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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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This exhibition of works from the Permanent Collection of Kemper Museum is inspired by the poem Water Music by American poet and feminist literary critic Sandra M. Gilbert.

The poem describes the qualities of water—clear, shapeless, changing—and its connection to our bodies. Just as the words of Gilbert’s poem elicit water’s connection to people, the paintings on view expand on water’s presence in the landscape.

Both poem and paintings engage perception, particularly how we may see ourselves reflected in the world around us, and how water can be a metaphor for the fluidity of life.
  

WATER MUSIC
 I. The Nature of WaterFirst, the clarity, those
 molecules you go through and through,
 and through you they goin the long sift of blood.
 And the shine goes through
 as if something–you?–believesin color, something stipulates
 now blue, now what’s called
 green or black. You thinkyou might name it landscape,
 but it’s that utter
 clearness, giving upall ideas except reflection.
 And then the changes, loose
 and free to stiff, stiffand still to shapeless
 spirit of shape.
 Do you bend today by the streamthat swivels through you?
 Does it mark its currents on your skin?
 Kneel in the rain and crook your fingers:look! clear and changing
 every minute
 asteroids of still or shapeless

Neil Welliver (American, 1929–2005)
 Lower Ducktrap, 1978
 oil on canvas, 96 x 96 inches

Collection of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri,
 Bebe and Crosby Kemper Collection, Gift of the R. C. Kemper Charitable
 Trust, 2009.31.01.

Installation view
 Water Music, June 1–November 18, 2018
 Barbara and Paul Uhlmann Gallery, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
 Photo: E. G. Schempf, 2018

Exhibition Preview

Water Music

Hung Liu (Chinese, born 1948)
 Mu Nu (Mother and Daughter), 1997
 oil on canvas, diptych, 80 x 140 inches

Collection of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri,
 Museum purchase, 1997.22.01.