Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago 2025 Art Auction | Hosted by Sotheby's

Arnold J. Kemp

Jjujum

Estimate

30,000 - 40,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Arnold J. Kemp

b. 1968

Jjujum

Executed in 2022.

Permanent ink, aluminum foil and etching ink

68 x 59 x 2 in. (172.7 x 149.9 x 5.1 cm)

Please note that while this auction is hosted on Sothebys.com, it is being administered by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and all post-sale matters (inclusive of invoicing and property pickup/shipment) will be handled by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. As such, Sotheby’s will share the contact details for the winning bidders with the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago so that they may be in touch directly post-sale.

This online benefit auction has a 10% buyer’s premium, which will be added to the final hammer price of each sold work. The premium allows the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago to retain more of the proceeds of the sale and offset administrative costs.

Courtesy of the artist and M. LeBlanc International LLC

Arnold J. Kemp (b. 1968, Boston, MA; lives in Chicago, IL) works in the expanded field of painting and sculpture to explore identity, stereotypes, and the redefinition of Blackness in today’s contemporary world. Kemp’s use of aluminum foil and ink in this work yields a fragile, shimmering surface that explores the endlessly impressionable state of the human mind. Based in Chicago, Kemp is a professor and former dean of graduate studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Exhibitions of Kemp’s work have been presented by the Studio Museum in Harlem; Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, OR; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; the Drawing Center, New York; and National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, Nassau. The last ten years of Kemp’s output will be the subject of a traveling survey exhibition that will open in 2026 at Tufts University Art Galleries, Sommerville, MA.