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Julie Blackmon: A Life in Frame is a survey focuses on the last decade of the artist’s photography. Julie Blackmon's (American, born 1966) subject is the conflation of art and life—particularly everyday life in Springfield, Missouri. The works on view show scenes depicting family, community, and landscape deeply rooted in her Midwestern heritage. 

Blackmon uses her surroundings to engage broader ideas of social and political issues, gender issues and family dynamics, and art historical references. While Blackmon’s work celebrates the visual vernacular of an area of the country that many dismiss as culturally unremarkable, she positions it in conversation with a wide range of artistic references–including 17th century Dutch painters, 19th century Missouri-based artist George Caleb Bingham, and contemporary photographers like Diane Arbus. She applies these genres’ techniques to create uniquely playful and critical examinations of the modern family, feminism, and other social and political issues. 

 The 20 works on view demonstrate these conceptual and aesthetic themes that the artist has engaged over the past decade, as well as the deep collecting history of Blackmon’s work in the Midwest. While her work is known and collected nationally – her work was recently acquired by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. – many of the works on view come from local collections, emphasizing the close relationship with Blackmon and her work in the region. Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art was the first museum to collect Blackmon’s work when it acquired four of the artist’s photographs in 2008.

This exhibition is organized by Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.

Celebrate the opening of Julie Blackmon: A Life in Frame

A Life in Frame Exhibition Opening + Julie Blackmon and Kevin Morby in Conversation

Experience the original composition by Kevin Morby

Sound Sessions: Music for A Life in Frame by Kevin Morby

Join us for an evening of art-making inspired by works on view in the galleries.

Studio Night: Setting the Scene

Join us for a lively evening of trivia and "focus in" on the photography exhibition, "Julie Blackmon: A Life in Frame."

Trivia Night: A Life in Frame

Each frame is an absorbing, meticulously orchestrated slice of ethnographic theater…that abounds with tender humor but also shrewdly subtle satire. – Leah Ollman, Los Angeles Times

Julie Blackmon uses her surroundings to engage global ideas. While her scenes feature the artist’s family and are inspired by the realities of everyday life, her works are conceptual, fictitious, and highly directed to comment on common themes of contemporary life.

Missouri State University, Springfield, MO

2022	Metaverse, Haw Contemporary, Kansas City, MO

2020 	Fever Dreams, Fotografiska New York, NY

2019  	Julie Blackmon: The Everyday Fantastic, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, NH

2018 	Midwest Materials, special exhibition presented by 
 		Robert Mann Gallery, Bentonville, AR

Image: Julie Blackmon. Photo by Stella Blackmon.

Disrupting Domesticity: Julie Blackmon’s Take on Small-Town Family Life | Adobe Creative Cloud

Photographer Julie Blackmon provides a glimpse into her practice and process.

The big picture: a painterly vision of suburban America

Charming, chaotic scenes of family life in small-town America blend reality with fiction

Julie Blackmon's Missouri photos show the art that's 'right in front' of us

Review: Julie Blackmon’s absorbing photography of everyday Midwestern life – or is it?

Bunni and Paul Copaken; Ellen and Jamie Copaken; H&R Block; Haw Contemporary; Michael and Linda Lyon; Todd and Emily Voth, in Memory of Mary O’Dell Swett

Sustaining Sponsors

Additional financial assistance is provided by generous donors and members, especially: William T. Kemper Charitable Trust, UMB Bank, n.a., Trustee; Bebe & Crosby Kemper Foundation, UMB Bank, n.a., Trustee; Arvin Gottlieb Charitable Foundation, UMB Bank, n.a., Trustee; Missouri Arts Council, a state agency; Jane Voorhees; Christy and Bill Gautreaux; The Family of Mary Beth Smith Docent Program; Muriel McBrien Kauffman Family Foundation; Richard J. Stern Foundation for the Arts, Commerce Bank, Trustee; Jo Ann and William Sullivan; Andrea and David Feinberg; Bebe and Graham Hunt; Murphy-Hoffman Company; SpecChem / Liz and Greg Maday; Erica and Lorin Crenshaw; JE Dunn Construction; Jack and Karen Holland Visiting Artist Fund; Matt Smith & Lindsey Patterson Smith; Stanley J. Bushman and Ann Canfield; Charles M. Helzberg and Sandra Baer; Miller Nichols Charitable Foundation; Bradley and Linda Nicholson Foundation; Spencer Fane LLP; Thomas and Sally Wood Family Foundation, UMB Bank, n.a., Trustee; Francis Family Foundation; Copaken Family Foundation; Kansas City University; Courtney S. Turner Charitable Trust, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee; UMB Financial Corporation; Judy O. Kirk Charitable Fund; RLS Illumination Fund

Additional Thanks

Julie Blackmon: A Life in Frame

Julie Blackmon, (American, born 1966), Records, 2021, archival pigment print. edition 4 of 7, 44 x 67.5 inches. Collection of Andrea and Steve Morgan. Art and photo © Julie Blackmon.