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Organized from the Kemper Museum Permanent Collection, the exhibition Chromophobia borrows its title from a book of the same name by artist and writer David Batchelor (Scottish, born 1955). In his formative publication, Batchelor describes chromophobia as “a fear of contamination and corruption by something that is unknown or appears unknowable.” As such, there is a desire to “purge color from culture, to devalue color, to diminish its significance, to deny its complexity.” According to Batchelor, this anxiety is induced by what color supposedly signifies in wider Western philosophy and criticism: the so-called “feminine, oriental, cosmetic, infantile, vulgar, narcotic.”

The works chosen for this exhibition extend Batchelor’s conversation into the Kemper Museum Meeting Room, transforming the gallery into a space where color becomes the primary and celebrated force. With selections dating from 1920 to 2010, Chromophobia incorporates perspectives from various eras and artistic movements, foregrounding the artists’ differing approaches to color application and experimentation. One such example is a print by the late artist and teacher Josef Albers (American, born Germany, 1888–1976), who is most known for his playful series Homage to the Square and celebrated publication Interaction of Color (1963), both of which have influenced countless creatives and cultural producers. 

In bringing color from the margin to the center, Chromophobia chooses to embrace color expression–and all of its associations–as a liberatory practice rather than a superfluous or dangerous element of artistic production.

Chromophobia is organized by Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and curated by Krista Alba, assistant curator.

Featured Works

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Chromophobia

Charles Demuth, American, 1883-1935, Wild Orchids, ca. 1920, watercolor on paper, 10⅞ x 8½ inches. Bebe and Crosby Kemper Collection. Gift of the William T. Kemper Charitable Trust, UMB Bank, n.a., Trustee, 1995.024.01. No known copyright restrictions. Photo: Dan Wayne.

Beyond Ninth Street: Legacies of Women in Abstraction

I follow the rules until I go against them all. —Helen Frankenthaler

In recent decades, artists, scholars, and curators have reexamined the Eurocentric and male-focused narratives that have long shaped the history of postwar American abstraction. This exhibition, organized from Kemper Museum’s Permanent Collection, contributes to this conversation by highlighting an intergenerational group of women abstract artists who were active in the 1950s and the 1960s in New York City—Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011), Jane Freilicher (1924–2014), Grace Hartigan (1922–2008), Elaine de Kooning (1918–1989), and Joan Mitchell (1925–1992)—alongside a more recent generation of abstract artists, including Shinique Smith (born 1971) and Gilda Snowden (1954–2014). 

Beyond Ninth Street builds on the museum's commitment to the study, acquisition, and presentation of modern and contemporary abstract art. Other exhibitions that have expanded understandings of American abstraction by recognizing artists who have been historically excluded as well as the current generation include Magnetic Fields: Expanding American Abstraction, 1960s to Today, Dyani White Hawk: Speaking to Relatives and the current major career retrospective Virginia Jaramillo: Principle of Equivalence, on view in the Charlotte Crosby Kemper Gallery June 2–August 27, 2023. 

Beyond Ninth Street: Legacies of Women in Abstraction is organized by Kemper Museum assistant curator Krista Alba.

Works in the Exhibition

virtual-checklist

Virtual Checklist

The works compiled on this virtual checklist have been recently exhibited and are now resting so that they may be shown again in the near future and preserved for generations to come.

More Abstract Works by Women Artists in the Permanent Collection

Gilda Snowden (American, 1954-2014), Imaginary Landscape, 2006, acrylic on canvas, 40 x 60 inches, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri, Gift of the Gilda Snowden Estate, 2018.03.01. © Gilda Snowden Estate, Detroit, MI. Photo: E. G. Schempf, 2017.

Spandita Malik: Jāḷī—Meshes of Resistance

International photographer and social practice artist Spandita Malik (Indian, born 1995) collaborates with women across North Indian states to create embroidered portraits that embody and empower their subjects. For Malik’s first solo museum exhibition, Spandita Malik: Jāḷī—Meshes of Resistance, the artist expands upon her photographic series Nā́rī, a project that she began as a graduate student at Parsons School of Design in 2019. For Nā́rī, she traveled to small communities in India known for their distinct embroidery styles and places where women learn handicraft to gain financial independence. Malik met with women who are part of self-help groups for survivors of domestic and gender-based violence and requested permission to document them within their homes or personal spaces. Each woman was invited to embroider her own portrait and claim agency over her portrayal. In the years following, the women connected with each other and Malik over phone calls and group chats, where they were able to deepen their relationships and form a greater support system. 

The word jāḷī is recognized across many languages with roots in Sanskrit, referring to the openwork that appears in architecture, metalwork, and embroidery. Here jāḷī refers to an openwork stitch that produces a fine mesh structure or the appearance of a net. Within the context of Malik’s exhibition, jāḷī also transforms into an expansive metaphor that uplifts networks and communities, particularly those formed among women with shared experiences. Produced in dialogue with many collaborators, Malik’s portrait series showcases the unique preferences, desires, and fears of the individual women who comprise the collective, nurturing a symbiotic relationship between group and self-expression.

Spandita Malik: Jāḷī—Meshes of Resistance is organized by Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and curated by Krista Alba, assistant curator.

Spandita Malik provides a glimpse into her work, process, and the collaborative nature of her work.

Spandita Malik is a visual artist from India. Her work is concerned with the current global socio-political state of affairs with an emphasis on women’s rights and gendered violence. Malik specializes in process based work in photography, recently with photographic surface embroideries and collaborations with women in India. Malik’s work in expanded documentary and social-practice consciously emanates from the idea of decolonising the eye and aesthetic surrounding documentary photography of India. Malik is a visiting assistant professor at the Kansas City Art Institute and a studio resident at the Charlotte Street Art Foundation.

2019 M.F.A., Photography, Parsons School of Design, New York University, New York, NY

2017 Bachelor of Design, Fashion Design, National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Dehli, India

2016 Fashion Management, École Nationale Supérieure des Arts et Industries Textiles, Lille, France

2021 Spandita Malik: Threads of Identity, Visual Arts Center of New Jersey

2021 Vadhu: The Embroidered Bride, Baxter Street Camera Club, New York, NY

2022 say the dream was real and the wall imaginary, Jane Lombard Gallery, New York, NY 

2021 Photo London: indigo+madder, Sommerset House, London, UK

2020 In/Between: Transfigure, Ford Foundation Live Gallery, New York Live Arts, New York, NY

6 Rising Contemporary Artists Using Traditional Craft Techniques

These Beautiful Images Are A Harsh Critique of Gendered Violence In India

Exhibitions are always free thanks to the generosity of members and other donors. Join or donate today to support free access to contemporary art.

Spandita Malik (Indian, born 1995), Rukmesh Kumari IV, 2023. Photographic transfer print on khaddar fabric, phulkari silk thread embroidery. Unique 50 x 65 1/2 inches. Courtesy of Spandita Malik. Art and photo © Spandita Malik.

Artist Sarah Zapata's installation for the 8th Annual Atrium Project

Sarah Zapata: So the roots be known | Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art

The here and now is a prison house … Some will say that all we have are the pleasures of this moment, but we must never settle for that minimal transport; we must dream and enact new and better pleasures, other ways of being in the world, and ultimately new worlds.
José Esteban Muñoz
Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity

For Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art’s eighth annual commissioned Atrium Project, New York-based artist Sarah Zapata (Peruvian American, born 1988) combines sculptural and textile techniques to create a vibrant and inviting site-specific installation. In her practice, she sources familiar materials—such as acrylic yarn and natural fibers—and traditional art forms including weaving, coiling, sewing, and latch hooking, to articulate the intersections of her plural identities: the daughter of a Peruvian immigrant; a first generation American born in Texas; and a queer woman raised in an Evangelical household.

In Sarah Zapata: So the roots be known, Zapata centers local lesbian and feminist histories from her research at the Gay and Lesbian Archive of Mid-America at the University of Missouri–Kansas City. In part, this installation pays homage to Womontown, a group of primarily queer women who established a revolutionary community in the Longfellow (Dutch Hill) neighborhood of Kansas City in the late 1980s. Zapata’s use of abstracted tulip forms and shades of lavender draw inspiration from the Womontown banner while simultaneously evoking histories of queer resistance, as the color lavender came to be associated with gay and lesbian communities, and thus stigmatized, in the mid-twentieth century. Ladders—a recurring motif in Zapata’s work alluding to ideas of fantasy and transitional spaces—here make reference to the national lesbian magazine The Ladder (1956–1970), founded by the Daughters of Bilitis and later operated remotely by recognized writer and publisher Barbara Grier in Kansas City. 

Of special interest to the artist are methods of political protest and solidarity formed across cultures and countercultures, particularly those expressed through textiles, such as arpilleras, an artform created by Chilean women in resistance to the violent authoritarian dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, and the AIDS Memorial Quilt, a 54-ton tapestry displayed on the National Mall in 1985 in remembrance of the lives lost during the AIDS outbreak. Also of significance is Zapata’s inclusion of stripes, which were used in medieval Europe to identify individuals on the fringes of society, such as criminals and jesters. 

So the roots be known poetically underscores the resilience and labor of femme and queer voices by demonstrating the community-forming efforts of those seeking companionship, free speech, and safe harbor. Here, Zapata’s textile pieces are draped, suspended, and slumped along the wall, suggesting the many flags, banners, and quilts collaboratively constructed with the ambition of shaping better futures through solidarity and mutual care.

Sarah Zapata: So the roots be known is organized by Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and curated by Krista Alba, assistant curator.

Born in Texas and based in Brooklyn, Sarah Zapata is an artist who creates colorful, sensuous textile installations that engage issues of gender and labor, as well as cultural and personal identity. 

2011 B.F.A., Fibers, University of North Texas, Denton, TX

2022 Sarah Zapata: a resilience of things not seen, John Michael Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, WI

2020 The Taxing of a Fruitful Procession, Museo MATE, Lima, Peru

2019 NADA HOUSE, Governor’s Island, NY

2018 MOTHA and Chris E. Vargas: Consciousness Raising, New Museum, New York, NY

2018 Anti Bodies, MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY

2016 Siempre X, El Museo Del Barrio, New York, NY

Immersive Architectural Installations by Sarah Zapata Expand Rich Textile Traditions

The Textile Artist Employing Centuries-Old Practices and Pop Culture Imagery

Textile Artist Sarah Zapata Has More Than One Identity. Weaving Lets Her Bring Them All Together

5 Latinx Artists Using Abstraction to Address Precolonial Histories

Queer Artists in Their Own Words: Sarah Zapata Wants an Anti-Hero Society

Into: Sarah Zapata’s Hand-Woven Technicolor Dreamscapes

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Sarah Zapata: So the roots be known

Installation view, Sarah Zapata: So the roots be known, August 18, 2023–July 28, 2024, Atrium, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Photo: E.G. Schempf, 2023. 

Julie Blackmon: A Life in Frame is a survey focuses on the last decade of the artist’s photography. Julie Blackmon's (American, born 1966) subject is the conflation of art and life—particularly everyday life in Springfield, Missouri. The works on view show scenes depicting family, community, and landscape deeply rooted in her Midwestern heritage. 

Blackmon uses her surroundings to engage broader ideas of social and political issues, gender issues and family dynamics, and art historical references. While Blackmon’s work celebrates the visual vernacular of an area of the country that many dismiss as culturally unremarkable, she positions it in conversation with a wide range of artistic references–including 17th century Dutch painters, 19th century Missouri-based artist George Caleb Bingham, and contemporary photographers like Diane Arbus. She applies these genres’ techniques to create uniquely playful and critical examinations of the modern family, feminism, and other social and political issues. 

 The 20 works on view demonstrate these conceptual and aesthetic themes that the artist has engaged over the past decade, as well as the deep collecting history of Blackmon’s work in the Midwest. While her work is known and collected nationally – her work was recently acquired by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. – many of the works on view come from local collections, emphasizing the close relationship with Blackmon and her work in the region. Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art was the first museum to collect Blackmon’s work when it acquired four of the artist’s photographs in 2008.

This exhibition is organized by Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.

Each frame is an absorbing, meticulously orchestrated slice of ethnographic theater…that abounds with tender humor but also shrewdly subtle satire. – Leah Ollman, Los Angeles Times

Julie Blackmon uses her surroundings to engage global ideas. While her scenes feature the artist’s family and are inspired by the realities of everyday life, her works are conceptual, fictitious, and highly directed to comment on common themes of contemporary life.

Missouri State University, Springfield, MO

2022	Metaverse, Haw Contemporary, Kansas City, MO

2020 	Fever Dreams, Fotografiska New York, NY

2019  	Julie Blackmon: The Everyday Fantastic, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, NH

2018 	Midwest Materials, special exhibition presented by 
 		Robert Mann Gallery, Bentonville, AR

Image: Julie Blackmon. Photo by Stella Blackmon.

Disrupting Domesticity: Julie Blackmon’s Take on Small-Town Family Life | Adobe Creative Cloud

Photographer Julie Blackmon provides a glimpse into her practice and process.

The big picture: a painterly vision of suburban America

Charming, chaotic scenes of family life in small-town America blend reality with fiction

Julie Blackmon's Missouri photos show the art that's 'right in front' of us

Review: Julie Blackmon’s absorbing photography of everyday Midwestern life – or is it?

Additional Thanks

Julie Blackmon: A Life in Frame

Julie Blackmon, (American, born 1966), Records, 2021, archival pigment print. edition 4 of 7, 44 x 67.5 inches. Collection of Andrea and Steve Morgan. Art and photo © Julie Blackmon.

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Kemper Museum is a leading presenter of contemporary art and ideas in Kansas City, Missouri. 

kemperart.org Jan 2023

The Teen Arts Council invites KC teens to share and swap their art at Kemper Museum!

Teen-led Saturday: Sketch & Swap

The Kansas City Music Teachers Association presents an area-wide student recital featuring holiday selections.

Musical Merriment with the Kansas City Music Teachers Association

Experience the original composition by Kevin Morby

Sound Sessions: Music for A Life in Frame by Kevin Morby

Practice your Italian and English and learn about contemporary art at Kemper Museum each Thursday.

Fall Italian - English Language Exchange Club

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The Kansas City Music Teachers Association presents an area-wide student recital featuring  holiday selections in the Atrium of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art! All ages and all instruments will join to make the season merry!

In addition, Kansas City’s Reach Out and Read through KU Medical Center invites you to participate in their book drive promoting literacy in children through age 5. New books preferred, see attached flier for more details. (Link: https://reachoutandread.org)

Grab lunch at Cafe Sebastienne, explore a special scavenger hunt, and stop by for last minute gift shopping at the Kemper Museum Shop!


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Public programs are always FREE for everyone, thanks to support from members and other donors. Join today to support free access to contemporary art. 

Meet artist Hangama Amiri at Kemper Museum.

Artist Talk & Opening Celebration Hangama Amiri: A Homage to Home

Opening for "Hangama Amiri: An Homage to Home" exhibition at Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art

Hangama Amiri Artist Talk and Opening

Cash Bar Opens 5:30 p.m.  |  Artist talk 6 p.m.  | Reception 7 p.m.

Seating is first come, first served. Members receive two free drinks.

Afghan Canadian artist Hangama Amiri combines painting and printmaking techniques with textiles, weaving together stories based on memories of her homeland and diasporic experience. 

Join us for a conversation between the artist, curator Amy Smith-Stewart (The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum) and assistant curator Krista Alba (Kemper Museum) to celebrate the opening of the artist's first solo traveling exhibition, Hangama Amiri: A Homage to Home.

Image: Hangama Amiri. Photo by Sabrina Santiago.

Public programs are always free, thanks to museum members and other donors!