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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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This exhibition presents works from the Kemper Museum’s Permanent Collection by American artist Frank Stella (b. 1936), inspired by Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick. Connecting Chaos illustrates Stella’s groundbreaking methods for linking the chaotic ebb and flow of imagery in his mixed-media art practice. 

In the decade-long series, The Waves, from the 1980s, and in the subsequent series Moby Dick, C-Relief, Stella conjured his own wildly abstract imagery to create sculpture, paintings, prints, and reliefs. He photographed wisps of smoke and scanned them multiple times to effect a linear element meandering throughout individual works and the series as a whole. This stylistic element connects the riot of shapes, lines, and colors that erupt from Stella’s mixed-media works and that expressively link to other series, including Imaginary Places (1993–95), in which his signature style brings fictional settings to life. In the way that an eloquent author’s chosen words illuminate a story, Stella’s layered printing techniques (lithography, etching, engraving, aquatint, screen printing, mezzotint, relief, collagraph, woodcut, and hot foil stamping) and sculptural forms elucidate the power of a narrative thread to join his works together.

Connecting Chaos features Ahab (1985–88) and The Great Heidelburgh Tun (1985–88) from the series The Waves, generous gifts of J. Peter and Barbara J. Gattermeir to the Kemper Museum Permanent Collection. This exhibition also gives viewers an opportunity to consider with a fresh perspective Stella’s The Prophet (D16, 2X) (1990) from the Moby Dick, C-Relief series, a work with iconic presence in the Museum atrium.

Connecting Chaos

Frank Stella 
 Ahab, 1985–88, from the series The Waves 
 screen print, lithograph, linocut with hand-coloring, marbeling, collage on T. H. Saunders wove paper 
 73 5/8 x 54 5/8 inches 
 Gift of J. Peter and Barbara J. Gattermeir, 2002.32.1 
 © Frank Stella/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York