Charlotte Street Foundation is pleased to announce the selection of independent curator, writer, researcher, and activist Danny Orendorff as the Charlotte Street 2013-14 Curator-in-Residence. Orendorff will begin his residency this summer, launching his first programming in the fall.
“I am incredibly honored to be selected as the 2013-14 Curator-in-Residence for Charlotte Street Foundation, as the position offers young arts professionals the rare opportunity to not only self-author exhibition and publication projects under the guidance of an expert team of arts administrators, but to also truly immerse themselves amongst all the interconnected elements of a multifaceted arts community,” says Orendorff. “I have already found Kansas City artists and organizations to be exceptionally inventive and resourceful, working in fascinating ways to make art a more accessible, relevant, and central element of civic life.”
Recently heralded by Chicago Magazine as one of Chicago’s “Six Young Art Curators You Should Know,” Orendorff’s work and research to date has centered around issues of non-normativity, queerness, feminism, and the contemporary class-politics of experimental, craft, and Do-It-Yourself (DIY) cultural production. Currently a contributing writer to Art in America Online and Bad at Sports, Orendorff has curated large-scale exhibitions for a range of international contemporary art spaces.
“We’re thrilled to have Danny coming to Kansas City, and excited about all that he will bring to our la Esquina gallery, to Charlotte Street, and to our community” said Charlotte Street Co-Director Kate Hackman. “Throughout Danny’s work runs a deep and genuine concern with issues of social justice and cultural equity, and a commitment to forging connections between the “art world” and populations often neglected within mainstream cultural representation, which feels especially timely. It also consistently demonstrates a terrific sense of playfulness, resourcefulness, and inventiveness which feel aligned with the spirit of our community.”
About his plans for the residency, Orendorff notes, “My intention for this next year is to produce timely and provocative projects responsive to current social, political, and economic situations, and to blend everyday, street-level experiences of Kansas City with critical conversations occurring in the humanities internationally. This will certainly be made possible thanks to the myriad relationships Charlotte Street offers to artists, schools, museums, and galleries, as well as through new partnerships with local social justice organizations and historical societies I hope to build.”
Charlotte Street’s inaugural curator-in-residence, Jamilee Polson Lacy, concludes her residency this month with the close of her final exhibition project, rises Zora. “Through her deep and extensive engagements with Kansas City artists, ambitious curatorial projects, thoughtful exhibition publications, and nationally published writing about Kansas City artists and art scene, Jamilee set a very high bar for the curatorial residency program in its inaugural year,” said Hackman. “We look forward to building on that success in the coming year.”
