Artist talks, special tours, hands-on workshops, films, lectures, and performances are scheduled throughout the year, many in conjunction with exhibitions on display.
Groups of ten or more may schedule free docent-led guided tours of Kemper Museum’s Permanent Collection and special exhibitions; to see more information visit the Museum's Tours page.
Far from the coastal centers of culture and politics, Kansas stands at the very center of American stereotypes about red states. In the American imagination, it is a place LGBT people leave. No Place Like Home is about why they stay. The book tells the epic story of how a few disorganized and politically naïve Kansans, realizing they were unfairly under attack, rolled up their sleeves, went looking for fights, and ended up making friends in one of the country’s most hostile states.
RSVP on Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/book-tour-and-signing-for-no-place-like-hom...
The LGBT civil rights movement’s history in California and in big cities such as New York and Washington, DC, has been well documented. But what is it like for LGBT activists in a place like Kansas, where they face much stiffer headwinds? How do they win hearts and minds in the shadow of the Westboro Baptist Church (“Christian” motto: “God Hates Fags”)? Traveling the state in search of answers—from city to suburb to farm—journalist C. J. Janovy encounters LGBT activists who have fought, in ways big and small, for the acceptance and respect of their neighbors, their communities, and their government. Her book tells the story of these twenty-first-century citizen activists—the issues that unite them, the actions they take, and the personal and larger consequences of their efforts, however successful they might be.
With its close-up view of the lives and work behind LGBT activism in Kansas, No Place Like Home fills a prairie-sized gap in the narrative of civil rights in America. The book also looks forward, as an inspiring guide for progressives concerned about the future of any vilified minority in an increasingly polarized nation.
A series of guided meditation and sound healing inside Kemper Museum galleries with Laura Frank of Inner Space Yoga. Participants will be guided through meditation, qigong, breathing instruction, and sound healing. Some blankets will be provided, but participants are encouraged to bring their own blankets, yoga, mat, and small cushion or for meditation, if possible. No experience necessary. Space is limited.
RSVP for October 11 on Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/guided-meditation-series-inner-panorama-oct...
Enjoy coffee following a tour of the exhibition Making a Scene. Erin Dziedzic, Kemper Museum director of curatorial affairs, shares from her experience planning the exhibition, Making a Scene, and the importance of public programs.
RSVP on Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/making-a-scene-tours-curator-led-tickets-49...
Erin Dziedzic is director of curatorial affairs at Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and curator of Angela Dufresne: Making a Scene. Dziedzic was also curator of Adam Cvijanovic: American Montage; Xaviera Simmons: Number 16; A Whisper of Where It Came From; Siah Armajani: Bridge Builder; Rashid Johnson: Hail We Now Sing Joy; Worlds Otherwise Hidden; and co-curator of Magnetic Fields: Expanding American Abstraction and more at Kemper Museum. She has contributed to publications with Kemper Museum, Savannah College of Art and Design, Island Press, Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition, and she was guest editor of Art Papers (May/June 2013).
Opening Night (1977) PG-13, 2h 24min. Actress Myrtle Gordon (Gena Rowlands) suffers an emotional uproar in her personal life after a fan dies trying to see her. Director: John Cassavetes
RSVP on Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/making-a-scene-film-series-opening-night-19...
While in the midst of rehearsals for her latest play, Broadway actor Myrtle Gordon (Gena Rowlands) witnesses the accidental death of an adoring young fan, after which she begins to confront the chaos of her own life. Headlined by a virtuoso performance by Rowlands, John Cassavetes’s Opening Night lays bare the drama of a performer who, at great personal cost, makes a part her own, and it functions as a metaphor for the director’s singular, wrenched-from-the-heart creative method.
The films in this series have had a major impact on artist Angela Dufresne’s work in the exhibition Angela Dufresne: Making a Scene currently on view at Kemper Museum. The characters and their methods in these productions provide inspiration for Dufresne’s own scenes.
Before the film, enjoy dinner at Café Sebastienne! Book your dinner reservation online or by calling 816-561-7740.
Enjoy coffee following a tour of the exhibition Making a Scene. Melissa Ragona, Dufresne catalogue essayist, gives perspectives on the connections between Dufresne’s work, cinema, and the history of painting.
RSVP on Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/making-a-scene-tours-perspectives-tickets-4...
Melissa Ragona is an associate professor of critical theory and art history in the School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University as well as an independent curator and critic. Her book, Readymade Sound: Andy Warhol’s Recording Aesthetics, is forthcoming from University of California Press. Her essays and reviews have appeared in October, Frieze, Art Papers, and numerous edited collections. Ragona has curated exhibitions and served as a curatorial consultant at various venues throughout the United States, including the Mattress Factory Contemporary Art Museum (Pittsburgh), the Miller Gallery (Pittsburgh), PPOW Gallery (New York), and the Museum of Modern Art (New York).
Melissa Ragona, associate professor of visual culture and critical theory at Carnegie Mellon University and Dufresne catalogue essayist, discusses Dufresne’s rigorous investigations into how bodies and objects work together symbolically, politically, and aesthetically to forge critical discourses around race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, and national/international identities.
RSVP on Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/visiting-scholar-talk-and-book-with-melissa...
Ragona’s book, Readymade Sound: Andy Warhol’s Recording Aesthetics, is forthcoming from University of California Press. Her essays and reviews have appeared in October, Frieze, Art Papers, and numerous edited collections. Ragona has curated exhibitions and served as a curatorial consultant at various venues throughout the United States, including the Mattress Factory Contemporary Art Museum (Pittsburgh), the Miller Gallery (Pittsburgh), PPOW Gallery (New York), and the Museum of Modern Art (New York).
Mamma Roma (1962), Not Rated, 1h 50min. After many years of working in the streets of Rome, a middle-aged prostitute Mamma Roma (Anna Magnani) saves money to buy an apartment and have her son Ettore come live with her. Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini
RSVP on Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/making-a-scene-film-series-mamma-roma-1962-...
Anna Magnani is Mamma Roma, a middle-aged prostitute who attempts to extricate herself from her sordid past for the sake of her son. Filmed in the great tradition of Italian neorealism, Mamma Roma offers an unflinching look at the struggle for survival in postwar Italy, and highlights director Pier Paolo Pasolini’s lifelong fascination with the marginalized and dispossessed. Though banned upon its release in Italy for obscenity, today Mamma Roma remains a classic, featuring a powerhouse performance by one of cinema’s greatest actresses and offering a glimpse at a country’s most controversial director in the process of finding his style.
The films in this series have had a major impact on artist Angela Dufresne’s work in the exhibition Angela Dufresne: Making a Scene currently on view at Kemper Museum. The characters and their methods in these productions provide inspiration for Dufresne’s own scenes.
Before the film, enjoy dinner at Café Sebastienne! Book your dinner reservation online or by calling 816-561-7740.
Enjoy coffee following a tour of the exhibition Making a Scene. Join producer and designer Chadwick Brooks for a conversation connecting his love of performance with themes presented in Making a Scene.
RSVP on Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/making-a-scene-tours-artists-eye-tickets-49...
Chadwick Brooks is Owner and Executive Producer at Walter & Ferris LLC, a Kansas City production and consulting company dedicated to nurturing creative ideas. He currently serves as a co-producer of Late Night Theatre, where he most recently appeared on stage in “Designed Woman” as Delta Burke, a.k.a Susan Sugerbaker. Brooks has also appeared in LNT’s “A Judy Garland Christmas,” “Valley of the Dolls,” and “Golden Girls Gone Wilder,” just to name a few. Previously, Brooks was the editor of KC Magazine, a lifestyle magazine in Kansas City, and helped launch Kansas City Home Design, where he served as editor, transforming these publications into high style fashion and home magazines. Classically trained at the UMKC Conservatory of Music, Chadwick has served as the Artistic Director for the Kemper Museum annual Gala for years, and is a well-known supporter of the wider Kansas City arts community.
A series of guided meditation and sound healing inside Kemper Museum galleries with Laura Frank of Inner Space Yoga. Participants will be guided through meditation, qigong, breathing instruction, and sound healing. Some blankets will be provided, but participants are encouraged to bring their own blankets, yoga, mat, and small cushion or for meditation, if possible. No experience necessary. Space is limited.
RSVP for November 15 on Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/guided-meditation-series-inner-panorama-nov...
Gloria (1980), PG, 2h 3min. When a young boy's family is killed by the mob, their tough neighbor Gloria (Gena Rowlands) becomes his reluctant guardian. In possession of a book that the gangsters want, the pair go on the run in New York. Director: John Cassavetes
RSVP on Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/making-a-scene-film-series-gloria-1980-tick...
Well, it's a cute idea for a movie, and maybe that's why they've had this particular idea so often. You start with tough-talking, streetwise gangster types, you hook them up with a little kid, you put them in fear of their lives, and then you milk the situation for poignancy, pathos, excitement, comedy and anything else that turns up. It's the basic situation of "Little Miss Marker," the Damon Runyon story that has been filmed three times. And now John Cassavetes tells it again in Gloria. The twists this time: The tough-talking gangster type is a woman, and the kid is Puerto Rican. Cassavetes has cast his wife, Gena Rowlands, in the title role, and it's an infectious performance--if infectious is the word to describe a chain-smoking dame who charges around town in her high heels, dragging a kid behind her. — Roger Ebert
The films in this series have had a major impact on artist Angela Dufresne’s work in the exhibition Angela Dufresne: Making a Scene currently on view at Kemper Museum. The characters and their methods in these productions provide inspiration for Dufresne’s own scenes.
Before the film, enjoy dinner at Café Sebastienne! Book your dinner reservation online or by calling 816-561-7740.
Enjoy coffee following a tour of the exhibition Making a Scene. Kansas City-based artist Elizabeth Stehling talks about her videos and collaborations – often centered on themes of movement, psychological impact of the landscape, and communication – and makes connections to works in Making a Scene.
RSVP on Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/making-a-scene-tours-artists-eye-tickets-49...
Elizabeth Stehling grew up riding horses and going to folk dances in the foothills of Appalachia. She creates videos that use symbolic movements, communal dances, and loaded gestures as the basis to explore conditions and moods between the individual and society. Her recent work questions the impacts of technology on the relationship to time, consciousness, and ability to experience the sublime.
Stehling’s accomplishments have taken her to the Currents New Media Festival, Aspen Shortsfest, Omaha Film Festival and more. She has been awarded artist residencies at the Wassaic Project, Rensing Center, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and Plug Projects. She received the Robert Altman Emerging Filmmaker Award, a grant from Kansas City's Art in the Loop, and most recently, has been awarded a 2018-19 Studio Residency with the Charlotte Street Foundation. Stehling graduated from the Pratt Institute in NYC with her MFA in 2010 and received her BA from the College of Charleston in Charleston, SC in 2005. She lives in Kansas City where she works at the Kansas City Ballet, producing their videos and digital content. She continues to explore videos and collaborations often around the theme of movement. Learn more about her work on her website: http://elizabethstehling.com
A series of guided meditation and sound healing inside Kemper Museum galleries with Laura Frank of Inner Space Yoga. Participants will be guided through meditation, qigong, breathing instruction, and sound healing. Some blankets will be provided, but participants are encouraged to bring their own blankets, yoga, mat, and small cushion or for meditation, if possible. No experience necessary. Space is limited.
RSVP for December 20 on Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/guided-meditation-series-inner-panorama-dec...
Every Saturday from 1:00–2:00 p.m.
Kemper Museum | FREE
A casual opportunity for visitors to engage with artwork through informative conversations with Museum docents. Ask questions about the artwork on view and enjoy informative and lively dialogue.
No reservations required, just "drop in" and learn something new!
