Artist Opportunities

Visiting Critic and Curator Program

The 2010 Visiting Critic & Curator Program invites submissions from all Kansas City artists, including M.F.A. and B.F.A. candidates in their final year. Initiated in 2000, this program is designed to engage Kansas City artists in a dialogue with nationally recognized curators and critics.

The Artspace is proud to host visiting curator Stuart Horodner for the 2010 Visiting Critic & Curator Program (VCCP). Stuart Horodner is currently the artistic director of the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center. Prior to moving to Atlanta, Horodner was the curator of the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art in Oregon; director of the Bucknell University Art Gallery in Lewisburg, Pa.; and owner/director of the Horodner Romley Gallery in New York from 1992 to 1997. He was also the founder and co-organizer of Affair at the Jupiter Hotel, an intimate art fair in Portland, Oregon from 2004 to 2007. He has contributed art writing to numerous publications including Art Lies, Art Issues, Art on Paper, BOMB, Dazed & Confused and Surface.

Interactions between Mr. Horodner and selected artists will be scheduled on March 10 and 11.  For more information please contact Michael Schonhoff at 816-561-5563 or e-mail at mschonhoff@kcai.edu.

History of the program

Initiated in 2000 through support from the Missouri Arts Council, the Visiting Critic and Curator Program (VCCP) is designed to engage Kansas City artists in a dialogue with nationally recognized curators and critics. Hosted on a biennial basis by the Artspace, the VCCP invites submissions through an open call to artists as wells as submissions from Kansas City artists and M.F.A. and B.F.A. candidates in their final year.

The VCCP invites a nationally recognized critic or curator –– alternating between critic and curator for each program –– to select a group of Kansas City artists for individual studio visits and discussions in Kansas City. The program opens up a dialogue between a Kansas City artist and a critic or curator from outside of the region and exposes the visiting critic or curator to the dynamic contemporary arts scene in Kansas City. The Artspace organizes a public lecture by the visiting critic or curation as the culmination of the program.

Previous visiting critics and curators include: Michael Pittari, former editor of Art Papers in Atlanta; Amada Cruz, director of the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.; Kathryn Hixon, editor of New Art Examiner, formerly published in Chicago; Anne Pasternak, director of Creative Time in New York; James Elaine, curator of Hammer Projects at the UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.
 

Kansas City Flatfile

The first "Kansas City Flatfile" exhibition was held at the Artspace in 2001 in conjunction with the "Pierogi Flatfiles" exhibition featuring flatfiles from Joe Amrhein's Pierogi Gallery in Brooklyn, N.Y. The "Kansas City Flatfile" has since become a biennial invitational exhibition featuring a wide range of work by emerging and established artists from the Kansas City area.

The exhibtions include two-dimensionsional work in various media including drawing, photography, print, painting and mixed media. All of the work is contained in individual portfolios enclosed in flatfile cabinets. Visitors are invited to browse the files and handle the work, which offeris a unique and personal viewing experience. In addition, the exhibition includes a video file featuring a variety of time-based work which viewers can select and watch at their leisure.

Throughout the exhibitions guest curators from the Kansas City area and surrounding region are invited to curate temporary salon-style presentations from the flatfiles. The "Kansas City Flatfile" exhibitions have a studio-like characteristic for the participating artists and the public and encourage a natural exchange of ideas and practices through a hands-on approach.

The "Kansas City Flatfile" provides an opportunity for a wide range of Kansas City artists to show their work to an equally diverse audience. which often include arts professionals and collectors in the Kansas City area and beyond. Artists are invited to participate in these exhibitions through the Artspace’s Kansas City artists mailing list. Submission to the Artspace's Visiting Critic and Curator Program places artists on this list.