Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art

Julia Oschatz: Where Else

April 4 – July 6

Julia Oschatz, untitled (01-08), 2007;
acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 25 5/8 x 17 3/4 inches;
Courtesy of the artist and Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, New York

Exhibition’s Lone Figure Searches
for Meaning at Kansas City’s Kemper Museum
of Contemporary Art

Show is German Artist’s First Solo Museum Exhibition in US

Julia Oschatz’s room-size installations, comprising paintings, drawings, and videos housed in cardboard constructions, chart the eternal odyssey of the artist’s fictitious protagonist. Part animal and part human, this wayward being stars in short, looping videos that blend performance, animation, and painted imagery, and in otherworldly landscape paintings. The exhibition Julia Oschatz: Where Else, on view April 4–July 6, 2008, at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, is the first solo museum exhibition in the United States for the Berlin-based artist.

The exhibition Julia Oschatz: Where Else opens with a free, public reception Friday, April 4, 5:30–7:30 p.m. Oschatz will speak about her work at 6:30 p.m. in the Museum’s meeting room. The talk is free, and seating is first come, first served.

Julia Oschatz, untitled (122-07), 2007;
oil, acrylic, spray paint on canvas, 21 5/8 x 29 1/8 inches;
Courtesy of the artist and Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects , New York

Whether dancing to German pop music or meandering through an unearthly landscape, Oschatz’s benign, and at times comical, character embodies the existential quest for meaning and transcendence. Oschatz’s figure or “Wesen” (German for “being”) is a genderless hybrid with a long snout and doglike ears, a drab gray suit, and oversized, clunky shoes. The “Wesen” is also without eyes and struggles to find its way through the artist’s precarious world of mountainous terrains, endless oceans, erupting volcanoes, and more. In many of the exhibition’s 25 paintings, the “Wesen” is dwarfed by the daunting and overwhelming landscape.

Born 1973 in Darmstadt, Germany, Oschatz holds a degree in studio art from Hochschule für Gestaltung, Offenbach, Germany, and conducted postgraduate studies at the École des beaux-arts, Bourges, France, and Myndlistaskólinn, Reykjavik, Iceland. She has had solo exhibitions in Germany, Spain, and the United States. Her works have been in group exhibitions in Germany and will be part of the upcoming exhibition Damaged Romanticism: A Mirror of Modern Emotion at the Blaffer Gallery at the University of Houston. She will have a gallery exhibition at Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects, New York (April 12–May 31, 2008).

Thank you
The exhibition is made possible by M&I Bank, the Kemper Museum 2008 Exhibition Series Sponsor.

The Kemper Museum acknowledges the generous support of ArtsKC Fund—Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City; Francis Family Foundation; Arvin Gottlieb Charitable Foundation, UMB Bank, n.a., Trustee; Hallmark Corporate Foundation; Muriel McBrien Kauffman Foundation; and the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency. Financial assistance has been provided by William T. Kemper Foundation—Commerce Bank, Trustee. Generous in-kind support is provided by Kansas City Marriott Country Club Plaza and Midwest Airlines.

About the Kemper Museum
Kansas City’s renowned free modern and contemporary art museum, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art opened in October 1994 and draws more than 120,000 visitors each year. The Museum boasts a rapidly growing permanent collection of modern and contemporary works of artists from around the world. Permanent collection artists include Louise Bourgeois, Dale Chihuly, Petah Coyne, Willem de Kooning, Morris Louis, Joan Mitchell, Georgia O’Keeffe, Tom Otterness, Jaume Plensa, Matthew Ritchie, and Wayne Thiebaud. The Museum hosts temporary exhibitions, installations, performance work, film and video series, lectures, concerts, children’s workshops, and other creative programs.

The Museum is open 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m., Tuesday–Thursday; 10:00 a.m.–9:00 p.m., Friday–Saturday; and 11:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m., Sunday. The galleries at Kemper East (200 E. 44th Street) are open 10:00 a.m.–4 p.m., Tuesday–Friday. Café Sebastienne serves lunch 11:00 a.m.–2:30 p.m., Tuesday–Sunday; and dinner 5:30–9:30 p.m., Friday–Saturday. The Museum and Café are closed on Mondays and major holidays.

More Kemper Museum...