Museum Leadership

Message from the Executive Director

What a warm welcome this museum gave me! When I stepped into my office in February of this year, I found waiting on my desk our beautiful and utterly absorbing Virginia Jaramillo catalogue, Principle of Equivalence. A quick look at our calendar of amazing projects from 2023 reinforced the liveliness of the museum’s program throughout the year, including exhibitions featuring such fascinating artists as Denzil Forrester, Pepe Mar, Spandita Malik, Julie Blackmon, and many more. Indeed, the more I learn about the Kemper Museum, the more I see our work here as highlighting the best of contemporary art.

I also see our work as welcoming all audiences with warmth and enthusiasm, and in 2023 you responded to this mission! Our attendance last year exceeded 48,000 visitors, up from approximately 44,000 in 2022, and we welcomed almost 8,000 visitors to our varied in-person educational programs, an increase of almost 4,000 over the prior year. With the invaluable support of our volunteer guides, we are so proud to have offered tours to students from 42 regional schools. Our community of supporters gave generously and thoughtfully to programs, exhibitions, and to sustain the ongoing work of the museum, for which we are so grateful.

Thanks to the museum’s exceptional community, staff, and volunteers, as well as our Interim Executive Director Wendy Guillies, and our exceptional Board of Trustees, including Chair Mary Kemper Wolf and Vice-Chair Bill Gautreaux, the Kemper Museum emerged from the challenges of 2023 in a strong position to celebrate our 30th anniversary and grow into the future. I also want to recognize Erin Dziedzic, who stepped down to pursue independent curatorial practice on the east coast at the end of last year after 10 years of extraordinary curatorial leadership at the museum.  Finally, I want to add a special note of gratitude to those board members who participated in the executive director search committee, led by Bill Gautreaux.

These are not classic boom times for American museums: like so many of our peer institutions, our overall attendance and philanthropy has not rebounded to pre-pandemic levels. Yet the Kemper Museum’s year-over-year increases since the pandemic testify to the importance of the museum’s mission and programs in our city and our region. Indeed, as our society adjusts to what many have described as a “permanent change scenario,” I believe that our mission of connecting art and artists to our varied, diverse community here in Kansas City and this region will prove ever more essential. Artists are our guides to transformation and transition. It will be my mission for 2024 and the years to come, in partnership with all of you, to continue to seek out and uplift the work of artists; to listen to the perspectives of our visitors and community members; and to carry forward the mission of the museum with curiosity and passion.

Jessica May
Executive Director
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art