Arts & Entertainment

Art Capsule Reviews

Our critics recommend these shows.

By Rebecca Braverman, Annie Fischer and Gina Kaufmann 

Charlotte Street Foundation The Charlotte Street Foundation awards show isn't your average group show, lumping together somewhat disparate artists with a theme or linking their work by period or subject. Instead, the CSF artists whose work hangs together at Johnson County Community College's Gallery of Art share something else: recognition and the funding that comes with it. This year's award winners include Craig Subler, who comments on the experience of viewing art by rendering works that question how people participate in museums and galleries; looking at his pieces makes us worry that we're in danger of becoming his next victim. Miles Neidinger's Maelstrom of Reflections is an enormous installation made from sheets of foil; in Neidinger's skillful hands, the lowly sandwich wrap evokes Frank Gehry's undulating architecture. Max Key thinks big, too, with wall-sized paintings that are dark, decorative and gothic. (Look closely for patterns that echo those of origami, silhouette portraits and botanical prints.) Sean Ward, on the other hand, doesn't do pretty. His paintings of Halloween masks and claws are pretty funny, though. And it's hard not to want to touch Callyann Casteel's soft sculptures, assemblages of hands, chains and horns — they're on display here, but they're meant to be worn. Through Dec. 20 at the Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art (inside the Carlsen Center), 12345 College Blvd. in Overland Park, 913-469-8500, ext. 3972. (R.B.)

Conclusion of the System of Things Nadine Robinson's gallery-sized installation is big and loud, like a Hollywood movie, and the fog machine that's turned on when visitors enter the gallery only reinforces the cinematic spirit of the piece. With a bold, climactic soundtrack pouring from round speakers installed along a wall to reference the positions of figures in Michaelangelo's "Last Judgment," however, the piece happens to be quite understated in spite of all the melodrama (not to mention the apocalyptic title). When viewers look at what can only be called a painting of sound, they see a minimal, functional, symmetrical tableau. That it feels like a movie is mere trickery. After all, it's missing cinema's most obvious components: moving images on a screen. There are no characters, and there is no plot. All that remains are special effects signifying that stakes are rising, a journey is ending and emotions are accelerating toward a spectacular conclusion. Viewers are left to envision their own high stakes, epic voyages and scantily clad performers — that is, of course, until they read the gallery's brochure explaining the artist's intended meaning. We recommend picking up the brochure on the way out rather than on the way in. The artist's personal associations, though interesting and valid, complicate a piece that resists explanation, working best (in fact, brilliantly) on a purely sensory level. Through Dec. 17 at Grand Arts, 1819 Grand, 816-421-6887. (G.K.)

Married to Adventure Before loaded terms such as "multiculturalism" came along to institutionalize a basic desire to understand other people, Osa Johnson and her husband, Martin, just got in a plane and lived the idea, completely unself-consciously. The two Kansans traveled to parts of the world that scared the bejesus out of most Americans in the early part of the 20th century. Their still and moving footage of indigenous civilizations was later used in popular silent films — and in at least one instance, they returned to those locales to screen a film for the people who had appeared in it. The exhibit at the Kansas City Museum shows photographs and film reels as well as special editions of Osa Johnson's best-selling autobiography, I Married Adventure, printed with zebra-striped covers. Especially awe-inspiring is the photo, shot from a plane, of stampeding giraffes. Osa Johnson = total badass. Through Jan. 8 at the Kansas City Museum, 3218 Gladstone Blvd., 816-460-2020. (G.K.)

Json Myers and Wade Eldean Json Myers discards traditional mediums such as clay, paint and canvas for less familiar ones — tractor enamel and "pyrotechnics residue," i.e., burnt stuff. The results are oddly shaped impressionist plaques. In the inaccurately titled "Crap," a 4-foot-long strip of timber hangs horizontally to display a Rorschach dragon with holes — one looks like an open mouth — caused by fire. In "Parable of the Rose," heavily shellacked wood conjoins with tree bark, enhancing the differences between the naturally organic and finished materials; in "Grow Up," an image of a tree "grows" from a palette, and a cityscape runs along the bottom of the piece. On the gallery floor, Wade Eldean's open and lit suitcases serve as display cases for the sorts of things that people keep in their attics or basements — or throw in their trash cans. The best piece is a visually surprising concoction of baggage, amusingly titled "Just in Case." The handle's tag displays the artist's name, phone number and address in Michigan; we presume this is how he wanted his installation delivered. Through Nov. 30 at the Zone Gallery, 1830 Locust St., 816-471-3618. (R.T.B.)

New Paintings Living in the desert (specifically Phoenix) does something to a person; painter Steven Yazzie is proof. These expansive, mysterious landscapes feature a recurring, nearly obsessive image: the sword-shaped leaves of the agave, a plant that grows only in hot, dry regions. It figures prominently in "Confluences I," "Confluences II" and "Twilight." Yazzie's physical surroundings inhabit these pictures subtly — in the suggestive curve of a mountain in the background, or in the hint of sun in floating, unfinished ovals. All of the canvases, shellacked in Yazzie's layering technique, reflect like glass. In the show's main piece, "Surface Agendas," a blue expanse of colors represents the artist's emotional or mental state, and it's a subdued, amorphous abstraction. This must be what the subconscious looks like. Through Nov. 29 at the Blue Gallery, 7 West 19th Street, 816-527-0823. (R.T.B.)

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