Art Capsule Reviews

Parts In each of the 11 large-scale photographs that make up Parts, the latest exhibit to open at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, artist Nikki S. Lee adopts a distinct persona — and a boyfriend to complement it. Staged in snapshot form, the glossy images feature Lee interacting with tattooed muscle men and pale drug addicts, on playgrounds and in bars; however, each of the guys has been cut out of the picture, suggesting truncated relationships. (After viewing 11 presumably failed attempts at relationships, one starts to feel a little discouraged.) Her diverse identities are certainly driven by stereotypes, but we empathize with the desire to be someone else every so often. In "Part 18," she's in morning-after mode, drinking coffee on a fire escape, bedheaded and wearing boxers; "Part 13" has her barefoot and laughing on a bus. What's most striking is that it's not her face — where one usually looks for indications of mood or disposition — that gives her away; it's her body language. There does seem to be a direct correlation between the amount of makeup Lee wears and her level of misery, though. We'd better toss our eyeliner. Through Dec. 11 at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, 4420 Warwick, 816-753-5784. (A.F.)

Recent Paintings, Drawings and Prints by Michael Krueger and Don Ed Hardy Don Ed Hardy is a tattoo-art icon. We know multitudes of inked people who salivate at the mention of his name, so we had to check out his show. What we discovered: Each painting, displayed on archival scroll paper mounted on Chinese silk, looks like an elaborate tattoo big enough to cover the back of the world's fattest man. Even the iconography — lions, skulls, pirate ships and sexy women — is tattoo-inspired. But unlike skin, which provides a fleshy, monochromatic backdrop for tattoo art, the scroll paper and Chinese silk swatches have a flimsy and beautifully patterned texture that makes the art look exceptionally bright, dynamic and, in some cases, even metallic. And though Hardy is the superstar, don't ignore the simpler, smaller drawings by area artist Michael Krueger. With characters floating against a plain white background, these drawings are well-executed and possess a distinct narrative style. Our favorite is "Josephine," which depicts a young woman walking out of a patch of plants and rocks, naked except for some letters mysteriously but neatly etched on her skin. Through Dec. 23 at the Dennis Morgan Gallery, 2011 Tracy, 816-842-8755. (G.K.)

The Sesquicentennial Whitmaniacs Congress Ryan Kelly gets a little obsessive sometimes. After hearing that the poet Walt Whitman had made a list of the 21 famous people he'd met, Kelly decided to bring them back to life as oversized, papier-mâché heads. The heads hang from the ceiling on hooks, and Kelly encourages viewers to try them on and wander around for a bit as, say, Edgar Allan Poe or Andrew Jackson. Whitman himself doesn't hang from the ceiling, but he turns on a barbecue spit, surveying his noteworthy friends. Kelly, a graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute's ceramics department, hasn't abandoned his regular medium; there's a clay portrait of Whitman hanging on one wall and a delicately painted bowl on a table near a Whitman portrait station. Yes, portrait station: Sit down, fasten a beard to your face with ear hooks, put on a hat and a woolly cardigan and get a Polaroid snapped. There's a copy of the Whitman photograph you'll be aping, but First Friday gallerygoers found it more fun to pose as Whitman doing things he probably wouldn't want caught on film. Through Jan. 6, 2006, at the Belger Arts Center, 2100 Walnut, 816-474-3250. (R.B.)

The Snug Sensation Martin Morehouse's sculptures — nine white, upholstered forms of various shapes and sizes, simultaneously suspended from the ceiling and stuck to the floor — look like punching bags. But aggression is the last thing they're intended to incite; in fact, Morehouse wants you to hug them. Using a tactile transducer (a variation on a speaker that vibrates solids instead of air), he makes his figures pulse like muscle contractions, heartbeats, refrigerators and idle motors. The objective is to energize the senses of sight, sound and touch in a nonthreatening way. The gallery was deserted when we stopped in on a Saturday afternoon, and we felt damned silly embracing these sculptures while alone. But we found evidence of a more populated opening: the comment sheet. And we were fascinated by how the remarks differed by what appeared to be the writers' genders. Whereas large, loopy letters — often accented with exclamation points — declared the show "very intimate" and confided "I enjoyed hugging your art," a minimalist, masculine scrawl announced: "I kinda think this is bullshit." Through Nov. 26 in the Front Room Gallery of the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, 2012 Baltimore, 816-474-1919. (A.F.)