Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art

Tomorrow is the last day to see the works by Pop Artists and Abstract Expressionists in our Permanent Collection that are on view in "Inspired: Innovation, Pop Culture, and Material." Reserve free timed tickets at the link in bio. --... Installation view, "Inspired: Innovation, Pop Culture, and Material," January 15April 18, 2021, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Photo by E.G. Schempf

If you've been to the museum recently, chances are that you've navigated the multiple construction sites on our block, so we're throwing it back to 1994 when Kemper Museum was built. The first image is a snapshot of the building under construction, and the second is a rendering from the architect, Gunnar Birkerts. #museumarchitecture #throwbackthursday #tbt #gunnarbirkerts

"Emergence I" is one of @joiriminaya's four digital collages, in her Atrium Project installation titled "Joiri Minaya: Divergences." Swipe to hear Minaya describe some of the ideas behind the artwork. The collages show images of women with a focus on the right to opacity, or the right to one’s own (in)visibility. Martiniquais writer, poet, philosopher, and literary critic Édouard Glissant argues for this right in his 1990 book "Poetics of Relation," indicating that the oppr...essed who have been historically constructed as the Other can and should be allowed to be opaque, or not transparent, and to simply exist as different. He calls for understanding and accepting of this difference without measuring it against an ideal scale of comprehension, and comparing, making judgments, or creating hierarchy. By camouflaging and abstracting both the digital collage images and the wallpaper, Minaya highlights aspects of agency, reclamation of ideas, and the notion of opacity that Glissant puts forward. -- Images: Joiri Minaya (born 1990), Emergence I, 2020, archival pigment print on paper, 41 x 61 inches. Art and photo and courtesy of the artist.

Save the date and gather your supplies. Next Wednesday (Apr. 21) at lunchtime, join us on Instagram for an IG Live Talk and Create focused on "Dyani White Hawk: Speaking to Relatives." Assistant curator Jade Powers leads a tour of the exhibition followed by an art-making demonstration related to the exhibition by Jessica Thompson-Lee, creative engagement manager. To participate in the art-making activity, you'll need: ... Surface of participants' choice, but it needs to be something they can cut out (paper, fabric, chipboard, cardboard, etc...) Stamp ink pad(s) and/or paint (acrylic or tempera) Glue Scissors Pencil Cardboard cut into small squares/rectangles and/or drink lids and/or small wood pieces One or more of the following: Rubber bands, foam stickers sheets or shapes, potato, string, fork

Louise Nevelson's work "Untitled" and other works by Pop Artists and Abstract Expressionists in our Permanent Collection are on view for just one more week in "Inspired: Innovation, Pop Culture, and Material." Reserve free timed tickets at kemperart.org. --... Installation view, "Inspired: Innovation, Pop Culture, and Material," January 15April 18, 2021, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri.

Dyani White Hawk's "I am Your Relative" -- Installation view, "Dyani White Hawk: Speaking to Relatives," February 18May 16, 2021, Charlotte Crosby Kemper Gallery, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. ... Dyani White Hawk, (Siáu Lakota, born 1976,) in collaboration with photographer Tom Jones (Ho-Chunk, born 1964) "I Am Your Relative," 2020, photo-sculpture, installation dimensions variable; photographs: 70 x 38 inches each. Dyani White Hawk, Courtesy of the artist and Bockley Gallery, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Will we see you in the galleries this weekend? Image: Installation view, "Joiri Minaya: Divergences," September 11, 2020July 18, 2021, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri.

A repeating motif in Dyani White Hawk's work is the moccasin vamp, the area on the top of the shoe. She uses the shape of the moccasin as a historical source, while approaching contemporary representation. Kathleen Ash-Milby, curator of Native American Art at the Portland Art Museum explains the significance of the motif in her exhibition catalogue essay: The moccasin can have multiple meanings as an article of clothing that can signify personal, tribal, and cultural identi...ties. White Hawk has played with this form, deconstructing it in some works to convey presence and agency, and retaining the original composition in others. She describes her use of this shape as strategically accessible in multiple ways: ‘It [moccasin shape] uses conventions of easel painting abstraction and is a form familiar to Native audiences. It is intentionally malleable, ambiguous, or specific depending on how I use it.’ Through her use of the moccasin motif, @dwhitehawk makes her works of art legible for different viewers and combines historical and contemporary representation of Indigenous forms. "Dyani White Hawk: Speaking to Relatives" is on view through May 16. Reserve free timed tickets at kemperart.org. -- Image: Installation view, Dyani White Hawk: Speaking to Relatives, February 18May 16, 2021, Charlotte Crosby Kemper Gallery, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. Photo: E. G. Schempf, 2021.

"Goliath" (2020) is a monumental-scale (15'x15') painting in an ongoing series titled "Marked Man" that reflects artist Vaughn Spann’s (American, born 1992) personal experience being stopped and frisked by police as a college student. The symbol of the giant X can speak to similar experiences that countless others have suffered as victims of systemic racism. While the symbol connects to our current reality, it is also a stark reminder of the generations of people who have en...dured racial violence in the United States. "Vaughn Spann: Open Onto" is on view at Kemper Museum through June 13. Reserve free timed tickets at kemperart.org. Image: Vaughn Spann (American, born 1992, "Goliath," 2020, polymer paint, flashe, canvas on aluminum braces, 180 x 180 inches. Collection of Liz Dascal and Vladimir Spector, courtesy of David Castillo Gallery, Vaughn Spann, courtesy of the artist and David Castillo Gallery. Photo by EG Schempf.

Join us this Wednesday afternoon on Zoom for casual talk and tour of the exhibition with Executive Director of the Kansas City Indian Center Gaylene Crouser as she discuss Native culture and symbolism found in "Dyani White Hawk: Speaking to Relatives."

No matter the weather, our skies are blue this week as we celebrate the opening of our next major exhibition "Dyani White Hawk: Speaking to Relatives." While we still can't gather for our traditional opening party, we've created self-guided and virtual programs to enliven the themes of the exhibition and mark the occasion. We invite our members to be the first to see this exhibition on Thursday evening between 6 and 9 p.m. To join and reserve timed tickets for the evening, cl...ick here: https://www.kemperart.org/memberships. Opening week for the exhibition will feature self-guided activities and take-home art kits for youth and families, dishes inspired by White Hawk’s work created by Café Sebastienne at Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art Chef Rick Mullins, and the catalogue along with other items related to the exhibition, available in the Museum Shop. To accommodate social distancing, these amenities will be available to all during regular museum and cafe hours. Timed tickets are required, and all museum safety precautions apply. Image: Dyani White Hawk (Siáu Lakota, born 1976), "Seeing" (2011), oil on canvas, 60 x 60 inches, Collection of Dr. and Mrs. Soininen, El Paso, Texas. Dyani White Hawk, Courtesy of the artist and Bockley Gallery, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Inspired by Still Lifes in the Kemper Museum's Permanent Collection, bring objects around your home to life by creating and adding abstract body parts and facial features. Then, arrange the objects into your own still life with attitude! Learn more at kemperart.org/art-videos

The title of Dawoud Bey’s series Night Coming Tenderly, Black is an excerpt of the poem Dream Variations by Langston Hughes (pictured), who was born in Joplin, Missouri in February 1902. Both Bey’s photographs and Hughes’s poem describe aspirations of freedom from racial discrimination. Read Dream Variations here: https://poets.org/poem/dream-variations. Image: Gordon Parks (American, 19122006), Portrait of Langston Hughes, 1943. 1 negative : safety ; 4 x 5 inches or smaller. Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information photograph collection (Library of Congress).

Inspired by work by Angel Otero (@oteroso) in Kemper Museum's Permanent Collection, make a collage out of acrylic paint skins in this virtual playdate art activity. Learn more at kemperart.org/art-videos.

Today we announced important changes to our board and operations that strengthen our commitment to our mission to enrich lives through experiences with contemporary art in a free and welcoming environment for all. We are thrilled to welcome Consuelo Cruz, Dr. Adrienne Walker Hoard, Dr. Clara Irazábal, Lindsay Major, and Duvel "DJ" Pierre to our Board of Trustees. Read more about these changes and meet our new trustees in our stories and on our website: http://ow.ly/oDJt50DydhT

Intuition will indicate when something is not acceptable, even though it might work. John Chamberlain Dan Budnik: Inside the Studios of Artists is on view at Kemper Museum until Mar. 14 and features photographs of 13 artists in their studios by documentary photographer Dan Budnik, known for his photographs of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. The Kemper Museum collection includes work by each pictured artist, such as John Chamberlain’s Apparentlyoffspring, shown... here. Dan Budnik, (American, 19332020), John Chamberlain Cerry Gordo Compound Santa Fe, New Mexico 1966, 1966, printed 2007, from the series Picturing Artists, dye transfer print on paper, edition 2 of 10, 23 x 19 inches. Collection of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri, Bebe and Crosby Kemper Collection, Gift of the Enid and Crosby Kemper Foundation, 2008.08.12. Dan Budnik. Photo: James Allison Photography, 2013. John Chamberlain, (American, 19272011), Apparentlyoffspring, 1992, acrylic on steel, 48 x 70 x 73 inches. Collection of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri, Bebe and Crosby Kemper Collection, Gift of the Enid and Crosby Kemper Foundation, 2012.14.01. 2020 Fairweather & Fairweather LTD / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: John Chamberlain/Gagosian Gallery. #danbudnik #johnchamberlain #artiststudio #artistquotes #insidethestudiosofartists

Due to inclement weather tonight’s outdoor screening is cancelled. Stay warm this weekend!

ARTinerary | movie magic at the museum - https://mailchi.mp/kemperart.org/aug27-465305

TONIGHT! Celebrate the fifth annual atrium project with an artist talk from New York-based artist, Joiri Minaya. Sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/123489222589. . Kemper Museum presents Divergences, a commissioned installation by New York-based Black Latinx artist, Joiri Minaya (born 1990), for the fifth annual Atrium Project. This project features four individual digital photographic collages of female figures layered on a digitally abstracted wallpaper landscape re...sembling vistas of Kansas City, Kansas’s historic Quindaro Townsite. Minaya abstracts and camouflages these idealized subjects of landscape and the female body to investigate constructions of identity, diverse cultural social spaces, and hierarchies as a means to reclaim agency and visibility. . #joiriminaya @joiriminaya #kempermuseum #kemperatriumproject #contemporaryart #contemporaryphotography #quindaro #kansashistory #wallpaper #camo #camoflauge #artisttalk See more

Start your day off with an #EyeOpener brought to you by the docents of Kemper Museum. Exploring Kemper Museum artworks through the lively perspective of art gallery guides, each one features a work from our Permanent Collection. Today’s Eye Opener is brought to you by Kemper Museum docent, Vicky Mayer! . . Chakaia Booker, El Gato, 2001, rubber tires and wood, 48 x 42 x 42 inches. Bebe and Crosby Kemper Collection, Museum purchase, Enid and Crosby Kemper and William T. Kemper Acquisition Fund., 2004.12.01. Chakaia Booker. Photo: E.G. Schempf, 2017.

This Monday, Creative Action Initiative hosted its Civic Walkway chalk art event, a community-wide art project with the goal of inspiring Kansas Citians to vote. Keep an eye out for CAI’s social media challenge, #CreativeActionKC on @KemperMuseum ’s instagram! Find more info at https://www.kemperart.org/news/2020/sep/creativeactionkc. Most importantly, cast your vote in the 2020 election!

ARTinerary | Want to visit the museum? It's easy! - https://mailchi.mp/kemperart.org/aug27-465301

Join us tomorrow at 7:30 for our FREE October Movie Night Series, featuring On the Basis of Sex (2018), the true and inspiring story Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her fight for equal rights. . Bring your appetite! While the Notorious RBG serves justice on screen, American Fusion Cafe will serve delicious culinary creations from their food truck! . October Movie Nights take place outside, in Kemper Museum‘s parking lot, with spaces for you to enjoy the film while social distancin...g. Please bring blankets, mats, or cushions! Email [email protected] to reserve your spot! . More info available at https://www.kemperart.org/event-calendar See more

Raise your hand if you need some help relaxing! Woof. Who doesn’t? Tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m, our Guided Meditation Series continues. It’s not too late to reserve a free ticket for the virtual event. Visit our website for details. . #kundaliniyoga #meditation #chillvibes #kempermuseum #kansascity #wellness #meditation #meditationpractice @kckundalini

Need some help staying calm, cool, and collected? Our Guided Meditation event is just the thing!

In honor of #indigenouspeoplesday, we're highlighting "So Tall", by Alvin Eli Amason (Sugpiaq/Alutiiq Alaskan). This painting was actually the second piece added to Kemper Museum's permanent collection. . "So Tall," 1990 oil on canvas 96 x 40 inches... Collection of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri Bebe and Crosby Kemper Collection Gift of the R. C. Kemper Charitable Trust, 1995.02.01 . #kempermuseum #contemporaryart #nativealaskanart #oilpainting #alvineliamason #arizonastateuniversity #navajocommunitycollege #universityofalaskaanchorage See more

We hope you are all enjoying the exhibit Elias Sime: Tightrope at our Kemper Gala Reopening. We are so happy to see you all! #kempergala #kempermuseum #kempermuseumofcontemporaryart #gala #kemper #kemperart

Our members are enjoying @calvinarsenia performance at the #kempergala #kempermuseum #kempermuseumofcontemporaryart #kempermuseumkc