MAGNETIC FIELDS: Expanding American Abstraction 1960s to Today

Kemper Museum of  Contemporary Art, Kansas City, KS

Whenever I travel, I try to tuck in visits to galleries and museums that nourish me creatively. While we were visiting family this summer, we hopped across the US starting in California, then Missouri and finally in North Carolina. I caught a gem of a show in Kansas city while we were visiting my friend and colleague Catherine Armbrust (http://360xochiquetzal.com/catherine-armbrust/)  Catherine teaches fibers at the University of Missouri Columbia during the academic year and a summer fibers class at University of Missouri Kansas City.

We went to the Kemper Museum, a treasure trove of contemporary art, where we saw Magnetic Fields, a terrific overview of artwork by black female artists who have dedicated their careers to non-representational abstraction. Erin Dziedzic and Melissa Messina curated this visionary show with work by both well-known and little known artists.

One of the exhibiting artists, Howardena Pindell, summed up the organizing philosophy of this distinct collection by saying, “We must evolve a new language which empowers us and does not cause us to participate in our own disenfranchisement.” The artists were from the US and Europe and the worked ranged from conventional painting to contemporary installation and mixed media.

https://www.kemperart.org/exhibitions/magnetic-fields-expanding-american-abstraction-1960s-today