Kudos to Kansas City art officials: You’re doing right for KC artists | Opinion
I literally stood up and applauded in my home office on Friday morning, after sitting in on a virtual Kansas City Municipal Art Commission meeting.
The group voted unanimously to pull back a call for artists to do an art installation on the new Lydia Avenue garage that is going up near 18th and Vine streets in the historic 18th and Vine Jazz District.
And here’s the best part: They said when they reissue the new call, unlike the first callout, it will be for local artists and those with significant ties to Kansas City.
Bravo to the commission and the local artists who spoke up with dissatisfaction regarding the results of the commission’s first callout for artists.
The initial callout went out nationally and reaped 218 applications, including 30 from local artists. A selection panel chose three finalists: None were from Kansas City, and none were artists of color.
Kansas City artists said they felt unseen in the process and expressed doubt that outside artists with no cultural connection to the significance that the historic Jazz District has to Kansas City, particularly its Black communities, could adequately capture the spirit of 18th and Vine and how it’s woven into the fabric of the city.
I never saw the work the art panel chose as finalists, but I agreed with the local artists that this project should be homegrown, and I was hard-pressed to believe there aren’t some local artists whose work would be right for this space.
I know there are some great artists here. During the meeting, commissioners said it wasn’t necessarily the creativity and beauty of the work from local artists that may have been a factor in why no Kansas City artists were initially selected. Some of the outside artists who competed for this project have made their entire careers on landing big municipal art projects, and they are skilled not only in the art but in the application process.
Among the criteria in the initial callout is one requiring qualified artists to have been involved with a city project in the past. Each criterion is scored to help the panel make its decision. The city experience criteria may have kept some local artists away. A recommendation for commissioners is to increase the number of criteria in the application so that the experience portion might carry less weight.
Nationally known artist Harold Smith, a Kansas Citian, attended Friday’s meeting and supported the commission’s vote to reissue the call and keep it local. He explained exactly what I was thinking, and that is that the city should use these kinds of projects, when at all possible, to help our local artists get the experience they need to “arrive” on the national art scene.
Commissioners agreed and said they would be hosting events around the city to train artists in how to prepare to answer a call for a city project in the future.
The Lydia garage project is part of the city’s One Percent for Art Program, which is funded through public dollars. The chosen artist will get access to a maximum of $185,000 to cover the artist’s fee, travel, fabrication, installation, permits, insurance and equipment.
Having that kind of support for an up-and-coming local artist can go a long way to show our Kansas City creatives they are appreciated by their city. We want to keep Kansas City talent in Kansas City.
Boy, do I love it when I see Kansas City officials doing what is right for our city and the people who live here. And I’m equally pleased to see Kansas Citians standing up and demanding it. That deserves an ovation.
