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Kansas City Volume #6
at Crosstown Station
16 July 2009
START 20:20
DOOR $0
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#7
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Cole Scego is now famous
Furniture by Pecha-Kucha veteran Cole Scego is now being covered in the international press! Check out awesomeness of the new Bird's Nest Lounge. Go Cole! http://www.contemporist.com/?s=cole+scego
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PK Hearts Present
Hey PK KC fans! Pam and Pete of Present Magazine have been huge supporters of our local PKN—and they even host some of the PK presentations online! Srsly, People! Go to presentmagazine.com to find out more about past and present Pecha Kucha events as well as more about what’s hot and fresh in Kansas City’s arts, music, and food scenes. It is packed with interviews with artists, designers & writers; upcoming events, and ways you can plug into the community—& I dare you to resist Robert Moore’s soothing voice on their Sonic Spectrum podcasts!
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PK Veteran Pat Alexander: Creative Mastermind
http://www.pitch.com/2009-04-02/news/masterminds-2009/1 Pat Alexander believes in the underdog. That’s why he still loves Kansas City, still lives here (in Merriam, not far from where he grew up in Overland Park). It’s why he didn’t mind leaving the Kansas City Art Institute after one semester to make a living as a waiter (and then a cook) to support the downtown gallery he opened in 1997, Locus Solus. “We were showcasing international art, indie art, graffiti, DJs, live bands, performance art,” he says. “That was when I knew I wanted to stay in KC to make art. This is a scene not for spectators but for involvement.” Alexander has only involved himself more. Over the past two years, as the arts and events coordinator of the YWCA of Greater Kansas City (at 1017 North Sixth Street in Kansas City, Kansas), the 36-year-old has trained his focus on artists, filmmakers and guests whose voices murmur below the popular surface. Low to the ground as they are, underdogs are finders. Alexander’s own art emphasizes collage and video assemblage, and he collects records (his wheels-of-steel alter ego around town: DJ Fat Sal). So it’s no surprise that he’s a natural curator. In the bright, high-walled but intimate gallery space at the YWCA (and throughout the building), Alexander has hung paintings and placed sculpture by a handful of artists whom he can say he discovered. At the heart of Alexander’s work is the YWCA’s mission: “eliminating racism, empowering women.” For last fall’s Colorblind Film Series (six documentaries that screened at the YWCA’s Black Box Theatre at the height of the presidential race), he booked political and sometimes heartbreaking work by women filmmakers. Later this month, the YWCA (with the Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault and the Latino Writers Collective) will put on the second-annual “Speaking Out,” an anti-violence spoken-word event. Reaching out to the people whose work drives these events — and finding them in the first place — would be job enough. But Alexander, with the KCK Arts Network, also has embarked on a quest to secure exhibition space for art in downtown Kansas City, Kansas. The resulting Second Friday Art Walks have expanded quickly and have tapped into a layer of local talent that, at its best, refuses to accept second place behind the Crossroads-centered First Fridays. When it comes to his own art, he mostly makes it these days after his wife and their toddler have gone to bed. When Alexander accepts his Masterminds award, in fact, he will have just returned from exhibiting his work in a solo show at the Los Angeles gallery Echo Curio. And he will have wandered that city looking for old records, especially on the Fania, King, Blue Note, Studio One and Curtom labels. Alexander has an eye for art, but he also has something like X-ray vision when it comes to spotting influence and intent. Last summer, after seeing smart, very different works by KCAI students Vanessa Freund and Ankur Desai on the school’s campus, he booked them together for an edgy, often lovely exhibition. When he called first one and then the other to set up the show, he discovered that they were best friends. Another curator might have shrugged off the coincidence as Midwestern quaintness or been reminded that, in the cynical world of art, friendships are fragile and fleeting. But Alexander is no cynic. And if more trend-conscious or money-minded gallery types aren’t inclined to be charmed by studio-forged friendship, well, we should all be so Midwestern. — Scott Wilson, the Pitch
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Sexy British Accents . . . mmmmm . . .
At least one of this weeks presenters has a sexy british accent. And he's single! If that's not enough incentive for you to attend, then you probably spend too much time calling chat lines.
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Art Through Architecture
Art through Architecture (AtA), a program developed by American Institute of Architects-Kansas City and the Charlotte Street Foundation, has launched its new website featuring a whole bunch of famous local PK presenters. Check it out! www.ArtArch.org.
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