Charlotte Street Foundation's Urban Culture Project Presents ARRIVAL/DEPARTURE 4/9

Charlotte Street Foundation's Urban Culture Project presents ARRIVAL / DEPARTURE at La Esquina, which is located at 1000 West 25th Street KCMO 64108.

The opening reception is set for Friday, April 9th from 6-9PM with performance by Leone Reeves & gallery talk with artists beginning at 6pm.

Exhibition Hours are Thursdays and Saturdays from 12-5PM by by appointment only.

Featured Artists include Cortney Andrews (Brooklyn, NY), Anthony Baab (Kansas City, MO), Jonah Criswell (Kansas City, MO), Peter Demos (Brooklyn, NY), Dennis Dotty (St. Louis) , Rachel Frank (Brooklyn, NY), Lauren McEntire (Kansas City, MO) , Martin Murphy (Astoria, NY), Shawn Powell (Astoria, NY), Leone Reeves (Kansas City, MO) and Alexis Semtner (Brooklyn, NY).

Curators are Maria Elena Buszek & Jonah Criswell (Kansas City, MO).

The exhibition Arrival/Departure brings together early career artists who recognize Kansas City as the site of their first significant contact with the art world, and as the place that launched them on careers as professional artists. A microcosm of contemporary art discourse, the Kansas City arts community informed the mediums, concepts and trajectories of these fledgling artist/thinkers. This exhibition brings back to Kansas City young Kansas City Art Institute alumni who have since gone on to build careers in other cities, as well as showcasing the work of peers who have remained here, or moved back to Kansas City after living and/or studying in other places. Since their undergraduate study at KCAI, these artists have gone to some of the country's most prestigious graduate programs, exhibited regularly (both nationally and internationally), and worked closely with established artists, theorists and curators.

Decisively broad, Arrival/Departure explores the faces and concerns of art today, in work ranging from installation, performance and sculpture to experimen tal drawing, fiber based works, painting and photography. It encompasses such con cerns as: the animal, abstraction, body and memory, causality, domesticity, pop culture and the sublime. When placed in relation to each other, the themes made manifest in each artist's body of work begins to articulate a system of complex concerns that are vital to field of contemporary art today. And in varied ways, each artist shares their current destination with their point of origin.

Further information about participating artists, including resumes and artist statements, available upon request.

Maria Elena Buszek, Ph.D. is a scholar, critic, curator, and Assistant Professor of Art History in the School of Liberal Arts, Kansas City Art Institute, where she teaches courses on Modern and Contemporary art. In this capacity, she has informed, influenced and encouraged many young artists, including those featured in Arrival/Departure.

Buszek's recent publications include the books Pin-Up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture and Extra/ordinary: Craft and contemporary art; contributions to the anthologies It's Time for Action (There's No Option): About Feminism, Blaze: Discourse on Art, Women, and Feminism and Contemporary Artists; catalogue essays for numerous national and international exhibitions; and articles and criticism in such journals as Art in America, Photography Quarterly, and TDR: The Journal of Performance Studies. Dr. Buszek is also a prolific curator, whose more recent exhibitions include the 2006 Charlotte Street Awards, the traveling exhibition Raised in Craftivity, and Extra/ordinary: Fiber Artists Rethinking Art and Everyday Life. Before arriving at KCAI, she served as a curatorial assistant at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Jonah Criswell received his BFA from Kansas City Art Institute and MFA from Pennsylvania State University, and has taught at both schools. At Penn State, Criswell initiated and chaired an off-campus graduate student exhibition project in New York, which is now mandatory for all Penn State MFA graduate students, and worked with Pennsylvania State University's Art History program to create professional opportunities for their graduates. He is currently Assistant Director of Admissions at Kansas City Art Institute, where he has created scholarship programs for underrepresented students from across the U.S. Criswell is an Urban Culture Project Studio resident who exhibits nationally and internationally.

Urban Culture Project is an initiative of the Charlotte Street Foundation, an organization dedicated to making Kansas City a place where artists and art thrive. Urban Culture Project creates new opportunities for artists of all disciplines and contributes to urban revitalization by transforming spaces in downtown Kansas City into new venues for multi-disciplinary contemporary arts programming. For more information, visit www.charlottestreet.org.

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