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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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Lucía Vidales (b. 1986, Mexico City) engages drawing and painting media to explore and expand the lineage of traditional art historical subjects. In Hambre, her massive installation commissioned for Kemper Museum’s ninth annual Atrium Project, Vidales takes on the iconic Last Supper, a portrayal of the apostles’ reactions to Jesus announcing that one of them would betray him. Hambre both pays homage to and critiques historical imagery associated with the Last Supper, and addresses modern pictorial representations of a dinner scene, acknowledging the evolution of the genre, subject, and setting.

Vidales uses traditional painting and drawing as a window into the complex social, cultural, and historical layers of meaning within meal sharing, dinner parties, and gathering spaces, where eating and community are central elements. “The first time I lived in an international context, I noticed that Latinos and Latin Americans stayed long after meals to chat, have coffee, dessert, a drink, or a smoke at a leisurely pace,” Vidales observed. She added:

In Mexico, where I live, as in other parts of Latin America, mealtime and after-dinner conversations are culturally very important and privileged spaces for social life. The time spent cooking, preparing meals and all the activities that go into preparing a gathering are what is usually considered in the realm of female activities, and often part of unseen and unacknowledged labor. Those are also spaces for building close connections, solidarity, and enjoyment, gossip, confessions, and skill building. Lucía Vidales

In this new work for Kemper Museum’s atrium, the many layers of charcoal drawing that create the network of silhouetted figures beneath the painting honor those who make it possible for gatherings to take shape such as chefs, kitchen prep cooks, servers, and more. The painting of guests gathered around a table—while hung in front of the drawing—contains sweeping marks and washes that coalesce seamlessly with the background, emphasizing their connectedness.

For the first time in 2024, the Atrium Project is expanding to fill the entire central core of the museum. In addition to the commissioned installation, which has grown to span 22 x 25 feet, Hambre also includes preparatory drawings for the installation, providing insight into Vidales’s development of her surreal forms and adept use of color transitions. Her mural-scale painting Viendo Desde El Monte Calvario (2020) depicting a pilgrimage destination, the Christian site where Jesus was crucified, stretches her modernization of a historical subject across the space. Hambre means “hunger” in Spanish and here could refer to people’s hunger for some type of experience from a religious site. It also alludes to the artist’s hunger for contemporary depictions to broaden the scope and audiences of these religious sites, subjects, and scenes from visual culture. In this eight-panel painting, Vidales employs her unique mark making to evoke the blurred boundaries between human, animal, and spiritual place. The result is Vidales’s forming of a new mythology from past visual, folkloric, and spiritual histories.

Together, Vidales’s paintings and drawings encourage considerations of what we know of prescribed historical imagery and how that may have the potential to expand in contemporary art and life. 

Hambre is curated by Erin Dziedzic and organized by Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.

Lucía Vidales is a painter who lives and works in Monterrey, Mexico. She is currently an Art Professor at University UDEM and has been awarded three times with the Jovenes Creadores grant by the Secretaría de Cultura, Mexico. Vidales’s layered paintings engage themes of materiality, the body, and the consequences of historical and colonial imaginaries. The beings that populate her paintings suggest the potential for confrontation, but seldom follow through. Instead they play with humor or anxiety, or seek consolation from ancient wounds.

2014 M.F.A., National Autonomous University of Mexico, Faculty of Art and Design, Mexico City

2009 La Esmeralda National School of Painting, Sculpture, and Printmaking of the National Institute of Fine Arts, Mexico City

2021 Sudor Frío, PROXYCO, New York, New York

2021 Manoteta, PEANA, Monterrey, Mexico (20; 

2020 To cool the blue, Taka Ishii Gallery Ph / F, Tokyo

2019 Noche durante el día, Sala Gam, Galería de Arte Mexicano, Mexico City

2019 Come as you are, House of Deslave, Tijuana

2018 Cuerpo de esta sombra, Galería Alterna, Mexico City

2020–21 Four Women Painters at the Crossroads, Sapar Contemporary (at Piero Atchugarry Gallery), Miami 

2020 Murales para un cubo blanco, Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, Mexico City

2020 Daichi Takagi, Lucia Vidales, Hiroka Yamashita, Taka Ishii, Tokyo

2019 City Prince/sses, Palais de Tokyo, Paris

An Artist Grappling With Mexico’s Cultural Legacy

Slow Bodies, Racing Hearts: Lucía Vidales’s Paintings of Our Changing Selves

The Atrium Project is an annual series of commissioned projects that presents the work of emerging and mid-career Hispanic and Latinx artists. Featured artists included José Lerma (2016), Firelei Báez (2017), Paul Henry Ramirez (2018), Angel Otero (2019), Joiri Minaya (2020), Aliza Nisenbaum (2021), Pepe Mar (2022), and Sarah Zapata (2023). These site-responsive projects involve artists visits to Kansas City, inspiration from which is often incorporated into the projects. This exhibition is organized by Erin Dziedzic, director of curatorial affairs, 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.

Lucía Vidales: Hambre

Installation view, Lucía Vidales: Hambre, September 20, 2024 - September 7, 2025, Atrium, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Photo: E. G. Schempf, 2024.

As Kemper Museum celebrates its 30th anniversary, Executive Director Jessica May has spent her first year at its leader learning about the Permanent Collection. Director’s Cut offers a peek into her explorations. Every artwork tells a story; this exhibition bridges the stories of contemporary art and artists with the personal reflections of a dedicated art lover. Come reflect with us!

Director's Cut

Petah Coyne, Untitled (#887P-97), 1997, gelatin silver print, edition 1 of 3, 60 x 40 inches. Collection of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Anonymous gift in honor of Bebe and Crosby Kemper on the occasion of the 20th Anniversary of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. 2013.15 © Petah Coyne, courtesy of Galerie Lelong. Photo: courtesy of Galerie Lelong.

Considering Kansas City’s storied legacy of jazz, Riffs on Real Time explores the expansive possibilities of riffing and more broadly, the power of rhythm and music. As the exhibition’s starting point, Leslie Hewitt’s eponymous work nods to this musical approach by creating juxtapositions and layers in her compositions demonstrating riffing’s conceptual richness. Riffs on Real Time builds on this idea with works from the Kemper Museum’s collection featuring artists riffing on different artistic styles or movements and aspects of popular culture. Additionally, it includes works highlighting the cultural and sociopolitical dimensions of rhythm and music as well as their ability to convene, even galvanize.  

Organized by Jessica S. Hong, chief curator, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art

Featured Works

Riffs on Real Time

Leslie Hewitt (American, born 1977), Riffs on Real Time (5 of 10), 2024, chromogenic print, 1/1 edition + 1 AP, 30 ⅝  x 44 ¼  x 2 inches framed, Courtesy of the Artist and Perrotin © Leslie Hewitt. Photo: Guillaume Ziccarelli, 2024. 

Stan Douglas (Canadian, born 1960), Luanda-Kinshasa, 2013, single-channel video projection, 6 hours 1 min (loop), color, sound, overall dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist, Victoria Miro, and David Zwirner. © Stan Douglas. Courtesy the artist, Victoria Miro, and David Zwirner. 

Stan Douglas: Metronome

Stan Douglas (b. 1960) is a Canadian artist whose work investigates the intersection of technology, image-making, and collective memory through the mediums of film and photography. For Stan Douglas: Metronome at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, three major video works are showcased, each focused on the theme of music. As an audiophile and former DJ, Douglas uses music as a metaphor for social and political conditions and a means for global cultural exchange. By intertwining historical moments with the present, his work highlights themes of memory, social unity, conflict, and the complexities of cultural interaction.

The featured works in Stan Douglas: Metronome include ISDN (2022), which connects rappers from the UK and Egypt through the now-obsolete ISDN technology, exploring social struggles and aspirations. Luanda-Kinshasa (2013) imagines a historic jam session at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio, creating a utopian musical space where different nationalities come together. Douglas’s early work, Hors-champs (1992), features Black expatriate musicians improvising a "free jazz" session, while his photographic series Disco Angola (2012) and 2011 ≠ 1848 (2022) delve deeper into themes of collective memory and cultural transference. Through these pieces, Douglas blends narratives and geographies, challenging binary thinking and reimagining both history and the present.

Stan Douglas: Metronome is organized by the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, and curated by Kevin Moore. It is supported by a major publication, Stan Douglas: Ghostlight, published by Dancing Foxes Press in collaboration with the Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS), Bard College, Hessel Museum of Art. The book includes essays by CCS graduate program director and chief curator Lauren Cornell, Kevin Moore, and other prominent scholars.

This playlist, inspired by Stan Douglas: Metronome, was created by Kara Smith, Education Programs Manager at the American Jazz Museum.

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

Welcome to Kemper Museum

A day of celebration and advocacy for literacy initiatives and library services in Kansas City

Literacy in Action

Join Executive Director Jessica May for a casual gallery talk focused on current exhibitions and the upcoming catalogue Stan Douglas: Ghostlight.

Jessica May Gallery Spotlight

Director's Gallery Spotlight

Camp Kemper is back! Led by a museum educator, this three-day art camp features fun and creative activities inspired by artwork on view.

Camp Kemper: Creative Soundstage (Ages 6-9)

Introducing Modern Makers for ages 10-13! Like Camp Kemper, this three-day camp features hands-on creative projects led by a museum educator

Modern Makers: Creative Soundstage (Ages 10-13)

"In Community" Summer Madness Silent Concert

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 Conversations with a Museum Docent

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

Totally Tots

Camp Kemper: Harmony & Hues (Ages 6-9)

Modern Makers: Harmony & Hues (Ages 10-13)

Local teachers are invited to the museum after-hours for an evening of art, music, shopping, and good company!

Teacher Appreciation Happy Hour

Dálida and Michael (Serennata del Tres Cubano)

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

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Kemper Museum is excited to celebrate the launch of its newest publication, Stan Douglas: Ghostlight in conjunction with Literacy in Action, a day of celebration and advocacy for literacy initiatives and library services in Kansas City! Join us for an afternoon of poetry readings, zine-making, and activities as we highlight the critical services and resources provided by our community partners: Kansas City Public Library, Spencer Library at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Lead to Read KC, and Literacy KC. 

While you're here, don't miss Stan Douglas: Metronome, the current special exhibition at Kemper Museum. This major presentation by internationally acclaimed artist Stan Douglas explores the rhythms of urban life, the weight of historical memory, and the pulse of contemporary storytelling through immersive film, photography, and sound. The exhibition provides a rich backdrop for reflecting on cultural narratives and the role of archives in shaping public imagination.

Engage with participating community partners and enjoy ongoing activities.

12:00 p.m. – Director’s Gallery Spotlight

Join Executive Director Jessica May for a casual gallery talk focused on current exhibitions and the upcoming catalogue Stan Douglas: Ghostlight. 

2:00 p.m. – Interactive Poetry Readings

Renowned local poets Sheri Purpose Hall, Jose Faus, and Huascar Medina will perform and lead site-specific poetry activities in response to Kemper Museum’s latest Atrium Project, Lucía Vidales: Hambre and Stan Douglas: Metronome.

Visitors are invited to bring a book donation for Lead to Read KC’s book drive. Check out their wishlist here.

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

Kemper Museum programs are FREE thanks to support from members and other donors. Join today!

Public programs are free for everyone only because they are supported by many. 

Join Executive Director Jessica May for a casual gallery talk focused on current exhibitions and the upcoming catalogue Stan Douglas: Ghostlight. Stay for Literacy in Action, a day of celebration and advocacy for literacy initiatives and library services in Kansas City.

Click here for information on how to get to the museum and where to find our free parking lots.
Kemper Museum programs are FREE thanks to support from members and other donors. Join today!

This summer, Camp Kemper returns with an exciting series of new programming for children ages 6-9, featuring hands-on creative projects inspired by the themes and artworks currently on view at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art! These three-day camps take place Wednesday through Friday from 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. and are led by a Kemper Museum educator.

The theme for Week 3 (July 9-July11) is Creative Soundstage, inviting campers to experiment with music, sound-making, and performance-based activities. Activities will be inspired by the museum's permanent collection and current exhibitions , including Stan Douglas: Metronome, Riffs on Real Time, and more!

Kemper Museum's three-day camps now have a $75 registration fee. This fee was set in place to help sustain and improve the quality of the program as well as cover resources that continue to make camp an enriching experience for kids.

The Kemper team has worked hard to keep the cost as affordable as possible and is offering full scholarships for those who need them. Please email kmckinney@kemperart.org providing a brief statement describing your need for scholarship.

We are additionally offering members a 15% discount when they use our emailed promo code. If you have not received an email with your code, please contact kmckinney@kemperart.org. Interested in becoming a member or renewing your subscription? Visit kemperart.org/memberships

Kemper Museum programs are accessible thanks to support from members and other donors. Join today!

This summer, we’re excited to expand our offerings for young artists. In addition to Camp Kemper for ages 6-9, we’re introducing Modern Makers, a NEW program for ages 10-13! This program featuring hands-on creative projects inspired by the themes and artworks currently on view. These three-day camps take place Wednesday through Friday from 1:30–3:30 p.m. and are led by a Kemper Museum educator.

The theme for Week 3 (July 9-July11) is Creative Soundstage, inviting campers to experiment with music, sound-making, and performance-based activities inspired by the museum's permanent collection and current exhibitions , including Stan Douglas: Metronome, Riffs on Real Time, and more!

In Community Summer Madness Silent Concert

Gather at Kemper Museum for a midsummer silent concert celebrating the final installment of the program series, In Community inspired by Lucia Vidales’ Hambre. Listen to a uniquely layered live performance featuring Latin & Jazz fusions through wireless headphones. Take the music with you and explore the museum galleries and grounds!

Lee Langston - Vocalistz
Heidi Eberhardt - Vocalist
Kaydee Gabel - Violin

The In Community programming series provides a variety of entry points and opportunities to gather at the museum and explore music, spoken word and storytelling, art-making and food tied to Kemper Museum’s latest Atrium project: Lucia Vidales: Hambre.