Our Man IN KC: An Art Trip, Yoli Tortilleria, and KCAI Art & Design Auction

Damian Lair with acclaimed artist Hank Willis Thomas.

KC Arts—In NYC

Have you ever received an email from one of your favorite local arts organizations offering the chance to experience another city through the lens of its art, simultaneously pulling on surprising connecting threads to Kansas City? In the past year alone, I’ve received such tantalizing invitations from The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, the Kansas City Symphony, and local art advisor Toma Wolff. Undoubtedly, there are more.

This past month, I had the extreme privilege of playing a modest role in organizing an arts trip to New York City in partnership with The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey. It was my first foray into (group) art tourism, and it will undoubtedly not be my last.

The primary occasion for our visit was the opening of Edges of Ailey at the Whitney Museum of American Art. It is the first large-scale museum exhibition to celebrate the life, dances, influences, and enduring legacy of the visionary artist and choreographer Alvin Ailey.

The Kansas City connection here was strong. Ailey frequented Kansas City and commissioned works related to Kansas City. But he also wished for the official second home to the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre to be established here. It was.

Instrumental in that process was Allan Gray, a long-time friend of Ailey’s. When Mr. Ailey passed, he entrusted his personal effects to Gray. The Allan Gray Family Personal Papers of Alvin Ailey include notebooks, calendars, correspondence, and Ailey’s book library—all reflecting the dynamic energy of a restless creative mind. The articles belong on a long-term loan from Gray to the Black Archives of Mid-America in Kansas City, and they were the foundation for this mammoth exhibit that currently occupies the full 5th floor of the Whitney Museum.

Interspersed among the illustrative personal items are monumental artworks by more than 80 artists—some of whom knew Ailey during his life, and others who were commissioned to create works inspired by Ailey’s life. Some legendary artists represented include Jean-Michel Basquiat, Rashid Johnson, Kara Walker, Glenn Ligon, Kerry James Marshall, and Mickalene Thomas. Our group not only received special invitations to the Whitney’s dazzling preopening fête, but we were the very first to receive a tour with the curatorial staff prior to the exhibit’s official opening. It was a rare and savored experience.

I’ll shamelessly tick through a few of our other unduplicable exploits—each of which could be its own column. We met with artist Paul Anthony Smith for a private tour of his new show, Antillean, at the renowned Jack Shainman Gallery. The humble and talented Jamaican is a proud product of and return visitor to the Kansas City Art Institute. I will not rest until one of his pictotage artworks hangs on my wall. We visited a show of Liza Lou’s works, whose mind-blowing beaded artwork began to gain attention when two of her works, Kitchen and Back Yard (both environments were created with millions of glass beads and required years of assembly), were first shown together in 1998 at our very own Kemper Museum. We later saw her incredible Trailer work, recently installed permanently in the Brooklyn Museum’s lobby entrance. (The tour was graciously provided by Catherine Futter, the former director of curatorial affairs at the Nelson-Atkins and who is now in that role at the Brooklyn Museum.)

Another not-accessible-to-the-public experience was the visit to the preserved apartment and studio of the late artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Residents of Kansas City in 1978 will vividly remember their site-specific work Wrapped Walk Ways in Loose Park. More than 135,000 square feet of saffron-colored nylon fabric covered nearly three miles of park walkways. It was the infancy of these massive, fabric-based artworks, whose sites later included cities such as New York, Paris, London, Miami, and Berlin. Christo and Jeanne-Claude desperately needed a city open-minded enough to let two artists’ imaginations run wild. Kansas City opened the door, and the world is forever changed.

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One evening we were entertained at the apartment of Raymond McGuire and Crystal McCray, who have amassed perhaps the most significant private collection of works by Black artists. Waitstaff passed canapes and Champagne as we enjoyed unfettered access to their two-story Central Park West apartment. Incredible does not begin to describe. While there, Thelma Golden, the director and chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, dropped by to raise a glass to Julián Zugazagoitia, her dear friend who she has known and admired since his pre-Nelson-Atkins days, when he served as director of the Museo del Barrio in New York City.

While there were many more illustrious stops along our journey, a portion of the final day with Hank Willis Thomas at his Brooklyn studio left me speechless. He is one of the most celebrated artists of our time, tackling themes of social justice, identity, commodity, gender, and ethnicity. We were awarded what felt like an embarrassing amount of time with him as he discussed his practice and allowed us to examine works still in various states of process. Unfinished, pixelated diptych portraits of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, entirely made from children’s cereal, reflect his whimsical criticism of the American political state (read: junk food). We were among the very first to receive copies of his not-yet-released book, For Freedoms—Where Do We Go From Here? The book encapsulates the work of For Freedoms, an artist-led organization that uses art as a catalyst for creative civic engagement, discourse, and direct action. Across the studio, his recent exploration of retroreflective vinyl as a medium for his practice was also on full display. This entails a story I want to tell so badly, but I must wait until an embargo has been lifted. The same goes for news related to Christo and Jeanne-Claude. But I promise to loop you in—right here—when I am able.

The next time you’re shuffling through emails and run across a Kansas City-organized opportunity such as this, it might be worth a closer look.  I made several new friends and became even closer to the ones I was so happy to join.  Special thanks are due to my treasured (and most persuasive) friend, Sharon Hoffman, who delivered the art world star power with cosmic force.

Spotted: Julián Zugazagoitia, Ann Baum, Lynne Buckley, Dr. Valerie Chow & Hon. Jon Gray, Bunni & Paul Copaken, Erica Crenshaw, Sharon & John Hoffman, Carol Hudson, Kim Klein, Sandra & Dr. Willie Lawrence, Jr., Sheryll Meyers, Mary Anne & Stephen McDowell, Barbara Nicely, Tyrone Aiken, Carla Williams-Evans, Nicole Ratliff, Sara Hale, Stephanie Fox Knappe

Overheard: “He taught me life’s most important lesson: Always get jalapeños on your sandwich—they jumpstart your metabolism and keep you thin.”

Juntos Somos Mejores

“We are better together.” It is a guiding principle of Marissa and Mark Gencarelli, and that was fully evident when I recently had a tour of Yoli Tortilleria’s headquarters and tortilla manufacturing facility, just off Southwest Boulevard.

Marissa missed the tortillas from her hometown in Sonora, Mexico. The region’s tortillas were made using the ancient MesoAmerican nixtamalization process (corn steeped in an alkaline solution that unlocks more of the corn’s flavor and nutrients) and nothing like you could find locally.

Marissa and Mark both worked at Cerner. (Marissa’s early mentor was Cliff Illig.) Amid the pandemic and Cerner’s tumultuous acquisition—and instead of baking bread or binge-watching Tiger King—they began tortilla making as an  outlet for stress.

There was no magical family recipe. As Marissa explained, tortillas aren’t something people really make for themselves. They’re inexpensive and plentiful at local shops, and the process requires a lot of equipment. So, she and Mark experimented to develop their own recipe. The result was Yoli.

They began casually selling at weekend farmers markets, then to some local restaurants, and then some larger retail outlets. After three years, the business was large enough that Marissa could quit her corporate job and focus solely on Yoli. Mark would later follow.

At their headquarters, I was stuck both by how fascinating the process was, but also how incredibly humble. For its original corn tortillas, Yoli uses almost entirely local corn. It is soaked in lime water, which softens the shells. The mixture is heated and steeped overnight. In the morning—as I witnessed—the softened corn is fed into a grinder made from hand-carved volcanic stones. The resulting corn paste is called masa, and I got to taste it straight from the grinder. It reminded me of polenta, which I adore.

The masa is then fed into a machine that presses and cuts the tortilla shapes, which are rolled into a high-temperature oven, where they fall out in puffy perfection and are immediately packaged. I’ve not previously had the experience of eating a puffy, freshly baked tortilla, but it’s an experience I won’t soon forget.

In addition to corn tortillas, Yoli has recently added flour ones. You can find them at more than 30 Whole Foods locations and a growing number of other grocers. They have gradually added chips, salsas, aggua frescas, and tamales. And that retail shop/tortilla kitchen on the Westside? Moving the tortilla making to a larger off-site kitchen created space for a cozy restaurant that just opened (retaining the grab and go retail component). Plus, there’s the very popular restaurant at the new KC Current stadium. (The line moves quickly!) The couple has more than a few exciting plans yet on the horizon—but I’ll let them break that news as they’re ready.

Finally—if you’ve ever wondered (like I have) about the woman gracing every package with her brilliantly flowing hair, glamourous sunglasses, and waving red head scarf—well, that’s Marissa’s mother. It’s her, frozen in time, as their family traveled Mexico in a tiny car, searching for highlights of the country’s diverse food culture—something they treasured doing together as a family.

I positively fell in love with Marissa and Yoli that day. It touched my heart knowing that such an incredible establishment was honored last year with the prestigious James Beard Foundation’s coveted “Outstanding Bakery” award. The top bakery in the country was not turning out fine French pastries, but rather, a thoughtful tortilla. I think Marissa’s remarks at the awards ceremony put it best:

“Thank you for helping us honor the very humble tortilla. Kansas City is a lot like Yoli’s tortillas. Like Yoli’s, we’ve recently scored some big wins, the NFL draft, World Cup, and others. And just as the tortilla is not a pretentious food, Kansas City is not pretentious either. Like Yoli’s tortillas, however, we are authentic. And at the end of the day, we deliver, and people have noticed.”

Overheard: “If I looked like that, I would cry.”

Art & Design Auction

Every other year, the Kansas City Art Institute hosts its Art & Design Auction. Its biennial occurrence adds buzzy anticipation for the event—something I’ve previously opined that other philanthropic organizations might consider. It also allows the Art Institute ample time to gather a full gallery of noteworthy artworks for this prized auction.

The lush campus courtyard lawn was the perfect site for this early-autumn evening gathering. Guests were greeted by site-specific artworks created by KCAI students. Tents sheltered artisanal cocktails by Sidecar Catering Co. and grabbable bites by Olive Events. Talya Groves (a personal local fave vocalist) and The Royal Chief vividly performed from an adjacent stage. And scattered across the yard were aerial-hoop artists and a flame-torch operator who timed his flamethrowing to the nearby music (very popular for selfies).

Filling the entirety of the KCAI Gallery were nearly 200 artworks displayed for purchase via silent auction throughout the evening. For the first time, the exhibition had been open to the public for two weeks leading up to the event, with the auction serving as the exclusive closing celebration. I narrowed my bidding to a large, black-and-white graphic piece by the KCAI printmaking chair, Miguel Rivera. Ever the savvy online bidder, I was stealthily outbid at the closing bell.

Besides the Rivera piece, there were other standouts. One was a cement and stretched fiber piece by Marie Bannerot McInerney (’02 Fiber)—my good friend Kim Klein was outbid on this one, so my misery had company. There was also an incredible two-woman ceramic sculpture by Bernadette Esperanza Torres (‘91 Ceramics) that fetched several thousand. The sizeable Lester Goldman also commanded a worthy sum. All in all, it was another fantastic event celebrating the engine of creativity in our community that is KCAI.

Spotted: Chad & Taylor Grossenkemper, Christy & Bill Gautreaux, Sue & Lewis Nerman, Jeanne & Charlie Sosland, Pam & Gary Gradinger, Linda & Topper Johntz, Ellen & Jamie Copaken, Lynn & Lance Carlton, Kristin Goodman, Linda Goodman, Helen & Frank Wewers, Susie & Tom Corbin, Andy Bash, Tom Styrkowicz, Taylor Gozia, Kellen Whaley, Adam Gebhardt, Lorece Chanelle, Michael Hopkins

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