About: Kansas City’s acclaimed, FREE contemporary art museum, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art opened in 1994 and draws more than 100,000 visitors each year. The Museum boasts three locations and a rapidly growing permanent collection
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Flint Hills, 2015 Flashe acrylic, latex, tyvek, wood panels
Adam Cvijanovic: American Montage Friday, May 15, 2015 to Sunday, September 20, 2015 Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
American Montage draws on Brooklyn-based artist Adam Cvijanovic’s merging of influences from nineteenth-century American landscape painting and twentieth-century cinematic techniques. The exhibition features installations and paintings on his signature Tyvek surfaces from the past fifteen years. Cvijanovic’s methods of fracturing, cutting, layering, and sequencing imagery to collapse space, time, and narrative demonstrate a montage of American visual perspective. The exhibition premiers three new works: Flint Hills (2015), inspired by the artist’s site visit in fall 2014; The Fall (Capri) (2015), Cvijanovic’s first work to include a soundtrack; and Hollywood and Sunset (2014–15), his reintroduction of the figure in almost a decade. This exhibition is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Accompanying audio component of The Fall (Capri) is available on The Kemper app. Downloadable from the App Store or Google Play Store.
Kemper Museum Presents Adam Cvijanovic: American Montage Opens May 15, 2015 at Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri KANSAS CITY – March 13, 2015 – In May, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art will present American Montage, the first solo museum exhibition for Brooklyn-based artist Adam Cvijanovic. Cvijanovic (pronounced svee-YAHN-o-vitch) emerged to international attention as part of the America Today exhibition at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2007. The following year his work was featured in the Liverpool Biennial, Tate Liverpool, in the United Kingdom and in the widely acclaimed PROSPECT.1, New Orleans Biennial. American Montage will be on view from May 15 through September 20, 2015, at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri. Admission is free. American Montage draws on Brooklyn-based artist Adam Cvijanovic’s merging of influences from nineteenth-century American landscape painting and twentieth-century cinematic techniques. The exhibition features installations and paintings on his signature Tyvek surfaces from the past fifteen years. Cvijanovic’s methods of fracturing, cutting, layering, and sequencing imagery to collapse space, time, and narrative demonstrate a montage of American visual perspective. The exhibition premiers three new works: Flint Hills (2015), inspired by the artist’s site visit in fall 2014; Hollywood and Sunset (2014–15) his reintroduction of the figure in almost a decade; and The Fall (Capri) (2015), Cvijanovic’s first work to include a soundtrack. “The idea (of the soundtrack),” says Cvijanovic, “is that the paintings function as parts of a symphony orchestra. They are playing strands of a piece of music in a way that has a temporal read to it. When you’re hearing this text, everything becomes super narrative, like you’re watching a movie or a slide show, and the gallery itself becomes a kind of envelope of all time. And then when you look suddenly at the images with just the linear context and no soundtrack, the odd thing that happens (when I’ve tested it) is that they feel like memories.” Among the 13 works on view, the exhibition will also include Cvijanovic’s monumentally iconic Belshazzar’s Feast, 2008. This work is comprised of nine 16 ½-foot-high free-standing wooden panels, and takes inspiration from D. W. Griffith’s 1916 epic silent-film Intolerance, in particular the narrative’s climax that unfolds in the court of ancient Babylon. This pivotal film and elaborately designed film set has been an ongoing source of inspiration for Cvijanovic since 2007. Adam Cvijanovic: American Montage is organized by Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art’s Curator and Head of Adult Programs Erin Dziedzic, with support provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. Many programs, including a talk by Cvijanovic on May 15, at 6:00 p.m., have been organized in conjunction with the exhibition. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue featuring an interview with Dan Cameron (chief curator, Orange County Museum of Art, California) and essay by Dziedzic. Exhibition and catalogue is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Visit kemperart.org to view all scheduled programs and times. All Kemper Museum programs are free.
American Montage
Founded in 1994, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art presents modern and contemporary art of the highest quality and significance. It collects, preserves, documents, interprets, and exhibits a growing permanent collection; develops and presents special exhibitions; and offers a variety of educational programs. Admission is always free and the Museum serves a diverse and inclusive public population.
The primary objectives of the Museum are to stimulate dialogue, to foster understanding and appreciation of modern and contemporary art, and to present significant works of art as educational resources. In shaping its permanent collection it strives to reflect the vitality, complexity, and unfolding patterns within modern and contemporary art. In selecting its exhibitions it strives to represent national and international aesthetic and cultural diversity. In its educational programs (which include lectures, workshops with visiting artists, tours, family days, demonstrations, and performances in a variety of media) it strives to provide opportunities for people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities. The Museum’s audience consists of the public and students of the greater Kansas City area and region, visitors to the area, national and international communities of scholars and art-interested persons, families, children, and those with special needs. In all of these efforts the Museum, its Trustees, and its staff seek to achieve a high standard of scholarship and excellence in keeping with the most current standards of the Museum profession.
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