• Nari Ward, Breathing Panel: Oriented Right, 2015, oak wood, copper sheet, copper nails, darkening patina, 96 x 120 x 1¼ inches.
    Collection of Allison and Larry Berg, Los Angeles. Courtesy the artist, Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong.

    Nari Ward, Breathing Panel: Oriented Right, 2015, oak wood, copper sheet, copper nails, darkening patina, 96 x 120 x 1¼ inches.
    Collection of Allison and Larry Berg, Los Angeles. Courtesy the artist, Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong.

  • Nevin Aladağ, Social Fabric, blue petrol yellow, 2017, carpet pieces on wood, 67¾ x 44 x 2 inches.
    Courtesy of the artist and WENTRUP, Berlin; Private Collection, California. © Nevin Aladağ  
    Photo: Trevor Good.

    Nevin Aladağ, Social Fabric, blue petrol yellow, 2017, carpet pieces on wood, 67¾ x 44 x 2 inches.
    Courtesy of the artist and WENTRUP, Berlin; Private Collection, California. © Nevin Aladağ  
    Photo: Trevor Good.

  • Nari Ward, Mango Tourist, 2011, foam, battery canisters, Sprague Electric Company resistors and capaciors, mango pits, 3 figures, each approx. 120 inches in height.
    In collaboration with MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts. Courtesy of the artist and Lehman Maupin, New York and Hong Kong.

    Nari Ward, Mango Tourist, 2011, foam, battery canisters, Sprague Electric Company resistors and capaciors, mango pits, 3 figures, each approx. 120 inches in height.
    In collaboration with MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts. Courtesy of the artist and Lehman Maupin, New York and Hong Kong.

  • Nevin Aladag, Makramé, 2014, wire cable, 72¾ x 39½ inches.
    Courtesy of the artist and WENTRUP, Berlin © Nevin Aladağ  
    Photo: Trevor Good.

    Nevin Aladag, Makramé, 2014, wire cable, 72¾ x 39½ inches.
    Courtesy of the artist and WENTRUP, Berlin © Nevin Aladağ  
    Photo: Trevor Good.

  • Kimsooja, To Breathe—Zone of Nowhere, 2017, fabric flags, 60 x 96 inches each. Installation view at Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth, 2018. 
    Commissioned by Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth. Courtesy of Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth and Kimsooja Studio. Photo by Alessandro Bianchetti.

    Kimsooja, To Breathe—Zone of Nowhere, 2017, fabric flags, 60 x 96 inches each. Installation view at Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth, 2018. 
    Commissioned by Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth. Courtesy of Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth and Kimsooja Studio. Photo by Alessandro Bianchetti.

Worlds Otherwise Hidden

Thursday, May 17, 2018 to Sunday, September 2, 2018
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art

Worlds Otherwise Hidden features the work of three international artists who interpret the complexities—both beautiful and challenging—of cultures shaped by migration, immigration, displacement, and exile. Nevin Aladağ (b. 1972), Kimsooja (b. 1957), and Nari Ward (b. 1963) combine and transmute specific objects, designs, and symbols from divergent cultural contexts in their video and sculptural installations. They explore issues of fractured geography, creating new space for dialogue and revealing worlds otherwise hidden.

Born in Turkey and based in Berlin, Nevin Aladağ employs practicable objects such as carpets, wire, and instruments in her two- and three-dimensional works and video installations that engage purposefully with meditations on cultural heritage and identity. She harmonizes patterns, materials, and sounds of varying origins through symmetry, rhythm, and symbiotic balance to reveal an underlying connectedness between individual and collective histories.

Korean-born, New York–based artist Kimsooja synchronizes public and private identity and experience as she brings attention to the potency of everyday objects and actions, and the memory and narrative therein. Using designs, icons, and colors from all of the world’s national flags, without hierarchy or political prejudice, Kimsooja’s installation To Breathe—Zone of Nowhere creates a visual canopy where national differences exist on an equal plane. 

Jamaican-born Nari Ward employs found objects, which imbue his works with a tactile and visceral relationship to both history and the real world. His sculpture and video works in this exhibition reveal messages and meaning through recurring forms that change over time and in different geographic locations. Ward’s references include urban space, performance and the body, the dynamics of power and politics, ideas of migration and movement, and vernacular traditions in his native Jamaica and where he lives and works in New York.

Worlds Otherwise Hidden is organized by Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and curated by Erin Dziedzic, director of curatorial affairs, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri. The exhibition is presented as a prelude project providing a broader trajectory and thematic investigation of artists featured in Open Spaces: A Kansas City Art Experience, taking place August 25–October 28, 2018.

This exhibition has been generously supported by
the R. Crosby Kemper Jr. Exhibition Fund, UMB Bank, n.a. Trustee.

Sustaining Sponsors:
The Copaken Family Fund
Sharon and John Hoffman