Best Curatorial Debut

Stacy Switzer, former curator for the Salina Arts Center, began her career as artistic director for Grand Arts with Join Us: Calls to Ecstasy From the Edge of Oblivion. The eight artists and artists' coalitions in Switzer's debut show beckoned their audiences to enter a utopia of technological bliss, extending the invitation through new-media-based works. Switzer chose artists who challenged viewers' perceptions of new media work: Sanford Biggers projected his video "Mandala of the B-Bodhisattva II," with its aerial view of break dancers, on a bed of sand; Christoph Buchel's "Tour of the Oval Office" was a found video from the White House's Web site. Perhaps Switzer anticipated the onslaught of outstanding new media and video works that would hit the Kansas City scene this fall, with the Cremaster Cycle at Electromediascope and Shirin Nashat at the Artspace.