BmoreArt

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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<><><><><><><><><><>Baltimore Improv Group Open Mic
Wednesday, December 21st : 6:30pm

Single Carrot Theatre
2600 North Howard Street : 21218

Come out this Wednesday for the return of the Baltimore Improv Group’s Open Mic! The open mic is free to attend and free to perform at and is open to improv, standup, and sketch performances. 

This week’s show features the return of the FACULTY a special project of the Baltimore Improv Group. The Faculty combines three current or former instructors with the Baltimore Improv Group who will be paired with three current or former Baltimore Improv Group students in a 20-minute set. Anyone interested can drop his or her name in a bucket for a chance to be selected for this performance.

This week we start things off a little early, so come sign-up at 6:30pm and the show will kick off at 7pm!

<><><><><><><><><><>Winter Solstice Celebration
Wednesday, December 21st : 7-10pm

Druid Hill Park
707 Park Avenue : 21201

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City Paper’s Year In Photos Opening Reception
Wednesday, Dec 21: 6-9 pm

Area 405
405 E Oliver St, Baltimore, Maryland 21202

Come to Area 405 to celebrate the work of City Paper’s photographers at our first Year in Photos exhibit. Works from CP Photo Editor J.M. Giordano, CP Photographer/Reporter Reginald Thomas II, and CP contributors Chrissy Abbott, Amanda Bowrosen, Carde Cornish, Brendan Fieldhouse, Audrey Gatewood, Tedd Henn, Megan Lloyd, M. Holden Warren, Valerie Paulsgrove, E. Brady Robinson, Josh Sisk, and Josh Sinn, will be on display. Framed and matted prints will be for sale and additional prints will be available upon request.

<><><><><><><><><>Boister Annual Solstice Concert – In Memory of Merrell H. Hambleton
Thursday, December 22nd : 6:30pm

An Die Musik
409 North Charles Street : 21201

Baltimore’s own Boister returns for its annual Solstice concert.

Baltimore City Paper describes the group as “devastating [and] refreshingly radical,” and awarded Watts Best Pop Composer in 2014. The band’s new album, Cast A Net, was recorded down the street at Magpie Studios and is enjoying airplay in Europe and on the West Coast.

For their appearance at An Die Musik, frontwoman Anne Watts and the band will be cooking up boisterous spins on holiday favorites from Eartha Kitt to Ray Conniff. Expect Christmas cookies and Boister’s back catalogue offered up in the spirit of peace and good times.

Tickets: $17 in advance/$20 at door/$10 full-time students with ID

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Fists Up! A Planned Parenthood Re-fundraiser
Thursday, December 22 : 7 PM

The Windup Space
12 W North Ave, Baltimore, Maryland 21201

100% OF FUNDS RAISED WILL GO TO Planned Parenthood of Maryland!
100% OF FISTS RAISED WILL GO TO SMASHING THE SYSTEM!

Too many people that already didn’t have enough, have been living with the threat of it all being taken away for far too long. It’s exhausting. Angering. Heartbreaking. We are done being polite, done being patient, and done giving out chances. Raise your fists with the people that keep fighting, even when it hurts. Let’s raise more money, and raise even more hell while we’re at it! Scream with us. Laugh with us. Cry with us. And then dance with us to the tunes of DJ Pancakes when the show is all over!!!

Featuring all female line up:
Infinite Pizza: Baltimore Punk Band screaming their way to equality for all!
Tapitha Kix: Burlesque/The Dance of the 7 bras
The Moxie Fords: Comedy Tap Troupe/Pussies Fight Back
Bunny Vishus: Burlesque
citizenlala: Pianist, Singer and Composer
Shaunda Leer: Drag
Chastity VonFae: Pole Dancing
The Little Prince: Prince Cover Band
& City Paper’s Best Burlesque Partners: Whiskey Joy & Betty O’Hellno
With your Host: Kathy Carson
And guest speakers from Planned Parenthood of Maryland!

Raffle Donations from:
SugarBaltimore
Ruby Rockafella
LittleAsianSweatshop
Paigey!
The Loft Bodywork Collective
Mourna Handful
Gilded Lily Burlesque
Vu Skateboard Shop
Bella La Blanc
The Silver Fox
Zensations by Jen
Atomic Cheesecake Studios
Lucent Lux Photography

Doors at 7pm
Touch Workshop 7:15-7:45
“Touch Service” re-frames interpersonal touch as an expression of vulnerability and respect, rather than as an action for dominance or sexual gratification.
Show at 8:15pm

$10 CASH minimum donation – additional donations encouraged. You may bring a check – write out to Planned Parenthood of Maryland.
Donation guideline for an average of what it costs PP to provide the following services:
1) Basic birth control pill: $25/mo, $300/yr
2) Emergency Contraception: $50
3) STD testing: $100
4) 1,000 Condoms: $150
5) Well Woman exam: $200
6) IUD: $500

<><><><><><><><>A Colonial Christmas
Friday, December 23rd : 7pm

Grace & St. Peters Church
707 Park Avenue : 21201

Colonial Christmas is back for its fourth season, bigger and somewhat better-researched than ever!  Come hear, sing and learn about the music and history of Christmas in Colonial America.  There will be stories, singalongs, dance and a generally great time.

There are two concerts this year – one on December 18th at 5 PM at Grace & St. Peter’s Church, and a second on December 23rd at 7 PM at the Four Hour Day Lutherie.  Both will be followed by a reception.

Our wonderful ensemble features:

Joshua BARNETT – guitar
Tyler ST. CLARE – flute & tenor
Janna CRITZ – alto
Michael JANCAREK – hammered dulcimer
Tim ANDERSON – cello
Nora MILLER – step dance

& special guests!

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Kin Killin’ Kin
up through January 16th

Reginald F. Lewis Museum
830 East Pratt Street : 21202

KKK – “Kin Killin’ Kin” – is a powerful and thought-provoking series of images that reflect artist James Pate’s deep love for youth, and even greater concern for the epidemic of youth violence in the African American community. The images portray young people in urban settings, or events like the March on Washington, dressed in stylized klan garb that mirrors modern hip hop clothing trends. Pate’s powerful images were created to engage youth and community in acknowledging the harsh reality of gun violence. He also hopes they are a visual call-to-action to dialogue towards positive alternatives and solutions to negative behavior. Pate is a master visual artist who has directed his artistic vision to one of the most critical social ills of our time.

Organized by SHANGO: Center for the Study of African American Art and Culture, Inc., and EbonNia Gallery. Curated by Willis Bing Davis.

<><><><><><><><><><>The Length of Our Shadow
up through January 28th

Platform Gallery
116 West Mulberry Street : 21201

Platform Gallery is pleased to present THE LENGTH OF OUR SHADOW, on view at 116 W Mulberry Street. THE LENGTH OF OUR SHADOW, juried by Zoë Charlton, Paul Rucker, and José Ruiz includes work from a selected group of eight diverse artists. This exhibition gave an opportunity for artists from any range of experience to participate and have their work considered. THE LENGTH OF OUR SHADOW focuses not only the curated exhibition, but also the conversation created between each applicant, the jurors, and Platform Gallery.

THE LENGTH OF OUR SHADOW is the third of Platform’s annual juried exhibitions. We are proud to include the works of the following artists:

AMBER EVE ANDERSON
RACHEL BORGMAN
SUTTON DEMLONG
SOPHIE FRIEDMAN-PAPPAS
VIJAY MASHARANI
ANTONIO MCAFEE
BRETT SUEMNICHT
COURTNEY WYNN COOPER

<><><><><><><><><><>Macon Reed: Who’s Afraid of Magic
Dates extended through January 2 by appointment

Produced by ICA Baltimore and Hosted at Spacecamp
160 W. North Avenue: Baltimore MD

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About Face: Amy Sherald, Rozeal, Tim Okamura, and Ebony Patterson
Up through January 28, 2017

Creative Alliance
Gallery Hours: Tue-Sat, 11am-7pm

Amy Sherald, the first woman to win the National Portrait Gallery’s prestigious Outwin Boochever Award (2016), an artist who is currently featured in the National Museum of African American Art and Culture, and on the cover of Smithsonian Magazine, is the center of the upcoming Creative Alliance exhibition About Face, opening Saturday, December 10th. Since she became a resident artist at Creative Alliance in 2014, Sherald’s painting career has experienced a rapid rise the international art scene, earning important and well-deserved recognition for her life-sized portraits. Through her work, along with Rozeal, Tim Okamura, and Ebony G. Patterson, the exhibition About Face turns its attention to under-represented communities, historically marginalized by the genre of portraiture, combining her portraits with a selection of the nation’s best contemporary figurative artists.

Each artist in the exhibition tackles stereotypes of race in different ways: Amy Sherald paints the flesh of her subjects in grayscale to remove specific connotations of skin tone and race all the while costuming them in a manner that contradicts the roles and stereotypes historically associated with black culture; Rozeal addresses the historical use of black face and the crinkling of hair in Japanese culture to make subjects appear more African. Additionally her paintings update the classical look of Japanese woodcuts with modern settings; Tim Okamura juxtaposes the rawness and urgency of street art with realistic technique to create an accessible visual language through portraiture; Jamaican artist Ebony G. Patterson creates highly embellished, collaged, and appliquéd tapestries, as well as photographic prints with subject matter that allude to bodies, yet lacks specificity.

The surface treatments, or “face” of each artist’s work, demand a deeper recognition from the audience that black identity is hardly as simple as it has been portrayed throughout western European art history. Through each artist’s work we are given, and asked to give, a more complex look at the composition of black identity and how it is perceived in society today.

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Laying-by Time: Revisiting the Works of William Christenberry
Up through March 12, 2017

MICA Falvey Hall, Brown Center
1301 West Mount Royal Avenue : 21217

Taking its name from the term used in rural agricultural communities to describe the summer period when farmers have completed their preparation of the crops and anxiously await the harvest, “Laying-by Time: Revisiting the Works of William Christenberry” is a survey of work of by the renowned artist that reflects on his upbringing in Hale County, Ala., and his yearly pilgrimages to the area to experience this quiet, yet restive period.

The exhibition will be on display from Dec. 9 through March 12 at the Maryland Institute College of Art’s (MICA) Decker Gallery in the Fox Building, at 1301 W Mount Royal Avenue.

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On Paper: Finding Form
now – April 30th

Baltimore Museum of Art
10 Art Museum Drive : 21218

This exhibition celebrates one of the strengths of the BMA’s collection: contemporary drawings that combine an interest in pure, refined geometric form with a desire to use materials expressively. Anchoring the exhibition are four rare drawings by Eva Hesse, an artist associated with the Post-Minimalists, a term identifying artists of the 1960s and 70s who replaced the rigorous, industrially fabricated sculptural shapes associated with Minimalist artists like Donald Judd and Dan Flavin with handmade, individualized, and fluid approaches to minimal abstraction.

The show also includes pieces by Hesse’s contemporaries, Mel Bochner, Brice Marden, Dorothea Rockburne, and Robert Smithson, but also extends the Post-Minimalist sensibility into recent years with examples by Tomma Abts, Roni Horn, and Meg Webster.

Shifting Views: People & Politics in Contemporary African Art
Sunday, December 18th – June 2017

Baltimore Museum of Art
10 Art Museum Drive : 21218