Roger L. & Joni Cohen Resource Room
The Roger L. and Joni Cohen Resource Room is a multi-faceted adjunct gallery, study room and resource center at the Artspace. Located on the second floor, the Resource Room is named after Roger L. Cohen, a former Chairman of the Kansas City Art Institute’s Board of Trustees. In 2003, the room was rededicated as the Roger L. and Joni Cohen Resource Room to commemorate the life and memory of Roger Cohen.
A public Resource Collection at the Artspace, including exhibition related resources, museum publications, exhibition catalogs, artist monographs, videos, art journals and periodicals are often available for students and visitors in the Resource Room. The Resource Collection grows through private contributions and gifts from individuals, museums, and galleries from around the world.
The Resource Room is the main site for Selections from the Collection, focused exhibitions drawn from the Kansas City Art Institute permanent collection organized by Artspace staff and Academic Interns. Special projects such as the biennial exhibition, The Reading Room, are featured in the Resource Room. The Reading Room and special exhibitions such as Making Meaning: The Artist Book, emphasize source materials and the artists book through exhibition, thus further supporting and emphasizing the function and mission of the Resource Room.
Past Exhibitions
Selections from the Collection: Limited Edition Artist Books and Rare Prints from the Kansas City Art Institute Permanent Collection
March 30-31, 2007
Curated by Heather Lustfeldt
Held in conjunction with “Collecting Ink” and the SGC Conference, this project includes a special display of limited edition artist books and rare prints on view in the Studio Space. Viewers are invited to browse books and view prints in custom display cases.
A Room of My Own
October 28 - December 20, 2006
Curated by Heather Lustfeldt
Featuring a range of non-western objects, A Room of My Own is an intimate, immersive exhibition flavored with aspects of history, anthropology, and fiction.
Inuit, African, and Oceanic objects from KCAI’s collection are joined by a selection of unique objects and artifacts from the collections of Union Station Kansas City, the Toy and Miniature Museum of Kansas City, and rare books from KCAI’s Jannes Library.
Inspired by Virginia Woolf’s famous essay, A Room of One’s Own (published in 1929) this special exhibition celebrates the imagination and wanderlust of one with resources and a private space for contemplation and creation. Immersions of study, play, fact and fiction come together in a warm, enchanting environment with an aura of mystery. The exhibition, curated by Heather Lustfeldt, will be accompanied by an exhibition narrative and gallery guide.
The Reading Room: Graphic Novels
January 28 - March 18, 2006
The Reading Room: Graphic Novels is the second show in a series of interactive exhibitions presenting a variety of books and reading materials in the Roger L. and Joni Cohen Resource Room at the Artspace.
Highlighting graphic novels oriented towards humor, sardonic wit, and irony to accompany the main exhibition Humor Me, The Reading Room: Graphic Novels invites viewers to browse and experience a variety of work drawn from important local and national collections.
Curated by: Mark Spencer, Director of Creative Resources at Hallmark Cards, and Brockett Horne, Assistant Professor of Design and Illustration at the Kansas City Art Institute.
Chicago Style: Imagery & Influence
August 6 - September 23, 2005
A selection of work that includes artists from Chicago, and also, work that found a place in the Chicago art scene, augmenting and influencing successive generations of Chicago artists. This selection of work offers a taste of Chicago style, tied in part to the lasting influence and impact of the Chicago Imagists, a movement born in Chicago in the 1960's.
Artists featured: Tony Fitzpatrick, Ed Paschke, H.C. Westermann, Robert Lostutter, and Peter Saul
Curator: Heather Lustfeldt, Assistant Curator
Good Work
June 1- July 16, 2005
This exhibition features recent work by the artists who assisted Ghada Amer with the creation of her two new large-scale paintings during her residency at the Artspace.
Artists: Audra Brandt, Jennifer Boe, Callyanne Casteel, Erin Dahl, Peter Demos, Burak Duvenci, Heather Hendricks-Russell, Hadley Johnson, Lisa Kettlewell, Anna Meyer, Anne Muntges and Jaimie WarrenCurator: Brendan L. Meara, Artspace Block Intern
Making Meaning: The Artist Book
September 17-December 4, 2004
A collaborative project featuring artist books from the permanent collections at the Kansas City Art Institute’s Jannes Library and the H&R Block Artspace, select work by Art Institute Alumni and current students, the Kenneth J. LaBudde Special Collections Department of Miller Nichols Library at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and Booklyn Artist Alliance based in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York.
Curators: Heather Lustfeldt, Assistant Curator and Laura Berman, KCAI Printmaking Faculty
Selections from the Collection: Craig Subler and James Drake
March 1 - April 3, 2004
Selections from Craig Subler's suite of prints, Enola Gay: The Exterminating Angel, along with prints from the collection by James Drake.
Curator: Heather Lustfeldt, Assistant Curator
Selections from the Collection: Summer Paintings
June 7 - September 6, 2003
A light summer exhibition including paintings by artists Francisco Camps-Ribera, Larry Johnson, Wilbur Niewald and Paul Wonner.
Organized by the Artspace
Storyline: Inviting Narratives
February 1 - March 26, 2003
This exhibition features a selection of works on paper from the Kansas City Art Institute’s permanent collection invoking various idioms of storytelling. The notion of storytelling instinctively invites ideas of imagination and magic, often with the use of playful, fictional, or anecdotal sensibilities. Conceived with individual, unique voices, the works on view – like windows or doors – conjure journeys based in imagination, thought, and play while also, at times, provoking serious issues and dialogue.
Artists: Alice Aycock, Terry Allen, Eldred Aethelred, Tony Fitzpatrick, Roy Lichtenstein, H.C. Westerman, Alan Winkler andRobert E. Smith
Curator: Heather Lustfeldt, Assistant Curator
The Reading Room, One
October 26 - December 18, 2002
This interactive exhibition features selections of design and reading materials by invited participants, including James Brinsfield, Maria Elena Buszek, Kate Hackman, Steve Maturo, Derek Porter, and Raechell Smith.
Curator: Raechell Smith, Director
Selections from the Collection: Process in Printmaking
September 7 - October 16, 2002
An exhibition of prints from the permanent collection featuring a range of print making processes. This exhibition resulted from the 2002 High-School residency program workshop at KCAI, organized by the Artspace.
Artists: Chuck Close, Richard Diebenkorn, Vernon Fisher, Tony Fitzpatrick, Peregrine Honig, Tom Huck, Archer Prewitt, Larry Rivers and H.C. Westermann
Curator: Heather Lustfeldt, Assistant Curator
Innovations in Ancient Japanese Pottery
February 2 - April 3, 2002
Drawn from the Kansas City Art Institute’s permanent collection, this exhibition is based on the Cummins Collection of Sue Ware ceramics from Japan. Sue Ware was produced from the 3rd through 7th centuries A.D. and represented a time of great innovation in Japanese ceramics – from the first time a wheel was used and the first time stoneware clay was taken to high-fire temperatures in Anagama kilns.
Curator: Amalia Mariño, Artspace Intern
Selections from the Collection: Modern Portraiture
October - February, 2002
This selection of portraits from the permanent collection of the Kansas City Art Institute illustrates three different approaches to portraiture. An academic romanticism is observed in the works of Jean Jacques Henner and John Douglas Patrick, both created in the late 19th century. Moses Soyer’s paintings reflect a contemporary sensibility in style and content, emphasizing social realism and a less academic approach to painting. In the portraits of renowned illustrator, Daniel MacMorris, an ideal, timeless classicism pervades his depictions of persons from “high society.”
Artists: Jean Jacquies Henner, Daniel MacMorris, John Patrick Douglas, Moses Soyer
Curator: Heather Lustfeldt, Curatorial Assistant
Selections from the Collection: Fantasy as Reality
February 17 - April 25, 2001
This exhibition examines the serial format employed by artists in creating suites and portfolios and will present a unique cross-section of contemporary art from a recent period in art history. From the Minimalism of Sol LeWitt and Brice Marden, to the remnants of Abstract Expressionism in Cy Twombly and Helen Frankenthaler, from the New Image sensibility of works by Pat Steir and Jennifer Bartlett, to the Pop Art of Roy Lichtenstein, this exhibition will focus on a dynamic decade in American Art.
Artists: Patrick Clancy, Steve Cromwell, Shari Hartbauer, Gary Sutton, Kenny Ashcraft, Bill Cochrane, Scott Conger, Mitch Deck, Carole Nicholson
Curator: Derric Eady, Artspace Intern
Selections from the Collection
September - November, 2000
An exhibition of works from the permanent collection related to ghosts and notions of the ephemeral.
Artists: Dennis Oppenheim, Terry Allen, Vernon Fisher, Leslie Dill, John Buck, H.C. Westermann, Joel Peter-Witkin
Curator: Heather Lustfeldt, Curatoral Assistant
Selections from the Collection
November, 1999
Artists: Robert Arneson, Lesley Dill, Kara Walker, William Wiley
Organized by the Artspace