Art Capsule Reviews

The African Art Experience It isn’t often that Kansas City audiences have a chance to see a collection of non-Western art as diverse as the one on display at the Belger Arts Center. The majority of the pieces in The African Art Experience are three-dimensional objects made of wood, clay, metal or natural materials such as woven and dyed textiles. Each piece, including masks, furniture and pottery, was created to fulfill a specific purpose; most were commissioned by priests or kings for use in religious ceremonies. For example, “Kuba Costume,” from the Congo, consists of a red-and-brown-feather headdress, a mask with two cowrie shells for eyes, a red shirt and red pants with an elaborate cowrie-shell belt and pouches. The gallery’s lighting enhances the art’s religious origins — the room is dim, but lights shine brightly and reverently on each piece. Although it’s hard to imagine actual faces behind the masks hanging in front of the gallery’s white walls, that doesn’t mean they can’t be appreciated for their beauty as objects. Through July 2 at the Belger Arts Center, 2100 Walnut Street, 816-474-3250. (T.B.)

Amy Cutler The fanciful costumes and absurd situations depicted in Amy Cutler’s gouache paintings on white paper often draw comparisons to fairy-tale illustrations, but Cutler finds inspiration in a wide variety of sources: Laura Ingalls Wilder, James Audubon, childhood memories of her father’s pet store. For example, in “Dinner Party,” young women in elaborate ball gowns use their long braids of hair to strap wooden chairs atop their heads; they then conduct a duel standing on the dinner table, fighting with the chair legs the way elk fight with their antlers. Cutler’s highly detailed paintings show only characters and props; that there are no backgrounds to help explain the bizarre situations expands the opportunities for a viewer’s interpretation. Through July 11 at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, 4420 Warwick Blvd., 816-753-5784. (T.B.)

The Disembodied Spirit One of the most eerie pieces in the Kemper’s show is scary for reasons more psychological than otherworldly. Francesca Woodman — known as much for her young suicide as for her art — used to take out-of-focus self-portraits as she hid behind the peeling wallpaper in her dilapidated studio. In the resulting images, a woman seems either to be vanishing into or stepping out of the walls. One such beautifully creepy image is hidden in the corner of the gallery, a small work compared with the others in this varied exhibit. Other gems include a handful of tiny early photographs from the Spiritualist movement that depict people with superimposed images of deceased relatives (and other companions unavailable to pose for pictures — Jesus, for example). A standout example from this collection, titled “I Remember Father,” shows a well-dressed man sitting in a chair, smoking a cigarette, smiling to himself. Framed by the smoke is a billowy likeness of what we can only assume is his pop. The exhibit delivers big names such as Joseph Beuys, Bill Viola and Gregory Crewdson. But more important, a suspended chair with gooey-looking, resin-covered fabric hanging from it brings back fond memories of scenes from Ghostbusters featuring “ectoplasm” — all anyone can ask of a ghost-themed art show. Through May 23 at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, 4420 Warwick Blvd., 816-753-5784. (G.K.)

The Fairy Tale Project This first curatorial effort from Lucy Pistilli, a 2003 Kansas City Art Institute graduate, is a hit-or-miss gathering of work centering on themes from Brothers Grimm fairy tales. Pistilli and her co-curator and father, Robert, include material from comic books, embroidery, puppets and performance art. Standout pieces include Josh Hoffine’s photograph “Wolf,” which depicts a werewolf lunging down a dark and dingy staircase toward a screaming blond toddler. The daunting shadows and the terrified look on the child’s face convey dark fairy-tale undertones. Also notable are Amy Wright’s iconic, flatly painted surreal landscapes and Jessica Reeves’ energetically composed ink drawings, reminiscent of 1970s cartoons. The order of the work flows well, but the installation is at times distractingly amateurish. This is the Fahrenheit’s last exhibit before its summer break. Through May 7 at the Fahrenheit Gallery, 1717 West 9th St., 816-304-5477. (T.B.)

Project 910 S Wall For his exhibit at the Society for Contemporary Photography, Kansas City artist Colby K. Smith painted a dilapidated old house white (the show is named after its address), then peeled away layers of the walls, sidewalk, floors and furniture, documenting each step of the process with video and photography. Taken on their own, the square photographs appear to be nothing but surface studies of glue, fabric, gravel, wallpaper, etc., but they’re arranged in groups that convey the narrative of Smith’s building biopsy. The SCP’s goal was to demonstrate how photography figures in to a larger project; Smith plans to cut the house into pieces and ship it on palettes from Illinois to Kansas City, where he will reassemble it in a gallery setting. Through May 8 at the Society for Contemporary Photography, 2012 Baltimore, 816-471-2115. (T.B.)

2004 Annual B.F.A. Exhibition At a show filled with work by graduating art students, viewers might expect to see a lot of art about going to art school. But the recurring theme here is consumer culture, with works ranging from a credit card mechanically suspended in midswipe to an Asian-influenced tapestry depicting women in a sweatshop. A luminous, bright-green Honda sits in the middle of the space — a found object the artist calls “If You Don’t Buy Now, I Can’t Help You Save Any Money.” This is a strong show, partly because the artists have addressed issues that go beyond their own experiences, and partly because the quality of the work is consistently high. Much of the work that betrays the artists’ early-twenties existence (and why shouldn’t it?) does so compellingly. The painting “Friends Faux-Eva,” for example, is a gigantic canvas depicting two smiling faces outlined in stuck-on spaghetti; paper covering the canvas gives it a glossy look. The only annoying piece is intentionally shudder-inducing; titled “Migraine Machine,” the sculpture is motion-sensitive and makes a grinding noise every time someone walks by it. This art will rock you like a migraine. Through May 14 at the H&R Block Artspace, 16 E. 43rd St., 816-561-5563. (G.K.)