February’s First Friday is heavy on retrospectives

Next month, the National Ceramics Education Conference (NCECA) returns to Kansas City after six years and takes over almost every gallery in the metro, and some places are getting a head start — or at least hunkering down in preparation. For example, Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art (2004 Baltimore) opens The Once and Future: New Now with a First Friday reception from 7 to 9 p.m. February 5. It features works by 23 artists, including Misty Gamble, Rain Harris, Sunko Yuh, Peter Pincus, Cary Esser and John Balistreri. The show, according to the gallery, has been curated to reflect the “shared DNA” of all ceramic artists’ work.

The relationship between mentors and makers in the ceramics culture is the theme of NCECA’s 50th-anniversary conference, and the Belger Arts Center (2100 Walnut) has had a more local expression of that on display since January 8 with Every Semester: Collecting KCAI Ceramics 1995-2015. The pieces here, some lent from 14 regional collectors, others strong representations from current faculty, transcend hints of old end-of-semester sales and stand as an assemblage you can admire.

On First Friday, the Belger opens Desire with a 6-9 p.m. reception. The show is a retrospective of works created through one of Kansas City’s most noteworthy artist programs, the Lighton International Exchange Program. What do you desire? Perhaps you’ll see the answer from one of the 37 artists exhibiting here, who have expanded their practices through residencies in 27 countries.

The gallery also opens The Garden Party, a group show based on the theme of garden as muse, exploring, as show materials put it, the “fine line between the need to preserve and the need to re-imagine, re-configure, and re-contextualize the world around us.”

Apex Art Space (1819 Wyandotte) has photographs from Stephen Locke, and it’s time for the (sixth) annual Chinese New Year exhibition and celebration at Windhorse Tattoo and Gallery (1717 Wyandotte, upstairs). Ten artists take on the Year of the Monkey, including Megan Wheeler, Andrew Milko, Matthew Grim and Danni Parelman.

Leedy-Voulkos Art Center continues its most recent shows through February 13: Dylan Mortimer’s Cure (reviewed in The Pitch‘s January 21 issue); Gloria Baker Feinstein’s photographs in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter; Ada Koch’s Love, Loss and Violence; and Charlie Paynter’s A to Z and More.

Kevin Perkins writes that he’s “not interested in making things deemed as ‘cute’ or things that will get placed on the refrigerator door,” and indeed his art, though whimsical on the surface, is not for the faint of heart. Plenum Space (504 East 18 Street) opens You’re Prettier Than That, in which Perkins refers to American Psycho, to how we make allowances for people we love, and to the dubious value of niceness. The First Friday reception is from 6 to 10 p.m.

For a dose of relative innocence, seek out the downstairs space of Gallery 504, where Every Child Is an Artist features works by about 35 kids (ages 2 to 15) in our metro. There’s also live music by David Hakan.

Weinberger Fine Art (114 Southwest Boulevard) continues Nina Erwin’s dreamlike solo exhibition, which also includes poetry by Greg Hack, produced in collaboration with, and in reaction to, 15 of the works.

The new photography darkroom and bookstore called Night Blooms (529 Southwest Boulevard) presents Corpvs Verbvm Vol. 2, a slate of performance poetry starting at 8 p.m. (after usual business hours) with Sheila Rae, King of Herrins, D. Davis, Lauren Schraeder and Piper Harrow.

At Beco Gallery (1922 Baltimore), seven local performers deconstruct vintage burlesque with interpretations you can watch from the sidewalk through the windows, amid a stage environment created by Joscelyn Himes Textiles. Among the sights: Georgia O’Queefe showing off the work-life balance while dancing on a ladder. The rotation starts at 6 p.m. and repeats on the hour at 7, 8 and 9. Other participants include Sara “Miss Conception” Glass, Leo Night Us (Leonard Gayden), Phiture Tran, Angyil McNeal, Naomi Petersen and Shea La Roux. Inside, Amy Pina presents paintings, and local floral designers have arranged a number of sexually provocative bouquets you can vote on. Paraplui Productions, the organizer if this pre–Valentine’s Day happening, will sell adult toys to benefit, in part, the Bernie Sanders campaign.

Also on the performative end of the First Friday spectrum, the Mid-America Arts Alliance (2018 Baltimore) welcomes the Artist’s Laboratory Theatre of Arkansas to present I Can Haz Sheet Fort. Every 20 minutes from 6 to 8 p.m., dancers — using found material from blogs, social media and the like — show us more of what the folks at Crystal Bridges Museum for American Art have already enjoyed. They are looking for new partners, too, for future Sheet Fort Tours.

At the western edge of the Crossroads, La Esquina Gallery (1000 West 25th Street) has Traces and Trajectories, which takes a look at the six-year history of Rocket Grants projects. Subterranean Gallery’s second director, Melaney Mitchell, has paired up with fellow arts writer Blair Schulman to examine what effects these “community-based practices” have had on Kansas City and artists. The exhibition surveys the past and has also invited participants to get us up to date with new work. Among those answering the call: Judith Levy, Plug Projects, Blanket Undercover, Nedra Bonds, Darryl Chamberlain, Amber Hansen and Don Wilkison. The opening reception is 6 to 8 p.m., and there will be talks at the gallery every week this month (see charlottestreet.org).

Outside the Crossroads, the H&R Block Artspace at KCAI (4415 Warwick) opens Simone Leigh: I Ran to the Rock to Hide My Face the Rock Cried Out No Hiding Place, a multimedia exhibition that reflects her wide ranging talents and interests. These converge on a study of the way the black female body has been, and continues to be, represented in roles such as worker, healer, creator, performer and storyteller.