The Glory Days Will Not Last Forever Opening Reception!

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The Glory Days Will Not Last Forever a new Installation by Amy Kligman

Join us for an opening reception of The Glory Days Will Not Last Forever, new installation work of Kansas City based artist Amy Kligman. THIS FRIDAY January 15th from 7pm-11pm. The Glory Days Will Not Last Forever is the final exhibition with curator Melaney Mitchell and will run through the end of January by appointment. This exhibition was made possible by a generous Inspiration Grant from ARTS KC!

Kligman’s installation utilizes disposable party goods including balloons, confetti, paper garlands, tissue paper, paper fans and lanterns, as raw material that is repurposed into a dense, large-scale installation. The resulting environment is a claustrophobic immersion of color and texture, which creates a contextually loaded environment for performances and conversations that will take place in the exhibition space during the course of the show run.

Themes and thoughts contributing to the resulting installation include the idealized past, over expectations of the future, mania, overstimulation and overconsumption, and the notion of shared or universal experience.

Amy Kligman has a hybrid practice of studio work and arts administration. Her resume highlights include an Arts KC Inspiration Grant, Missouri Bank Artboards Commission, inclusion in issue #101 of New American Paintings, and an exhibition at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art as a 2014 Charlotte Street Visual Award Fellow. She was a founding member & co-director of the curatorial collaboration Plug Projects from 2011-2015, leaving in 2015 to take on a role as Programming Director for the Charlotte Street Foundation. Amy currently is the Executive/Artistic Director of the Charlotte Street Foundation. She lives with her husband Misha and son Sam in Kansas City, MO.

At 7:15 pm on opening night this Friday January 15th Blanked Undercover will be performing their piece The Chamber of Secrets Will be Opened (mark your calendars)

Melissa Lenos’s project, “20 minutes of Forever” will be screening all night.

Subterranean Gallery,  founded in 2010 by Ayla Rexroth, is an underground hybrid art and domestic space in Kansas City, Missouri. In contrast to the traditional “white cube” gallery, Subterranean has always strived to facilitate an environment that engages creativity with intimate ambiance. During Melaney Mitchell’s two year run as Director she has taken advantage of its strange and unexpected histories of a basement domestic space to create seven exhibitions in a variety of mediums. Midwestern suburban basements are usually filled with walnut wood panelling, old shag carpet, and light up signs for Old Style beer. The experience of art in that space, in lieu of ones own father’s collected sports memorabilia, forces something different to happen. It’s a space of collaboration but more importantly a space for conversation. As Mitchell leaves the project she says “I realize that the part of Subterranean that I’m going to miss is the conversation. The talk of art in Kansas City is the hearth of what makes a stark white painted basement apartment a wonderful space see and be with art.”

Subterranean Gallery will open again in the Fall/Winter of 2016 with new gallery director Jordan Hauser.

CRIT 2 CRIT: INF + SUB Program on Art Writing

During this exhibition, we have a little more in store for you! Rachel Gregor’s fantastic show Barred Meadows is up through April 15th by appointment and during that time we have teamed up with Informality to bring you a series of programming inspired by the conversations that occur at Subterranean Gallery.

CRIT 2 CRIT was developed as a program to increase awareness of  Informality  as a writing platform and to encourage more of the community to write about art. Over the years, Subterranean Gallery has proven to be the site of unique, intimate, and informal conversation so were hosting CRIT 2 CRIT this March and April.

CRIT 2 CRIT consists of four free drop in weekly workshops on a variety of topics to help transition Kansas City’s contemporary art conversation into writing! All sessions will occur Wednesday evenings at Subterranean Gallery through the duration of their current exhibition, Barred Meadows: New Paintings by Rachel Gregor.

All four of these programs are completely free and attendance at all sessions is not required to participate Informality‘s programs are made possible by a generous ARTS KC Inspiration Grant. We’re happy to host Informality and promote these programs as we think they will help expand and diversify the kind of written dialogue in Kansas City.

For more information on this program, others like it, to submit writing, or to RSVP for any of these events, please contact editor@informalityblog.com

Barred Meadows: New Paintings by Rachel Gregor Exhibition Opening Reception

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The opening of Barred Meadows was a great success Friday night. A huge thanks to everyone who made it to then opening! It was great to see all of you  -both new and old faces- and to experience continued support for the space. Eric, Kevin, and Rachel were amazing co-hosts helping pull everything together for the exhibition. We were honored to be on the front page of The Pitch Kansas City‘s First Friday Gallery Guide and feel such a great sense of support from the community. A final thanks to Ayla and Clayton for teaching me how to run and then leaving me such an amazing space to live in and make exhibitions like this happen. If you didn’t get to see the show last night, its open through April 15th send an email to subterraneangallery@gmail.com to set up an appointment.

Curatorial Studies Exhibition Opening Reception

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We had so much fun at the opening! The work looked awesome and we had a record # of new visitors. Special thanks to Clayton, Melaney, Paul, Molly, Garry, David, Tiffany, Amanda, Robert B, Robert H, Emily H, Jaclyn, Matt, Cory and Plug, Bread KC, and all our guests!

Smoke and Mirrors Exhibition Opening Reception

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Missed the opening? Make an appointment to view the exhibition by emailing us at subterraneangallery@gmail.com.

A Night With Archie Scott Gobber & Mike Erickson

by Melaney Mitchell

Many moons ago, Saturday, February 25th, Subterranean Gallery hosted its final hot tub lecture. The culmination was highly performative, and at times, the conversation involved the audience more than the lecturers. Artist Archie Scott Gobber, and moderator/artist Mike Erickson, artists represented by and co-workers at the Dolphin Gallery. Gobber’s work is well known for its eye-catching quality and clever wordplay that work as a vehicle for social and political commentary. Moderator and artist Mike Erickson has worked in New York and Los Angeles at the MOMA and Gemini Graphic Editions Limited in LA. Gobber and Erickson are both KCAI alumni and base their painting practices in Kansas City.

An Evening with Kate Hackman & Raechell Smith

By Melaney Mitchell

On Saturday February 18^th, the second of The Hot Tub Dialogue Lectures featured Kate Hackman and Raechelle Smith. Hackman is the Co-Director of the Charlotte Street Foundation, former Editor-in-Chief of Review magazine, ran the public art program Art in the Loop, wrote art reviews for the Kansas City Star and is the former assistant director of Exit Art in New York City. Smith is a Kansas City Native, and the Founding Director and Chief Curator of the H& R Block Artspace at the Kansas City Art Institute. She is also the former Curatorial Assistant of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Nelson Atkins Museum. Behind a candlelit and luxuriously draped fourth wall, Smith and Hackman conversed in a style similar to the days when they were room mates. Attempting to channel old breakfast table jokes about “two a.m. last night”, they dove into a discussion that was peppered with questions submitted by the audience on simple notecards.

A Night With Hesse McGraw & Josh Shelton

By Melaney Mitchell

Saturday February 11^th, Subterranean Gallery hosted the first of three Hot Tub Dialogue Lecturesfeaturing Hesse McGraw with moderator Josh Shelton. McGraw founded the Paragraph Gallery in 2004 and acted as a forerunner in revitalizing KC’s downtown through the arts. The space looked to transform the city, and the way in which art worked towards revitalization. He now works in a similar fashion as the Chief Curator of the Bemis Art Center in Omaha, Nebraska which focuses on works with a community impact. The evenings moderator, Josh Shelton is chair of the Steering Committee with Art Thru Architecture, a principal member of the architecture firm, El Dorado, and is on the board for the Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence, KS. McGraw and Shelton connect through their interest in the community, with Shelton’s teaching and studio practice at the University of Kansas School of Architecture, Design, and Planning. Shelton and his students work to develop architectural projects that have a direct engagement with the current urban context specific to each project. This is the same direction McGraw was heading in when he opened Paragraph Gallery.

How To Do Something, All Alone, By Yourself Opening Reception

Thank You to Paul, Robert, Clayton, and everyone who joined us to celebrate the opening!

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