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4420 Warwick Boulevard
Kansas City, MO 64111

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Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art acknowledges it resides on the ancestral territory of the Osage, Kaw, and Otoe-Missouria, among other tribal nations forcibly moved to the region such as the Shawnee, Wyandot, Delaware, Potawatomi, Sac and Fox and Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo) nations. We recognize and support the continued vibrancy of Native communities and cultures today who continue to thrive, as well as the inherent sovereignty of tribal nations. We are compelled to serve and advocate for these communities in accordance with our public mission.

Kemper Museum acknowledges and respects the diversity of Native people connected to this land today. Many recognize the land and all beings who live within it as relatives. We acknowledge the earth we inhabit, the waters of the Blue River, the Kansas River, the Missouri River, and the plants, animals, and people supported by them. 

We acknowledge our responsibility to be good caretakers of the land we occupy. 

Click here to learn more about our land acknowledgment process.

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Installation view, The Atrium Project: 10 Years, 10 Stories, November 7, 2025–April 19, 2026 , Charlotte Crosby Kemper Gallery, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Photo: E. G. Schempf, 2025.

In Fall 2025, The Atrium Project: 10 Years, 10 Stories will mark the initiative’s 10th anniversary with an exhibition featuring all participating artists—several represented in the Kemper Museum’s collection.

The Atrium Project: 10 Years, 10 Stories

Launched in 2016 by then–Kemper Museum Curator Erin Dziedzic, the Atrium Project was created as a platform for emerging and mid-career Hispanic and Latine artists. Each year, one artist has been invited to create a site-responsive work for the Museum’s central atrium, activating a large, prominent convening space with bold new directions in subject or scale.  

Developed over the course of a year, each commission begins with an artist’s visit to Kansas City—an experience that often subtly informs the final work. The series provides space for experimentation, storytelling, and reflection, grounded in both personal vision and place.  

To mark the upcoming 10th anniversary of the Atrium Project, this exhibition brings together for the first time work by the nine previous participating artists: José Lerma (2016–17), Firelei Báez (2017–18), Paul Henry Ramirez (2018–19), Angel Otero (2019–20), Joiri Minaya (2020–21), Aliza Nisenbaum (2021–22), Pepe Mar (2022–23), Sarah Zapata (2023–24), and Lucía Vidales (2024–25), with Edra Soto’s commission debuting in 2026.  

Across these projects, shared themes emerge: gathering as spiritual and social act; tracing layered histories; and exploring material, memory, and identity through personal and communal lenses. The Atrium Project: 10 Years, 10 Stories celebrates a decade of artistic innovation and the Museum’s ongoing commitment to supporting artists at pivotal moments in their careers, while looking ahead to what comes next. 

Organized by Jessica S. Hong, Chief Curator, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art 

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

Raven Halfmoon

Ride or Die marks a pivotal moment in Halfmoon’s artistic evolution and a bold expansion of her creative practice. These works, created specifically for this exhibition, engage with the cultural and historical landscape of Kansas City and the surrounding region. Long intrigued by cowboy mythology, Halfmoon flips the script on the “cowboy vs. Indian” trope. Her powerful cowgirl figures dominate the space, subverting colonial narratives with punk-inflected force, as they assert control, power, and protection over both personal and collective Indigenous narratives. 

While she has previously depicted standing horses, a new large-scale sculpture of a bucking horse marks a breakthrough in Halfmoon’s practice. Responding to Cyrus Dallin’s The Scout (1921), a monument currently standing in Kansas City’s Penn Valley Park—which was intended as an homage but ultimately perpetuates stereotypical views of Native peoples—Halfmoon’s horse instead is untethered and unyielding, embodying the spirit of resistance and sovereignty at the heart of Ride or Die. 

Organized by Jessica S. Hong, Chief Curator 

Featured Artworks

Raven Halfmoon (b. 1991, Caddo Nation) lives and works in Norman, Oklahoma. Halfmoon attended the University of Arkansas, where she earned a double BA in ceramics/painting and cultural anthropology. Halfmoon’s work has been featured in gallery exhibitions both nationally and internationally. Raven Halfmoon’s first institutional exhibition Raven Halfmoon: The Flags of Our Mothers opened Spring 2024 at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, and has since traveled to the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, and will continue on to The Contemporary Austin. Halfmoon’s work can be found in the permanent collections The Museum of Fine Art Houston, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, Philbrook Museum of Art, Forge Project Collection and several others national institutions. In 2023, she was selected as an Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellow (Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, IN) and in 2024 she was a finalist for the international Loewe Craft Prize.

Image Credit: Raven Halfmoon (b. 1991, Caddo Nation), Artist Portrait with The Guardians in Progress at UAP (Urban Art Projects), 2024, Bronze, 108 x 47.38 x 43.79 inches, Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94. © Raven Halfmoon. Photo: Salon 94.

A Preview of Kansas City’s 2025-2026 Arts Season

Raven Halfmoon: Ride or Die

Installation view, Raven Halfmoon: Ride or Die, November 14, 2025–April 19, 2026 , Charlotte Crosby Kemper Gallery, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Photo: E. G. Schempf, 2025.

Edra Soto’s installation the place of dwelling, is commissioned for Kemper Museum’s tenth annual Atrium Project and is a direct response to the original 1994 Gunnar Birkerts architecture.

Edra Soto: the place of dwelling

Edra Soto (b. 1971, Puerto Rico) alters and recontextualizes common functional objects—wrought-iron screens, plastic lawn furniture, and electric fans, ubiquitous in her native Puerto Rico—to create objects and environments that celebrate the voices of working-class communities. Soto’s installation, the place of dwelling, is commissioned for Kemper Museum’s tenth annual Atrium Project and is a direct response to the original 1994 Gunnar Birkerts architecture. Addressing the tabernacle-like center atrium, Soto’s installation invests the space with personal memories of her Catholic upbringing, a gesture that both questions methods of colonial indoctrination and celebrates sacred sites filled with signs and symbols offering guidance and direction. By infusing elements of vernacular design with sacred symbolism, Soto proposes a correlation between art museums and churches as similarly charged spaces for the discovery of higher meaning.

Organized by Kevin Moore, Independent Curator 

Artist & Curator Conversation | Edra Soto and Kevin Moore

Edra Soto is a Puerto Rican-born artist, educator, and co-director of the outdoor project space The Franklin, in Chicago, where she lives. Through architecture and design, Soto’s work invites conversations around socioeconomic and cultural oppression, the erasure of history, and loss of cultural knowledge. Soto has had recent public commissions from the Public Art Fund at the Doris C. Freedman Plaza in Central Park, NY (2024); Noor Riyadh light festival, Saudi Arabia (2024); and Now + There at Central Wharf Park, Boston (2023). Her work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Pérez Art Museum, Miami; the Art Institute of Chicago; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. 

Edra Soto, the place of dwelling (2025). Porcelain, sintra, wood, paint. 54 1/2 x 54 1/2 x 4 1/2 in. 138.4 x 138.4 x 11.4 cm. © Edra Soto. Photo: Morgan Lehman Gallery.

Free contemporary art museum in Kansas City, Missouri

Saturday, January 24: Due to inclement weather and out of caution for the safety of our community and staff, the Kemper Museum and Oil on Linen café will be closed today.

Learn more

Contemporary Art. Bold Voices. Free Admission.

Welcome to Kemper Museum

Andrea Carlson: Shimmer on Horizons

The World in Kansas City

Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene

It’s love month! Join the Kemper Teen Arts Council for a day of art-making inspired by the people and things we love!

Teen-led Saturday: Love is Everywhere

Join us for a drop-in tour led by a Kemper Museum docent on the second Saturday of the month at 1 PM.  Docent guides will spark curiosity and conversation about select artworks and exhibitions. Gather at the Visitor Services desk in the Atrium at 1 PM to participate. No registration required.

Gallery Conversation with a Kemper Museum Docent

Experience the Kemper Museum’s collections through the unique perspectives of Kansas City contemporary artists.

Beyond the Studio: Chantel Guzman-Cupil

Join us for Totally Tots! Sing songs, read books, explore art, and make your own art with a Kemper Museum educator and Kansas City librarian.

Sing songs, read books, explore art, and make your own art with a Kemper Museum educator and Kansas City librarian.

Totally Tots

Visual artist, Anita Easterwood will guide participants through an evening of figure drawing at Kemper Museum!

Studio Night: Up Close and Personal

Kemper Museum invites you to discover and experience firsthand how art can change your life, promote wellness, and improve wellbeing.

Art & Wellness: Inviting Surprise

Join us for a drop-in tour led by a Kemper Museum docent on the fourth Saturday of the month at 1 PM.  Docent guides will spark curiosity and conversation about select artworks and exhibitions. Gather at the Visitor Services desk in the Atrium at 1 PM to participate. No registration required.

Guests are invited to experience The World in Kansas City before the public opening, followed by a presentation by Chief Curator Jessica S. Hong.

The World in Kansas City – Member Preview & Curator Talk

The World in Kansas City — Member Preview & Curator Talk

Visual artist, Juan Diego Gaucin will guide participants through an evening of studio-style drawing at Kemper Museum!

Studio Night: The World in Kansas City

Ceramicist SunYoung Park will guide participants through a hands-on sculpture workshop at Kemper Museum!

Dálida and Michael (Serennata del Tres Cubano)

Paintings

Carry III

Sculptures

Carbon, silver and gold

Works on Paper

Helen Frankenthaler and Alexander Liberman in her East 83rd Street studio, New York - 1967, with GUIDING RED

Photographs

Deck

Textile Installations

In Praise of Prairie Dogs

Prints

The Wedding

Film & Video

Untitled Escape Collage

Mixed Media

Keep admission, special exhibitions, and programming free for everyone.

Home

Draw inspiration from work on view and artists from Kemper Museum’s permanent collection and create a drawing, collage, or love letter for a loved one.

Click here for information on how to get to the Museum and where to find our paid parking lots. Parking is Free for Supporting Members, and ample free street parking is also available around the Museum.

Kemper Museum admission is always free, thanks to the generous support of our Members and donors. Become a Museum Member today to help sustain free access to contemporary art and community programming.

Kemper Museum admission is always FREE, thanks to generous support of our Members and donors.

Click here for information on how to get to the Museum and where to find our paid parking lots. 

Parking is Free for Supporting Members, and ample free street parking is also available around the Museum.

Experience the Kemper Museum’s collections through the unique perspectives of Kansas City contemporary artists! Charlotte Street Studio Residents will highlight their favorite objects on view in connection with their own artistic practices.

This month's program will feature Chantel Guzman-Cupiland her exploration of the exhibition Edra Soto: the place of dwelling.

This event is FREE but seating is limited – registration required

Chantel Guzman-Cupil is a Latinx documentary photographer currently based in Kansas City. Chantel has been greatly influenced by their parent’s experience as immigrants as well as their own experience as a Latinx living in the Midwest. Their work aims to address themes of immigration, family, identity, and isolation. Chantel is currently a Studio Resident at the Charlotte Street.

Click here for information on how to get to the Museum and where to find our paid parking lots. Parking is Free for Supporting Members, and ample free street parking is also available around the Museum. 

Kemper Museum admission is always free, thanks to the generous support of our Members and donors. Become a Museum Member today to help sustain free access to contemporary art and community programming. 

By registering for this event, you agree to receive email communications from Kemper Museum. You may unsubscribe anytime. 

Public Programs are FREE for everyone only because they are supported by many.

Join us and the Kansas City Public Library for a Totally Tots Saturday hosted at the Kemper Museum!

Visual artist, Anita Easterwood will guide participants through an evening of figure drawing, pulling inspiration from works on view while making connections to her own practice.

During this session, attendees will be invited to focus on drawing often-challenging areas of the form such as hands, feet, head & shoulders. Anita will guide participants by adding tips and strategies to address these subjects.

Materials provided. All levels of experience are welcome. Cash bar.

Capacity is limited! If your plans change and you can no longer make it, we appreciate you canceling your reservation to give someone else the chance to attend.

By registering for this event, you agree to receive email communications from Kemper Museum. You may unsubscribe anytime.