Amid the metro's southwestern suburban sprawl stands a beacon of high culture -- the Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art. Directed by nationally renowned collector Bruce Hartman, the facility has graced Kansas City with work by some of the heaviest hitters in the international art world: Leon Golub's massive paintings depicting atrocious violations of human rights, Duane Hanson's chillingly lifelike sculptures of everyday people, Donald Lipski's Duschampian assemblages, Terry Winters' organic abstracts and Jean-Michel Basquiat's graffiti-style mixed media works. The gallery also has hosted some young movers and shakers, such as Chicago's Kerry James Marshall, whose vast canvases examine racial injustice in America, and, most recently, psychedelic video projections by Jeremy Blake and Adriana Arenas Ilian. Anyone overwhelmed by endless three-car garages and box stores can stop by the gallery for a healthy dose of cutting-edge out-of-the-ordinariness.
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