Tangled Illusions
Join us as we adventure into a mysterious world that blurs the real with the imaginary. Where the untamed beauty of mother nature presents a landscape of both the known and unknown. At the Kemper Museum gala, this year we’re ArtSmashing reality and illusion, the well-kept and the wild, creating an immersive experience that suspends your beliefs, transforms your imagination, and leaves you awestruck and wondering whether this is nature, illusion, or some mystical in-between.
November 2, 2024
Cocktails 7 pm
Dinner 8pm
Followed by dancing until midnight
Kemper Museum
Kansas City, MO
Honorary Chair
Bebe Kemper Hunt
Co-Chairs
Kim Hinman and Tyler Enders
Rachel Sexton and Brian King
Artist Honoree
Petah Coyne
ArtSmash 2024
ArtSmash 2024
to Wear
What
It’s time for a moody moment. Unleash your untamed spirit in the deepest darkest jewel tones that invoke the wild wonders of mother nature.
Just as this event will be a transformative experience we encourage you to have fun with unique looks that can be transformed throughout the night.
the Menu
On
Photo by Anna Petrow Mulvihill. Florals by Floraloom.
Enjoy a special menu created by Kemper Museum Chef Partner Ted Habiger. A three-time James Beard Foundation Outstanding Chef Award nominee, Habiger is a chef, restaurateur, sommelier, and entrepreneur with a decades-long commitment to local farmers and sustainable practices. He led Cafe Allegro, Kansas City's top Zagat-rated restaurant (1996–2000), served as sous chef at Danny Meyer's Union Square Cafe in New York City (2001–2003). Habiger is the owner and chef at Room 39, which opened in 2004 and recently joined the new CPKC Stadium as a vendor for the Kansas City Current. In addition to Room 39, Habiger is chef partner at Ánima, a restaurant in Mérida, Mexico, and he owns a commissary kitchen in Kansas City that supports local food trucks and entrepreneurs.
Kemper Museum remains open and free to all only because “free to all” means supported by many. Please share our gratitude for what all our donors, members, and volunteers make possible.
Eternal
Gratitude
to Win
Enter
Partygoers have the opportunity to win Horse Study #4, a sculpture donated by internationally renowned Kansas City-based sculptor Tom Corbin. Now in his fourth artful decade, Tom’s work appears in over 20 public collections including Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art’s Permanent Collection. Individual collectors include Nicole Kidman, Jack Nicholson, Sofia Vergara and the late Frank Sinatra. Public installation sites include the United Nations, Florida State University, The University of Oregon and The Kauffman Foundation. Tom was most recently awarded the commission to produce a bronze monument of President Harry S. Truman for Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol.
Horse Study #4
Edition 80
25”H, 7”D, 21”W
Bronze, green/brown patina
From Prehistoric cave drawings to Renaissance masterpieces and present day icons, horses have been a recurring theme in paintings and sculpture alike in various cultures throughout history. While Tom Corbin focuses primarily on the human figure, he has always been intrigued by equines and continues to find new inspiration in the subject.
Three ways you make a difference by supporting ArtSmash:
Access
You keep exhibitions and public programs free and accessible for everyone.
Inclusion
You provide a platform for artists representing diverse backgrounds and perspectives, and foster a welcoming environment of belonging for all.
Innovation
You support cutting-edge artists, often at key moments in their careers, and programs that use art to teach everyone from tots to medical students.
Click here to access the annual report and learn more about what your support makes possible.
Artist Honoree
Petah
Coyne
Petah Coyne is a contemporary sculptor and photographer best known for her large-scale hanging sculptures and floor installations, two of which are in the Kemper Museum Permanent Collection. Working in innovative and disparate materials, her media has ranged from the organic to the ephemeral. Dead fish, mud, sticks, hay, black sand, specially-formulated and patented wax, satin ribbons, silk flowers, shaved cars, and shredded trailers are a few of the things she has incorporated into her sculptures. More recently, she has worked with glass, velvet, taxidermy, cast wax statuary, and trees. Unafraid to confront a range of subjects or tackle contemporary themes, Coyne’s innate dualities are transposed in the dichotomous themes of her work: transformation and constancy; life and loss; beauty and darkness.
Infinite Regress:
Mystical Abstraction from the Permanent Collection and Beyond
Featured Exhibition
Infinite Regress brings the past in dialogue with the present through selections from the Permanent Collection paired with works by contemporary artists exhibiting at the museum for the first time on the occasion of its 30th anniversary. The exhibition connects these works through a shared vocabulary of mystical abstraction that has both historical and contemporary resonance, engaging periods of extreme transformation in nature and technology.
