Kress Contemporary is now the beating heart of Ybor City’s art scene, and there's a show to celebrate

Much has changed since Tracy Midulla’s Tempus Projects moved into the historic Kress building on Ybor City’s Seventh Avenue in October 2022. Within a year, more than a dozen art studios, galleries, a theater, a microcinema, and a museum followed suit, filling every rentable space within the 17,000-square-foot complex.

The Kress Contemporary was born, and suddenly, Kress—located at 1624 E. 7th Ave. in Ybor City—was the place to be on third Thursdays.

What exactly is Kress Contemporary? It’s the name for a group of diverse arts organizations and individual artists working in the historic Ybor City Kress building. Currently, Kress Contemporary encompasses 13 visual arts organizations, 28 individual artists, two performing arts organizations, and three literary organizations. They’re making art, supporting fellow artists, and engaging the community through public events.

At the end of last year, Midulla reached out to her fellow Kress Contemporary arts organizations, theaters, and galleries to find out how many individual artists they featured since moving into the Kress building.

“We have featured over 500 individual artists through dozens of visual, performing, and literary arts events in just the last 15 months in that building,” says Midulla.
In short, Kress Contemporary is now the beating heart of Ybor City’s art scene, and they’ve staged a special event to celebrate.

The First Annual Open House Exhibition's centerpiece is a group exhibition on the second floor of the Kress Collective, opening Thursday, Jan. 25, from 6 p.m.-10 p.m.
The First Annual Open House Exhibition—where Kress artists open their studio, gallery, and theater doors to the public Thursday-Saturday, Jan. 25-27. —features art made by more than a dozen resident Kress artists, including Jenny Carey, Ashley Cantero, Carlos Pons, and Elizabeth Fontaine-Barr. But that’s far from all there is to see and do at Kress that weekend.

Heard Em Say Youth Arts Collective hosts a poetry performance with Slam Anderson Thursday night and a literary open mic Friday night, 7-9 p.m.; Screen Door Microcinema shows loops from early rushes of animator Jodie Mack’s “Early Mourning, Tarpon Springs” Thursday night.  Screen Door told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that visitors can even be part of the production of the work "by posing for "ectoplasm portraits" on 16mm film in the rear lobby of the space." Fringe Theatre closes things out with “Sadaoke,” a night of bittersweet karaoke ballads Saturday, Jan. 27, 4 p.m.-6 p.m.

Subscribe to Creative Loafing newsletters.

Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed

UPDATED 01/22/24 10:36 a.m. Updated to correct the name of Mack's film and add more comment from Screen Door.