Barbara Takenaga's 25-Year Abstract Survey 'Awestruck' Opens at Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art

Opening October 9, 2026, at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Barbara Takenaga: Awestruck marks the first major survey of the artist's work in nearly a decade, running through April 11, 2027. The exhibition assembles more than 45 abstract paintings drawn from institutional and private collections, spanning 25 years of Takenaga's career and including works up to her most recent canvases. The selection traces the many approaches to abstraction she has pursued, with the newest paintings demonstrating her continued expansion into increasingly large formats and opening new directions within her ongoing investigation of the medium. Takenaga's intricate, mesmerizing compositions position painting as a practice of both action and chance, and the exhibition extends that logic to the viewer: looking and perceiving are likewise active, since, in the artist's framing, we make the work through our active gaze. Her densely layered surfaces reveal how deeply abstract painting is rooted in a web of visual associations. Awestruck is organized by the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City.