New Missouri Bank Presents ARTBORDS this December

The Missouri Bank Crossroads Branch, 125 Southwest Boulevard, will debut four new large-scale commissioned images, by Lawrence, Kansas-based artist Jerry Kunkel and Kansas City-based artist Adolfo Martinez on its "Artboards" in time for First Friday December, 2010.  An Art through Architecture "Art Achievement" project, the Missouri Bank "Artboards" launched fall 2008, when the building's existing double-sided billboards were renovated and converted into a highly visible site for work by area artists as part of the bank's purchase and renovation of the building to house its Crossroads Branch, completed by Helix Architecture + Design.
 
Jerry Kunkel will present two west-facing images, titled Memories Are..., which play with ideas of fact and fiction, past and present, the nature of memory, and the veracity of photographic representation. "I've created a narrative in which I refer to and re-locate a specific location." says Kunkel. With the left billboard, the postcard image and the image of the location to which it compares are exactly the same, as though no time has passed, or as if it has remained "the way we remember it and might wish it remain forever." On the right billboard, however, the back, or message side of the postcard is presented against a different or changed location, with a gate now obstructing the bucolic path. Prompted by the postcard's text, Kunkel invites the viewer "to fill in the blanks, conjure a short response, and consider what may have transpired."

The title of Adolfo Martinez's playful set of east-facing images is We are Not in Kansas Anymore.  His idea for these Artboards came from an earlier series titled Los Rovatos. "'Vato' is pachoco slang for 'dude.'  I just added 'ro' to the front of it - 'Rovatos,'" says Martinez.  "In the original Los Rovatos, the robots are speaking Spanish and are wearing some 'bling', but for the billboard images I changed the background to a Kansas City skyline, with the 'rovatos' beaming down from outer space."  Martinez's two Artboards feature robots pulled from pop culture: Robby the Robot, from the movie "Forbidden Planet," Gort from "The Day the Earth Stood Still," and robots  from "Lost in Space," "March of the Robots," Fritz Lang's "Metropolis, " and a B movie called "Robot Monster."  While injecting a sense of humor and fantasy into the downtown landscape, this line-up of visitors from different eras and planets also offers a poignant portrait of changing cultural portrayals of the futuristic "other."
 
About the Artists:
Jerry Kunkel received his BS from Ashland College in Ashland Ohio and his MFA from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois.  Emeritus Professor at University of Colorado at Boulder where he taught for many years and chaired the Department of Fine Arts, Kunkel relocated to Lawrence, Kansas several years ago.  His work has been widely exhibited, including at Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Kansas City; Robischon Gallery, Denver; Mizel Center for the Arts and Culture, Denver; Denver Art Museum;  Boulder Center for the Visual Artists, Boulder; Whitney Museum of Art, New York; University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and elsewhere. His work is featured in the collections of Exxon Corporation, Denver Art Museum, Kirkland Museum in Denver, Sun Valley Center for the Arts and Humanities, among many others. Kunkel is represented by Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, Kansas City, and Robischon Gallery, Denver. Visit jerrykunkel.wordpress.com for more about his work.
 
Adolfo Martinez received his BFA from Ban American University in Edinburg, Texas. He was born and raised in Kansas City by parents who emigrated from Mexico City.  A 2008 recipient of a Charlotte Street Visual Artist Award, Martinez's work has been featured in solo and group shows at venues in the Kansas City area including the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Mattie Rhodes Art Gallery, the Late Show, la Esquina (a Charlotte Street Urban Culture Project venue), the Writer's Place, and Cara and Cabezos Contemporary, among others. Martinez received a 2010 Midwestern Voices and Visions award from the Joyce Foundation and the Alliance of Artists Communities, which included a one-month residency at the Prairie Center of the Arts in Peoria, Illinois. For more information, visit www.adolfogustavomartinez.com.
 
About the "Artboards":
The Missouri Bank "Artboards" project began in fall 2008, when the building's existing double-sided billboards were renovated and converted into a highly visible site for work by area artists as part of Missouri Bank's purchase and renovation of the building to house its Crossroads Branch. Every four months, the boards will display a set of newly commissioned artworks, produced as digital prints on ECO-flex, a new, "green" billboard material. Thus far, the Artboards have featured works by Kansas City artists Warren Rosser, Jaimie Warren, Archie Scott Gobber, Miki Baird, Elijah Gowin, Emily Sall, Grant Miller, May Tveit, Allan Winkler, Mike Sinclair, Anne Lindberg, and Paul Shortt.
 
Designed by Helix Architecture + Design, Missouri Bank's Crossroads Branch was the first Kansas City area building project to gain "Art Achievement" through Art through Architecture (AtA), a partnership of American Institute of Architects-Kansas City and Charlotte Street Foundation designed to encourage collecting and commissioning work by Kansas City area artists through architectural practice. Through AtA, new architectural projects may earn Gold, Silver or Bronze levels of Art Achievement by dedicating a percentage of the total construction budget to collecting artworks, commissioning temporary or permanent artworks, and/or including artists on design teams. The Missouri Bank Crossroads project, which also includes commissioned sculpture by artist Jesse Small, earned Gold-level Art Achievement from Art through Architecture.
 
Future artists for the Artboards will be selected by Missouri Bank representatives from Art through Architecture's artist database, accessible on-line at www.ArtArch.org.  For more information contact Kate Hackman, Administrator, Art through Architecture Art Committee/Associate Director, Charlotte Street Foundation, at 816.994.7731 or kate@charlottestreet.org.

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