Past Exhibitions
Artists exhibited include Natalie Frank, Raphael Lozano-Hemmer, Dyani White Hawk, Elias Sime, Summer Wheat, Hew Locke, Polly Apfelbaum, Ken Aptekar, Christian Boltanski, Petah Coyne, Russell Crotty, Naomi Fisher, Till Freiwald, Jim Hodges, Alex Katz, Nikki S. Lee, Marco Maggi, Fairfield Porter, Lezley Saar, Shahzia Sikander, Do-Ho Suh, Robert Therrien, Wayne Thiebaud, Phoebe Washburn, Bruce Yonemoto, and many others.
Last 6 Months
Dislocation: Alternative Landscapes and Wayfinding focuses on divergent ways of representing and recording the land. Selected from the Kemper Museum Permanent Collection, the paintings, drawings, and prints featured in this gallery go beyond faithful depictions of nature scenes and metropolises to convey more transitory experiences of history, memory, mood, and movement.
The Women to Watch exhibition series is a unique collaboration between the National Museum of Women Artists (NMWA) and its national and international committees. Each exhibition, held every few years, focuses on a specific medium or theme chosen by NMWA’s curators and features underrepresented, self-identifying women artists from each committee’s respective region.
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art presents Searching, a solo exhibition of well-known picotage photographic works and recent painted landscapes by artist Paul Anthony Smith (Jamaican, born 1988). Together, these works engage concepts of access and vulnerability.
In part, this exhibition celebrates ten years of Smith’s picotage technique, a process whereby he uses sharp tools to stipple the surfaces of photographs in specific patterns and in select areas.
The first major multi-museum survey dedicated to contemporary artists based in the Midwest, The Regional brings together work by 23 artists working across painting, photography, installation, and performance. The artists come from a variety of backgrounds and are based across the region in cities like Detroit, Cincinnati, Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Madison, Minneapolis, and St. Louis, among others.
For the sixth annual Atrium Project, New York-based artist Aliza Nisenbaum (born Mexico City, 1977) created large-scale portraits of individuals connected to Kansas City salsa music and dance communities.
Nisenbaum is known for her bright paintings and unique approach to portraiture. Nisenbaum has exhibited her work across the world, working with locals in each city—from Immigrant Movement International members in Queens, NY to staff of the Liverpool Alder Hey Children’s Hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hung Liu (Chinese American, 1948–2021) was an artist born in China, raised under the Maoist regime, and educated in both China and the United States. A painter known for engaging and challenging narratives present within historical Chinese imagery, Liu created these seven prints based on a series of paintings inspired by historical photographs of Chinese courtesans from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Kemper Museum’s Deconstructing exhibition series presents works that share themes and styles in relationship to one another, breaking down collecting histories and threads, geographical inspiration, and unexpected connections between them. Deconstructing Marleen Gold focuses on the work of artist Marleen Gold’s (American, 1946–2020) work, featuring artwork from Ron and Marleen Gold’s collection, as well as works from Kemper Museum’s Permanent Collection.
Past Exhibitions
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