Past Exhibitions
Artists exhibited include 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
Abstract Expressionism is a form of abstract art developed by American painters in the 1940s and 1950s with several different subcategories, including Action painting and what would later be called Color Field painting. Pop art was an American movement that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s, drawing inspiration from sources in commercial and popular culture. Dan Budnik (American, 1933–2020) photographed Abstract Expressionists and Pop artists in their studios during the height of these artistic movements.
Photographer Dan Budnik (American, 1933–2020) was known for his documentary photography, especially of changes taking root in America in the 1960s civil rights movement. He studied at the Art Students League in New York with Charles Alston (American, 1907–1977), the first African American supervisor for the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project. Budnik credited Alston for his interest in documentary photography.
This exhibition of the work of Chicago-based photographer and educator Dawoud Bey (American, born 1953) features selections from his recent black-and-white photographic series Night Coming Tenderly, Black. These images reimagine sites along the last stops of the Underground Railroad from Cleveland and Hudson, Ohio, to Canada, a free country for self-liberated African people. Bey finds inspiration for this series in the soft tones and significant subjects—African Americans and New York City jazz musicians among them—depicted by photographer Roy DeCarava (1919–2009).
The first major museum exhibition to focus on the work of contemporary artist Elias Sime (Ethiopian, born 1968), Tightrope features more than two dozen works of art in varying scales and showcases brightly-colored tableaux and sculptural assemblages rooted in both the figurative and abstract modes of modern Ethiopian art.
In 2019, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art celebrated twenty-five years of extraordinary collecting, exhibitions, and programs. As the only collecting contemporary art museum in the state of Missouri, Kemper Museum is grateful to those who have helped grow and enhance the Permanent Collection through generous gifts of art. The exhibition, Gifts of Art: 2019 Acquisitions, debuts a selection of gifts received in the past year, celebrating the artists who created them and recognizing their generous donors.
Selections from The Last Supper presents eleven works from the eponymous series of thirteen large-scale prints (1999) by Damien Hirst (British, born 1965). These label-like images are derived from pharmaceutical packaging––a theme Hirst has employed since the late 1980s––where he uses the names of foods traditional to working class British cafe culture, such as "beans and chips" or "steak and kidney" to replace the names of various medicines. Hirst transforms the food into his own brand by adding decorative logos containing variations on his name.
Past Exhibitions
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