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

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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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Barbara Takenaga: Awestruck is a major survey spanning 25 years, featuring 50 works that showcase her dynamic and evolving approaches to abstraction.

Barbara Takenaga

Barbara Takenaga: Awestruck is the first comprehensive survey of the artist’s work in nearly a decade. Bringing together paintings made over the past 25 years, the exhibition highlights dazzling demonstrations of the many approaches to abstraction that have shaped Takenaga’s career. Featuring some 50 works from institutional and private collections, this exhibition includes paintings up to her most recent, revealing Takenaga’s continued expansion of her practice across increasingly ambitious canvases, opening new paths within her ongoing exploration of abstraction. Takenaga reminds us that painting is a discipline shaped by both action and chance, so too is looking and perceiving: we make the work through our active gaze. Known for her mesmerizing, intricate compositions, this exhibition examines Takenaga’s work through four thematic sections: an emphasis on process, a masterful confusion of scale, an embrace of illusion, and reverent nods to art history. Together, these strategies work to upend the viewer’s expectations, engaging imagination and stoking curiosity. 

The exhibition is curated by Jessica May, Executive Director, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, and Tae Edell, Independent Curator. 

Raven Halfmoon, Tushka Manahatta (2025). Stoneware glaze. 36 ½ x 26 x 17 ½ inches. Images courtesy of the artist and Salon 94. © Raven Halfmoon. Photography by Kes Efstathiou.

Raven Halfmoon, Scouting the Horizon (2025). Stoneware glaze. 41 x 23 x 20 inches.

Featured Artworks

Barbara Takenaga lives and works in New York City. She is the Mary A. & William Wirt Warren Professor of Art, Emerita of Williams College.

Takenaga has presented solo exhibitions at institutions including the Williams College Museum of Art, which organized a twenty-year survey of her work in 2017, as well as the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts and the Neuberger Museum of Art. Her work has also been exhibited at galleries including DC Moore Gallery in New York, Robischon Gallery in Denver, and Pamela Salisbury in Hudson, New York.

Takenaga’s work is held in the permanent collections of numerous institutions, including the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the San Jose Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Yale University Art Gallery, and the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, among others.

In 2024, Takenaga received a Founders Grant from the Trellis Art Fund. She was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 2020 and was commissioned by MTA Arts & Design to create a permanent installation for the Metro-North Railroad White Plains Station.

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

Barbara Takenaga: Awestruck

Barbara Takenaga, Forte (2011), Acrylic on linen, 54 x 135 inches. Courtesy of Uncrated Art Foundation, Kansas City, MO. Image: courtesy DC Moore Gallery, New York, (c) Barbara Takenaga. 