KCFreePress.com

You never know exactly what you're going to walk into at Paragraph Gallery openings.

Whether it's fake blood and animal skin-covered performers making out with each other and throwing cake at the crowd during the "Mythmakers" exhibit, or artists handing out candy and art supplies at the opening of "Cumulus," the separation between visitor and artist has become festively blurred in recent group exhibitions.

"Cumulus," which features the work of Urban Culture Project artists-in-residence, will offer more of that participatory spirit this Friday when the group exhibit moves into its second phase.

Lori Yonley's "Give And Take," a DIY arts-and-craft tent made up of bedsheets and pillows, is like a creative slumber party in which nobody cares if you pick up the mess (an impression only enhanced by the Skittles and Smarties packets on the floor). Outside, a portable S'mores Vending Cart manned by Kurt Flecksing and Sean M. Starowitz serves s'mores to the taste.

The centerpiece of the first phase of the "Cumulus" exhibit was Samantha Persons' "Commodity, Commotion, Communication," which ran from Jan. 15 to Feb. 6 at the Paragraph. The installation occupied the entire Project Space, from the neon signage on the wall and mixed-media paintings on the floor to balloon clusters clinging to the ceiling. Beneath a tree house with a room full of mirrors, visitors could sit in a nook packed with art catalogs and take in the static broadcast by several brightly painted television sets.

Other works on display last month at Cumulus included Luke Rocha's "PortaSound" turntable sculpture, the unceremonious taxidermy of "Dead Game" by Julie Malen and Calder Kamin, a large-scale paper-cutting by Caleb Taylor and Juniper Tangpuz, and "Resistance," a free poem written and printed by Paul Shortt.

While many of these works will be incorporated in the second phase of Cumulus, the project space will be occupied by Timothy Amundson and Charlie Mylie's "Sofa Kingdom in the Valley of Comic Sans," an installation in which “actors become sculptures, performative games become improvisational dance, paintings become platforms, drawings become instructions..." (and so on).

Other scheduled performances include "The Wizard Ningxt," an eccentric character embodied by Aaron Storck that will offer stir-fry, drinks, and poetry to gallery visitors from a temporary housing structure at the gallery’s entrance, and Elaina Wendt Michalski's "Exit," an unfired clay sculpture set based on her interaction with a local shelter for homeless youth.

There's no telling exactly what colorful acts of creativity attendees will find themselves caught up in at Friday's opening, but it will certainly be interesting. And for those who prefer to keep the shenanigans at arm's length by sticking to the sidewalk, there will be plenty of s'mores.

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