The Future is Female: New free exhibit illuminates 21c Museum Hotel

The Future Is Female entry display // Photo by Sarah Sipple

We’re home to some fabulous hotel options in Kansas City. One of them happens to also be an art museum focused on exhibiting art from this specific century, free of charge, 24 hours a day.

21c Museum Hotel Kansas City in the library district of downtown KC is a chain hotel, yes. But between the free admission to its gallery spaces and winning fan-favorite contests from publications like ours, 21c has been deemed a community favorite.

21c’s latest exhibit, The Future is Female, was welcomed to Kansas City on April 25 by Alice Gray Stites, Chief Curator and Museum Director for 21c. Stites is responsible for all things art: the curation, programming, and acquisition for the hotel chain. This exhibit has been previously hosted at the 21c locations in Louisville, Cincinnati, Bentonville, and Durham.

The Future is Female exhibition is on view through March of 2025. With 74 works by 48 artists, themes of identity, consumer culture, and the quest for equality are evident at first glance. Zoë Buckman’s neon, glass, and leather work “Champ” literally illuminates the lobby. Champ sets the tone for walking through depictions of our varying definitions of what it is to be a woman.

Artists like Gaela Erwin, Felix Cid, Yvette Molina, and Springfield, MO’s own Julie Blackmon represent a variety of decades, ages, backgrounds, and modalities “highlighting the impact of the art of the Second Wave Women’s movement on today’s cultural landscape while examining contemporary definitions of female identity and experience,” according to Stites.

Though you can enter the museum hotel at any time and meander through the first and second-level galleries, specific art tours are also available. 

Each Thursday evening from 5:30 – 6 p.m., free art tours meet in the lobby. Participants leave with new art knowledge and a voucher for 50% off select cocktails, wine, and beer at The Savoy restaurant.

The Future Is Female Chef Ayden Bost // Photo by Sarah SIpple

To celebrate the exhibit opening, The Savoy (21c KC’s in-house restaurant) hosted a ticketed The Future Is Female Dinner using dishes from leading female chefs from 21c’s across the country. Chefs used the art as inspiration for their dishes. Sous Chef Adyen Bost of Kansas City drew inspiration for her fabulous Hibiscus Cured Salmon Crudo from the piece “Waterlily.”

Kansas City’s 21c Museum Hotel is located at 219 W 9th Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64105.