Anthony Baab: A sacred place: Military tentsI know it's a little more review than press release but I couldn't help myself.
Currently on exhibition at the H&R Block space, a show representing work from each of the five local artists who recently received the Charlotte Street Foundation Award. Get beyond Andrew Wrinkle's brazenly haphazard installations with their somewhat tired and truculent political messages forming on the surface like pudding skin, and you may enjoy Justin Gainan’s punctilious dot portraiture. Needling clouds of pencil dots hover along the wall showing true compulsive dedication. Nearby stretches of paper with rubbed out pencil markings harbor a complex subtlety and reflect the delicate lucidity found in the drawings of Agnes Martin. An unusually large sized monolith supports his ink drawing sprayed with holes and lit from beneath. Anthony Baab woos us with an intricately spaced tape painting that undulates at just the right pace accompanied by some quirky sketches. Though hung without much consideration, these sketches reflect his process of finding pattern and in the end are delightfully eccentric. Baab’s installation propped in a dark backroom made of military tents lends one the impetus to enter or at least to know what’s going on inside. The ominous stagnancy seems to dissipate a bit with the in-too-clear-view black lighting, but the piece is chillingly effective as a whole. Also on display, intimate familial photographs by Deanna Dikeman, and Aqueous inkjet prints by Elijah Gowin. Now through October 14th.
H&R Block Artspace at the Kansas City Art Institute
16 East 43rd Street, Kansas City, MO 64111
www.kcai.edu/artspace
The Charlotte Street Foundation annually presents
monetary awards to Kansas City-based visual artists.
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