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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. 

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Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art is proud to present Angela Dufresne: Making a Scene, a major museum exhibition comprising of more than thirty paintings and video works spanning nearly a decade. Focusing on her signature depictions of modern life, Dufresne (b. 1969) compositionally connects us to the history of painting and cinema.

Dufresne creates impressive tableaux vivants featuring figures and architecture that are at once grandiose and humble, imagined and believable, scenic and chaotic—connecting widely disparate icons into chaotically beautiful mises en scène. Her critical eye brings the past into the present: the settings, historical story lines, and array of subjects she employs align with a montage sensibility in which different imagery from carefully selected moments in visual culture coalesce. Dufresne’s paintings and videos provide a constant link to motion, motion picture, and scene. They remark on the immediacy of today, engaging with the chaotic, sensual, reflective, and changing aspects of how we got here. By acknowledging points of representation in our past, she critically and openly discusses this era and generation. 

Dufresne’s paintings and videos are expressions of “the stuff of the world, in dialogue with media, cultural production, and history as performance.” Her scenes are reactionary, impulsive, intuitive, and critically responsive to art and its history. They engage with themes intimately tied to aesthetics, nature, allegory, society, empathy, queer discourse, and feminism, which emphasize the real allegory of our lived experiences. It is precisely this combination of intellect, action, and emotion that makes Dufresne’s paintings feel like they are happening right in front of us. 

Angela Dufresne: Making a Scene is organized by Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri, and curated by Erin Dziedzic, director of curatorial affairs.

This exhibition is made possible by generous funding from The Richard J. Stern Foundation for the Arts—Commerce Bank, Trustee.

Benefactor
 Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences

Sustaining Sponsors
 Linda Lighton and Lynn Adkins
 The Estate of Deanna J. Nichols
 The Women's Foundation of Greater Kansas City

Installation view
 Angela Dufresne: Making a Scene, September 20, 2018–January 6, 2019
 Charlotte Crosby Kemper Gallery, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art

Angela Dufresne, (American, born 1969)
 The Lonely are the Brave, 2018, oil on canvas, 42x 62½ inches

Angela Dufresne, (American, born 1969)
 Bocklindastadt with Condos and Transit, 2012, oil on canvas, 40 x 60 inches

Collection of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri, Gift of Angela Dufresne in honor of the 20th Anniversary of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, 2013.17.01.

Exhibition Preview

Angela Dufresne: Making a Scene

Angela Dufresne, (American, born 1969)
 Ticket Line, 2018, oil on canvas, 84 x 132 inches