About UrbanKore
“Art is best understood when viewed in the environment that inspired it.”
The UrbanKore Art Expositions are affordable and sustainable art expositions designed to empower both artists from the urban core and the community itself.
By utilizing inside public spaces, such as community centers, we are able to make these expositions affordable to produce and convenient for the artists to participate in.
The first UrbanKore Art Exposition was in October 2025 at the Quindaro Community Center in the historic Quindaro area, a black community built around a stop on the Underground Railroad.
The second UrbanKore Art Exposition was held in June 2026 at the Beatrice Lee Community Center in the primarily Black/Brown Northeast area of Kansas City, Kansas.
Both UrbanKore Expositions were curated by Shaka Myrick.
Myrick is a curator, writer, and educator in the Kansas City area. She is a former Romare Bearden Graduate at the St. Louis Art Museum and has worked in multiple museums.
It is my hope that this expositions will encourage artists, especially self-taught artists, from the urban core of their communities to consider creating their own expositions and art fairs in the their community.
"Your work being in black households matters because you become part of the black iconography. You become part of how black people in Kansas City and anywhere in the country see themselves."
- TK Smith (Curator, Writer, Cultural Historian)
Harold Smith
June 26, 2026
FYI : UrbanKore was also the name of an online art journal I produced from 2015-2019. Links are below.
