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Kansas City, MO 64111

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Kemper Museum is a free art museum in Kansas City, Missouri that presents global contemporary art.

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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. 

Click here to learn more about our land acknowledgment process.

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Kemper Museum presents a major exhibition of works by internationally-renowned New York-based artist Polly Apfelbaum (American, born 1955). Featuring textiles, ceramics, and works on paper, Apfelbaum’s artistic practice branches out into broader social and historical contexts, and is situated in the legacy of post-war American art.

Apfelbaum’s artistic practice is distinguished by a hybridized aesthetic that fuses traditions of painting, craft, and installation. Deploying a wide variety of media—including fabric, paint, dyes, wallpaper, and ceramics—her work has dissolved spatial, plastic, and temporal boundaries. She is best known for expansive polychromatic installations, which coalesce the radical and the beautiful with the domestic and irreverent. This fusion of cultural references is present in the title of the exhibition which comes from the 1970s song lyrics “Waiting for the UFOs” by British band Graham Parker & The Rumour. It is coupled with surrealist artist René Magritte’s definition of a garden as “a space between a landscape and a bunch of flowers,” and makes reference to his extraordinary landscape painting The Plagiarism (1940).

In 2004, Kemper Museum hosted a solo exhibition of Apfelbaum’s famous floor works that she describes as “fallen paintings,” hybrid works of rare beauty that exist somewhere between painting, sculpture, and installation and are arranged on the floor, spreading around corners in indeterminate shapes. Kicking off Kemper Museum’s twenty-fifth anniversary year, Apfelbaum’s oeuvre is the very essence of transformation, innovation, and brilliance, accomplished with bold initiative. This is where the museum’s history comes from and where the museum’s future is headed with great momentum.

Waiting for the UFOs (a space set between a landscape and a bunch of flowers) originated at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK, in 2018, and has been specially designed for Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.

Benefactor
 Kansas City University of Medicine and Bioscienes

Sustaining Sponsors
 Linda Lighton and Lynn Adkins

Polly Apfelbaum, Waiting for the UFOs (a space set between a landscape and a bunch of flowers) (installation view). 
 Originated at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK, in 2018; specially designed for Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. 
 Courtesy of the artist, Alexander Gray Associates,New York, Frith Street Gallery, London and Galerie Nächst St. Stephan, Vienna.

Polly Apfelbaum, Life Spirit, 2018, acrylic paint, 174 x 384 inches. Courtesy of the artist, Alexander Gray Associates,
 New York, Frith Street Gallery, London and Galerie Nächst St. Stephan, Vienna.

Polly Apfelbaum, Squiggles, 2018, hand dyed handwoven wool, cotton, in two parts, 170⅞ x 71⅞ and 169⅜ x 72 inches. 
 Courtesy of the artist, Alexander Gray Associates, New York, Frith Street Gallery, London and Galerie Nächst St. Stephan, Vienna.

Exhibition Preview

Polly Apfelbaum: Waiting for the UFOs (a space set between a landscape and a bunch of flowers)

Polly Apfelbaum, Sun Targets, 2018, glazed ceramic, 12 x 12 inches (each). Courtesy of the artist, Alexander Gray Associates,
 New York, Frith Street Gallery, London and Galerie Nächst St. Stephan, Vienna. Photo by Stuart Whipps.