Time for weekend calendar picks from KC Studio editor Alice Thorson. This is the opening weekend for Unicorn Theatre’s production of Disgraced and Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre’s The Weir. Friday and Saturday, bring the kids to the highly anticipated Jack-O-Lantern Festival at Powell Gardens. This weekend, the 27th International Sculpture Conference comes to town, with sculpture exhibitions open throughout the city, including Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kiosk Gallery, and Cerbera Gallery. A major exhibition of works by Picasso opens at the Nelson tomorrow, and you can see works by local artist and 2016 Charlotte Street Award recipient Rodolfo Marron III (profiled in our May/June 2015 issue) at the Central Library. On Saturday, the Harriman-Jewell Series presents violinist Joshua Bell and pianist Alessio Bax at Kauffman Center. For more events this weekend, visit Kansas City’s most comprehensive arts calendar at kcstudio.org/events.
Disgraced
October 18, 2017 – November 12, 2017
Unicorn Theatre
The personal is political in this Pulitzer Prize-winning drama. Amir Kapoor is a successful Pakistani-American lawyer who is rapidly moving up the corporate ladder while distancing himself from his cultural roots. His wife, Emily, is a white artist whose work explores Islamic imagery. When this couple hosts a dinner party for their colleagues, the veneer of civility gives way to a damaging encounter in this unflinching tale of big-city aspiration, cultural assimilation and the truth hiding just below the deception.
Ephemera
October 18, 2017 – January 28, 2018 | Free
Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art
Organized in concert with the 27th International Sculpture Conference (Oct 25-28, 2017) in Kansas City, Ephemera features the work of Kansas City-based artists Miles Neidinger and Susan White, Oklahoma-based artist Rena Detrixhe, St. Louis-based artist Kahlil Irving, British Columbia-based artist Brian Jungen, and New York-based artist Michelle Segre.
Each artist employs seemingly ubiquitous materials to evince a sense of the fantastic – of the ordinary made extraordinary. Inherently their working processes reference the act of collecting, hunting and gathering materials to both inspire and realize their work. In so doing, familiar things are repurposed and transformed – emphasizing the duality of ephemeral objects. In each instance, the commonplace is employed to convey evocative and often personal content.
The Weir
October 19, 2017 – October 29, 2017
Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre
In a bar in rural Ireland, the local men swap spooky stories in an attempt to impress a young woman from Dublin who recently moved into a nearby “haunted” house. However, the tables are soon turned when she spins a yarn of her own.
Glow: A Jack-O-Lantern Festival
October 20, 2017 – October 21, 2017 | Free – $12
Powell Gardens
Join us for this highly anticipated fall festival featuring hundreds of carved pumpkins and a variety of family-friendly activities! Walk a nearly mile-long pathway lit by light displays, jack-o-lanterns and fantastic pumpkin sculptures. Enjoy stops along the way including children’s activities, hayrides, a fire-pit, hospitality stations with wine, beer and nonalcoholic beverages, food vendors and a demo and display tent featuring master pumpkin carver Rudy Garcia and his fantastic creations.
Cydney Ross: Structural Integrity
October 20, 2017 – November 9, 2017 | Free
Kiosk Gallery
Kiosk Gallery presents “Structural Integrity” – a solo exhibition by Kansas City artist Cydney Ross, featuring new ceramic sculpture works. Ross seeks inspiration in aging architecture, and the ways built environments shape communities and culture – comparing the influences of physical structures with the effects of government policy and political discourse.
An artist’s reception will be held Friday, October 20th, 6-9 pm. The show runs through November 9th during open hours and by appointment; Kiosk will have some extended hours this month in celebration of the International Sculpture Center Conference in Kansas City.
Through the Eyes of Picasso
October 20, 2017 – April 8, 2018 | $18
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
This major exhibition will explore Pablo Picasso’s life-long fascination with African and Oceanic art, as well as works from the Americas, uniting his paintings and sculpture with art that fueled his own creative exploration.
In addition to paintings, sculpture, and drawings by Picasso, the exhibition will feature significant works of African and Oceanic art that transformed his artistic vision when he encountered them at the Musée d’ Ethnographie du Trocadéro (now Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac in Paris) during the early part of the 20th century. For Picasso, the allure of these masks and sculptures was in the artists’ exploration of line, abstraction of the human body, and representation of metamorphosis.
Visitors also will see works Picasso collected, lived with, and kept with him through numerous studio moves, still owned by his family, and others that are in the Picasso Museum in Paris.
Rodolfo Marron III: This is For La Raza
October 21, 2017 – December 31, 2017 | Free
Kansas City Public Library-Central Library
Rodolfo Marron III has emerged as one of the city’s most exciting young visual artists, his deeply personal work reflecting on his relationships with nature, family, religion, and community. A Charlotte Street Award recipient in 2016, he just completed Art Omi International and Fire Island artist residencies in New York.
Marron creates a new collection for the last in a series of Library exhibits commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Charlotte Street Foundation.
The exhibit is co-sponsored by the Charlotte Street Foundation and made possible by a grant from the Enid and Crosby Kemper Foundation, UMB Bank, n.a., Trustee.
Sculpture Salon
October 21, 2017 – November 17, 2017
Cerbera Gallery
Enjoy an exciting line-up of renowned sculpture artists on display at Cerbera Gallery’s Sculpture Salon (27th International Sculpture Conference). Our intimate showcase features works by Tyler Lotz, Akio Takamori, Ken Price, Kensuke Yamada, Jamie Bates Slone, Kyungmin Park, Keira Norton, Kwok Pong “Bobby” Tso, Kimberly LaVonne, Shiyuan Xu, Harris Deller, Yoonjee Kwak, Brandi Withington, Brady McLearan, Bob Schultz, Rain Harris, Joey Watson among others…
Joshua Bell and Alessio Bax, violinist and pianist in recital
October 21, 2017 @ 7:00 pm | $30 – $85
Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts
Joshua Bell is one of those rare classical musicians whose talent, charisma, and star power have made him popular with even non-classical audiences. For Bell’s return engagement, the dynamic Italian pianist Alessio Bax (who played a Series Discovery Concert in 2010) will join him for what is sure to be an unforgettable evening.
