"Infinite Regress: Mystical Abstraction from the Permanent Collection and Beyond"
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City
Curated by Kevin Moore
September 19th, 2024—February 22nd, 2025
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.
In philosophy, the term infinite regress refers to an endless sequence of reasoning in which each new idea depends on the one that came before—a paradox of unlimited reformulation wherein the future is built on the past. Infinite Regress is also the title of a series of paintings by Eamon Ore-Giron in which each work is a slight variation on its predecessor. The series is intended to disrupt notions of stable or fixed knowledge, positing an idea of knowledge as cumulative, progressing by always looking to the past yet with new perspectives. Art and ideas advance by recycling their own histories.
Spanning more than a century, this exhibition addresses modern humankind’s search for balance within nature and technology. Artists Joseph Stella, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Marsden Hartley were inspired by spiritual concepts circulating during the early 20th century, leading many to choose abstraction over the material world. Today, contemporary artists such as Ore-Giron, Chelsea Culprit, and Shannon Bool, draw upon an even broader range of sources, including their artistic forebears, in their search for elevated meaning. Together, these works offer an intergenerational dialogue about art as a spiritual home in a beautiful and troubled world.
Artists participating:
Artists from the Permanent Collection include
Romare Bearden, Byron Browne, Charles Burchfield, Arthur Davies, Lois Dodd, Friedel Dzubas, Arthur Dove, Nikolai Fechin, Charles Hopkinson, Marsden Hartley, Willem de Kooning, Gaston Lachaise, Jacques Lipchitz, Richard Mayhew, Julie Mehretu, Georgia O’Keeffe, Keith Sonnier, Joseph Stella, Alfred Stieglitz.
Artists from Beyond the Permanent Collection include
Henni Alftan, Theodora Allen, Lynda Benglis, Shannon Bool, Kenwyn Crichlow, Chelsea Culprit, Amir Fallah, Reggie Burrows Hodges, Matt Hoyt, Isaac Julien, Koak, Mark Manders, Christopher Myers, Eamon Ore-Giron, Nicholas Party, Sarah Peters, Maja Ruznic, Rose B. Simpson, John Stezaker, Cheyney Thompson, Panos Tsagaris, James Welling, Takako Yamaguchi.
“Stay with me until my shadow transforms into Light”
gold leaf, acrylic, ink and silkscreen on canvas
60”x40” (150x100 cm)
2024
Installation view, Infinite Regress: Mystical Abstraction from the Permanent Collection and Beyond, September 20, 2024 - February 23, 2025, Charlotte Crosby Kemper Gallery, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Photo: E. G. Schempf, 2024.
Installation view, Infinite Regress: Mystical Abstraction from the Permanent Collection and Beyond, September 20, 2024 - February 23, 2025, Charlotte Crosby Kemper Gallery, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Photo: E. G. Schempf, 2024.
Installation view, Infinite Regress: Mystical Abstraction from the Permanent Collection and Beyond, September 20, 2024 - February 23, 2025, Charlotte Crosby Kemper Gallery, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Photo: E. G. Schempf, 2024.
Installation view, Infinite Regress: Mystical Abstraction from the Permanent Collection and Beyond, September 20, 2024 - February 23, 2025, Charlotte Crosby Kemper Gallery, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Photo: E. G. Schempf, 2024.
Installation view, Infinite Regress: Mystical Abstraction from the Permanent Collection and Beyond, September 20, 2024 - February 23, 2025, Charlotte Crosby Kemper Gallery, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Photo: E. G. Schempf, 2024.
Installation view, Infinite Regress: Mystical Abstraction from the Permanent Collection and Beyond, September 20, 2024 - February 23, 2025, Charlotte Crosby Kemper Gallery, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Photo: E. G. Schempf, 2024.