Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art

Interchange

April 7 to December 4

Nate Fors, i.e., a draft, 1994; oil, spray paint, paper collage on canvas, 48 x 60 inches;
Gift of Charline Bush Schmelzer, 1995.87

In light of the growing interest in Kansas City’s thriving art scene, this exhibition explores the idea of reciprocity between artists and their community. Culled from the Kemper Museum’s permanent collection, the included works are by area artists and subtly reveal how Kansas City serves as a catalyst for the ideas and subject matter examined in the individual works. In return, these artists have creatively shaped and launched Kansas City’s visual culture into the future.

WYETH: Three Generations of Artistry

September 17 to November 29

Andrew Wyeth, Man and the Moon, 1990; egg tempera on Renaissance panel, 30 1/8 x 48 inches;
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Promised Gift of the Enid and Crosby Kemper Foundation PG2000:ECK3

The artwork by the Wyeth family, America’s iconic art family, will be the focus of the exhibition WYETH: Three Generations of Artistry this fall at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. Together, the artists of the Wyeth family—N. C. Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth, and James Wyeth—represent more than 100 years of American painting and have long been associated with the people and the landscapes of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and Maine. The exhibition will draw more than two dozen works from public and private collections from throughout the Midwest, including some that have never been on exhibition before now.

David Bates: The Katrina Paintings

May 21, 2010
to
August 8, 2010

David Bates, The Deluge IV, 2007, oil on canvas, 28 x 36 inches,
Courtesy of the Dunn and Brown Company, Dallas, Texas

For decades, Texas-based artist David Bates has chronicled the people and places along America’s bucolic Gulf Coast. Bates, like many Americans, was overwhelmed by 2005’s Hurricane Katrina and its destruction. In David Bates: The Katrina Paintings, the artist boldly addresses Katrina, one of the most severe and inexplicable tragedies of our time and its devastating aftermath. In this series, Bates’ paintings affirm both horror and life and remind us again why art defines our civilizations.