Eerily warm winter days of 2022 in the Heartland.

On the heels of sunset, we snuck over to a spicy triangle of vacant structures in industrial Wyandotte county, Kansas. Moving of rock piles was underway along the railroad tracks. The sky..wide open, as seen from within the bowl of this industrial valley. Sunny and hugged by the Kansas River. Busy with traffic but baron where we stood.

We entered the blue warehouse. We see signs of the former tenant, an industrial coating business whose inert online presence includes an image of its many employees donning smiles and santa hats for a christmas photo op. Katie and I brought in a 12 ft artificial tree. Once in place I realized, by comparative analysis*, it stood about 5’ short of the Coatings supply Tree, making the original an impressive installation for the former workplace.

I first entered through the artfully pried-open back door a few weeks prior. Disguised by thinning tree lines and tanker truck dust from the soap manufacturer across the street, it remains a fairly inconspicuous point of entry.

The grey concrete floor was empty. Once inside, I saw dust in the air by the light of a dozen skylights. It gave the appearance of shop lights and it felt like an open place of business. We’d yet to deduce that the odd clanky sounds are a product of the wind and failing, flapping metal siding. The blinds behind a broken window play on repeat. Once you’ve calmed your imagination, it’s really quite serene. Located in an intersection of decommissioned industry, railroad activity and large-scale manufacturing, pedestrian activity has all but vanished. In the distance you see houses on the bluff, separated by dozens of railroad tracks in operation and an elevated highway. In other directions you have freight industry and long roadways to a gas station at most for basic provisions. Scrappers had run through the warehouse and claim on the property has seemed to have been absorbed by the railroad surrounding. Demolition is sure to be a low priority but inevitable once/if a plan for development is formed. For now, time rests, fissions in the asphalt grow wider and the weeds too grow confident. The pitfalls of money, time, and space collapsed the more time we spent in the warehouse arranging this show. Cesar and I shared the allure of this access to space, why of course, to make a mess freely, allowing for the improvisation and a lack of forward clarity. No checks needed clearing. I myself love the opportunity to create and play without the requirement of explaining what is to happen and where the boundaries lay. A blessing as it is a curse to discern your own criteria.

I slowly invited folks one by one, in short spans before sunset to deliver works and brainstorm. Andy and I began with working directly on the wall. Installations from former exhibitions arrived at their new home. this new museum. Katie, Sasha, and I took short videos and flash photos through the sweat and mosquitos. We celebrated with debris-collaged tree decorations. Minions. Heart lockets, spray-painted ribbons, mechanical refrigeration and car parts. We formed the base with dry-rotted tires, along with aluminum insulation wrap found outside the warehouse. I was failing to mix plaster properly and it resulted in ‘pouring’ a mostly hardened blob of pink plaster through the leaves to the ground with a thud. There’s a grainy cell phone video on Katie’s phone I think. We sweat a lot. The hooks tore through Emory’s gelatin slab painting, Time Off, as it was hung through an “office” window on the 2nd floor. Too hot to hang. She pulled out her torch and melted the gelatin directly to the sliding plexi window. It remains glued like fruit snack to your stomach walls.

She had drawn into the gelatin the outline of grain elevators off 7th and Southwest Blvd, a visual hallmark so often associated with the midwest.

Cutting out from the walls “More is More” in the manner of Kansas City’s master of script Cletus, I delineated parts to the whole. Zones of the exhibition were established. Beautiful, found mold patterns in the fluffy insulation batting complimented the faint teal overspray from years past. Another honorary Kansas Citian donated a long rectangular optically-vibrating foam work that coordinated with the multi-colored cables drooping out the gray conduit 20’ above. Renick’s Giant Economizer hung on a steel grid containment area, optically vibrating as light from the back door swept across the repetitive grooves in the polystyrene. Many of the works imitate the conditions of the space, others announce themselves more distinctly in the desaturated space. A framed photograph hung in another corner. Admittedly a macabre mood.The photograph: a distorted image of a news person peering into a vault during a televised tour of the former Bannister Federal Complex, a major local employer in south Kansas City and former site of parts production for nuclear weapons, and later in its life, a superfund. Below the framed photograph, a photo album likely to live on a dining room mantle displays the word ‘Memories’ embedded on its cover. Kyra spread glitter at its base like xmas tree garland.


During the weeks visiting this warehouse, I had found a truck with no wheels, haphazardly and confusedly torn apart behind a rock hill at the Sante Fe Junction in nearby Kansas. In the bed of the truck, curiously enough, were cut away parts of an identical truck. I borrowed Grace’s sawzall, cut a door out of the pile, and brought home a windowless windshield. Chevy Red. I arranged, coated, embedded photographs and painted treatments to my spoils and reinstalled them on constructed stands as a part of Site 2 at Loose Park, an outdoor exhibition coordinated by a cohort of Kansas City galleries. While chatting with a dear friend, I noticed someone climbing into the truck I had borrowed to transport the sawed truck part artworks. Of course. I had just been describing this piece as a love letter to catalytic converter thieves who had visited me and perhaps you a few times these last few years. A kindred director of street scenes Will Toney contributed a found fender matching the Chevy Red installation. Including a mounted photograph hanging in the office overlooking the warehouse floor, Will’s contributions reinforce a focus on observing the residual materials and debris left by populations on the move. People of the city. Improvised trash removal, illegal dumping, overspray, environmental damage, the intrigue of incidental mark making on the landscape.

These pieces reinterpreted here at Target Zero adhere to some sort of code. Not a building code. The title comes from the wall vinyl of which the failing adhesive backing has its letters folding over toward the floor. It’s a reference to safety slogan language. Zero days without injury would be the Target. The counting of days since an injury or accident had taken place. An anxiety inducing incentive I’d say. There’s hardly been (has not been) an hour without an injury sustained to the health system of peoples and the landscapes we inhabit.

The Cheeky Regulator’s desk, repurposed metal shelving emulating a standing desk where behind you might knock off during work and nap on the large bags of oil absorbent powder. The cheeky regulator works here. A fictional title to describe the unconcerned but trained and licensed inspector whose job is to evaluate health and safety regulations. The regulator is a role play of the futile moving of parts and tired operators. This industry had moved on like many of its sort.

Marcus Cain, Johanna Winters, Andrew Ordonez and Andy Ozier bring representations of the body to the space. Marcus’ paint poured skulls placed like fire alarms beside Johanna’s ‘mother and child’ depicted on freestanding plywood stir a bit of bitter concern. I drew on the grey floor with the white plaster bottom of Andy and Andrew’s signpost bust. Fake Pigtails swinging like one on a merrygo round. It was an eerie car ride to the warehouse with that thing in my backseat. Even more concerning to whomever might have seen me drag it into an abandoned warehouse. Along with depictions of the body, each installation involves a relationship to your body as you approach the work. Central Shop, the facade of an office window, collaged and painted surfaces create a lived character of the space and suggests an active environment.