* This show has been canceled due to offense taken from the show’s title. Also, the gallery coordinators at Wonder Fair felt they were put in an awkward position by their featured artist Jouvelt because they did not know until the last minute that he would be showing reproductions of work and not original work. The original paintings are showing at the same time at the Lawrence Arts Center. This is the same reason Jouvelt’s scheduled show at The Bourgeois Pig was canceled according to their curator Molly Murphy. She felt that is was unfair to the long line of other artists waiting to show original work at The Bourgeois Pig.

We are waiting to see if the Wonder Fair puts together another show for this upcoming Final Fridays.

Updated: See Golden Corral

FRIDAY AUGUST 20

Voler Aerial Artists

• Lawrence Busker Festival
Downtown Lawrence (Massachusetts Street in Lawrence, KS)
Friday, August 20, 12-9pm (Ongoing until August 22nd)
Street performers will invade downtown Lawrence to delight young and old throughout the weekend. Performances include fire dancing, juggling, sword swallowing, magic, aerial dance, fire eating, music, acrobatics, hula hoop dance, belly dance, living statues, puppets, chalk art, face painting, and balloon art. www.lawrencebuskerfest.com

“Who Created Yo Ass?” Brass, Aluminum, and Rhinestones by Dylan Mortimer

• Peace Be With Yo Asses
KU Art and Design Gallery (1467 Jayhawk Boulevard in Lawrence, KS)
Friday, August 20, All Day (Ongoing through September 10)
From the organizers: A collection of Dylan Mortimer’s work from the last 3 years. Dylan’s work explores how private faith functions in the public sphere. It investigates the role of private faith outside of the self. www.dylanmortimer.com

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FRIDAY AUGUST 27

• Final Fridays in Downtown Lawrence, Kansas
Downtown Lawrence (Massachusetts Street in Lawrence, KS)
Friday, August 27, 5-8pm

From the organizers:
Lawrence’s first Final Fridays, a monthly celebration of the arts. Final Fridays will be presented by the Downtown Lawrence Arts District.

The gallery walk will include 15 commercial galleries as well as a number of local merchants who will take part in Final Fridays by hosting live music or displaying art. A few empty retail spaces will become “flash galleries” filled with temporary exhibits by local artists.

Art event locations and participants include:
Peoples Optical (Marilyn Horsch, paintings)
Love Garden Sounds (Hannah T. Johnson, art quilts)
WheatFields Bakery and Café
Teller’s Restaurant and Bar
Pachamamas Restaurant
Mirth Cafe
Global Cafe
The Eldridge Hotel
Aimee’s Café
715 Restaurant
Van Go Mobile Arts
Through A Glass Productions
Signs of Life Gallery (Rodney Troth, Elizabeth Rowley and Deb Schroer, landscapes)
Phoenix Gallery
Lawrence Public Library
Lawrence Percolator
Lawrence Arts Center (Stan Herd and Simon Cardova, photography)
Framewoods Gallery
Diane’s Artisan Gallery (Makenna Bartel, jewlery)
Wonder Fair Art Gallery and How! (Matthew Hoffman, text-based object installation)
739 Massachusetts Street – Flash Space, formerly Maurices (Group show presented by B.A.L.M)

Much more information about Final Fridays in Downtown Lawrence to come!

Exhibition Info:

The concept of this show was born out  of the heat of the summer and inspired by current events in the  international art market. Local temperatures soared from 60′s to 90′s, a painting by Picasso became the  most expensive work of art ever sold at auction, fetching 106.2 million and, five paintings were stolen out of the Museum of Modern Art in Paris – the total value of the heist falling somewhere between 126 – 500 million. These staggering numbers made us stop and wonder, with our heat fevered minds, how is the value of original artwork created?

For this exhibition Wonder Fair established a method for pricing new artworks objectively. Local, regional, and nationally exhibiting artists were invited to submit new works on official WF  stamped paper. The monetary value of each piece will be determined by a  complex flowchart of Wonder Fair’s own creation. All submitted works  will be stringently processed through the chart’s categories which  include medium, color palette, and subject matter. Specifics include ironic animal imagery, crystalline formations, energy fields, and floating heads.

The opening reception for Hott Sheets is this Friday June 25, 2010 from 7-10pm at Wonder Fair (803 1/2 Massachusetts in Lawrence, KS). Hot Sheets will stay on display through July 24, 2010.

posted by: Brent Carter

Exhibition Statement:

Okay Mountain presents a show of staff member’s individual works and a group of collaborative 7″x7″ drawings made by members of staff and friends.

Formed in 2006 and based in Austin, Okay Mountain is a collective consisting of 9 artists who live and work in Austin, Boston, Chicago, and Oakland. All exhibit as solo artists as well. Originating as an artist-run alternative gallery space, Okay Mountain evolved into an artist collective when its founding members began creating art together outside of the gallery environs. What began as collaborative drawing sessions during weekly staff meetings has since developed into a wide range of collaborative projects across a variety of media, including drawing, video, sound, performance, prints, zines, murals, and large-scale sculptural installations. Their shared artworks reveal the unique perspective provided by a group dynamic, give emphasis to drawing and the artist’s hand, and are always leavened by a sense of humor, whimsy, and larger-than-life Texan spirit. Playing on the conventions and absurdities of contemporary consumer culture and drawing upon pop graphics and styling, their works are scrappy, colorful, and maximal-just like the artists themselves.

Wonder Fair Art Gallery (new location)
803 1/2 Massachusetts Street
Lawrence, KS 66044

Opening Reception Saturday May 8, 6-10pm
On display through June 6, 2010

posted by: Brent Carter

Let Me Have More Than You Want To Give And I Will Give You Back More Than You Want To Take is an exhibition of recent work at Wonder Fair (803 Massachusetts in Lawrence, KS) by Lawrence-based artist Kelly John Clark.

This exhibition will feature a series of large scale colored pencil drawings produced by the artist in his home during the last 9 months. The drawings, which consist of soft colors, intricate patterning, and meditative line work, encompass Clark’s ongoing animosity towards aging, companionship, and modernization. The gallery reception for Let Me Have More… will be held Saturday, February 13th from 6-9pm, and will feature limited edition merchandise produced by the artist as well as live music by Blakey Bear beginning at 8pm.

posted by: Brent Carter

Happy Holidays from The Rathaus! Please enjoy the Holidaze megamix from A.D.D. creator and Rathaus friend Jason Barr. This holiday version of the A.D.D. podcast includes some all time favorite Christmas tunes and good old family hi jinx. Good luck guys with the upcoming addition to your family.

Stream Holidaze here
Download Holidaze here

posted by: Brent Carter and Tricia Rock

Check out our video from the opening of I Think We Are Making Progress at Wonder Fair Art Gallery (803 Massachusetts in Lawrence, KS). The show, which features 25+ local artists and affordable pieces, runs through December  6.

This Saturday, November 14 Wonder Fair Art Gallery (803 Massachusetts in Lawrence, KS) presents I Think We Are Making Progress, framed and unframed works by 25+ local artists. The opening will be held from 6-9pm with musical sets by Fortuning, ET & T and Bear Bar BBQ Club and spoken word by Artist as Wizard Aaron Storck. The show runs through December 6 with all work priced under $125 just in time for the holidays.

Lee Piechocki

Exhibition Essay by Alaska Noyes:
“This title exudes optimism but with a tinge of skepticism. It offers the possibility of forward movement but with a little self-doubt. In this title there is a desire, but also an uneasiness to fully commit to the belief that we are indeed making progress. Maybe this is because progress implies linearity – a destination, a place, moment, or mindset that we can progress to. But really, where are we going, where do we want to be?

“Eric Dobbins, co-curator of this show, asked me if I would be willing to write an essay of sorts – something to get the ball rolling, to help figure out what this show was going to be. A title had not been declared yet and this seemed like a logical place to start. We batted around potential titles through email correspondence, starting off the top of our heads with no clear direction in mind. The first few titles were absolutely wrong, but as we continued to email back and forth they began to materialize into something that could work. I wrote Eric back in an encouraging tone, “I think we are making progress.” And that was it. Looking back on it I am not sure if we were in fact progressing – we had gone from Hangin’ At The Park to Introducing: Tiger Baby? This, at best dubious progression and its culminating aha moment, seemed to be an accurate reflection of the art making process itself.

“Art is notoriously subjective, occupying a facet of our culture that is constantly in flux. The very definition of art continuously being pushed and pulled by internal and external forces – history, theory, economics, politics, philosophy, sociology, etc. Part of the very fabric of contemporary art is a self-reflexivity, the desire to question and deconstruct its own meaning and purpose. Artists and theorists have worked hard over the last hundred years to blow the field wide open. Anything can be art and everything has been done. We are at a point where it is very difficult to gauge anything – what is good and what is bad, what is progression what is regression.

“So we make stuff and put it out there in this vast expanse. We work off the top of our heads, from hunches and whims. We grab on to threads of art history and theory that seem to make sense to us and let them pull us along. We collect bits of pop culture, science, technology, politics and other such detritus along the way. We push this through the filter of our own personal history, quirks, fears, ethics and proclivities. And we make stuff. We take little baby-steps to… somewhere, and maybe we progress, although maybe not. It’s the journey and not the destination anyway, right?”

Maria Calderon

Participating Artists:
Jason Barr, Chris Bostwick, Thayer Bray, Alicia Kelly Carr, Maria Calderon, Kelly Clark, Christa Dalien, George DeMoura, Eric Dobbins, Tim Dwyer, Barrett Emke, Danny Gibson, Amber Hansen, Andrew Huffman, Hannah Hurrle, Amy Kligman, Kenneth Kupfer, Bri Lauterbach, Justin Marable, Sammy Owen, Jess Owings, Estrella Payton, Lee Piechocki, Brock Potucek, Chris Rexroad, Clinton Ricketts, Aaron Storck, Bernadette Zacharias

Hannah Hurrle

Chris Rexroad

Danny Gibson

Brock Potucek

*If we’re missing any links please let us know

This Friday, October 30 from 6-9pm King-Cat Comics and Drawn & Quarterly present John Procellino on the Road at Wonder Fair Art Gallery (803 Massachusetts in Lawrence, KS). The event will include a slide show, book signing and conversation celebrating 20 years of King Cat Comics and the release of Porcellino’s new collection Map of My Heart.

From the gallery:
“John Porcellino was born in Chicago, in 1968, and has been writing, drawing, and publishing minicomics, comics, and graphic novels for over twenty-five years.

“His celebrated self-published series King-Cat Comics, begun in 1989, has inspired a generation of cartoonists. Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man, a collection of King-Cat stories about Porcellino’s experiences as a pest control worker, won an Ignatz Award in 2005, and Perfect Example, first published in 2000, chronicles his struggles with depression as a teenager. King-Cat Classix, published in 2007, is a comprehensive overview of the zine’s first fifty issues, and Thoreau at Walden is a poetic expression of the great philosopher’s experience and ideals.

“According to cartoonist Chris Ware, ‘John Porcellino’s comics distill, in just a few lines and words, the feeling of simply being alive.’”

posted by: Tricia Rock

This Wednesday, October 28 from 6-9pm check out Hedia and Baby Birds Don’t Drink Milk at Wonder Fair Art Gallery (803 Massachusetts in Lawrence, KS). Read a little more about the event on Facebook.

posted by: Tricia Rock