40 Years of Recrafting KMAC

​

April 24--August 1, 2021. 

​

Displaying the work of forty artists, this exhibition charts KMAC’s forty-year growth from 1981 when it was first christened the Kentucky Art and Craft Foundation, to its present designation as an art museum that explores how craft activity and other forms of cultural expression inform contemporary artistic production. 

With Kentucky at the center of this forty-year narrative our program features artists from the region and beyond, providing an ever-expanding context for our state’s creative community. During the intervening years, between the foundation and the museum, the institution was known as the Kentucky Art and Craft Gallery, at one point representing over 500 folk and craft-based artists, including jewelry makers, furniture designers and other artisans from the Commonwealth.

Reflecting on KMAC’s past, this forty-year survey culls from the museum’s permanent collection, along with work by artists who were presented in major solo and group exhibitions from 1981 to the present. Additionally, the exhibition showcases artists who are new to the museum, but who, through a range of forward-thinking processes and ideas, represent the future of a museum that continually reimagines the spaces where art and craft converge.