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Ten Highlights and Hidden Gems at the BMA by Alex Ebstein

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In the second phase of major renovation, the Baltimore Museum of Art is working extra hard to rotate work and programming in the few galleries that are still open to the public. The BMA is bringing out a number of favorites from the permanent collections and prominently hanging new acquisitions, so each trip to the Contemporary Wing in the past few months has been a new and exciting experience. In her most recent visit, Alex Ebstein selected ten standout pieces that made the trip memorable.

BMAJonasJoan Jonas – Good Night Good Morning (1976) and My New Theater VI, Good Night Good Morning (2006)

Joan Jonas is an American-born video and performance artist who received attention in 2013 for her new piece Reanimation, which the artist created for and performed Performa in New York. A pioneer in video art, Jonas stars in her films, assuming a number of female personae from femme fatal to the female artist in solitary studio mode. The BMA has included two of her videos, Good Night Good Morning and My New Theater VI, Good Night Good Morning, which span thirty years of her practice. Seen side by side, they allow for a comparative poignancy. It’s fascinating to see the artist as she evolves and ages, as well as changing technology, as it becomes outmoded.

JH_75760Jay Heikes – Nature Morte (2013)

Straight from his most recent solo, Walkabout, at Marianne Boesky, which Bmoreart visited in November of 2013, the BMA has acquired Nature Morte, a signficant wall piece by Jay Heikes. Made from cotton scrim, twine, paper, ink and aluminum, it exemplifies Heikes diverse and transformative use of materials. It stopped me in my tracks to see it in the museum, it kind of felt like a good friend had just moved to town.

mehringHoward Mehring – Id Mist (1960)

In a similar palette to Nature Morte, Howard Mehring’s Id Mist from 1960 is an elegant compliment to the Morris Louis exhibition in the Modern galleries upstairs. An all-over acrylic field of pastel blue and purple and greyish dots, the painting is surprisingly fresh and simultaneously of its time. A lesser known member of the Washington Color School, Id Mist reflects an earlier period in Mehrings practice, before making works with more geometric divisions and hard-edged shapes cut from his blurred dot fields.

BMA10Morris Louis Untitled 5-72 (1956)

The whole Morris Louis exhibition is great. The Modern Galleries were hung with the work of his peers and influences including Frankenthaler, Noland, and Mehring in a crescendo of spilled paint. The majority of the exhibition is what one would expect, rich vertical pours on massive canvases, with the exeption of Untitled 5-72 from 1956. Rather than the style for which he became famous, this Louis painting is more transitional, a poured piece that was placed on the floor, containting multi-directional action splotches, with a lightness and layering that clearly inform later pieces.

bma6Elaine Reichek – Collections for Collectors (2007)

Also in the Contemporary wing, Elaine Reichek’s Collections for Collectors, a series of digital exmbroideries, has been retrieve from storage and placed on view. Reichek also had a solo exhibition in Chelsea this past November that we visited in person, as did Brice Marden whose painting is also on view, but not part of the list. In her series from 2007, Reichek uses motifs from artists including Louise Bourgeois, Henri Matisse, Ed Ruscha and Jim Dine, reproducing them in tiny, embroidered swatches. Reichek, who was included in the last Biennial, has been receiving a lot of late-career critical attention, and its exciting to have access to it locally.

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R.H. Quaytman – Point De Gaze, Chapter 23 (2010)

R. H. Quaytman’s Point de Gaze, Chapter 23 has been up since the reopening of the Contemporary wing in 2012, but it’s one of my favorite new pieces. Combining photo-transfer, gesso and inks on the flat surface of a dramatically beveled panel, Quaytman’s works have both an illustrative flatness and thoughtful materiality that give both the object and imagery a bold presence. Since 2001, she has made her series of works by studying a location’s architectural, religious and personal historic connections. Paintings are grouped into cumulative chapters that are originally exhibited in the location they describe. Ponte de Gaze, Chapter 23 was origingally exhibited in Brussels.

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With so much of the muesum closed for the renovation, artworks that are often overlooked or walked by have a chance for some new attention. In the central hallways connecting the wings of the museum, there are a series of Turkish mosaics, ranging from the geometric to fully renedered mythic portraits. On your walk between the Cone collection and the European gallery, spend some time admiring the 3rd century craftsmanship and intricate tile work. My personal favorite depicts Tethys and Oceanus, the sibling / couple who are supposed to have created all the rivers and smaller bodies of water in the world.

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Arthur Dove – The Bessie of New York (1932)

Arthur Dove’s The Bessie of New York fron 1932 is an earth-toned image of a shoreline with a boat rendered in oil. This painting is modest in scale and quiet in palette, but it has a softness and warmth that draw you toward its hazy surface. It is easy to fixate on his confident brushstrokes and gentle gradients and forget the imagery all together.

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 Francis Picabia – Reverence (1915)

Reverence by Francis Picabia is arguably the ultimate Modernist painting. Made in 1915, the piece features the machine as subject, and mechanical movement as compared to the human body. A friend and colleague of Marcel Duchamp, Picabia worked in similar themes and aesthetics, and each pushed the other artistically. In a flat, graphic style, Picabia has rendered his portrait of the machine in metallic paints and oil colors, commenting both on a rapidly mechanizing society and the role of the artist as cultural critic.

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 Jeff Wall – Diagonal Composition No. 3 (2000)

And we have this Jeff Wall piece…  Who knew?

* Author Alex Ebstein is a Baltimore based visual artist and a Managing Editor at Bmoreart.

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