Zahner + KCAI

Biennial Zahner Art & Sculpture Competion

Every other year, Zahner sponsors a sculpture competition for current students at the Kansas City Art Institute. Students are invited to compete by submitting complex designs to be engineered and fabricated by the experts at Zahner using digital-to-physical processes and quality craftsmanship.

The 2010-2011 Zahner+KCAI competition marks the fourth such year that the school and the company work together to produce unique works of art for the school's scholarship fund. Every odd year, the Kansas City Art Institute hosts an art auction on their campus during the first week of June. This year will feature two artworks by students Wen-Dan Lin and Skye Livingston, the 2010-2011 Winners of the Competition.

Questions should be directed to info@azahner.com

The video above was made to promote the 2008-2009 competition.

2011 Zahner+KCAI Winners

In the late fall of 2010, a select group of art professionals convened at the Kansas City Art Institute to judge seven student artists from the 2010-2011 Biennial Zahner Sculpture Competition. Zahner selected two artworks to produce, designed by Wen "Dan" Lin and Skye Livingston. Zahner donated the metal, the engineering, Wen-Dan Lin of ceramics and Skye Livingston of the fiber department.

2011 - Wen-Dan Lin Lady Martha, stainless steel, aluminum, and weathering steel.
The sculpture process shown above, was produced during the Spring of 2011 in the Zahner shop. The artist (pictured above) met with a team of engineers, craftsmen, and artists at the Zahner facillity, where they developed an intelligent process and plan to produced the artwork.

2011 - Skye Livingston Undulation, copper with custom patina.
The artwork uses a unique weave-structure developed by the artist in her studio at the Fibers Department at KCAI. The sculpture was produced using a patina developed by Zahner R&D. This project marks the first substantial work of art or architecture that this particular patina process has been applied to.

The videos below show the patina process as the project was completed.

Previous Zahner+KCAI Winners

For the year of the 2008-2009 competition, Zahner decided to award multiple artworks. The three winners included Joey Grimm, Jordan Johnson, and Anna Buckethorpe. This year may continue this tradition, give up to three artists the opportunity to work with the minds at Zahner.

2009 - Anna Buckethorpe, Domestic Geometry, aluminum, black mirror-finish stainless steel;
"For this project, I wanted to create a piece that people could experience in a tangible way. I aimed to create a work that would transform viewers into participants, encouraging them to take part in the appearance and organization of the piece. With large scale sculpture it so often seems that the viewer is an after thought. I wanted to make the viewer a collaborator, one who actively decides the arrangement and thus completes the design. I feel that by making an interactive artwork I can connect the participants to the work in a way that moves beyond visual and intellectual appreciation into actual collaboration and participation, engaging people both aesthetically and tactilely." --Anna Buckethorpe, 2009.

2009 - Joey Grimm, Directed Futures, blackened aluminum, magnets, motor;
"Rotation and magnetism are the origins of this work; these two phenomena are prevalent in every day life. Directed Futures is an attempt to experience these phenomena in their purest state. It is a ten foot tall, one foot diameter aluminum cylinder that is suspended from both ends, the cylinders angle dictated by the location of installment. Inside of the cylinder is an adjustable low rpm A/C motor. The motor drives a series of magnets, on the outside of the cylinder. In correspondence with those magnets are mirror finished spheres that roll along the surface of the cylinder following the magnetic fields." --Joey Grimm, 2009.

2009 - Jordan Johnson, Holy House, stainless, weathering steel, copper;
"Formally this piece is gleaning architectural elements from the shantys, houses, churches or barns of Vietnam and Cambodia, the Midwest, and Galveston, Texas. The entire structure stems off a single shape which represents the idea of a roof becoming a boat and a boat becoming a roof. Through these concepts as well as the elevated height of a water tower, I strive to communicate the large through the small." --Jordan Johnson, 2009.

2007 - Reilly Hoffman, Oculus, copper, steel

2005 - Rachel Thomas, Light Filter, perforated aluminum;