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.
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Conflict Kitchen: Wm. O. Steinmetz ’50 Designers-in-Residence Lecture
Wednesday, April 19th : 7pm
MICA Falvey Hall, Brown Center
1301 West Mount Royal Avenue : 21217
The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) announces Pittsburgh-based artists and Conflict Kitchen co-founders and co-directors Jon Rubin and Dawn Weleski as this year’s Wm. O. Steinmetz ’50 Designers-in-Residence. The weeklong residency begins April 17, and includes classroom discussions with students, studio visits and a public lecture on their work with Conflict Kitchen.
Conflict Kitchen is a restaurant that serves cuisines from countries currently in diplomatic or armed conflict with the United States. Using the social relations of food and eating as a means of understanding, Conflict Kitchen engages the public beyond polarizing political rhetoric to encourage cultural exchange and dialogue. The restaurant’s design identity and menu rotates regularly in relation to changing geopolitical events.
“Conflict Kitchen provides a forum for critical dialogue, challenging xenophobia by supporting voices less heard and cultures less considered in the United States. We develop spaces for empathy and action that build a greater sense of curiosity and understanding in American life,” said Rubin and Weleski in a joint statement.
Most recently, the project served traditional cuisine from the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, also known as the Iroquois Confederacy, which is a league of six indigenous nations located primarily in upstate New York and western Pennsylvania.
Past examples of food cultures served by Conflict Kitchen include Iranian, Afghan, Venezuelan, North Korean and Palestinian.
“The project operates like an open public lab, in constant conversation with the communities we represent and serve. Being open every single day and moving through so many different iterations of the project, we’ve accumulated a diverse network of audiences and participants worldwide,” Rubin and Weleski continued.
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10th Annual International WAMMFest
Wednesday, April 19th – Saturday, April 22nd
Towson University
8000 York Road : Towson
The 10th International WAMMFest is April 19-22, 2017! Explore a great mix of animation, comedy, docs, narrative, and introducing 2 new categories – LGBTQ and VR (virtual reality). These short films and media are from Maryland and around the world. From Baltimore to Iran, Mexico to Australia – over 20 countries are represented in these curated films from over a thousand entries to our short call for films and media.
Join us at WAMMFest at Towson University for films, filmmakers, and plenty of opportunities to engage in discussion (and food!) throughout the festival, April 19-22, with screenings, panels, a master class on VR, and more!
WAMMFest opens with Opening Night on Wednesday April 19th with WAMMFest Guest Artist Sonja Sohn (Director For the Love of Baltimore (HBO), Actor The Wire, Luke Cage, The Good Wife), our opening night block of films, and an After Party.
You can see all of WAMMFest – from Wednesday’s Opening Night through Saturday’s Grand Finale for $35 (current TU students – it’s even cheaper*!). That’s almost 70 films, opening and closing parties, networking opportunities, panels, a master class on Virtual Reality, a chance to meet many of the filmmakers (and don’t forget the popcorn)!
Free parking available in Glen Garage on Towson University’s campus! (For Wednesday and Thursday events, you will need to get a free parking pass from a parking attendant in the Glen Garage – there will be 1 on the 1st floor, and 1 on the 3rd)
Schedule is tentative, with possible additional events to be added.
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Writers LIVE! An Evening with Mason Jar Press
Wednesday, April 19th : 6:30pm
Maryland State Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped
415 Park Avenue : 21201
Mason Jar Press, a new, local independent press, brings together their authors in a celebration of literature and art. Join the authors of the most recent MJP publications—the Black Ladies Brunch Collective and Michelle Junot—for a reading, Q and A, and book signing. Hosted and moderated by MJP authors Stephen Zerance and Matthew Falk.
Michelle Junot has kept notes on her phone for years—what to pick up at the store, work-out logs, prayers, hopes, thoughts on life and death—all the while creating a snapshot of her life with an honesty that only occurs when not paying attention. In Notes From My Phone(Mason Jar Press, 2016), Junot opens up her phone and her life to you. This collection of essays, to-do lists, vignettes, reminders and dreams mixes heart-felt memoir with the everyday marginalia that makes up a twenty-something’s life and day planner.
The Black Ladies Brunch Collective’s poetry anthology, Not Without Our Laughter, (Mason Jar Press, 2017) is a collection of humorous and joyful poems, riffing on Langston Hughes’s novel Not Without Laughter. It explores topics of family, work, love and sexuality. The women of BLBC believe, like Hughes, that even in these currently tense racial times, laughter and the celebration of life is crucial. Historically, it is what African Americans have done and will continue to do, no matter what challenges face them. The Black Ladies Brunch Collective is Teri Cross Davis, Anya Creightney, Katy Richey, celeste doaks, Saida Agostini, and Tafisha Edwards. Edited by celeste doaks.
Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by The Miss Howard Hubbard Adult Programming Fund.
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2017 Annual Student Exhibition :: Reception
Thursday, April 20th : 5-7pm
Julio Fine Arts
Loyola University : 21210
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Thought Forms: Lisa Beck, Lydia Dona and Joan Waltemath :: Reception
Thursday, April 20th : 6-8pm
C. Grimaldis Gallery
523 North Charles Street : 21201
C. Grimaldis Gallery is pleased to present Thought Forms, an exhibition of paintings by Lisa Beck, Lydia Dona and Joan Waltemath. Thought Forms stages the work of three New York artists who have simultaneously developed distinct practices in conceptual abstract painting. These painters are united by their strategic approach, in which a painting operates as a structural field that animates the subject’s relationship to architecture, machinery, and the universe surrounding it.
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Baltimporium (The 2017 Production Show)
Thursday, April 20th : 5:30-8:30pm
600 Water Street : 21202
The Unheard-of Wonders of Design & Production are coming to Baltimore this very April Twentieth. Purveyors of creative wares and services from near and far bring their collections to the Production Club of Baltimore’s emporium of oddities for you–our dear creative audience–to preview, prospect, and partake in.
Experience for yourself the wild complexities of Printing, Web Development, Photography, Illustration, Packaging, and All Things Creative including… Scratch N Sniff Pixels, Animated Newsprint, Elixirs to Expand Deadlines, Concoctions to Collaborate, Instruments of Cognitive Meteorology, Exotic Swatchbooks of Euphoria, Client Jargon Decoders, and a plethora of peculiarities unspeakable at this moment in time.
Libations and vittles overfloweth for all!
Prepare for the unimaginable and do not deny yourself this rarest of opportunities.
PCB Members FREE / $25 early / $30 week-of
Food / Drinks / Validated Parking
(Parking only validated at the Pier V Garage – 711 E. Pratt St)
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A Spring Day in London Lecture + High Tea
Friday, April 21st : 10:30am-2pm
The Walters Art Museum
600 North Charles Street : 21201
10:30 a.m. Lecture & Floral Arranging Demonstration
High Tea to follow
Take a musically inspired, royal romp through British floral design with Longwood Gardens faculty member Jane Godshalk, AIFD. Celebrate the beauty of London with a lively floral arranging demonstration immediately followed by High Tea on the Sculpture Court. Godshalk’s newest floral design book, Arranging Secrets—Natural Designs for Everyday Living, will be available for purchase.
If you are interested in purchasing a table for high tea or sponsoring the event, please contact Hayley Frank, at 410-547-9000, ext. 212, or email [email protected].
Go to our Visitors Information page for directions to the Walters and to reserve a spot on our parking lot. Museum members are eligible for reduced rates and should stop by the Ticketing and Information Desk to get parking tickets validated.
Hosted by the Women’s Committee of the Walters Art Museum. Proceeds benefit the Walters and its education programs and exhibitions.
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MICA Grad Show III :: On & Off-Campus Receptions
Friday, April 21st : 5-8pm + Saturday, April 22nd : 7-10pm
Various Locations
We are delighted to announce that Doreen Bolger, former Director of the Baltimore Museum of Art, has served as curator of our largest MICA GRAD SHOW exhibition, including 5 MFA programs: Leroy E. Hoffberger School of Painting, Mount Royal School of Art, Photographic and Electronic Media, Rinehart School of Sculpture, and Community Arts.
Doreen Bolger has worked with assistant curator Seth Adelsberger, MICA students, faculty, and staff to bring together a multi-location, multi-program exhibition representing individual artists, their programs, and the college as a whole in ways that will also engage the public with the remarkable work being produced.
ON VIEW: Friday, April 14 – Sunday, April 30
ON CAMPUS RECEPTION: Friday, April 21st, 5PM – 8PM
OFF CAMPUS RECEPTION: Saturday, April 22nd, 7PM – 10PM
ON CAMPUS GALLERIES
Meyerhoff and Decker Galleries
1300 W. Mt Royal Ave,
Baltimore, MD 21217
Fox3 Gallery
1300 W. Mt Royal Ave, 3rd Floor
Baltimore, MD 21217
Riggs and Leidy Gallery
Fred Lazarus IV Center,
131 W. North Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21201
Space Camp
16 W. North Ave
Baltimore, MD 21201
OFF CAMPUS GALLERIES
MICA will extend shuttle service to include these galleries for the duration of the exhibition.
Le Mondo
404 N. Howard St.
Baltimore, MD 21201
Current Gallery
421 N. Howard St.
Baltimore, MD 21201
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Say What!? :: Opening Reception
Friday, April 21st : 10:30am-2pm
Make Studio
326 Keswick Road : 21211
In recognition of Autism Acceptance and Awareness Month and National Poetry Month, Make Studio is pleased to present SAY What!?
Works featured in SAY What!? celebrate different forms of communication, and range from text-based artworks sprinkled with poetry, to chronological remembrances of celebrities’ famous roles. During the opening reception, poets and other wordsmiths from amongst the autism community will perform their written work. Through the exhibition and the evening of readings and performances, we will celebrate the many ways – visual, spoken, written, through movement – that our community communicates.
Say What!? opens Friday, April 21, 2017 in our Showroom Gallery. Free and open to the public, refreshments will be available.
The exhibition is on view through the end of April, and is open to visitors during Make Studio’s weekday hours or by appointment.
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Family Series: Songs and Stories for Little Old Children with Maria Broom
Saturday, April 22nd : 10:30am
Pearlstone Theater
Center Stage : 21202
Inaugurating the new Family Series is Maria Broom: television actress, theater educator, and beloved storyteller. With more than 40 years of performing and teaching across the globe, Maria Broom has delighted Baltimore Center Stage audiences before shows, during events, and as a special guest in education programs like Encounter and Camp Center Stage.
Free range interactive dancing and singing. Young ones can come in costumes and share what they would offer the world if they had real super powers.
SONGS AND STORIES FOR LITTLE OLD CHILDREN
Miss Maria, the Story Dancer, and Jali D, the Drum Talker, offer the colorful cultural stories with projected illustrations and rhythms and rhymes for wise young minds.
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MICA Critical Studies Symposium
Saturday, April 22nd : 10am-5pm
Lazarus Center Auditorium
131 West North Avenue : 21201
10 AM:
The Politics of Political Cartooning in India during the Emergency: O.V. Vijayan’s Tragic Idiom of Pictorial Protest
Sakshi Wason
University of Delhi
Visualizing the Demos: Celebrity Spectacles in Diretas Ja Demonstrations in 1980s Brazil
Julia Irion Martins
Centre for Comparative Literature
University of Toronto
The Construction of Urban Memory and Place: The 1938 Wenxi Fire
Haoran Chang
Maryland Institute College of Art
Men who Glow in the Lens Barrel of a Camera: Libra and The Eternal Frame
Emily Smith
Department of English
University of Maryland
1:30 PM:
Pleasing the Crowds: Mythological Translations in Today’s Media
Lucinda Bennett
Maryland Institute College of Art
Digitized Translations: Anime and Online American Illustrators
Frances Grant
Maryland Institute College of Art
The Facebook Album and Memorialization of the Holocaust
Hadas Binyamini
Faculty of Information
University of Toronto
4 PM:
Keynote Speaker
Kathryn Hemmann, PhD
Assistant Professor of Japanese Literature and Culture
George Mason University
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Clayworks Bash Auction
Saturday, April 22nd : 6-9pm
Baltimore Clayworks
5707 Smith Avenue : 21209
$50 members/$60 non-members & $70 at the door
Baltimore Clayworks’ will be hosting it’s Clayworks BASH Auction on SATURDAY, APRIL 22 in the Classroom/Studio Building. We are celebrating Clayworks’ on Earth Day and hope you will help support us by purchasing art made from the earth! Those in attendance can expect a great silent and live auction filled with ceramics from across the county, along with more art, tickets, packages and other great items! We will also provide heavy hors d’oeuvres, drinks, music and more!
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For a Limited Time Only: MICA Experimental Fashion Event
Saturday, April 22nd : 5pm & 8:30pm
Baltimore War Memorial Building
101 North Gay Street : 21202
The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) presents For a Limited Time Only, an experimental fashion event produced by MICA Fiber students in the program’s yearlong Multi Media Event course. The annual event will take place Saturday, April 22, 5 and 8:30 p.m., at the Baltimore War Memorial Building, 101 N. Gay Street.
Featuring 15 individual collections that mix fashion, performance, dance, puppetry and other media and disciplines, For a Limited Time Only highlights the range of designs, materials and conceptual ideas Fiber students employ in their ready-to-wear and high-concept fashion collections.
Developed out of MICA Fiber faculty Laure Drogoul’s Multi Media Event course, students spend two semesters working together to conceptualize and plan all aspects of producing a full-scale fashion event, including runway construction, custom lighting design and managing over 200 models, volunteers and staff who make the show happen.
The course emphasizes a collaborative and shared vision, which is embodied by the joint statement issued by the students on this year’s theme:
“For a Limited Time Only is an experimental fashion event that explores the novelty of impermanence. It aims to subvert the commercial aspect of the phrase and focus on the ephemeral nature of performative art.”
Participating designers include Alison Baskerville, Carol Chu, Amanda Elie, Alisa Glenn, Suwan Kim, Brit Kolich, Ashley Lian, Demetra Maheras, Alie Medina-Fetterman, Erica Oh, Cindy Perdomo, Arooj Qamar, Caroline Smouse, Alessandra Vasi and Babs Weiss.
Click here for more information about For a Limited Time Only, with individual student profiles and more information about their fashion lines.
Tickets can be purchased in person at the MICA store or online at store.mica.edu. General admission is $14 and $7 for students with a valid ID. Doors open approximately 30 minutes prior to showtime.
Image (left to right): Cindy Perdomo, Alisha Glenn and Erica Oh.
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FRONT: Curated by Betty Gonzalez :: Opening Reception + Walking Tour
Saturday, April 22nd : 6pm (reception), 4-6pm (walking tour)
Bromo Arts District
This spring, The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and Art City Baltimore are proud to present the thesis exhibition FRONT, a five-person project featuring new works by Graham Coreil-Allen, Precious Blake, Brian Davis, and FreeSpace Collective members Billy Friebele and Michael Dax Iacovone. This exhibition is curated by 2017 MFA candidate and emerging curator Betty Gonzales. Inspired by creative placemaking efforts initiated in Baltimore by organizations looking to spark life in certain parts of the city, FRONT is a series of events and artworks intended to address issues of urban renewal by reimagining vacant storefronts and buildings throughout the Bromo Arts and Entertainment District.
The aim of this project is to ignite conversations and awareness of various spaces within the Bromo Arts District by providing multiple ways of experiencing and discussing the people, places, and history whose character and culture is now at stake with the amount of proposals for new development within the designated arts district. Artists, community members, and visitors are encouraged to walk through and interact with the spaces and people around them that are intended to enrich their understanding and appreciation of one of Baltimore’s youngest Arts and Entertainment Districts.
Augmented reality (AR) is digital imagery superimposed over the viewer’s environment in real time through the use of a geo location-based mobile application developed by Brian Davis and FreeSpace Collective. The works will spark the imagination of viewers while encouraging them to think more critically about their environment. AR can define spaces by providing a malleable approach to creative placemaking without physically altering a space. Using technology to rede- fine space by placing a virtual layer over the world with geographic specificity allows for the reimagining and reinventing of public spaces, and through that process, ownership of the streets can take place.
Public artist Graham Coreil-Allen will lead a two-part series of walking tours titled Bromo Spectacular! that will focus on the history, design & uses of key sites representative of the area’s heritage, culture, and development. Participants are invited to join these New Public Sites walks to creatively explore the district’s little known histories, urban design successes and challenges, and current artist-led redevelopment projects.
Front the book is an illustrated activity guide by Precious Blake that works in conjunction with Graham Coreil-Allen’s Bromo Spectacular! walking tours. The guide is a coloring book, note taking pad and informational booklet. With written captions by Coreil-Allen, Blake vibrantly illustrates stops on the tour that particularly speak about the effects of urban architecture, modes of transport, and public spaces on social and racial inequalities in Baltimore City.
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Mr. Trash Wheel’s Lost Python Ale Launch Party
Saturday, April 22nd : 7-10:30pm
Peabody Heights Brewery
401 East 30th Street : 21218
Healthy Harbor and Peabody Heights Brewery, LLC present…
Mr. Trash Wheel’s Lost Python Ale!
Celebrate Earth Day by enjoying an evening of:
– All-you-can drink Lost Python Ale & other Peabody Heights brews
– Live music by Tongue in Cheek Jazz Band and Abu the Flutemaker
– Limited edition Mr. Trash Wheel pint glass
$25 until April 14th
$30 April 15th – April 21st
$35 at the door
Proceeds benefit the Healthy Harbor Initiative.
Mr. Trash Wheel’s Lost Python Ale will also be available for purchase by the six-pack and by the case!
Must be 21 or older to attend.
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Bike to Brunch Kinetic Sculpture Race Benefit
Saturday, April 22nd : 10am-2pm
Kinetic Sculpture Race Route
JOIN AVAM & RACE PACE BICYCLES for a casual bike ride of the KINETIC SCULPTURE RACE ROUTE. We’ll cruise through Federal Hill, Inner Harbor, Harbor East, and Canton while exploring the path 35+ kinetic sculptures will conquer during AVAM’s annual Kinetic Sculpture Race on May 6. After working up an appetite, we’ll end our ride at LITTLE HAVANA FOR BRUNCH. A portion of brunch sales will be donated to AVAM in support of the Kinetic Sculpture Race.
BIKE RIDE INFO: All ages welcome. Riders meet at RACE PACE BICYCLES (1414 Key Hwy, Baltimore). Ride will last approximately 2 hours, including a few breaks. Bike rentals available at Race Pace. Please call in advance to reserve your bike (410-986-0001). Helmets and bike locks encouraged. Ride is weather permitting. Check AVAM’s Facebook page for updates in case of inclement weather.
BRUNCH INFO: Bike ride participants are invited to relax and refuel at Little Havana after the ride. We will arrive at Little Havana at approximately 12 noon. Check out their menu (http://
Bring cash or credit for brunch. A portion of brunch sales will benefit the Kinetic Sculpture Race.
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Spectral Lines: Kevin Blackistone + WUME
Sunday, April 23rd : 8-9pm
Davis Planetarium
Maryland Science Center : 21230
Digital art, science, and music meet on and under the Planetarium dome. Local artist, Kevin Blackistone, inspired by extrasolar planets, manipulates computer software to create digital art for the Planetarium dome. The immersive visual art is enhanced by live music performed by Wume. This unique program showcases the flexibility of the digital Davis Planetarium and its use of the dome.
All guests wishing to attend this event must preregister as seating is limited. Donations of $10 are suggested and will be accepted at the event. Showtime is 8:00pm. The performance runs for approximately 60 minutes.
Note: This program includes visual displays that may induce seizures.
About the artist and musicians:
Kevin Blackistone is a Baltimore based digital media artist currently exploring surveillance, inter-correlation, chance and emergent complexity. His is presently working in designs enveloping the viewer through immersive installation and interaction through aspects of dynamically controlled sound, lighting and projection.
Wume is April Camlin and Albert Schatz. They live and work in the fair land of Baltimore, Maryland after spending their formative years in Chicago. Their music explores polyrhythmic structures through the lens of kosmische and is in a constant state of evolution and self-reflection. Albert and April began the collaboration as a development of April’s drumming and Albert’s interest in keyboards and synthesis. It became an exercise in pushing their abilities and conjuring vibes.
