KANSAS CITY, MO, May 7, 2024: Charlotte Street is pleased to premiere Artboards this spring by artists Andrew Mcilvaine and Hùng Lê, currently installed at 125 Southwest Boulevard. The Artboards program is a collaboration with the Crossroads Community Association and co-sponsored by the Mid-America Arts Alliance, capturing the creative spirit of the Crossroads neighborhood and serving as an alternative outdoor platform where artists’ work can be viewed during all hours of the day. The current work will remain on view through the end of June 2024.
Mcilvaine says of his Artboards:
“The concept […] revolves around Chicanfuturism and the collision of histories that exist alongside the south and southwestern borderlands or la frontera. In these works, past and present cultures are colliding in southwestern landscapes. Often these compositions are reflective of larger conflicts that are rooted in colonialism and the displacement and replacement of peoples from their native land. Here cowboys collide with vaqueros and low-riders which run through the scenes alongside horses and people. Forms and space get abstracted under this collision and fragmented representing the complex nature of contemporary life.”
Lê says of his Artboards:
“Depictions of the American War in Vietnam throughout the decades have been limited to the perspective of the United States. Movies such as Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now are told through a hyper-masculine Western lens that neglects the Vietnamese perspective. […] Only The Future Revisits The Past and Stitched Memories investigate how memories are passed on through objects and photographs as a method of resistance against the dominant narrative. The series uses family photographs to piece together fragmented family history. By recreating the photographs through a combination of cyanotypes, laser engraving, and indigo-dyeing, these pieces act as love letters to the past. […]
As our personal lives become increasingly more public through social media, the line between private and public information becomes blurred. The Crossroads Artboards present an opportunity to engage the personal archive with the public realm. By presenting these photographs at a busy intersection, these pieces utilize traditional advertising methods to confront the dominant narrative of the American War in Vietnam. The interaction challenges the authorship of history and raises questions of who gets to be the keeper of history and who is left behind and forgotten.”
ABOUT ANDREW MCILVAINE
As a Mexican American interdisciplinary artist from San Antonio, Texas my work explores the intersection between trauma and collective and personal identity. Specifically how these issues affect and shape the south and southwestern regions of the United States. Through narrative-based work I create images and objects that are rooted in myth and spirituality yet reflect the memories, histories, and heritage of my family. The work speaks about the displacement and replacement of culture, language, nationality, and pose questions about home, loss, authenticity, and assimilation due to settlers’ colonialism. The work is situated between cultural borders as well as caught between the past and present and pose questions about the histories that are accumulated through generational movement. Further the work examines what the Latinx diaspora looks like with the introduction of technology and scientific innovation as viewed through Chicanafuturism. My work has been included in various group shows and solo exhibitions regionally and nationally. Including exhibitions at Habitat Contemporary, Plug gallery, H&R Block Artspace, Marthas Contemporary, and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art.
ABOUT HÙNG LÊ
Hùng Lê is an interdisciplinary artist born in Đồng Nai, Vietnam. His family immigrated to America when he was seven, settling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Immigrating at a young age has caused a lot of dissonance within his identity, which fostered his interest in memories, American culture, immigration, language, and citizenship as a means to understand himself and the history that precedes him. His practice examines the aftermath of the American War in Việt Nam, particularly how personal memory is retained within objects, photographs, and oral traditions compared to how collective or national memory is created and preserved through education, archives, and propaganda. Lê received his BFA and Asian Studies Certificate from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2022. He has received multiple awards including the Windgate-Lamar Fellowship Award in 2022, the Jesse-Howard Fellowship in 2022, and the Lead Bank Emerging Artist Award in 2020. Lê is currently a resident at Charlotte Street in Kansas City, MO.
ABOUT CROSSROADS ARTBOARDS
Since 2008, the Crossroads Artboards has featured over 100 commissioned works by Kansas City-area artists. In partnership with the Crossroads Community Association, the Artboards capture the creative spirit of the Crossroads neighborhood while serving as an alternative platform for contemporary art. For a complete listing of artists and more information, visit charlottestreet.org/crossroads-artboards/.
ABOUT CROSSROADS COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION
The mission of the Crossroads Community Association shall be to support, promote, advance, and encourage the revitalization of the community as a thriving, safe and attractive center of art, history, enterprise, commerce, culture, residence, entertainment, education, and other activity; to inform and educate the members of this association and the public about community issues; to provide a forum to address community objectives and issues; to build a strong community through communication, cooperation, planning and leadership; to build a strong partnership between business owners, property owners, tenants, and residents to ensure community involvement; and to enhance the quality of life within the community. For more information visit https://kccrossroads.org/about/cca/
ABOUT MID-AMERICA ARTS ALLIANCE
Mid-America Arts Alliance (M-AAA) strengthens and supports artists, cultural organizations, and communities throughout Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, and beyond. To learn more about M-AAA grants, programs, exhibitions, and fellowships, visit www.maaa.org and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
ABOUT CHARLOTTE STREET
Charlotte Street centers Kansas City’s most forward-thinking visual artists, writers, and performers—acting as the primary incubator, provocateur, and connector for the region’s contemporary arts community and its leading advocate on the national stage. Since 1997, Charlotte Street has distributed over $2.5 million in awards and grants to artists and their innovative projects and has hosted countless exhibitions, performances, convenings, and conversations connecting and challenging Kansas City’s contemporary art ecosystem. For more information about Charlotte Street, its awards, programs, and initiatives, visit www.charlottestreet.org.
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