Visual Arts

Starting in September, more than 70 billboards across Missouri will display artworks by eight artists for a get-out-the vote initiative called Art the Vote.

The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art has two locations near the Kansas City Art Institute and plans to open a third downtown, in the Crossroads Arts District, in November.

Kemper at the Crossroads will be located at 19th and Baltimore, at the former site of the Dolphin Gallery, which has moved to the West Bottoms.

Officials symbolically broke ground Wednesday morning to start the restoration of three fountains along Paseo Boulevard, including one of the city's oldest.

Parks board president John Fierro detailed the history of the 1899 Women's Leadership Fountain at 9th and Paseo, the oldest public fountain in Kansas City. It's fallen into disrepair and hasn't worked in years. The stonework is crumbling, and the lights and railing are gone.

A $17 million Crossroads redevelopment plan received the green light from a City Council committee Wednesday.

The Finance and Audit Committee endorsed philanthropist Shirley Helzberg's proposal for the Vitagraph Film Exchange Building, which would house the Kansas City Symphony offices. The project includes a tax increment financing district to renovate the four-story 1930 building, add a two-story addition and a two-level 40 space parking garage.

As part of an exhibition called Conversation Pieces, each Sunday the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art hosts a gallery talk about a work. Kemper Museum director and CEO Rachael Blackburn Cozad explains her attraction to artist Richard Diebenkorn's Untitled (1987)

By Drew Bolton

Kansas City, MO – Conversation Pieces at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, July 11-September 28, 2008

The Arts KCFund, like a United Way for the arts, raised nearly $732,000 during its annual spring workplace giving campaign and recently announced its latest round of grant recipients. KCUR's Laura Spencer reports.