Artspeak Radio with artist Natalie Frank and Erin Dziedzic, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art Exhibition Curator Erin Dziedzic

Artspeak Radio, Wednesday, January 5, 2022, noon – 1pm CST, 90.1fm KKFI Kansas City Community Radio, streaming live audio www.kkfi.org

Artspeak Radio welcomes artist Natalie Frank via phone and Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art Exhibition Curator Erin Dziedzic.

NATALIE FRANK, Artist- Spanning a decade of Brooklyn, New York-based artist Natalie Frank’s (Austin, Texas, born 1980) feminist drawing practice, “Natalie Frank: Unbound” will present work from the artist’s four major drawing series, each of which is the result of Frank’s rigorous research.

“Fairy tales captivated me because many began as women’s oral tales that articulated female desires and fears,” said Frank. “Yet over time their authorship was erased and their voices neutered. I restore the identities of these overlooked female artists and transform their stories to create contemporary, paradigm-breaking female heroines.”
Frank’s practice, in dialogue with worldwide conversations about agency, power, and gender continues to raise questions of equity and advocacy for women’s voices.
In “Tales of the Brothers Grimm” (2011–14), Frank presents the unvarnished original nineteenth century versions of these tales as images that celebrate female agency by elevating heroines and villainesses alike. Expanding on the history of illustrated books, figurative painting, and personal and political narrative, Frank’s drawings comprise the largest collection of Grimm’s fairy tales ever portrayed by an artist. In 2019, Ballet Austin commissioned the production of “Grimm Tales,” a full-length ballet based on Frank’s drawings, for which she served as artistic director, bringing three tales to life, creating sets, costumes and animations from new and existing drawings.

With her characteristically fluid gestural marks, Frank adds visual drama to these tales of revolt and transformation. In each of her twenty black-and-white gouache-on-paper drawings, she represents a key scene from Jack Zipes’s anthology “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” (2017).
In a suite of gouache and chalk pastel drawings, Frank reclaims the feminist “Story of O” (2017–18) and gives image to the psychosexual narratives of the book’s key scenes. In masterfully carnal compositions, she depicts O, the female protagonist, consensually engaging in scenarios of physical submission, domination, love, lust and sexual freedom. This series deepens Frank’s exploration into intertwined representations of identity and desire, laying bare the power structures and practices surrounding the complicated sexuality of female bodies.
Finally, Frank’s drawings of “Madame d’Aulnoy’s” (2019–20) shrewd heroines are anything but conventional. She presents the author’s fantastical stories through a complex layering of color, form, material, and gesture. Frank’s visual contradictions—combinations of abstraction and figuration—parallel d’Aulnoy’s female protagonists, who, by embodying both evil and virtuosity, present a nuanced understanding of female identity.
“Frank’s deep dive into literature is coupled with the practice of driving these conversations forward with her eloquent layering of imagery and subjects explored through a feminist lens,” said Erin Dziedzic, one of the curators of the exhibition. “She is moving the needle through her work with historical literature and her commitment to championing female voices both as the authors and subjects of their own experiences.”
“Natalie Frank: Unbound” has been organized by Kemper Museum and Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA) and co-curated by Erin Dziedzic, director of curatorial affairs at Kemper Museum and Leah Kolb, curator of exhibitions at MMoCA. The exhibition premiered at MMoCA in Summer 2021 and will be on view at Kemper Museum from January 28–May 15, 2022.

Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
4420 Warwick Boulevard, Kansas City, MO 64111

www.kemperart.org 
free museum admission and parking

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