‘Very powerful’: New art center in Jazz District hopes to bridge KC art communities
Anita Easterwood sits inside her newly renovated art studio surrounded by paintings she created — thankful to be one of the first artists to call the new Zhou B Art Center her home for creative expression.
“It was exciting,” Easterwood says. “When I did the tour, I told them that day I wanted to get into a studio because I could see the trajectory this place was heading and I wanted to be a part of it.”
Easterwood, a Kansas City, Kansas, native and mother of one, decided to pursue her art full time in 2021 after feeling unfulfilled as an art teacher. She was selling a lot of her artwork. The more of it she sold, the more certain she was about making this form of self-expression her primary source of income.
Easterwood was one of the first artists accepted into the Zhou Brothers’ new center and counts herself lucky to be a part of this new organization.
Like many Black artists in the metro, Easterwood believes that Kansas City’s art scene has historically offered few options for artists of color looking to show their work. She is optimistic that this center will bring a much needed outlet for Black art to the Vine District.
The art center, at 1801 E. 18th St.,in the middle of Kansas City’s historic 18th and Vine Jazz District, will reside in what used to be the Crispus Attucks School, a historic school for Black children that opened in 1905. The building had been vacant for some time when the Zhou brothers, DaHuang and ShanZuo Zhou, first set eyes on the place. Classrooms were converted into art studios.
For the brothers, this endeavor was about creating a new central location for active artists in the district to build a stronger community around.
“It was just a feeling. I didn’t know anything really about the history of the building or the 18th and Vine area,” DaHuang Zhou told The Star back in 2022 during a visit to Kansas City to announce that they would open their second art center here.
The new Zhou B Art Center has space for 45 artists who participate in group shows throughout each year. Along with the studios, the building will house a sculpture garden and various event spaces.
The brothers are world-renowned artists who have called Chicago their home since the 1980s. Over the decades, the original Zhou B Art Center became a hotspot for artists in the Chicago area and attracted artists who produce a variety of art forms from around the world.
The duo is hoping to recreate that magic with their new Kansas City location.
While on a tour of the city years ago, the siblings saw the vacant former school building and inquired as to what the status of the property was. At the time the property was already in the process of being sold. However, after the deal fell through, the Zhou Brothers made an offer and spent the next couple years renovating the location.
In addition to the dozens of local artists that will grace the halls of the center, the organization plans on bringing national artists in for exhibitions.
“With them bringing in well-known traveling exhibitions to our community and having minority artists fill these spaces really does wonders for us to have our art all under the same roof,” Easterwood says.
Artists with studio space at the art center also can partner with the Zhou B Art Center by using the application Artsy to sell their work. Using the brothers’ extensive network expands an artist’s reach to a global level.
“I will be the one to help artists market and sell their work,” says Isabella Vivas, the center’s art director. “I am excited to see where they start now and how they will grow in the future as well as all the educational events we have set for the future. There is a lot of potential here.”
Vivas, has called Kansas City home for the past seven years. While studying at the KC Art Institute she realized there was a noticeable divide between the art scenes within the Crossroads Art District and the Jazz District. She believes that this center is what the city needs to help bridge the communities.
For Vivas, an important part of the center’s mission is to open opportunities for female and minority artists.
“Having another place for artists to collectively work together just creates more conversation and allows other people to feed ideas off of each other,” she says.
Warren Harvey, who is a lifelong artist and someone who for years has advocated for the advancement of Black art in the city, believes this new center is the link that has been missing.
For the past two years, Harvey has curated a gallery at 2000 Vine St. and is pleased with the area receiving another location in the district where people can incorporate art into their evenings. Last summer he and numerous local Black artists participated in the first ever 18th and Vine Arts Festival, and he thinks the district is ready for more art.
“The Vine Street art movement is in a bit of a state of transition,” says Harvey, 36. “We are moving into the right direction with Black art in the city and these new opportunities are allowing us to really move our work to the forefront.”
Vivas says she saw a fractured arts ecosystem and wanted to help the Zhou B Center create an atmosphere where artists work together and support each other.
“Geographically, Crossroads and 18th and Vine are so close to each other, but I think there is this connotation of the Crossroads being the destination for fine art,” Vivas says. “There is art everywhere in Kansas City and we need to elevate the arts as a whole everywhere instead of compartmentalizing and separating.”
Christa Rice, a local Black artists, is one of the many painters to move into the art studios in the Zhou B Art Center. For the past three years Rice has curated art shows at the offices of Crossroads Chiropractic. The shows were a way for Rice to highlight Black artists looking for a space in the Crossroads to exhibit their work.
“I wanted to curate my own space since I wasn’t let into any other spaces,” Rice told the star in 2022. Still, Rice is happy to join the center’s roaster of artists who are looking to strengthen impact of the Vine Street art community.
The art center plans a First Friday’s initiative that will help introduce more members of KC’s art world to the Jazz District, some for the first time. For artists like Easterwood, the Crossroads District represented the glass ceiling that many Black artists have not gotten the chance to bust through. Crossroads gallery owners, the artists say, tell them they limit gallery space for Black work because they don’t believe there is a big enough market for Black art.
Easterwood says they’re wrong.
“Art can be anywhere, and these pieces that we’re selling and a lot of these customers are white,” Easterwood says. “So, the idea that Black art doesn’t sell is just an excuse when you wouldn’t know because they’re not trying and testing that theory.”
The center had a soft opening earlier in the year with the documentary premiere of “Space Race” that told the story of a Black KCK man who almost was the first Black man in space. The center will kick off its official programming with an art exhibition of actress CCH Pounder’s art collection this summer.
Although Harvey had the only gallery for two years in the Vine Street District, he welcomes the idea of another alternative for people to enjoy art.
“I think this will be very powerful and I am extremely excited,” Harvey says. “For them to see the potential and want to do this here is amazing, and I am grateful because there is so much passion for art in the Vine District and now we are going to get to see that grow.”
This story was originally published April 5, 2024 at 12:14 PM.
