Urban Culture Project Presents YOU'RE SUCH A GOOD SPORT

The exhibition project, You're Such a Good Sport, focuses on artists' work relating to sports and sports culture. Featuring visual artworks as well as performances, participatory activities, special events and public programs, this exhibition represents both sport and art as deeply rooted into our definitions of ourselves, individually and culturally, and invites viewers and participants to discover commonalities within the meanings of gamesmanship and art-making. You're Such a Good Sport exemplifies qualities of sport and art as experiences to be shared, critiqued, celebrated, and explored.

In addition to works by local as well as national and international visual, You're Such a Good Sport incorporates regional sports objects as well as specific sports-inspired exhibition furniture to create a lively, multi-faceted context and experience . Artist and arts professional Michael Schonhoff is the manager and chief curator of the project.

The exhibition is divided into two parts: a group exhibition at Paragraph gallery and "The Training Room" in the adjacent Project Space.

PARAGRAPH

The exhibition at Paragraph presents artist's books, photographs, video works, installations, drawings, performance and collage along with local historical and cultural artifacts either found or created.

Areas of investigation include spectacle and audience roles, fanaticism and obsessivism, archetypes and gender roles, and the local historical and cultural contexts of arts and sports.

Artists include Matt Dehaemers, Robert Heishman, Megan Mantia, Mike Hill, Miki Baird, Pellom McDaniels, Brett Reif, Pablo Helguera, Chris Doyle, Phil Peterson, Ray Noland, Adriane Herman, Brian Reeves, Shelley Buffalo, Linda Trunzo, and Megan Gallant.

The show also features images and video borrowed from the Kansas City Museum, and reference materials borrowed from the Negro League Baseball Museum.

Engaging traffic on 12th Street, Kansas City artist Alexander Austin will be creating a mural painting on gallery windows featuring local and national sports figures. A performance by Rah! Booty will be featured on opening night, March 19, as will an appearance by the Kansas City Roller Warriors.

THE TRAINING ROOM

As "The Training Room," Project Space will host a series of successive short-term projects that exemplify dedicated "practice" or investigate relationships between art and sport in a participatory, time-basEd Manner. These range from artist and football fan Sean Starowitz's interactive training session on "Playmaking in Football;" to Johnny Naugahyde's "Kilgore Trout Flies," for which the artist will camp out overnight in the gallery as he teaches himself to tie trout flies; to musician Jeff Harshbarger's "Game Pieces," for which he will engage a group of fellow musicians to spontaneously create new pieces of music according to changing sets of rules. Jenna Stanton will make large-scale prints by inking up the wheels of her bicycle in "printcycle," and Paul Shortt will lead a session of "Calvin Ball" whereby participants, with access to a range of sporting equipment, add their own rules and break other rules, with public discussion to follow about the make-up of the game, power plays, competition and the nature of rules.

"The Training Room" will also host Lori Waxman's 60 wrd/min art critic project, April 15-17 (Thursday + Saturday, 12-5pm; Friday 5-10pm), a project for which the Chicago based art critic and art historian is travelling the country delivering rapid-fire, on-the spot, free-of-charge written art reviews to artists in need of them, on a first-come, first-serve basis. The 60 wrd/min art critic is a project of the Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program. A separate press release about this project will follow.

THE TRAINING ROOM SCHEDULE
(visit www.charlottestreet.org for exact hours & details)
March 19: Andy Anima, Mascot Purgatory
March 20: Sean Starowitz, Playmaking in Football
March 30-April 1: Jeff Harshbarger, Game Pieces
April 2: Johnny Naugahyde, Kilgore Trout Flies
April 3-4: Jason Myers, Artist in the Arena
April 8-9: Jaclyn Senne & Stephen C. Proski, Camp Fan
April 10: Mike Hill, Baseball Project Live
April 13-14: Every Body Has Community
April 15-17: Lori Waxman, 60 wrd/min art critic
April 22-23: Jenna Stanton, printcycle
April 24: Lori Bury, Marathon Canoe Racing
April 27-29: Margaret Shelby, Gun Control
April 30: Paul Shortt, Calvinball Game

Additional You're Such a Good Sport Public Programs & Events Include:

Friday, April 9, 10-2pm - WHB 810 Sports Radio broadcast live from Paragraph gallery

Saturday, April 3, noon - Gallery walk thru & discussion with curator Michael Schonhoff & art historian Milton Katz

April 17th, 4pm - 90.1 KKFI, Urban Connections, Donna Wolfe with Michael Schonhoff & featured artist Pellom McDaniels

+ Tours with the curator available by appointment.

About the Curator:
Born in Dubuque, Iowa, Michael Schonhoff's creative practice includes being an artist, musician and arts professional. His work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions locally, nationally and internationally, and is included in public and private collections including those of the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas, Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art in Kansas, John and Maxine Belger Family Foundation in Missouri, AGB Graphics Collection in Wisconsin, and the Studio Place Arts in Vermont. Recently Schonhoff completed a studio residency at takt kunstprojektraum in Berlin, Germany. As a musician and songwriter he writes, performs, and records with thee DEVOTION. His efforts as an arts professional include curatorial projects involving exhibitions, collections, living artists, and publications. He received his MFA in Visual Art from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and his BFA from Iowa State University. Currently, he serves as Assistant Curator, Community Outreach and Exhibition Management, at the H&R Block Artspace at the Kansas City Art Institute.

This exhibition project is made possible with generous support from the Kansas City Chiefs, Arts KC Fund, and MAP, a project of The Kansas City Artists Coalition.

Urban Culture Project is an initiative of the Charlotte Street Foundation, an organization dedicated to making Kansas City a place where artists and art thrive. Urban Culture Project creates new opportunities for artists of all disciplines and contributes to urban revitalization by transforming spaces in downtown Kansas City into new venues for multi-disciplinary contemporary arts programming. For more information, visit www.charlottestreet.org.