Tangled Illusions
“Under a cosmic canopy awaits an immersive experience that suspends your beliefs and transforms your imagination.” This was the elusive promise on my invitation to the annual gala—dubbed ArtSmash—for the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.
The promise was kept. Since the event, I’ve heard from numerous attendees that this was one of the most fun iterations in recent memory. The recent hyper-modern, shiny metallic, space-age themes were set aside. This year’s vibe was all about lush botanicals and autumnal jewel tones. All this carried over to the evening’s attire as well, with guests having clearly received the thematic message.
The annual ArtSmash gala is designed around the collision of light and layers, art and ideas, people and place, and philanthropy and fashion—an artful smashing together of all this. Guests were greeted inside the museum’s central atrium with glasses of welcome champagne and invited into a verdant, modern midnight garden. Palm fronds lit by sleek neon tube lights and a nature soundscape and video projection (by KCAI alumni Oz Overshiner and Bella Cordero) set the tone. Meandering through the tightly packed crowd were also beautiful, large insects, brought to life by Stone Lion Puppets.
And for full envelopment into this living world, the atrium project (expanded for the first time to fill the entire central core of the museum), recently reimagined by Lucía Vidales, of Monterrey, Mexico, was a stunner. Established in 2016, the Atrium Project is an annual series of commissioned projects that presents the work of emerging and mid-career Hispanic and Latinx artists. Vidales’s vibrant work, Hambre, floods the atrium with her interpretation of a last supper scene (shown, in part, behind me in the event photo here). She uses traditional painting and drawing as a window into the complex social, cultural, and historical layers of meaning within meal sharing, dinner parties, and gathering spaces. In these activities, eating and community are central elements, and after-dinner conversations are an important part of social life and connecting. In this massive work (22 by 25 feet), layers of grayscale charcoal drawing create a network of silhouetted figures beneath the painting and honor those who make it possible for gatherings to take shape, such as chefs, kitchen prep cooks, and servers. The painting itself, of vibrant, colorful guests gathered around a table, hangs in front of the drawing and contains sweeping marks and washes that coalesce seamlessly with the background, emphasizing their connectedness. Indeed, one can create an entire gala inspired by a single artwork, and here, the organizers (of which I am one) did.
Following hours of lively conversation in the museum atrium, we made our way to the grand outdoor tent. Live music surrounded, and a decadent buffet dinner was served. This year, the dinner was prepared by none other than the chef Ted Habiger’s new restaurant addition to the museum, Oil on Linen. Like the museum’s exhibition calendar, the menu will change, and visitors will find connections between the two, such as the Lucía Vidales quesadilla, which Habiger developed with the artist while she was working on Hambre. The highly anticipated meal was celebrated by all with whom I spoke.
Following dinner, I returned to the museum for a quick gallery tour of the latest featured exhibition, Infinite Regress: Mystical Abstraction from the Permanent Collection. This autumn marked the 30th anniversary of the Kemper Museum’s official opening. Over the past three decades, it has become a cultural cornerstone in Kansas City and a leading presenter of contemporary art and ideas in the region. This latest exhibition presents selections from the museum’s 1,400+ permanent collection, paired with new works. They’re connected by a shared vocabulary of mystical abstraction, engaging periods of extreme transformation in nature and technology. Aha!—another poignant connection to the gala theme.
Infinite regress is a philosophical term referring to an endless sequence of reasoning in which each new idea depends on the one that preceded—a paradox of unlimited reformulation wherein the future is built on the past. The exhibition features works from the likes of Joseph Stella and Georgia O’Keefe. My personal favorite was the final piece I experienced—a thought-provoking photographic work by Isaac Julien titled Black Madonna / New Negro Aesthetic (Once Again… Statues Never Die). The exhibit is on display through February 23.
By the time I’d completed my self-guided tour, everyone’s favorite portion of the evening had commenced—the dancing. Cocooned inside the interior glass-ceilinged courtyard, DJ Sheppa was spinning beats. Overhead, a sea of undulating foiled streamers and ribbons kissed the head tops of reveling dancers. Beneath, an illuminated dance floor flickered to Sheppa’s musical pulse. It was the perfect space for a late-night dance party. As the evening came to a close, Bob Hartsook was declared the raffle winner of Tom Corbin’s gorgeous, bronze horse sculpture. Upon our exit, we were handed slices of Minsky’s pizza. From entrance to exit, it was the perfect party—and one that allows the museum’s exhibitions and public programming to remain free for everyone. Infinitely.
Spotted: Artist Honoree Petah Coyne, Honorary Chair BeBe Kemper Hunt, Event Co-Chairs, Kim Hinman & Tyler Enders and Rachel Sexton & Brian King, Mary Kemper Wolf & Gary Wolf, Georgia Wolf, Christy & Bill Gautreaux, Jessica May & Karen Bala, Jane Vorhees, Sharon & John Hoffman, Bunni & Paul Copaken, Ann Baum, Linda & Brad Nicholson, Pam & Gary Gradinger, Susan Gordon, Scott Francis, Linda & Topper Johntz, Susie & Tom Corbin, Helen & Frank Wewers, Ellen & Jamie Copaken, Lynn & Lance Carlton, Dan Meiners & Dave Brinkerhoff, Peregrine Honig, Linda Lighton, Jean Paul Wong, Ratana & Oscar Tshibanda, Kat McDaniel & John Ditch, Toma & Andy Wolff, Chadwick Brooks, Scott Heidmann, Ken Petti, Ryan Hiser & David Tran, Tom Styrkowicz, Kim Weinberger, Katrina Revenaugh, Anna Petrow & Patrick Mulvihill, Paul Gutiérrez, Mark Allen Alford, Jr., Lorece Chanelle, Courtney González, Dr. Breck Dakin & Garick Dakin-Lair, Don Schreiner & John Escalada
Imagine a Day…
You might think that after six years’ of writing this column (and a decade of robust socializing preceding it) I’d have attended just about every gala in town. I’m constantly reminded, however, just how much is happening in this city that has escaped either my attention or schedule. Thus, I was delighted to accept a generous invitation from Jami & Fred Pryor to join as their guest for the Newhouse 2024 gala.
Shocking to some, I was unfamiliar with Newhouse. It is a safe shelter for victims fleeing domestic abuse—the first in Kansas City, founded in 1971. Newhouse houses Kansas City women, men, and children who are most in need of shelter due to sudden upheaval. The organization also works to reduce barriers that feed the cycle of abuse and partners with survivors to achieve safety, self-sufficiency, and whole-person healing through its ecosystem of transformative services.
With one-in-three women and one-in-four men experiencing domestic abuse, it is a pervasive problem but not an intractable one. Last year, Newhouse answered more than 15,000 hotline calls and served nearly 600 individuals—roughly one-third of them children. That amounted to more than 17,000 nights of safe shelter, 12,000 hours of childcare and education, 350 clients served with legal advocacy, and 26,000 meals served.
The Saturday evening event kicked off at the Loews Hotel Kansas City with amethyst-colored champagne cocktails and elbow-to-elbow gabbing amongst 1,300 roaming guests. Inside the ballroom, emcees Darron Story and Rae Daniel guided attendees through the evening and introduced the event’s eight extraordinary honorary chairwomen: Kathryn Ashley, Danelle Bender, Dr. Kirsten Brown Persley, Jenn Miller, Jami Pryor, Stephanie Robinson, Sarah Ross, and Dr. Marjorie Williams.
At our spectacularly long center table, my dining companions chatted about holiday vacation plans and Christmas tree decorating as we nibbled on our beef filets. We heard from Newhouse CEO Courtney Thomas, as well as some recent, grateful recipients of Newhouse’s care and services. Their collective story was a difficult one to absorb but essential to hear. The evening also included a live auction with items ranging from a golf day with (and donated by) KU Basketball Head Coach Bill Self, and vacations to Vail and the Virgin Islands. In all, the occasion raised an impressive $1.1 million.
For all the somber notes, the event ended on a high one—joyful dancing. I walked home that evening especially grateful for the new friends I’d met and a safe place to lay my head.
Spotted: Jamilia Weaver, Jody Beynon, Joyce McInerney, Tim Colley, Jeff Albright, Shelby Herrick, Chuck Matney & Todd Holland-Matney, Kelly Esslinger, Kenny Beall, Matthew Wilson, Ali Nilsen, Bryan Farley, Alli & Nick Ramsey
Brothers in Art
On another arts-filled First Friday, I made a trip to the recently opened Zhou B Art Center Kansas City, located in the 18th & Vine Jazz District. The center occupies the reclaimed and stunningly renovated Crispus Attucks School. (I visited last year for an early hard-hat preview, and the changes to this 1905 building are almost impossible to believe.) The center serves as a vibrant hub for both working artists and special exhibitions.
On this occasion, I was specifically visiting for an artist talk with the Zhou Brothers themselves, Shanzuo Zhoushi and Dahuang Zhoushi, visiting from their home city of Chicago. The brothers, born in Guangxi, China, are world-renowned Chinese contemporary painters who moved to the U.S. in 1986. While practicing as artists for more than 50 years, they completed their first painting together in 1973 and have been collaborating ever since. The brothers’ abstraction style merges China’s primitive art aesthetic—inspired by the ancient Huashan rock paintings—with the language of Western art tradition.
Prior to their public talk, I had the rare opportunity to receive a private tour of the art center with the celebrated brothers. Having sat vacant for 20 years, the grade school, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, needed a new, visionary purpose. The brothers were familiar with Kansas City, based on past visits, and talked with me about their appreciation for the city, its abundance of arts and culture, and its impressive creative community. Their vision for repurposing the school began eight years ago. They wanted to recreate their Chicago Zhou B Art Center in Kansas City (another in Beijing is currently in development) with intentions of aiding in the progress of the historic jazz district and further connecting it, thematically, with the neighboring Crossroads Arts District. We visited the ground-floor gallery, featuring a retrospective collection of the brothers’ bold, abstract canvases and sculptural work. It was fascinating to hear about their process and see the creative evolution across decades of their work. And we may have talked about my admiration of Shanzuo’s stunning caiman crocodile hornback cowboy boots.
Following our tour, a crowd gathered in the auditorium for a moderated conversation with the artists. The brothers discussed their artistic journey, inspirations, and the deep connection between their work and philosophy. They also reflected on a mesmerizing career. They told stories of two particularly interesting live-art performances—one at the ultra-exclusive World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and another in the Forbidden City, Beijing, China.
Prior to leaving, I took advantage of the open studios on the center’s upper floors. It was an opportunity to peek into the resident artists’ spaces, converse, and witness their creative process. In addition to free, groundbreaking exhibitions, the art center regularly hosts open-studio events like this, where one can explore the 50,000-square-feet of galleries and artists’ studios. Visitors can get a deeper sense of the center’s collaborative environment for this thriving community of talented artists seeking nurtured creativity and growth.
Special thanks to my friend and Zhou B Art Center partner, Allan Gray, II, for this invitation and the preceding hard-hat tour.