ARTSPEAK RADIO- Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art & The Cherry Pit Collective

Host Maria Vasquez Boyd talks with Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art-Erin Dziedzic Director of Curatorial Affairs and Jessica Thompson-Lee Youth and Family Museum Educator. Also Cherry Pit Collective Associate Director/fine artistAdri Luna joins us in the second half of ARTSPEAK RADIO.

Erin Dziedzic, Director of Curatorial Affairs: Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art is pleased to announce the award of a $50,000 grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in support of Magnetic Fields: Expanding American Abstraction, 1960s to Today. This upcoming exhibition is scheduled to open at the Kemper Museum June 8 through September 17, 2017 with opportunities to travel thereafter. Magnetic Fields is organized by Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri, and co-curated by Erin Dziedzic, Director of Curatorial Affairs at Kemper Museum, and Melissa Messina, Independent Curator and Curator of the Mildred Thompson Estate, Atlanta, Georgia.

This award marks the first grant from the Warhol Foundation to the Kemper Museum, and the second major grant in support of Magnetic Fields: Expanding American Abstraction, 1960s to Today. Last month, the exhibition received news of an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.”The exhibition Magnetic Fields has proven to be historic for the Kemper Museum both in content and support,” said Executive Director Barbara O’Brien. “The unprecedented grant support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts contributes to the groundswell of interest and enthusiasm received for the theme, artists, and works of art organized for this extraordinary exhibition. The Museum staff and I are honored to include this prestigious Foundation among our valued contributors.”

Grants are made on a project basis to curatorial programs at museums, artists’ organizations, and other cultural institutions to originate innovative and scholarly presentations of contemporary visual arts. Projects may include exhibitions, catalogues, and other organizational activities directly related to these areas. The program also supports the creation of new work through regranting initiatives and artist-in-residence programs.

About the Exhibition
Magnetic Fields marks the first U.S. presentation dedicated exclusively to the formal and historical dialogue of abstraction by women artists of color.
In the June 2014 ARTnews article “Black Abstraction: Not a Contradiction,” Hilarie M. Sheets aptly notes, “The contributions of African American artists to the inventions of abstract [art] have historically been overlooked…” Magnetic Fields expands this historical conception with a focus on nonrepresentational art-making by women artists of color. In so doing, it reframes theart historical narrative to convey a more complete presentation of American abstraction than has ever previously been examined. Intergenerational in scope, Magnetic Fields presents a select group of prolific creators born between 1891 (Alma Thomas) and 1981 (Abigail DeVille) whose work demands deeper examination and collectively demonstrates a broader interpretation of American abstract art-making from the last half-century.
The exhibition introduces the work of twenty-one exceptional artists in conversation with one another for the first time. With works in a range of media, including painting, sculpture, printmaking, and drawing, the exhibition showcases a diverse range of unique visual vocabularies within non-representational expression. By highlighting the artists’ individual approaches to form, color, composition, material exploration and conceptual impetus within hard-edge and gestural abstraction, Magnetic Fields provides an expanded history of non-pictorial image- and object-making.
“Magnetic Fields amplifies the lives and work of twenty-one extraordinary artists whose dedication to non-representational art making contributes to the reframing of American abstraction,” said Director of Curatorial Affairs Erin Dziedzic. “Intergenerational in scope, the exhibition is conceptually grounded in illuminating the formal conversations amongst the artists’ works from the 1960s to the present.”
Magnetic Fields features a range of works, including early and later career examples, those of specific series, several exhibited for the first time, and the long-awaited reappearance of iconic works such as Mavis Pusey’s large-scale painting Dejyqea (1970) in The Whitney’s 1971 exhibition Contemporary Black Artists In America. Also drawn in part from the Kemper Museum’s Permanent Collection, the exhibition features Chakaia Booker’s rubber tire sculpture El Gato (2001).
An exhibition advisory group has been assembled to engage in broader dialogue throughout the planning of the exhibition. A variety of thought-provoking educational programming has been designed to complement the themes within Magnetic Fields, and will be offered free of charge to engage learners of all ages. A complete list of Museum programs and times relating to this exhibition can soon be found at kemperart.org.
Exhibiting Artists
Candida Alvarez (b. 1955)
Chakaia Booker (b. 1953)
Lilian Thomas Burwell (b. 1927)
Nanette Carter (b. 1954)
Barbara Chase-Riboud (b. 1939)
Deborah Dancy (b. 1949)
Abigail DeVille (b. 1981)
Maren Hassinger (b. 1947)
Jennie C. Jones (b. 1968)
Evangeline “EJ” Montgomery (b. 1933)
Mary Lovelace O’Neal (b. 1942)
Howardena Pindell (b. 1943)
Mavis Pusey (b. 1928)
Shinique Smith (b. 1971)
Gilda Snowden (b. 1954, d. 2014)
Sylvia Snowden (b. 1942)
Kianja Strobert (b. 1980)
Betty Blayton Taylor (b. 1937, d. 2016)
Alma Thomas (b. 1891, d. 1978)
Mildred Thompson (b. 1936, d. 2003)
Brenna Youngblood (b. 1979)

Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art (4420 Warwick Blvd.) is open 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m., Tuesday–Wednesday; 10:00 a.m.–9:00 p.m., Thursday–Friday; and 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m., Saturday–Sunday.
The Museum and Café are closed on Mondays and major holidays.
Kemper at the Crossroads (33 W. 19th Street) is open 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m., Wednesday–Thursday; 10:00 a.m.–9:00 p.m., Friday; noon–4:00 p.m., Saturday.
Kemper East (200 E. 44th Street) are open 10:00 a.m.–5:30 p.m., Tuesday–Friday; 10:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m., Saturday.
Admission is free at all three Kemper Museum locations.
For more information about the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, visit kemperart.org.

Cheery Pit Collective is a communal studio space for artists, makers, and creatives in the heart of KCMO. We are a varied group of artists, makers, and the studio is home to papermakers, painters, jewelers, illustrators, and small business owners all working as entrepreneurs of freelancers.The Cherry Pit Collective provides a dedicated space for members to create, meet, and make. We leave our houses and apartments and arrive at the Cherry Pit ready to work with full focus, plenty of space, light, and community. We no longer are isolated or feel lonely in our homes-we have a safe environment for the development and growth of our female-fronted businesses.

Director Kelsey Pike, Sustainable Paper+Craft
Sarah Preu, Wild Wash Soap Co.
Associated Director Adri Luna, Fine Artist
Tara Tonsor, Lost & Found Design
Tarrah Rose Anderson, Whiskey + Bone
Danica Lyons, Sewist
Elizabeth Baddeley, Illustrator
Bryan “Koosh” Juarez, Ceramicist

Cherry Pit Collective
604 E. 31st. KCMO
www.cherrypitcollective.com

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