Shipping-container art gallery 50/50 to open this weekend in the West Bottoms

Last fall, Kansas City Art Institute grads Cambria Potter and Hannah Lodwick purchased two shipping containers and had them hauled to a parking lot at 1628 Wyoming, across from the American Royal in the West Bottoms. (Bill Haw Jr., of art gallery Haw Contemporary, owns the lot.) They’ve spent the last year navigating the city’s permitting process and converting the shipping containers into an art gallery. That space, 50/50, holds its grand opening this weekend.

Sustainability is one of the core ideas behind 50/50. Post-construction, it’ll have no overhead — Haw has leased Potter and Lodwick the lot for free through the end of 2016, and soon-to-be-installed solar panels mean there won’t be utility bills to pay.

“We received our permit on May 28 and have been building away ever since,” Lodwick says. “Eventually — in probably about a month — we’ll have solar panels installed, but for now we’ll be powering the HVAC with a generator.”

As for the art, the first show, COHOST, features one local artist (Robert Howsare) and one national artist (Kristin Walsh, of New York).

“They’re both doing projections, but in different ways — half digital, half analog,” Lodwick says. “Bobby [Howsare] is doing a projection with a vintage sound projector, silk-screening color onto a film strip and creating these beautiful images and sounds. Kristin Walsh is using a digital projector that projects Google Street View images onto acrylic objects.”

Both shows open at the same time, each in its own shipping container, starting at 6 p.m. Friday. The exhibit runs through October 2. There’s also a billboard component to 50/50 — Lodwick and Potter are programming art on two billboards adjacent to the shipping containers. The first piece, “Open,” designed by artist Ari Fish, is already up (pictured above).

Moving forward, Lodwick says 50/50 will be put on six shows a year — a new one every other month — and that the first year of 50/50 is already scheduled out.

“We’ll be doing this down here through at least January 2017,” she says. “At that point we’ll either renew the lease, or move somewhere new, or sell the containers. That’s one of the things I think we like about being an alternative venue — that we can respond not just to the KC art community but also to what’s happening in the West Bottoms. Since we started planning this, the American Royal has moved out, Boulevardia has moved in. Things like that dramatically change the function of the West Bottoms. I think it’ll be important and exciting to be able to react to those kinds of changes and conversations with what we do at 50/50.”

COHOST
50/50
1628 Wyoming
Opening: Friday, August 21, 6-10 p.m.
Hours: 12-5 p.m. Saturdays through October 2