BmoreArt’s Picks presents the best weekly art openings, events, and performances happening in Baltimore and surrounding areas. For a more comprehensive perspective, check the BmoreArt Calendar page, which includes ongoing exhibits and performances, and is updated on a daily basis.
To submit your calendar event, email us at [email protected]!
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Visiting Lecture Series: Beom Kim
Tuesday, September 20th : 4pm
Mount Royal School of Art
131 West North Avenue : Baltimore 21201
Tuesday, September 20, 4:00pm (with additional support from Rinehart MFA and the Mixed Media Lecture Series) Fred Lazarus Building, Rm 115, 131 W North Ave, Baltimore, MD
Through an expansive practice that spans across drawing, sculpture, video, and artist books, Beom Kim (Seoul, Korea, 1963, lives in Seoul) contemplates a world in which perception is radically questioned. His visual language is characterized by deadpan humor and absurdist propositions that playfully and subversively invert expectations. His works have been in solo shows in institutions including the Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver, Canada), Hayward Gallery (London, UK), REDCAT Gallery (Los Angeles), the Cleveland Museum of Art (OH), Artsonje Center (Seoul, Korea), Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo (Mexico City, Mexico), and in group shows including the Gwangju Biennale (1997 and 2012), Taipei Biennial (1998), Istanbul Biennial (2003), Venice Biennale (2005), Media City Seoul (2010), and Sharjah Biennial (2015). His work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (MN), and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (TX) among others.
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Rober Kanigel Book Launch : Eyes on the Street
Tuesday, September 20th : 7pm
The Ivy Bookshop
5080 Falls Road : Baltimore 21209
Eyes on the Street is a revelation of the phenomenal woman who raised three children, wrote seven ground-breaking books, saved neighborhoods, stopped expressways, was arrested twice and engaged at home and on the streets in thousands of debates – all of which she won. Jane Jacobs was an activist who helped lead an ultimately successful protest against Robert Moses’ proposed expressway through her beloved Greenwich Village, and who, in order to keep her sons out of the Vietnam War, moved to Canada, where she became as well known and admired as she was in the United States. Jane Jacobs’ most famous book is The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
Robert Kanigel is the author of seven previous books, including On an Irish Island and The Man Who Knew Infinity. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim fellowship and the Grady-Stack Award for science writing. The Man Who Knew Infinity was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. For twelve years Kanigel was a professor of science writing at M.I.T. He and his wife now live in Baltimore, Maryland, and he writes full time.
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Visiting Lecture Series: Stephanie Barber
Wednesday, September 21st : 10am
Mount Royal School of Art
131 West North Avenue : Baltimore 21201
Stephanie Barber is an American writer and artist living in Baltimore. She creates a poetic, conceptual and philosophical body of work in a variety of media.
Barber’s films and videos have has been screened nationally and internationally in solo and group shows at MOMA, NY; The Tate Modern, London; The Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; The Paris Cinematheque and MOCA Los Angeles among other art spaces. Her books Night Moves and These Here Separated to See How They Standing Alone were published by Publishing Genius Press in 2013 and 2010 respectively. Her recent collection of very short stories All The People was published by Ink Press Productions in 2015.
<><><><><><><><><><>Black Box: John Waters’ Kiddie Flamingos
Wednesday, September 21st – January 2017
Baltimore Museum of Art
10 Art Museum Drive : Baltimore 21218
For this 2014 video, John Waters recast his 1972 cult film Pink Flamingos—considered one of the most notorious films ever made—with children reading a cleverly modified G-rated script. The 74-minute video shown on a continuous loop in the Black Box gallery features adorable kids wearing wigs and suggestions of the original costumes as they evoke the legendary performances of Divine, Mink Stole, Edith Massey, and others. Filmed in one day mostly with friends’ children, Waters has said the new version is in some ways more perverse than the original.
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Guerrilla Girls: The Birth of Feminism
Wednesday, September 21st – March 2017
Baltimore Museum of Art
10 Art Museum Drive : Baltimore 21218
The BMA presents a selection of works from the Portfolio Compleat (1985-2012) by the New York-based Guerrilla Girls. This group of anonymous women artists have produced over the course of 30 years a body of work that includes posters, stickers, books, printed projects, and actions that expose sexism and racism in politics, the art world, film, and culture at large. They appear in public wearing gorilla masks and use humor to convey information, provoke discussion, and show that feminists can be funny.
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Writers on Writing: John Dufresne and Jill McCroskey Coupe
Thursday, September 22nd : 7pm
The Ivy Bookshop
6080 Falls Road : Baltimore 21209
In Jill McCroskey Coupe’s True Stories at the Smoky View, Vrai (short for Vraiment), a forty-something art history librarian with sons of her own, rescues ten-year-old Jonathan, who has been abandoned with no shoes in the funeral home parking lot following the funeral of Vrai’s estranged friend Skip. The Blizzard of 1993 strands this unlikely duo at the Smoky View Motel, where, motivated in part by the unsolved murders of Jonathan’s parents, they begin to uncover the truth about Skip’s death. With elements of mystery and intrigue, True Stories at the Smoky View is a literary novel about family, friendship, tyranny and the elusiveness of justice. For Vrai and Jonathan, this is a story of mutual rescue, resulting in new lives for them both.
Jill McCroskey Coupe has an MFA in Fiction from Warren Wilson College and has had short stories published in the Warren Wilson Review, the Pebble Lake Review, Against the Grain and The Summerset Review.
In I Don’t Like Where This Is Going, John Dufresne continues the misadventures of therapist-on-the-run Wylie “Coyote” Melville, whom we first met in No Regrets, Coyote. Wylie has witnessed a woman fall to her death outside the Luxor Hotel. Troubled by the ensuing cover-up, he becomes a man on a mission, enlisting the help of his old friend, an ace card player and master magician, to help find answers. We follow the duo’s escapades from poker tables to desert highways in a thoroughly satisfying whodunit.
John Dufresne is a professor in the MFA program at Florida International University. Two of his books, Love Warps the Mind a Little and Louisiana Power and Lighthave been named Notable Books by The New York Times. Among other honors, Dufresne has received a Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives in Dania Beach, Florida.
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Sacred and Stolen with Gary Vikan
Thursday, September 22nd : 6:30pm
The Walters Art Museum
600 North Charles Street : Baltimore 21201
Dr. Gary Vikan, who retired in 2013 after nearly two decades as the director of the Walters Art Museum, will return to celebrate the launch of his new memoir, Sacred and Stolen: Confessions of a Museum Director, published by SelectBooks. In a story that spans Nazi plunder, neuroaesthetics, Elvis, and forged art, Vikan will describe the challenges of running an art museum. The program includes a reading by Vikan and a talk moderated by WYPR’s Tom Hall.
A reception and book signing follow. Copies will be available for purchase in the Museum Store.
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Baltimore Book Festival
Friday, September 23rd – Sunday, September 25th
Inner Harbor : Baltimore 21202
Baltimore’s literary feast with gourmet eats is back! The Baltimore Book Festival returns for its 21st year Friday, September 23 through Sunday, September 25, 2016 to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Events take place from 11am to 7pm daily on West Shore Park and along the 400 blocks of Light Street and Key Highway. This year’s festival features even more renowned national, regional and local authors, cooking demonstrations, workshops, panel discussions, exhibitors, booksellers, children’s activities, live music and more. The Baltimore Book Festival is pleased to welcome back The Ivy Bookshop as the festival’s official bookseller and a one hundred percent local food and craft beverage program this year.
For 2016, the Baltimore Book festival welcomes a new Paws & Pages stage focused on animals where festival-goers can interact with and potentially adopt furry new friends! National Aquarium Animal Encounters will take place each day as well. The Stoop Storytelling Series offers edition of storytelling at the festival this year. Presenting authors include Terry McMillan, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of How Stella Got Her Groove Back; Bronwen Dickey, Pit Bull: The Battle over an American Icon on the new Paws & Pages stage; D. Watkins, NPR Correspondent Glen Weldon, The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture and Becky Albertalli, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. Additional authors are announced leading up to the festival. The 21st annual Baltimore Book Festival is produced by the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts.
BmoreArt’s Art Critic Blogger Panel – Featuring Cara Ober, Lawrence Burney, Olivia Obineme, and Gabriella Souza
Saturday, September 24th : 3-4pm
Baltimore Book Festival
Ivy Bookshop Stage : Inner Harbor
Why write about the arts?? On September 24th from 3:00-4:00 PM, BmoreArt founder Cara Ober will present a panel of art bloggers who will discuss the state of art, blogging, and independent publications.
Also, make sure you visit The Story Share! Making its debut at the 2016 Baltimore Book Festival, The Story Share is a unique storytelling space dedicated to bringing people together to share their favorite tales and hear from local and visiting authors. Anchored by “Goodnight Moonlight Nightlight” (a reading space), an installation by Baltimore artist Stewart Watson, The Story Share creates a cozy and family friendly environment devoted to getting comfy and digging into stories new and old.
It’s located at the Inner Harbor Visitor’s Center back lawn.
<><><><><><><><><><>New Public Sites : Baltimore: Inner Harbor Drift
Friday, September 23rd : 6-7:30pm
McKeldin Square
101 East Pratt Street : Baltimore 21202
Public artist Graham Coreil-Allen is launching his latest New Public Sites walking tour: Inner Harbor Baltimore Drift. The general public is invited to explore invisible public spaces hidden in plain sight on this alternative walking tour of Baltimore’s most recognizable public space.
Baltimore’s Inner Harbor is a celebrated success of waterfront redevelopment, but its spectacular looks disguise a contested past and challenging present. During his Inner Harbor Baltimore Drift tour, Coreil-Allen will uncover the real stories of how powerful people, visionary plans, and community movements are still transforming the former industrial wharf into a premiere public space for all. Through poetic interpretation and participatory activities, Coreil-Allen will show how secret loading docks, coded brick patterns, environmental engineering, and forgotten monuments all reveal Baltimore’s hidden truths.
Tickets for the walking tour $15 each and can be bought through http://newpublicsites.org.
<><><><><><><><><><>The 5th BRODown
Friday, September 23rd : 8pm
The Windup Space
12 West North Avenue : Baltimore 21201
Tickets are $10 at the door
Doors open at 8pm, show starts at 9pm
Come early and stay late! Dress weird! Dress weirder than us!!!
Break out your eyepatches and come party with the Baltimore Rock Opera Society! On Friday September 23 the BROS will descend on The Windup Space (12 W North Ave) and deliver a night of face-melting, gut-shaking FUN to support Baltimore’s favorite masters of epic-rock spectacle, and to raise funds for their our show of 2016: BRIDES OF TORTUGA, opening in October – and we want you to come party with us!
FEATURING:
Gavin Riley Smoke Machine – performing his choose your-own-adventure 3D animated rap album “Space Needle Mystery”
Pandas – Epicly anthemic punk-metal
Gazellynxxx & The Brides House Band – premiering NEW music from Brides of Tortuga!
AND
Black Rose – Baltimore’s Thin Lizzy Tribute
ALSO FEATURING:
An epic raffle, sea shanties, limited edition merch, and a ridiculous photo booth! Plus more stoopid fundraising antics from the BROS!
<><><><><><><><><><>Open Works Grand Opening Festival
Saturday, September 24th : 11am-6pm
Open Works
1400 Greenmount Avenue : Baltimore 21202
Open Works (http://www.openworksbmore.com), the highly anticipated $11.5 million incubator for Baltimore’s creative economy, will host a public grand opening festival on its campus (1400 Greenmount Ave.) on Saturday, September 24 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Open Works is the second development completed by the Baltimore Arts Realty Corporation (BARCO), a not-for-profit that converts underutilized buildings into powerful platforms for creativity and community building to serve Baltimore’s creatives, innovators and entrepreneurs.
Building on the success of its groundbreaking celebration event last September, this community event will feature over 40 vendor booths, food trucks, live music, street art demonstrations, and group tours of the new 34,000 square-foot facility. Admission is free.
The entertainment line up currently includes:
- TT The Artist (http://tttheartist.com),
- James Nasty (http://jamesnasty.com),
- Jordan August band (https://jordanaugustband.bandcamp.com),
- and Power Wheels racing (http://www.powerracingseries.org/) –the only sub-$500 electric vehicle racing series that features grown ups driving kids cars.
<><><><><><><><><><>Crafternoons: Picture Frame
Saturday, September 24th : 2-4pm
Baltimore Museum of Art
10 Art Museum Drive : Baltimore 21218
The BMA is teaming up with The Loading Dock and SCRAP-B-more to bring you an exciting new series of make it and take it art classes. Projects in this series focus on reusing materials and turning them into incredibly cool works of art that you can use!
Photo Friendly Picture Frame Create a simple and stylish way to display photos in your home.
$5 BMA Members/$10 Loading Dock Members/$15 Non-Members. For more information, please call 443-573-1800.
<><><><><><><><><><>Paperwork – Opening Reception
Saturday, September 24th : 6-9pm
Crafted Hair Studio
3526 Chestnut Avenue : Baltimore 21211
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Fall for Art
Sunday, September 25th : 4pm
The Walters Art Museum
600 North Charles Street : Baltimore 21201
A new event in the Artful Dining series sponsored by the Women’s Committee of the Walters Art Museum. Support established and emerging artists, and enjoy picnic fare with local craft beer and wine in a beautiful, rustic, country setting. Food will be provided by 8 Ball Meatball and libations are courtesy of Union Craft Brewing.
The event’s Cockeysville address will be provided with ticket confirmation. For questions, contact Anne Berman, The Walters Art Museum, 410-547-9000, ext.212. Proceeds benefit the Walters Art Museum and its educational programs and exhibitions. Please wear farm-friendly footwear.
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Burlesque is Coming: A Game of Thrones Tribute
Sunday, September 25th : 8pm
The Ottobar
2549 North Howard Street : Baltimore 21218
Hotter than dragon fire and wilder than a Dothraki horde, the only burlesque show based on the “A Song of Ice and Fire” books to win the personal approval of author George R. R. Martin will play one show only in Baltimore on Sunday September 25 at Ottobar. The cast of Burlesque is Coming, now in its third year, will pay homage to their favorite characters with strip-tease, sideshow acts, and comedy, from Vermont to New Mexico, where they will perform in the theater Martin owns, at his invitation.
Burlesque is Coming sold out Ottobar last year, only the second burlesque show in the club’s history to do so. This show also marks the end of the 2016 tour.
Blacklist Burlesque producer Moxie LaBouche of Virginia has assembled a sultry and sexy, fun and farcical take on the characters from both Martin’s books and HBO’s hit show, selling out venues throughout the country. The cast includes such talent as Allen Ryde – the token bishonen; Baron Atomy – the boisterous boylesque beefcake; Bella La Blanc – the Stepford wife gone wild; Cherie Sweetbottom – DC’s ambassador of skin; Dante the Inferno – the right tool for the job; Mina Corbeau – the dark fairie of burlesque; Xander Lovecraft – the burlesque mercenary for hire; with hosting and in-character stand-up comedy from Ray Bullock as Robert Baratheon. Local performer Symone LaFleur will join them on stage.
Tickets are available at www.ticketfly.com/event/