Permanent Collection

4420 Warwick Boulevard
Kansas City, MO 64111

Contact

Kemper Museum Policies

The Kemper Museum website uses cookies. By continuing to use the site, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use.

Hours

Employment

Docent Portal

Policies

News

Accessibility Statement

Accessibility

Atrium Project

Oil on Linen

Visit

Free Admission

Programs

Location & Directions

Plan Your Visit

Kemper Museum is a free art museum in Kansas City, Missouri that presents global contemporary art.

Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art

The Arterie

Exhibitions

Exhibitions & Collection

Calendar

Groups & Tours

Volunteer

Public Programs

Mission

History

Architecture

Leadership

Community Partners

About

Give

Memberships

Legacy Society

Gala

Annual Report

Support

Cafe

Museum Shop

Special Event Rentals

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.

Land Acknowledgement

Join

Celebrate

Shop

Gilda Snowden

Kemper Museum Streetcar

Learn more about the Kemper Museum Streetcar

Details of Gilda Snowden's work Imaginary Landscapes are featured on the 2024 Kemper Museum Streetcar. Snowden was a Detroit-based artist, gallery director, and curator whose colorful practice offers an autobiographical glimpse into the artist’s life growing up in Detroit and her childhood recollections. Bold, textural, and dramatic strokes of paint were characteristic of Snowden’s works, which almost always drew from her memories and interior life.

Imaginary Landscapes was celebrated in the groundbreaking 2017 Kemper Museum exhibition, Magnetic Fields: Expanding American Abstraction, 1960s to Today, the first exhibition in the U.S. dedicated exclusively to the formal and historical dialogue of abstraction by women artists of color.

Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and Classical KC have joined forces to create a multi-sensory experience when viewing artwork in the museum's permanent collection. Take a listen!

Have you ever come up with made up worlds? Immersed yourself in the creations of your imagination? What have you found there? Gilda Snowden’s “Imaginary Landscape” beckons us to revisit a sense of optimisim and wonder that often gets lost in our day- to-day lives. When looking at the brightly colored shapes and lines in this painting, what world can you create in your mind?

Jessie Montgomery created a new musical world with her piece “Starburst.” Inspired by the astronomical phenomenon of the same name, she creates a “multidimensional soundscape” through rapidly changing ideas. Plucked strings are contrasted with lush moments of unison before bright harmonics join in. Can you imagine a new galaxy being formed with the ingredients presented in this piece? How do each of these musical elements correspond to the different colors and shapes of Snowden’s painting?


Listen to music inspired by this work, selected by Classical KC. 

Worlds Remade: The State of Art in Kansas City

Detroit artist Gilda Snowden dies at 60, was ‘generous with everybody’

Gilda SnowdenAmerican, 1954–2014