Exhibitions Archive
Self Adjacent
May 31, 2024
A group exhibition curated by Sarah Irvin and Tracy Stonestreet, Self Adjacent examines the transforming experience of parenthood by artists as they navigate their many identities alongside and within the field of caregiving. Through photography, performance, painting, printmaking, video, textile, and sculpture, Self Adjacent features diverse viewpoints from 20 artists from across the United States.
Merging Concepts: In These Moments
April 10, 2024
Merging Concepts is an annual exhibition curated by students in the Museum Studies Certificate program. In this iteration, In These Moments, we explore how storytellers capture emotions, recall events, and create works of art to visualize a narrative.
Centering Black Artists
November 27, 2023
On view nowCentering Black Artists highlights the work of named Black artists in KMA’s collections. Historically significant artists such as social re...
At/On the Table
September 5, 2023
At/On the Table is a progressive installation from KMA collections that considers the table as both a physical space and a metaphorical one. Featured objects include those we might find on a table as well as representations of the space where multiple iterations of communication are being expressed.
In Hand
July 18, 2023
September 22, 2023 – March 31, 2024
How does material knowledge transfer between people, between people and objects, and between objects and places?
In Hand, curated by Kate Hampel and Sam Dodd, creates a dialog between two contemporary artworks to show how artists and historians engage with the built world. Hand Pressed Souvenirs (2009 -), by Los Angeles artist Nicole Seisler, invites participants to join on a local walk with blocks of wet porcelain in-hand, which they use to make impressions of architectural details that visually and culturally define a location.
Merging Concepts IX: Then and Again
April 6, 2023
Merging Concepts IX: Then and Again
April 14 — September 11, 2023
The ninth annual exhibition of the Kennedy’s Merging Concepts Series is inspired by two primary objects on loan from the Ohio University Libraries. The exhibition explores the big idea “Illuminate the realities of the past to connect to the present” and is supported by additional objects and documents from the collections of the program’s partners.
In Tribute
January 23, 2023
In Tribute
Opening January 23, 2023
In Tribute honors the lives of three notable artists who passed in 2022 by featuring a selection of their work from KMA’s collections: Jennifer Bartlett, Sam Gilliam, and Claes Oldenburg. Bartlett defied categorization by combining the aesthetics of conceptual art with the painterly approach of Neo-Expressionism. Gilliam, an innovator of color field painting and a lyrical abstractionist, is also included in the Centering Black Artists exhibition. Oldenburg was a Pop artist whose monumental sculptures of everyday objects are installed in public spaces worldwide.
Gesture of the Still Image
January 17, 2023
Gesture of the Still Image
January 17 - March 26, 2023
Gesture of the Still Image is a selection of photographs and related mediums from KMA’s collections chosen for their portrayal of the human body in a moment of movement and emotion stilled by an artist’s lens. Within this exhibition one can witness the way an image tells a story in a single frame and allows the viewer a glimpse into the human condition. Work chosen by KMA graduate assistant Ashley Kouri, an MFA candidate in Photography and Integrated Media, spans over a century of the history of photography from the pictorialism of Clarence White to contemporary imagery recently purchased by the Museum. The addition of photographs by Lissa Rivera and Lalla Essaydi expands the ratio of female-identifying to male-identifying artists both in the exhibition and KMA collections.
CONVERSATIONS…
January 17, 2023
CONVERSATIONS…
January 17-August 6 2023
The exhibition CONVERSATIONS…, curated by student staff in the education department of the Kennedy Museum of Art, begins with the notion that we often create individual meaning from simple visual connections between objects. Those connections are expanded conceptually by further investigating an artist or artwork and then deepened by inviting others from different discipline areas, backgrounds, or experiences, to engage in conversation around works that have been intentionally paired.
Yellow Dirt
September 23, 2022
John Feodorov is a Seattle-based artist, musician and educator of mixed Navajo (Diné) and Euro-American heritage. His work questions and explores assumptions about identity, place, and spirituality within the contexts of consumerism, colonization and environmental degradation.The Yellow Dirt series responds to the ongoing health and environmental crises on and near the Navajo reservation from over 500 abandoned uranium mines.
Homesteading Women
September 23, 2022
Homesteading Women, curated by Elizabeth Thompson, juxtaposes archival material illustrating the lives of women homesteaders of the 19th century with interviews and photographs of contemporary women homesteaders in and around Athens County. Historical women homesteaders often have been regarded as reluctant helpmeets to men, yet the records they left tell a different story, one that highlights the important role they played as well as their resourcefulness, creative problem-solving, and community-building. Contemporary women homesteaders and farmers demonstrate similar traits, skills, and values.
Merging Concepts VIII: Connections, Rememb...
April 21, 2022
APRIL 22 - SEPTEMBER 4, 2022
Students enrolled in the 2021-22 Museum Studies Certificate Program are pleased to present an exhibition titled Connections, Remembered, which will be featured at Kennedy Museum of Art from April 22 through September 4, 2022. This is the eighth annual exhibition of the Kennedy’s Merging Concepts Series. Inspired by primary objects and documents on loan from the Ohio University Libraries, the exhibition explores the big idea “The very vehicles through which we strengthen intimate bonds leave marks that shape the future.” The big idea or concept is supported by additional objects and documents from the collections of the program’s partners
Recent Acquisitions
February 15, 2022
MARCH 25 - DECEMBER 4, 2022
The Kennedy Museum of Art (KMA) collections committee accepted over 50 new works into the permanent collection in 2022. A sampling of these artworks, including photography by Christopher Payne and retired professor Laura Larson, prints by Burhan Dogançay, a sculpture by Anne Culbert, and numerous ceramic works donated by Professor Emeritus Joe Bova and the International Academy of Ceramics, are featured in the Recent Acquisitions exhibition.
Night Skies: Navajo Textiles Depicting San...
February 14, 2022
MARCH 25 - DECEMBER 4, 2022
Night Skies features twelve weavings from Kennedy Museum of Art’s (KMA) Edwin L. and Ruth E. Kennedy Southwest Native American Collection (SWNA). The weavings replicate imagery similar to that of sandpaintings created during traditional ceremonial practices of the Navajo (Diné) people. Called “chants,” “sings,” or “ways,” ceremonies are held for a variety of reasons, including restoration of harmony and balance. It is important to note that the sandpainting weavings are not ceremonial objects and carry neither the meaning nor the healing power that ceremonial drypaintings hold.
Representation of Women in KMA Collections
February 14, 2022
MARCH 25 - DECEMBER 4, 2022
Representation of Women in KMA Collections is a student generated exhibition developed by Kennedy Museum of Art education interns. This project began in spring 2021 as an online curatorial initiative for the Museum Experiences Blog called “KMA Picks.” The main theme of the exhibition emerged as student interns Madeline Kramer and Tristen Luken combed through thousands of images of art in the Museum’s collections and were drawn to a range of works representing women and the female form.