Arnold J. Kemp
2025 Stepping Stone Grantee
Bio
Arnold J. Kemp lives and works in Chicago, IL. His works are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, the Portland Art Museum, the Schneider Museum of Art, the Tacoma Art Museum, The Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, and the Hammer Art Museum. Recent exhibitions include Less Like an Object, More Like the Weather, Neubauer Collegium, University of Chicago; False Hydras, JOAN, Los Angeles; and When the Sick Rule The World, Biquini Wax, EPS, Mexico City. Forthcoming in 2026, a mid-career survey, Not One Thing at Tufts University Art Galleries and Arnold J. Kemp: A Reader, co-published No Place Press and Tufts University Art Galleries.
Artwork details
Mr. Kemp: Yellowing, Drying, Scorching
, 2020Vinyl covered chair with wooden frame and two vinyl covered seat cushions, 40 Hardcover and paperback copies of Arnold Kemp’s Eat of Me I am the Savior, thermometer31 × 41 × 32 inches
1984
, 2020Limestone, unique handmade men’s tailored short pants made by the artist’s grandfather, Arnold J. Kemp, Unique artist’s flip phone from a performance with artist’s father, Howard J. Kemp31 × 8 1/4 × 8 1/4 inches
FUNNY HOUSE (SPEECH ACTS)
, 2020Archival pigment print40 × 60 inches
Stage
, 202440 cut and sanded birch plywood letters7 × 18 × 1.5 feet
When the Sick Rule the World
, 201748 transistor radios, 96 batteries, 2 copper plates, sound of local, national and international news48 × 54 × 18 inches
Mr. Kemp: Yellowing, Drying, Scorching, 2020. Vinyl covered chair with wooden frame and two vinyl covered seat cushions, 40 Hardcover and paperback copies of Arnold Kemp’s Eat of Me I am the Savior, thermometer. 31 × 41 × 32 inches.
