is most valuable to him. It is a painting by Wichitan William Dickerson. Salle grew up in Wichita and painters Bill Dickerson and his wife Betty were both Mr. Salle’s art teachers at the Wichita Art Association. Bill had turned down a chance to teach at the Art Institute of Chicago in order to return to Wichita and begin teaching in 1931.
Like everyone, I was caught off guard and stunned by the mass death and injury that occurred recently in Las Vegas. This shocking event, along with the perils our American brothers and sisters are facing in Puerto Rico made it seem that any commentary I might make about art feel forced and weak.
Last Saturday it was 90+ degrees. It was the day the 2nd round of murals to be painted in the Douglas Design District lifted off and began. My wife Taeko and I went out to explore the different sites.
I've always felt that a sculptor suffers most for his or her art. To coax emotion and greatness from stone, steel, bronze, or wood is torturous.
While the story of Lindsborg Artist Mike Hartung is a delicious one, it is also achingly sad.
My wife Taeko and I recently took our 2-year-old granddaughter, Hazel, to the Wichita Art Museum's outdoor sculpture garden. The late afternoon was gorgeous and Hazel was captivated by the great sculptural works and the beautiful plant life.
This week, consider packing yourself a sack lunch and heading down to City Arts. In the 2nd floor gallery you will find the new exhibition Bibs & Forks Food Invitational.
I'm getting older. I'm 58. I started seriously selling my art when I was 26. I get to see some of that 32-year-old work from time to time and am struck by the directions I took.
Jean-Michel Basquiat died of a heroin overdose at age 27 in 1988 after having been a professional artist for only 7 years.
I know this woman, artist Chiyoko Myose. And knowing her makes her current exhibition--Movements of Thread-- on view at City Arts confirm what I have always known: Her work is a real extension of her being--her actual soul.
"Pierced By Dogma" is the name of painter Patrick Duegaw's exhibition currently on view at the Ulrich. Upon entering the show of Duegaw self-portraits, I found what is, essentially, the artist stripped bare.
Kelsy Gossett is off like a Saturn Five rocket with her new exhibition called "For Your Viewing Pleasure" at The Diver on Commerce Street.
Last Final Friday was colossal. There were wonderful events happening all over the city and artists and collectors were out in full force.
The late artist Robert Smithson said that "Cultural confinement takes place when a curator imposes his or her own limits on an art exhibition, rather than asking an artist to set his or her own limits."
Surely by now you have purchased and are flying your Wichita flag! You feel the current and see how we, the Wichita people, are on fire and looking out for our city's growth and welfare. I hope you share these facts with your out-of-town friends as well.
Author Sondra Langel wrote the recent book Wichita Artists In Their Studios. The book of colorful photos and crisp essays features 50 Wichita-based artists and the studios in which they each create. The popular book is a great tribute to just 50 of the many great, hard-working artists in Wichita.
A painter wishes to take a subject matter, render that image, and then capture the viewer. But when a painter can make the viewer truly pause and soak the image up while considering deeper meanings and feelings, the painter has become--or at least is on the road to becoming--a master. And this is a rare thing.
Wichita is our little city. We take ownership of it. We take our city to heart with immense pride. Art in our city is flourishing because we have made it so. The word is out that Wichita has an art scene because we made that happen.
On June 5, 2012, the Wichita community suffered a huge loss when one of our great local artists, Diane Thomas Lincoln passed away. The loss was sudden. This beautiful soul and talent, with a heart as big as the sun was here smiling one day and simply gone the next.
So much has been said about the return of the Joan Miro’s mural, "BIRD PEOPLE" at the Ulrich Museum, I feel that Miro is part of our community. We should know more about the man himself.
Ian Stewart's work is to local art what Iggy Pop's music is to rock and roll. Place yourself in its midst and you'll get a full dose, right in the face.
Painter Jack Wilson was recently overlooked for the fine, just-published book Wichita Artists In Their Studios. One or two things may be possible here: Jack Wilson often flies under the radar, and Jack Wilson and his work may be too cool for such a book.
My wife, Taeko, and I include photography in our small art collection at home. I believe photography is often under-appreciated in fine arts circles in America. Thankfully, we have a photographer-artist in Wichita who devotes her life to the fine art of photography. She's Linda K. Robinson, owner of the Midwest Center for Photography, on Franklin Street in Riverside.
I received my monthly art publications in the mail this week and I found myself first rifling through them, looking at images, and identifying all the crap. Maybe I'm just grouchy this week, but I'm sick and bored of "art-as-trend."
When I lived away from Wichita and I would come home to visit, I would always take some time and drive Douglas Avenue from Oliver to the river. My beloved Douglas is the artery with the real pulse in Wichita.
More than 100,000 Iraqi refugees have resettled in the United States in the past decade.
Chuck Dooms and his cell phone camera are to photography what the 4-track recorder is to rock-and-roll.
In this week's ?An Artist's Perspective, KMUW Art Reviewer Curt Clonts reviews the work of artist/illustrator Kylie Millward, and also interviews her in the KMUW studio. Here's both:
I moved back to Wichita and started making my art here in 1991. I was very lucky to find and surround myself with many artists who were searching and fighting to make a mark with their work like I was. We pushed ourselves and fought to get our names out there in every possible way. The energy was rock and roll, the art scene became electric and new collectors began to buy. This energy phoneme became the '90's art explosion which helped propel Wichita in to the art city it is today.
According to Johns Hopkins researchers, in a study entitled "Neuroeducation: Learning, Art & the Brain" students with arts education excel at a greater rate in all studies and stand a far better chance of graduating and going on to college.
Connie and John Ernatt's sculpture and painting exhibition titled: "New Works" is an epic, colossal triumph of the first order that deserves our attendance, full attention, and appreciation.
I do not wish to be another of the hangers-on over the sad news of David Bowie's death. Like many others, his music has meant the world to me. I even tried to emulate him during his Thin White Duke period, only to realize that I couldn't afford the wardrobe and wasn't hip enough to carry it off, anyway.
There has been a quiet, brilliant force taking place at the hands of Wichita painter, digital artist, and graphic designer Dustin Parker. Since April 2007, Parker has been publishing an online blog known as Proteus Mag, and the results have been extraordinary.
A new exhibit by artist Ann Resnick titled "Local and State" is on view now at The Steckline Gallery at Newman University, and features what I believe is her strongest work to date.
A new exhibition at the Wichita Art Museum called Dialogue: Drawings from the 20th Century is a must-see for several reasons.
Well friends, this is my last segment as KMUW’s arts commentator. Over the past 5 years, it’s been my immense pleasure to take in an incredible array of art exhibitions and meet some of the finest artists I’ve ever known.
Think of a mechanical pencil and the cylinder of graphite peeking out of end—just a half-millimeter thick. Now, imagine a long, white sheet of paper, unfurled in front of you. Where do you make the first mark? It’s daunting to think about drawing this way, but this is what artist Robyn O’Neil is known for.
The Ulrich Museum on the WSU campus is featuring several important dialogues on race, history, poverty and suffering this winter.
This winter, you have many opportunities to learn more about Kansas photographer Gordon Parks.
“Best of” lists are popping up everywhere, so here is my top 5 local art shows of 2015.
The Wichita Art Museum is currently displaying the exhibition, Scenery, Story, Spirit: American Painting and Sculpture from the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. This selection of art on WAM’s second floor presents an overview of mostly 19th century landscapes, still life, genre paintings and portraiture.
Adult coloring books are a gaining popularity, including here in Wichita. This phenomenon has been the topic of nationally published articles, many of which claim that the soothing activity of coloring decreases stress and anxiety, and helps adults practice mindfulness.
Unpaid labor is a big problem in the arts. Artists, writers and a host of other creative professionals spend their early careers working for free in order to hack into the industry. This phase is often treated as a rite-of-passage, but now unpaid work persists well beyond these fledgling years. Artists and writers continue to be asked by institutions and non-profit organizations for their work, in exchange for “exposure.”
One of my favorite writers at the moment is New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz. Saltz is always an entertaining read. He may not be everyone’s up of tea, but I love his conversant writing style, sense of humor, shrewd insights and his utter fearlessness when it comes to sharing what he thinks.
History is complicated. For the exhibition Postdate: Photography and Inherited History in India at the Ulrich Museum, nine contemporary South Asian artists examine their colonial history through the medium of photography.
Since commentator Lindsey Herkommer-DeVries works at the WSU School of Art, Design, and Creative Industries, guest arts commentator Bill North, the Executive Director of the Salina Arts Center, reviewed the 20th faculty biennial exhibition at the WSU school.
For art lovers, New York City is a treasure trove. I recently spent a few days there and saw some truly iconic works of art.
I attended Sedgwick County’s budget proposal meeting on Monday, and it was sobering. Chief Financial Officer Chris Chronis laid out the proposed budget, and it’s clear the county is focused on debt reduction and funding what they call “core” functions, like roads and bridges. They are not interested in taking loans, or bonding, or increasing revenues.
The Wichita Art Museum currently has an exhibition of five local artists called Art’s Pure Voice: Abstraction in Wichita. The title is lifted from artist and educator Hans Hofmann.
The Wichita Art Museum recently opened three spotlight exhibitions: Liza Lou Gather (one million), Stuart Allen: Kansas, Low Resolution and Shawn Decker: Prairie. I expected these shows were going to be housed in three separate galleries, but all are installed in the museum’s large second floor gallery.
I have lived in Wichita for nearly five years and never been to Riverfest. I’ve never really wanted to go - until this year. And there is a major reason why.
Some of my most treasured photographs come from two local photo booths: Lamphouse Photo Co. and Linnebur & Miller. These are two distinctly different operations, but both provide unconventional experiences for truly remarkable photographs.
With April’s Final Friday came the opening of FischHaus’s women’s invitational XX/7. Originally, the show began with the selection of five female artists, all Wichita-based.
March Final Friday was incredible! Yet, there was one show that people raved about, The Six Machinations of Art Expo at Diver Studio—and for good reason.
If you’ve been to the Wichita Art Museum to see the daguerreotype exhibition Photographic Wonders but did not go downstairs, you missed a significant show.
I attended the Mayoral Candidate Forum hosted by The Arts Council last week, and I’ve been thinking a lot about what happened.
The Wichita Art Museum has unveiled their newest exhibition Photographic Wonders: American Daguerreotypes from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. A Daguerreotype is one of the earliest forms of photography. Invented in France by Louis Daguerre in 1839, Daguerre revolutionized scientific observation as well as art. He discovered how to fix an image on to a silver plate with out it fading away – something his predecessors had not yet solved.
This Saturday, the Ulrich Museum opens the exhibition Evan Roth//Intellectual Property Donor. Roth’s work lives at the intersection of technology, graffiti and gallery art.
2014 brought us some stellar art exhibitions! Some of my favorites were: the Ulrich Museum’s Bruce Connor retrospective; American Moderns at the Wichita Art Museum; Randy Regier’s installation of TYTON at the Salina Arts Center; and George Ferrandi’s performance for Harvester Arts that gave a small, but lucky audience an experience that changed hearts, minds and opinions on Performance Art – I know it did for me.
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I would like to share some things for which I’m thankful.
If you thought September’s Final Friday was busy, this Final Friday is bursting with exhibitions!
The Wichita Art Museum opened its fall exhibition, American Moderns 1910 – 1960: From Georgia O’Keeffe to Norman Rockwell. The show features 57 artworks from the Brooklyn Museum of Art, a museum with a renowned American Art collection. This traveling exhibition summarizes Modernism in the United States by laying out thematic contexts for a variety of painting styles and subject matter.
The Ulrich Museum’s fall exhibition Bruce Conner: Somebody Else’s Prints is a retrospective that celebrates 60 years of Bruce Conner’s print works. Conner grew up in Wichita and attended University of Wichita. He settled in San Francisco by 1957, and soon became a key visual artist of the Beat generation.
Tom Otterness is a New York-based artist from Wichita who has two notable sculptures in town. His Dreamers Awake stands in front of the Wichita Art Museum, and Millipede, or “Millie” as she is lovingly referred to, is nestled in front of the Ulrich Museum on WSU’s campus.
Wichita is currently part of a nation-wide project called Art Everywhere U.S., which calls itself "The biggest outdoor art show ever conceived." Art Everywhere displays images of artwork in outdoor advertising spaces.
While Anne Schaefer was here for her two-week stay as artist-in-residence for Harvester Arts, she conquered Shift Space Gallery with her signature stripes and dots for a vibrant installation titled In The Thick of It.
Working on the installation Sen by artist Lisa Solomon was an all-hands-on-deck affair at the Ulrich Underground. I was one of many on the team and its completion was nothing short of a Herculean effort.
Artist and activist Armando Minjarez has been busy! He’s the driving force behind the ICT Army of Artists, responsible for the Immigration is Beautiful mural – and its loving restorations after it was defaced.
The Kansas African American Museum opened a new show this past weekend commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Summer of 1964.
This month the Ulrich Underground honors a beloved member of our community, Ruth Ann Martin, in the exhibition, Fill It to the Brim.
The Wichita Art Museum’s permanent collection has strong holdings in Early Modernism from the United States, with notable artists such as: Edward Hopper, Arthur Dove, John Singleton Copley and Mary Cassatt. But did you know it also has an exceptional collection of American glass?
I recently traveled to the Salina Arts Center for the maiden voyage of the TYTON - an installation by artist Randy Regier and writer and director Gail Lerner. Both led a workshop-in-residence at the Center. Regier and Lerner worked together and collaborated with the community to create a fictional luxury submarine cruise liner called TYTON.
There has been a lot of performance art in Wichita lately: ProjectvRunaway for WSU Shift Space, George Ferrandi with Harvester Arts, and The Bridge Club brought in by the Ulrich Museum.
This is the final weekend for the exhibition FREE TEXTS by Stephanie Syjuco at the Ulrich Museum.
On Commerce Street, you can find a number of art galleries, but there is one that I would even hesitate to call a “gallery.” It’s really a restoration workshop with a space for art up front.
Have you ever seen that print of the word “LOVE”? It has red capitalized letters, each stacked on one another like the four quadrants of a Cartesian grid, but with the “O” slightly tilted.
For February’s Final Friday, Fisch Haus hosted a multi-media, interpretative art installation they called Shattered Telephone. The concept is a blend of the grade-school game "Broken Telephone" and, of similar structure, the Surrealist poetic technique called "Exquisite Corpse."
Wichita is full of amazing public art that gives our city character. It belongs to all of us. And when it is vandalized, it hurts. It hurts emotionally, financially and it hurts the culture of our city.
The Ulrich Museum’s exhibition Juvenile in Justice presents the award–winning work of photographer Richard Ross.
Andy Goldsworthy is a British sculptor who travels all over the world to create site-specific sculptures.
It’s the New Year, and with it comes the excitement of change and things to come. Galleries are preparing for their newest shows, but for 2014 the Ulrich Museum is taking the bull by the horns with four new exhibitions opening in January.
During the Christmas season, we are surrounded by images of Santa Claus-- yes, that jolly, rotund man with his famous white beard on a mission to deliver presents to children around the world. We see Santa surrounded by elves and reindeer at the North Pole, but where did this image of Santa Claus come from?
The Christmas décor in grocery stores and shopping centers gets trotted out earlier and earlier every year. Now, Christmas decorations replace the Halloween costumes and treats. This leap from skeletons to silver bells means that Thanksgiving is left to us to keep traditions with family and friends alive.
Francisco Zúñiga’s “Three Women Walking” seems to be a straightforward representation, but subtleties in expression, gesture and formal technique indicate there is more going on.
On November 8th and 9th, the Ulrich Museum and the Wichita Art Museum team up for a joint symposium called Nature’s Impact, Art’s Force. While the title is a little awkward, the collective symposium appears intriguing, as it will tackle issues of nature, ecology and technology through the lens of contemporary art.
This week, I returned to the Wichita Art Museum eager to visit the exhibition: Learning to See: Josef Albers and The Interaction of Color.
This month, the Wichita Art Museum opened “Vital Signs: New Media Art from the San Jose Museum of Art.”
One of the premiere events happening this Final Friday is the grand re-opening of WSU Shift Space.
Over the Labor Day weekend, the Ulrich Museum opened their new fall exhibition: Nature’s Toolbox: Biodiversity, Art and Invention. The exhibition aims to raise awareness of the human impact on the environment.
Painter David Salle came to prominence in the 1980s when there seemed to be a lull in major American artists on the international contemporary art scene.
What is the difference between Modern art and contemporary art? Generally, the response to this question goes something like this: “Contemporary” is a term that refers to art made today by living artists. “Modern” art refers to the art movement of Modernism—with a capital M—which began around the 1850s and concluded mid-20th century.
Louise Nevelson was a key American sculptor in the mid-20th century. Her Modernist artwork changed the world of sculpture – much like what Jackson Pollock did for painting.
I love museums in the summer. What’s better than the beautifully cool environment of a museum when you need a break from the intense heat of the day?
A wonderful new collaboration has received the support from the prestigious John S and James L Knight Foundation. Activate Wichita, a website that serves as a virtual town hall, has partnered with the Wichita Public Library to commission temporary art installations in vacant downtown windows.
The portraits of California-based artist Ray Turner engage viewers with their direct gaze and thick, luscious strokes of oil paint that rest on top of 12-by-12-inch panels of glass.
The Keeper of the Plains is a monumental sculpture that marks the confluence of the Big and Little Arkansas Rivers. Rising 44 feet in the air, this Cor-Ten steel sculpture of a Native American chief is a popular site for Wichita visitors and residents alike. The proud figure stands tall with his back arched, offering something invisible to the sky with his upturned palms. The crisp lines of the stylized figure give it striking silhouette. But the large headdress and waving fringe gives the figure movement and life.
April’s Final Friday was absolutely splendid. One show that really caught my attention was Randy Regier’s solo exhibition But Wait, There’s More at Diver Studio.
Over the weekend, the Ulrich Museum of Art opened their 19th Faculty Biennial. On display are works from 20 faculty members from the WSU School of Art and Design. Both adjunct and tenured faculty alike give a sampling of their studio work.
This spring, CityArts presents the work of the local artist collective “Famous Dead Artists” in an eclectic, action-packed, 20-year retrospective called Pushin’ Up Daisies.
Two exhibitions opened this past Final Friday at the Mid-America Fine Arts Gallery, in the Commerce Plaza building on Douglas.
The mural by Joan Miró titled “Bird People” makes the façade of the Ulrich Museum an icon of the city. But currently the Miró mural is down for extensive cleaning and conservation.
This past weekend, painter and Wichita native Curt Clonts opened his solo exhibition at Bluebird Arthouse with a title that, well, I can't write here, but it conveys the self-deprecating humor that makes Clonts so likeable.
On the last Friday of every month, local art galleries keep their doors open late for visitors.
The Wichita Art Museum opened a new show this past weekend. The exhibition is Under Pressure: Prints from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and his Family Foundation. This exhibition features 40 artists from this private collection of postwar American artists.
This past weekend, the Ulrich Museum opened their newest exhibition Stocked: Contemporary Art from the Grocery Aisles. This exhibition is Dr. Emily Stamey’s final show, and she left Wichita with a true gem. For Dr. Stamey, Stocked is a culmination of three years of research-- and several more of personal interest-- in food production, distribution, marketing and consumption. She married this interest with her scholarly background in Pop Art for an exhibition that is accessible, engaging and challenging-- a hard chord to strike.
Early January always holds such great optimism. A new year. A fresh start. A clean slate. This fades of course as the daily grind, well, grinds away. But until then, reveling in the newness of the year feels great. And with this excitement, I look to what Wichita has in store for the arts in 2013.
Looks like we’ve survived another apocalypse! Or, really, the apocalyptic hype of the Maya calendar, which concluded its 13th b’aktun (a time period of about 393 years) on December 21, 2012. Since this date, holiday meals have been eaten and presents exchanged, and now we, too, turn to face our new year. And, as the Maya elders state, we enter into a new era where a better world is possible.
The Wichita Art Museum has assembled a new exhibition from their permanent collection. It’s called “Occupy Art: Protest and Empathy for the Worker.”
This Final Friday, Go-Away Garage on South Commerce offers the show The Function of Form: New Works by Emily R. Brookover. The show is an eclectic collection of intimate drawings small enough to be doodles-- but they are so highly rendered, it would be a shame to call them that.
As family comes into town for the Thanksgiving holiday, show them the creative side of Wichita. Many of the city’s museums will keep normal business hours next week-- except for the holiday itself-- which gives Wichitans a chance to show off their city.
On Friday, the Wichita Art Museum debuts a new series of events they’re calling “Art Chatter.” In collaboration with WAM Contemporaries and the Young Professionals of Wichita, this event offers a fresh way to learn about projects, happenings, and current thoughts on the local art scene. It’s a renewed effort to make the museum a dynamic place for the community; a place that reflects the range of creative spirits in Wichita.