Art Capsule Reviews

Current Works, 2006 The Society for Contemporary Photography closes with a loose examination of the difference between land and property. In Jeff Krolick’s digital prints, natural fissures separate developed land from untouched earth under miasmas of benign clouds. Each could be a glossy sympathy card with a rural postmark: “Sorry about that road coming through.” Jamie Kreher’s droll study of parking-lot medians replaces asphalt with stark white, leaving decaying concrete and lonely grass to float in space. Kansas City Art Institute junior Katie Watson’s collapsed furniture suggests catalog photos from a Bizarro Restoration Hardware more than a warning against disposable goods. For that, the show relies on (and gets a huge boost from) Seattle artist Chris Jordan. His vivid, textured series “In Katrina’s Wake” (excerpted here) paints scenes of abandonment and loss (jars of bloated fruit ruined in Day-Glo brine, piles of orange squirt guns in a demolished dollar store) in tropical aquamarines and bilious yellows. The absence of human figures underscores not nature’s wrath but its brutal indifference. Through Feb. 17 at the SCP, 520 Ave. Cesar E. Chavez, 816-471-2115. (Scott Wilson)

It’s Only Natural The quiet austerity of the H&R Block Art Space gallery accentuates the sometimes startling drama of this biennial Kansas City Art Institute faculty exhibit. Assistant Professor Carolyn Kallenborn’s sculptural fabric piece, “Rift,” employs delicate hand-dyed silk organza in a surprising evocation of violence. By contrast, Julie Farstad’s “Prairie Summer Heartbreak,” a surreal composition of birds, dolls and houses, creates tension with an assertive Madison Avenue color palette. Steve Mayse’s mixed-media sculpture — “Fixin’ to Go,” a cunning, bombastic assembly of wooden frames, strips of metal, doll parts and text — feels like the externalization of a caffeinated inner narrative. Jason Pollen, professor and chairman of the KCAI Fiber Department, contributes 24 square fabric panels, dyed with patterns evoking cellular structures, or phosphenes. These are among the exhibit’s most impressive displays. Through Feb. 17 at the H&R Block Art Space Gallery, 16 E. 43rd St., 816-561-5563. (Chris Packham)

Kansas City Artists Coalition Auction At least 270 works by more than 250 artists, mostly local, are auctioned off by the Kansas City Artists Coalition in its annual fund-raising venture. The silent auction started on February 2, but the works are on display until the day of the live auction. Notable and beautiful amid this big mix of paintings and sculptures is Lou Marak’s oil-on-canvas portrait of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife, “Zelda/You Wish,” and Larry Thomas’ abstract mixed media “Suspicious Association.” Through Feb. 17 at the Kansas City Artists Coalition, 201 Wyandotte, 816-421-5222. (Santiago Ramos)

Richard Loftis: Ins and Outs Loftis’ work consists of a cluster of 24 large photographs, each depicting some sort of round or circular object. (A few scattered individual pictures follow the same theme.) The jet propellers in “In #19” are spiral in shape; the spherical moon appears in “In #23.” Almost every image balances light, tone and perspective in impressive ways, so the artist’s technical skill as a photographer is not in question — his artistic vision is. Ins and Outs has the feel of a Sesame Street episode dedicated to round things. Through Feb. 24 at the Dolphin Gallery, 1901 Baltimore, 816 842-5877. (Santiago Ramos)

Sound Exchange A little more interesting in theory than in practice, this is still a cool idea. Two artists, Amy Stacey Curtis from Portland, Maine, and Amber Hasselbring of San Francisco, recorded nine sounds indicative of their surroundings. They swapped them in the mail, then drew impressions of what they heard; each contributed nine 11-inch-by-11 inch drawings in charcoal, graphite, watercolor pencil and inkjet. The resulting collaboration, a visual and aural dialogue between East Coast and West Coast, analyzes place and our relationship to it. The interactive quality of the exhibit, in which gallerygoers are asked to play the recorded sounds on headphones while looking at the work, leaves us lost in the waves of “Pacific Ocean.” We’re not complaining. Through Feb. 24 at Grothaus and Pearl Gallery, 2012 Baltimore, 816-471-1015. (Ray T. Barker)

Swimming Through Interiors: Inside the Still Play Wichita painter Patrick Duegaw jigsaws pieces of Sheetrock (some found in the street, others removed from the walls of his studio) into intricate configurations, bolts them crudely to a wooden base and illuminates them with thin coats of paint to create hyper-real, maximalist works of portraiture, landscape and surrealism. “Maha with Floatation Device (or) She Floats Out” evokes ambiguity through painstaking detail, superimposing a goggled figure over a Sheetrock sculpture of a life preserver. Revealing Duegaw’s canny sense of color, the brilliant central figure of “Amy With Butter Knife (or) Dreaming of Open Washers and Empty Dryers” jumps out of the muted background laundromat. And the 20 foot-long, 360-degree interior study “Fisch Haus, Third Floor, West End” is Duegaw’s vivid magnum opus. Through Feb. 24 at the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center, 2012 Baltimore, 816-474-1919. (Chris Packham)

Sissel Tolaas: The Fear of Smell, the Smell of Fear Norway-born “olfactivist” Sissel Tolaas collected sweat from nine men who had been put into fear-inducing situations. She then synthetically reproduced their sweat pheromones and embedded them into paint applied to Grand Arts’ walls in nine off-white, 5-foot-by-8-foot panels. Patrons scratch and sniff, and the smells recall people and places (such as the sour milk and dishwashing soap in a second-grade cafeteria). It’s an intimate and vulnerable experience. For the fearful, plastic bottles on a shelf allow visitors to take in the art cosmetics-counter style. Be advised: No. 7 is a little funky. Through March 10 at Grand Arts, 1819 Grand, 816-421-6887. (Ray T. Barker) Reviewed in our Feb. 1 issue.