20 June 2008 to 19 July 2008
Hours: Thursday & Saturday, 12-5 pm
Third Friday opening: June 20, 6-9 pm
Urban Culture Project at PARAGRAPH
23 E 12TH STREET
MO 64108
Kansas City, MO
Missouri
North America
p: 1 816 221 5115
m:
f:
w: www.urbancultureproject.org
Re-Forming Space – Susan white and cydney millstein Paragraph | 23 East 12th Street | 816.221.5115 Third Friday opening: June 20, 6-9 pm Gallery talk with Susan White and Cydney Millstein: June 20, 6 pm June 20-July 19, 2008 Hours: Thursdays & Saturdays, 12-5 pm
“The only works of art America has given are her plumbing and her bridges,” Marcel Duchamp famously stated. Presently, because of nationwide, ongoing rebuilding of our bridges, events such as the collapse of the Minneapolis I-35W Mississippi Bridge in 2007, and the impending replacement of Kansas City’s Paseo Bridge, we are perhaps more aware than ever of the condition and significance of bridge design, past and present. In Re-Forming Space, Kansas City artist Susan White and architectural historian Cydney Millstein turn their attention to several Kansas City bridges that represent triumphs of American civil engineering—and feats of great beauty as well.
“On a personal scale we experience bridges from afar as three-dimensional drawings, and in an immediate way, as sculptural forms through which we pass. Indeed, bridges have a way of transforming or re-forming space,” write White and Millstein. Merging the practices and expertise of the two collaborators, the exhibition will feature a series of new artworks by White, including graphite drawings on vellum, pyrographs (burn drawings) on paper, two large-scale wall drawings/installations, sculpture, and video. It will also include narrative wall texts by Millstein along with reproductions of historical photographs and architectural drawings. Representing extraordinary fusions of technological innovation and structural beauty, the bridges explored in this exhibition include the Broadway Bridge, the Twelfth Street Trafficway Viaduct, the ASB Bridge, the Paseo Bridge, and the Waddell “A” Truss Bridge. These featured bridges were designed by the eminent engineer John Alexander Low Waddell (1854-1938) and his successor firms including (but not limited to) Waddell & Hedrick; Waddell & Harrington; and Howard, Needles, Tammen & Bergendoff (HNTB).
Susan White earned her BFA from Kansas City Art Institute and pursued graduate studies at Rhode Island School of Design. She has exhibited widely in the region, including at Greenlease Gallery at Rockhurst University (two-person show), Joseph Nease Gallery (solo installation), Salina Art Center (solo installation), Urban Culture Project’s Jenkins window gallery (solo video installation), Byron Cohen Gallery, Jan Weiner Gallery, and Fahrenheit Gallery. White completed an Avenue of the Arts public art commission in 2006 and is currently a lecturer at University of Missouri-Kansas City. She will present a solo exhibition at the Bemis Underground/Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, in November 2008.
Cydney Millstein, founder of Architectural & Historical Research, LLC, has worked in the field of architectural history and preservation since 1982. Over the course of her career, she has had the great opportunity to examine some of our nation's significant cultural resources, including bridges, water tanks, dams and rail-related structures. Ms. Millstein's firm was responsible for preparing the document for the National Historic Landmark listing of Liberty Memorial. Her book Houses of Missouri: 1870-1940 co-authored with Dr. Carol Grove with a preface by Dr. Richard Longstreth, is due out in September 2008. Acanthus Press, New York, is the publisher. She is currently working on a field guide of the exceptional spans of Kansas City.
