Gold. Forever a symbol of wealth and human desire, it’s also a source of folly and madness. It has been a catalyst of enormous historical force. It can spell cataclysm and doom. And, beginning in September, it’s the subtext of a haunting exhibit of historical photographs at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

At once cosmopolitan and distinctively local, traditional and revolutionary, charming and transgressive, Kansas City’s fine arts scene is a supernova amidst the Midwestern Milky Way.