At COR&P Gallery, Something to Remember the Artists By

Often, we engage with art only as a finished product, but at the Center for Ongoing Research & Projects(orCOR&P) in Grandview, artists are invited to share and document the creative process itself. Kris Paulsen and Ryland Wharton, the couple behind the nonprofit gallery, recruit four or five emerging national artists every year to create experimental art installations based on long-term research projects. For each show, artists also help design a companion publication. "They're not a catalog of the show," Wharton says. "They are a project as well." Here are a few examples:

"______ TELLS US WE'RE NOTHING." by Dante Carlos and RO/LU

Earlier this year, Carlos collaborated with Minneapolis conceptual design studio RO/LU on an exhibition exploring meditation spaces. During their research, they stumbled across a file at the American Craft Council labeled "Contemplation Environments – Uncatalogued." This booklet ($14) reprints the impossible-to-categorize ephemera found in the file, along with the artists' own pages, designed for the reader to color and trace.

"sleep as information/the fountain is a water feature" by Ed Steck

Published as a companion to Steck's 2014 exhibition, this book-length poem ($16) is a treatise on the failure of memory. His poem plays with science fiction, photographic imagery and the author's childhood memory of a water fountain in a mall as a way to confront the nebulous and fragmented nature of our memories.

"Claps/Applause" by Michael Bell-Smith

Along with his 2013 exhibition, Bell-Smith created this record ($15), which plays 911 samples of hand claps (the reverse side plays applause). Bell-Smith searches digital archives and file-sharing sites to find bits and pieces to weave into his largely video-based work. This recording focuses on the idea of the creative professional and the tools (like sound samples and clip art) sold to "creative consumers."