Saturday, June 11th : 12pm
School 33 Art Center
School 33 Art Center presents “Shape Shifters: Performative Constructions by Renee Rendine, Marcus Civin, and Bobby English Jr. ,” an exhibition curated by Melissa Webb in the Main Gallery from Friday, April 22 through Saturday, June 18, 2016 . Please Join us at 12pm June 11, 2016 School 33 Art Center is managed by the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts and is located at 1427 Light Street. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday from 11am to 4pm .
Performance art exists within the realm of the ephemeral, even when sculptural objects and environments are utilized by the artist. Shape Shifters presents performance works that explore the tangible and the tactile, incorporating layered, task-based actions relating to the sculptural elements of each piece. These are fluid, experiential spaces that exist in a performer-activated state, as well as in a state of stillness- holding the energy created by the performer’s actions.
In her installation murmuration, Renee Rendine continually constructs and deconstructs: appropriating, shifting, and reshaping the materials that make up her environment. Ultimately the residue created by her actions serves as a physical document of her movements. With This table is a drum/These feet are drumsticks/And I’m sick of It , Marcus Civin explores what it takes to march, to move your body through space as a statement of protest. Civin’s work alternately seeks to control the performative dialog- then allows viewers to take the reins. Bobby English Jr. marries sculpture and the body while exploring ritual and personal mythology. The Eye and I is a roving, meandering performance that builds on itself as time progresses, leaving evidence of internal and external struggle and catharsis.
<><><><><><><><>Bricks in Baltimore Workshop Saturday, June 11th : 11am-5pm
Baltimore Museum of Art
Personalize a brick made from local clay during this workshop about Baltimore’s early brick-making industry. Tour sites rich in historic brick and learn how to prepare clay. Then create a customized brick (to be fired off-site).
Featured speakers: artist Marian April Glebes, ceramicist Josh Copus, historian Eli Pousson, and Max Pollock from Details Deconstruction.
The event includes private bus tour, lunch, snacks, and bricks—one to be personalized and one ready to take home. Dress for a mess.
$65 BMA Members, Students, Teachers | $80 non-Members
Tickets on sale May 1. Space is limited. For more information, contact Jessica Braiterman at jbraiterman@artbma.org or by calling 443-573-1836 .
<><><><><><><><>Hasan Elahi: Datamine – Gallery Talk Saturday, June 11th : 3pm
C. Grimaldis Gallery
C. Grimaldis Gallery is pleased announce our representation of artist Hasan Elahi, and to present our first solo exhibition of his work, “Hasan Elahi: Datamine”, on view from May 19th through June 25th, 2016 . A catalog with an essay written by art historian Robert S. Mattison will be published to accompany the exhibition. Be sure to save the date for the opening reception with the artist, Thursday, May 19th from 6 to 8p.m.
Please join us in congratulating Elahi for his recent award of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship for his work investigating contemporary issues of surveillance, citizenship, privacy, and technology. Elahi’s interdisciplinary photo-based works are based on his premise that “the best way to protect privacy is to give it away”. After the harrowing experience of being detained at an airport in 2002 due to an erroneous tip, Elahi was questioned and investigated by the FBI for months. Instead of resisting, he decided to go beyond his FBI agent’s expectations by amassing and publicly releasing tens of thousands of images and data that track his daily movements and activities.
Guggenheim Fellowships are awarded annually to selected mid-career artists, historians, and scientists who have shown exceptional ability and promise. Prior recognition for Elahi’s work include Creative Capital Foundation (2006) and Art Matters Foundation (2011) grants, and exhibitions at notable institutions such as the Venice Biennale, the Centre Georges Pompidou, and the Hermitage. He has also spoken to audiences at the Tate Modern, TED Global, the World Economic Forum, and countless others. He is currently Associate Professor of Art at University of Maryland.
<><><><><><><><>Dance & Bmore Presents: Celebrate Your Light Saturday, June 11th : 2pm
Motor House
Since 2013 Dance & Bmore has brought music and dance to the residences of the J Van Story Branch Apartments in Station North Arts and Entertainment District. As part of Baltimore Housing, this 20 story building is home to many elderly and disable residences who bring a wealth of history and knowlege of the community that is being transformed into a bussling artistic hub. Through their creative colaboration with Dance & Bmore these residences bring their own artistic expression and voices into this ever growing culture community.
Dance & Bmore and the Elder Ensemble are excited to present a collective fusion of live music, vocals, spoken word, and dance. Original soul music, rhythm and blues and a hint of jazz are the signature sounds of this multigenerational ensemble piece entitled CELEBRATE YOUR LIGHT.
<><><><><><><><>Found Objects Show – Mary + Jim Opasik Artist Talk Saturday, June 11th : 4pm
Y:ART
Raised in Baltimore City, and graduating from MICA in the 1980’s, Mary Opasik has been working with found object assemblage for over 28 years. In May 2015, Opasik traveled to Transylvania to participate in Inside Zone’s artist-in-residence program in Borsec, Romania; a town nestled at the base of the Carpathian mountains. Of Transylvanian decent herself, Opasik’s work in The Found Objects Show is influenced by an urban exploration of the Borsec’s crumbling villas, hospital and surrounding areas. A collection of Opasik’s archival color photographs of the small town are encased in frames assembled from relics collected in Borsec in addition to other found objects from her studio; offering her viewers an enchanting glimpse into the windows of her heritage. Opasik’s art has been exhibited in The Huntsville Museum of Art, Alabama; the American Craft Council, Baltimore; and in galleries across the U.S.
While earning his electrical engineering degree from Purdue University in the 60’s, Jim Opasik worked as an assistant chef. It was his stint in the culinary arts that inspired Opasik to reconstruct ordinary kitchen utensils into whimsical figurative sculpture. “Food for the eye, one might say” Opasik has said. Collecting kitchen and metallic objects from flea markets, thrift stores, sidewalk sales and donations, the artist welds and rivets the items together to form surprising animal constructs. Opasik says he “is rewarded by the smiles, laughter and appreciation from the viewers when they recognize the repurposed kitchen objects that went into creation of the sculptures.” Opasik attended the Schuler School of Fine Art in Baltimore in the 80’s. He has exhibited in museums and galleries nationwide and his art was also featured in “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!” (episode 419), a Turner Broadcasting TV series.
<><><><><><><><>Only When It’s Dark Enough Can You See the Stars – Closing Reception Saturday, June 11th : 7-10pm
The Former Peale Museum
Only When It’s Dark Enough Can You See The Stars, a new body of work, including installations and performances, focuses on DeVille’s ongoing research of the Peale Museum’s building and the unruly nature of history. Founded as an arts and natural history museum, the original vision for the Peale Museum, by its founder Rembrandt Peale, was to create an institution that was simultaneously entertaining and scholarly, and to be used as an instrument of democracy. The building operated as such until 1829, going on to become many firsts including Baltimore’s first City Hall and the location of several of Maryland’s first public schools for African-American children.
Much of the building’s timeline had to be unearthed for this project, rediscovering facets of its past that had fallen through the cracks of time. In her work, DeVille’s investigations lead to the construction of narratives, environments, and experiences which reference histories that are often overlooked or forgotten. For this project, DeVille postures the Peale Museum’s site as a theoretical passage through spacetime, creating shortcuts for long journeys across history. Only When It’s Dark Enough Can You See The Stars contributes both original research and new perspectives on little-known narratives and lost years of the Peale Museum’s building, opening the door for conversations on education, legislation, cultural preservation, and art’s ability to challenge our notion of time and history.
Only When It’s Dark Enough Can You See The Stars is free and open to the public—additional information can be found at contemporary.org.
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Down the Line by Eva Wylie – Opening Reception Saturday, June 11th : 6-9pm
ICA Baltimore @ Space Camp
Institute of Contemporary Art Baltimore presents Eva Wylie’s Down the Line, a site-specific wall installation at Spacecamp in Baltimore, MD. Printing directly onto the gallery walls and found materials, Wylie scrapes, folds and makes incisions as her printed imagery accumulates on the surface. Compressed conversations between nature and artifice, the organic and the synthetic, present and the past are at the heart of this work. An ambiguous iconography that combines remnants of family history, quotations, and screenshots enticing the viewer to survey disparate times, places, and perspectives sprawling across the gallery wall. “I attempt to balance the loss of an aesthetic sensibility in images of and from a disposable culture while, at the same time, working to re-infuse those images with elegance and beauty. Much of my work insists on its own ephemeral nature, celebrating its transience and perishability, while anticipating its own erasure: it will be painted over for the gallery’s next show”. But, until then, the installation will provide a means of exploring architectural textures, shapes and idiosyncrasies enlivened by the ephemeral beauty of a unique graphic dance.
Eva Wylie, evawylie.com
Eva Wylie received her MFA in Printmaking from Tyler School of Art in 2003 and received a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant in 2006. She has exhibited at Gallery Joe, Philadelphia, PA, University of Indiana, Bloomington, IN; Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia; Fleisher Art Memorial, Philadelphia, PA. Wylie has had residencies at Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, FL, University of Tennessee Knoxville, Graff Ateliers Montreal, Canada; and at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, Maine. She also serves on the board at Second State Press in Philadelphia, PA. Wylie currently teaches Printmaking at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, MD.
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The Women’s Exchange: Take 2 Talks “Art Community” with Alex Ebstein and Cara Ober Sunday, June 12th : 5-7 pm
The Baltimore Women’s Exchange
TAKE 2 TALKS: 2 women + 1 topic – let’s get the conversation started
5 pm in the Abell Room
A new topical series featuring two local women entrepreneurs discussing the excitement, inspiration and challenges of starting, developing and running a business. The conversation is meant to be casual and appealing to all with time for questions and networking.
