RSS 2.0 FeedMay 12, 2010, Local Arts News
Wrapped art signifies loss of art in absence of patronage
The Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City will wrap its third "Lost-and-Found" art piece, Jun Kaneko's Water Plaza at 1:00 p.m. Friday, May 14 at Bartle Hall. Congressman Emmanuel Cleaver II is a featured speaker. The media and public are invited to attend.
As part of a public awareness campaign for its ArtsKC Fund, the Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City created a series of blank billboards with the message, "If we don't support artists, there is no art." The campaign, "Lost-and-Found" Art, entered its second phase on April 7 by posting hand-painted billboards designed by local artists, Michael Toombs and Jose Faus.
Throughout the campaign, the Arts Council is wrapping a series of three "Lost-and-Found" art pieces from different areas of the city as a way to suggest the potential loss of public art in the absence of patronage. The wrapping of the Jun Kaneko ceramics in Water Plaza is the final of the three wraps.
The Water Plaza artwork on the south side of the Kansas City Convention Center Ballroom was named No. 17 in the top 21 list of public art pieces in the country by Art in America magazine in its 2008 Annual Guide. Kaneko created the work, which features a plaza design that represents flowing water with decorative concrete, seven colorful ceramic sculptures and a complimentary interior mural.
Jun Kaneko is a Japanese ceramic artist living in Omaha, Nebraska, in the United States. In 1942 he was born in Nagoya, Japan, where he studied painting during his high school years. He came to the United States in 1963 to continue those studies at Chouinard Institute of Art when his focus was drawn to sculptural ceramics through his introduction to Fred Marer. He studied with Peter Voulkos, Paul Soldner, and Jerry Rothman in California during the time now defined as the contemporary ceramics movement. The following decade, Kaneko taught at various U.S. art schools, including Scripps College, Cranbrook Academy of Art and Rhode Island School of Design.
The ArtsKC Fund campaign was launched March 1. Two previous "Lost-and-Found" art pieces are the J.C. Nichols Memorial Fountain by Henri Gerbert on the Country Club Plaza and Sound Suit by Nick Cave at Johnson County Community College.
For more information about the Arts KC Fund, call Julia Smith at 816-994-9224 or e-mail at Smith@artskc.org.
About the ArtsKC Fund
The ArtsKC Fund, an initiative of the Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City, is a united arts fund that raises new money to support a wide range of arts organizations and programs. Its purpose is to provide stable sources of new financial support for the arts, broaden access to high-quality arts experiences, and sustain excellence in the arts and arts administration. The Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City is a not-for-profit organization that serves the five-county Kansas City metropolitan area and strives to strengthen and enrich the community by growing appreciation, participation, and support of its arts resources. For more information about the ArtsKC Fund, visit http://www.ArtsKC.org.
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