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Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art acknowledges it resides on the ancestral territory of the Osage, Kaw, and Otoe-Missouria, among other tribal nations forcibly moved to the region such as the Shawnee, Wyandot, Delaware, Potawatomi, Sac and Fox and Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo) nations. We recognize and support the continued vibrancy of Native communities and cultures today who continue to thrive, as well as the inherent sovereignty of tribal nations. We are compelled to serve and advocate for these communities in accordance with our public mission.

Kemper Museum acknowledges and respects the diversity of Native people connected to this land today. Many recognize the land and all beings who live within it as relatives. We acknowledge the earth we inhabit, the waters of the Blue River, the Kansas River, the Missouri River, and the plants, animals, and people supported by them. 

We acknowledge our responsibility to be good caretakers of the land we occupy. 

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Lucía Vidales (b. 1986, Mexico City) engages drawing and painting media to explore and expand the lineage of traditional art historical subjects. In Hambre, her massive installation commissioned for Kemper Museum’s ninth annual Atrium Project, Vidales takes on the iconic Last Supper, a portrayal of the apostles’ reactions to Jesus announcing that one of them would betray him. Hambre both pays homage to and critiques historical imagery associated with the Last Supper, and addresses modern pictorial representations of a dinner scene, acknowledging the evolution of the genre, subject, and setting.

Vidales uses traditional painting and drawing as a window into the complex social, cultural, and historical layers of meaning within meal sharing, dinner parties, and gathering spaces, where eating and community are central elements. “The first time I lived in an international context, I noticed that Latinos and Latin Americans stayed long after meals to chat, have coffee, dessert, a drink, or a smoke at a leisurely pace,” Vidales observed. She added:

In Mexico, where I live, as in other parts of Latin America, mealtime and after-dinner conversations are culturally very important and privileged spaces for social life. The time spent cooking, preparing meals and all the activities that go into preparing a gathering are what is usually considered in the realm of female activities, and often part of unseen and unacknowledged labor. Those are also spaces for building close connections, solidarity, and enjoyment, gossip, confessions, and skill building. Lucía Vidales

In this new work for Kemper Museum’s atrium, the many layers of charcoal drawing that create the network of silhouetted figures beneath the painting honor those who make it possible for gatherings to take shape such as chefs, kitchen prep cooks, servers, and more. The painting of guests gathered around a table—while hung in front of the drawing—contains sweeping marks and washes that coalesce seamlessly with the background, emphasizing their connectedness.

For the first time in 2024, the Atrium Project is expanding to fill the entire central core of the museum. In addition to the commissioned installation, which has grown to span 22 x 25 feet, Hambre also includes preparatory drawings for the installation, providing insight into Vidales’s development of her surreal forms and adept use of color transitions. Her mural-scale painting Viendo Desde El Monte Calvario (2020) depicting a pilgrimage destination, the Christian site where Jesus was crucified, stretches her modernization of a historical subject across the space. Hambre means “hunger” in Spanish and here could refer to people’s hunger for some type of experience from a religious site. It also alludes to the artist’s hunger for contemporary depictions to broaden the scope and audiences of these religious sites, subjects, and scenes from visual culture. In this eight-panel painting, Vidales employs her unique mark making to evoke the blurred boundaries between human, animal, and spiritual place. The result is Vidales’s forming of a new mythology from past visual, folkloric, and spiritual histories.

Together, Vidales’s paintings and drawings encourage considerations of what we know of prescribed historical imagery and how that may have the potential to expand in contemporary art and life. 

Hambre is curated by Erin Dziedzic and organized by Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.

Lucía Vidales is a painter who lives and works in Monterrey, Mexico. She is currently an Art Professor at University UDEM and has been awarded three times with the Jovenes Creadores grant by the Secretaría de Cultura, Mexico. Vidales’s layered paintings engage themes of materiality, the body, and the consequences of historical and colonial imaginaries. The beings that populate her paintings suggest the potential for confrontation, but seldom follow through. Instead they play with humor or anxiety, or seek consolation from ancient wounds.

2014 M.F.A., National Autonomous University of Mexico, Faculty of Art and Design, Mexico City

2009 La Esmeralda National School of Painting, Sculpture, and Printmaking of the National Institute of Fine Arts, Mexico City

2021 Sudor Frío, PROXYCO, New York, New York

2021 Manoteta, PEANA, Monterrey, Mexico (20; 

2020 To cool the blue, Taka Ishii Gallery Ph / F, Tokyo

2019 Noche durante el día, Sala Gam, Galería de Arte Mexicano, Mexico City

2019 Come as you are, House of Deslave, Tijuana

2018 Cuerpo de esta sombra, Galería Alterna, Mexico City

2020–21 Four Women Painters at the Crossroads, Sapar Contemporary (at Piero Atchugarry Gallery), Miami 

2020 Murales para un cubo blanco, Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, Mexico City

2020 Daichi Takagi, Lucia Vidales, Hiroka Yamashita, Taka Ishii, Tokyo

2019 City Prince/sses, Palais de Tokyo, Paris

Join us for an evening of creativity and community at the museum.

November Open Drawing featuring Alyx Jacobs

Celebrate the opening of "Infinite Regress: Mystical Abstraction from the Permanent Collection and Beyond" and "Lucía Vidales: Hambre."

Fall Exhibitions Opening Night

Celebrate the museum's 30th Anniversary and the 9th Annual Atrium Project Artist Lucía Vidales

30th Anniversary Artist Dinner: Lucía Vidales + Ted Habiger

Join us for an artist and curator conversation celebrating the new exhibition, "Infinite Regress: Mystical Abstraction from the Kemper Museum Permanent Collection and Beyond."

Hambre Artist and Curator Conversation: Erin Dziedzic and Lucía Vidales

An Artist Grappling With Mexico’s Cultural Legacy

Slow Bodies, Racing Hearts: Lucía Vidales’s Paintings of Our Changing Selves

The Atrium Project is an annual series of commissioned projects that presents the work of emerging and mid-career Hispanic and Latinx artists. Featured artists included José Lerma (2016), Firelei Báez (2017), Paul Henry Ramirez (2018), Angel Otero (2019), Joiri Minaya (2020), Aliza Nisenbaum (2021), Pepe Mar (2022), and Sarah Zapata (2023). These site-responsive projects involve artists visits to Kansas City, inspiration from which is often incorporated into the projects. This exhibition is organized by Erin Dziedzic, director of curatorial affairs, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.

Exhibitions are always free thanks to the generosity of members and other donors. Join or donate today to support free access to contemporary art.

Lucía Vidales: Hambre

Lucía Vidales (Mexican, born 1986), Viendo Desde El Monte Calvario, 2020, painting on canvas, 83 ¾ x 283 ⅜ inches, Courtesy of the artist and PROXYCO Gallery, New York © Lucía Vidales