Summoning Ghosts: The Art of Hung Liu Opens at Kemper Museum
Women’s Foundation Partnership with Kemper Museum Helped Bring Important Woman Artist’s Work to Kansas City
Kansas City, MO –Summoning Ghosts: The Art of Hung Liu opened Friday at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. The Women’s Foundation partnered with the Kemper Museum to help bring this work of Hung Liu, one of the most significant Chinese-American contemporary artists living today, to Kansas City.
“The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art is honored to partner with the Women’s Foundation in their mission to build a culture of philanthropy in support of personal empowerment,” said Barbara O’Brien, Executive Director of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. “Hung Liu, the artist whose paintings are featured in the Kemper Museum’s current exhibition, Summoning Ghosts: The Art of Hung Liu, is the perfect embodiment of a woman who has taken charge of her life in order to reach personal success. As an immigrant, an educator, an artist, and an activist for the rights of girls and women across the globe, Hung Liu sets a standard of excellence that can inspire the entire Kansas City community.”
“Women artists have historically been underrepresented in museum exhibitions nationwide. Thus, we are especially pleased to partner with the Kemper Museum to bring the work of Hung Liu, an important contemporary artist – who also happens to be a woman – to the Kansas City community,” said Wendy Doyle, President & CEO of the Women’s Foundation. “We’re confident Hung Liu’s unique perspective that speaks through her art will inspire thought, and open minds, about women’s issues and empowerment.”
A retrospective, the exhibition Summoning Ghosts: The Art of Hung Liu explores
Hung Liu’s life and career through approximately 60 works of art from private and public collections, including two signature works from the Kemper Museum’s Permanent Collection. Organized by Oakland Museum of Contemporary Art’s Senior Curator of Art, René de Guzman, the exhibition is accompanied by a major publication that provides the most comprehensive account of Liu’s body of work to date. Summoning Ghosts: The Art of Hung Liu is on view now through January 11, 2015, at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri. A collection of rare photographs, and early paintings, all made in China prior to Liu’s immigration to the United States in 1984 will be displayed in the Kemper East gallery. Admission to all Kemper Museum locations
is free.
The Women’s Foundation invests in the success of women and girls and is the only Kansas City-area organization addressing women’s issues as a whole, using research to identify the areas of greatest need, and targeting action and funding to make meaningful change to lift up women, their families, and entire communities.