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Winning artwork features giant postcards
By Lauren Wells, The Kansas City Star
Once yearly, the Charlotte Street Foundation holds a competition for artists to design a work for the Post Office window at City Center Square on 12th Street, just west of Main.
This year’s winner is “Panoramic Postcards” by Kansas City artist Judith Levy.
The work, which consists of four large-scale digital composites of antique postcards from the artist’s collection, registers slowly.
Each postcard cleverly amalgamates real places to create a fictional scene. The parts are real, but the whole — though it looks authentic —actually is false. It can take a bit of time, and a few synapse firings, to figure out.
Each piece addresses a slightly nuanced social issue, which one might expect from an artist who also holds a master’s in social work and whose work is consistently preoccupied with how society chooses to remember (or forget) the past.
“Albertson Square, Hopeland, MO” depicts a theme park, swimming pool and train adjacent to a tree-lined street and walking path reminiscent of Boston’s Commonwealth Avenue.
Levy says the piece is about “how cities grew to accommodate the recreational needs of working class people who lived in those cities.”
It is displayed next to the politically charged “Splendid Country Roads, Refuge Co., South Dakota,” showing an Indian settlement and the Statue of Liberty on opposite sides of a wide, paved road traversed by old-fashioned cars.
Levy’s piece, which follows installations by Kati Toivanen and Adolfo Martinez, will be on display until fall 2011.
Kansas City Office Space Positioned as Professional Hub - The Kuhlman Law Firm, LLC to relocate to City Center Square
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Kuhlman Law Firm, LLC, will move their office from the River Market into City Center Square, a downtown office building February 2009. Their new 4,000 sq. ft. office resides in a burgeoning legal community and will better accommodate the expansion of their client base and activity.
Visit City Center Square’s Blog for the latest information.
Business activity occurring in the downtown district attracted attorney Brad Kuhlman, Partner of The Kuhlman Law Firm, LLC, to the area. “We are drawn to the professional environment that has developed downtown. City Center Square is the center of the legal community and we will benefit from being around other firms engaged in activities similar to ours,” says Kuhlman.
The downtown Power & Light District continues to create growth and activity which has been attracting companies to the area.
The 650,000 square foot, Class A building provides a vast array of luxury services and amenities to service The Kuhlman Law Firm, LLC. City Center Square has a full-service fitness center, valet parking, new parking garage, conference facilities, on-site ATM and downtown’s most popular food court, making the office building an urban center for businesses.
Kansas City Office Space Offers Home to Company
KANSAS CITY, Mo.—Growing business and expansion has led HMC/CAH Consolidated, Inc., a company that purchases aged Critical Access Hospitals to replace with new state-of-the-art facilities, to relocate. The company will upgrade to 7,822 square feet of office space in the downtown Kansas City building, City Center Square, where they will now be headquartered.
Visit City Center Square’s Blog for the latest information.
Trent Skaggs, the senior vice president of strategic planning/corporate compliance, says HMC/CAH is excited about the growth of downtown, which was a pull to moving the company back to the area. “We are a growing company and the office space at City Center Square gives us room to grow,” said Skaggs. “With many of our staff members living in the Northland and Johnson County, the downtown area was a great split in a central location.”
The Downtown Council of Kansas City estimates that more than 100,000 employees work in the greater downtown area which holds approximately 14 million square feet of real estate of multi and single tenant leases. Michael Hurd, director of marketing for the Downtown Council of Kansas City, said, “Downtown Kansas City is an ideal location for business relocations. The area is in the midst of an amazing revitalization and more than 5.5 billion dollars has been invested in the past six years to make it a livable, walkable and enjoyable district.”
The 650,000 square foot, Class A building provides a vast array of luxury services and amenities that attracted HMC/CAH. City Center Square has a full-service fitness center, valet parking, new parking garage, conference facilities, on-site ATM and downtown’s most popular food court, making the office building an urban sanctuary for businesses.
Kansas City Office Building Reveals Art Exhibit
Kansas City, Mo. – As a part of its continuing efforts to help revitalize and beautify downtown Kansas City, on Oct. 18, City Center Square (www.citycentersquare.com) unveiled an installation art exhibit in one of its 12th Street display windows by local artist Kati Toivanen.
The work of art was inspired by a requirement of one of City Center Square’s tenants, the US Post Office, to design their retail display window. The Post Office and City Center Square worked with the Charlotte Street Organization and the Urban Culture Project to create a call for artists’ proposals and from the responses selected Ms. Toivanen’s proposal, “Commemorating the Everyday, Today.”
Phillip Gesue, director of acquisitions and development for Time Equities Inc., the company that owns City Center Square, saw the Urban Culture Project as a chance for residents and visitors of the downtown area to feel a connection to art and each other. “Using public art to contribute to urban buildings creates an inviting and unique atmosphere for tenants and visitors in our office building and downtown Kansas City,” Gesue said, “Kati’s installation is an interesting display that reminds us how communication has changed with the growth of technology.”
Toivanen, winner of the Urban Culture Project contest, is also the recipient of the 2001 Charlotte Street Foundation Visual Artist Award and UMKC assistant professor. She describes her work as an installation exhibit inspired by postal-stamps representing the intimacy of delivered mail. “Physically sending sentiments by mail is an increasingly rare choice, and therefore it becomes a cherished and special occasion,” Toivanen said. Additionally, “The objects of my inspiration were sentimental objects in my home: my son’s marbles and bows from gifts we’ve received. I am relieved and excited that the work is over and the exhibit is now displayed for people to see,” Toivanen said.
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