What is beauty? Does beauty actually reside in the eye of the beholder or in the perceived object? Is beauty a necessary condition for today’s art, and is it possible to succumb to the Stendhal syndrome—a psychosomatic disorder triggered by an intense exposure of “beautiful” art—in a contemporary art museum? Featuring a wide selection of photographs from the Kemper collection, including several new acquisitions,  (Be)Holding Beauty considers the problematic issues pertaining to beauty in art of the past century and the myriad paths artists have traveled to capture and express such a fundamental pleasure.

Above: Neeta Madahar, Sustenance #79, 2003, Iris print on Somerset Velvet paper, 35 x 47 inches, Bebe and Crosby Kemper Collection; Museum Purchase, Enid and Crosby Kemper and William T. Kemper Acquisition Fund