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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TWO MORE WEEKS!!!!
Have you gotten your tickets yet to BmoreArt’s Magazine Launch Party??? Release of our next print journal, Issue 04: Community, happens on Saturday, September 16 at the Baltimore Eagle. Tickets and info here! We can’t wait to celebrate with you!
Many thanks to The Eagle, Pixilated Photo Booth, Elyx Vodka, and Saval foods! We are pretty sure this party (and magazine) is going to be the best one yet… Dress is fancy cocktail, leather chic, or whatever you want. We’re happy as long as you are there.
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The Songster Series | QueenEarth
Tuesda, September 6th : 6:30pm
Creative Alliance
3134 Eastern Avenue : 21224
Creative Alliance presents a series of free public performances, The Songster Series, designed to reveal the hidden influences that have impacted celebrated regional musicians. This series gets to the heart of who these musicians are, their musical influences, and how their sound evolved. These intimate, salon style performances take place in the Creative Alliance’s Marquee Lounge. Listen to the previous Songster Series Event with Warner Williams and Jay Summerour here: http://bit.ly/2uiJlM1
Fresh from the Cowboy Arms Hotel And Recording Spa in Nashville, QueenEarth and her band TQB are set to release the EP Universe in the fall of this year. The studio fits her artistic vibe; in a relaxed environment, anything can happen. Join host Brooks Long tonight for a laidback conversation with QueenEarth featuring music performances that illustrate how her love of R&B, Hip-Hop, Country and Pure Pop help spread her message of empowerment for women of color, LGBT pride, social justice and spiritual uplift for all.
6:30pm | FREE / image: www.markpetinga.com
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M. Butterfly | Opening Night
Wednesday, September 6th : 7:30pm
Everyman Theatre
315 West Fayette Street : 21201
East meets west. Fact meets fiction. Illusion meets reality. When a powerful French diplomat becomes enchanted with a divine Peking opera star, little can quell the thirst of their intoxicating desire—but this diva is hiding more than her true identity. Celebrating its 30th anniversary this season, David Henry Hwang’s torrid and timeless Tony Award-winning M. Butterfly brings hide-and-seek to the stage in a gripping fable that proves the allure of fantasy and the power of obsession are a recipe for betrayal.
Please Note: This production uses theatrical haze and contains nudity.
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Gun Show: David Hess
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 7: 5-7
September 4 – October 14
UMBC’s Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture
The Center for Art, Design and Visual Culturepresents Gun Show, an exhibition of more than 100 life-size replicas of assault rifles created by artist David Hess from “rescued” objects. The exhibition is curated by Kathy O’Dell, associate professor of visual arts and special assistant to the dean for education and arts partnerships.
David Hess started assembling life-size sculptures of assault rifles from what he calls “rescued” objects — ranging from an old black sneaker and vintage turquoise sewing machine, to a raggedy crutch and pink Barbie bike frame — decades ago, increasing his pace of production following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in 2012. While he has shown some of the works since 2015, Gun Show at UMBC is the first presentation of all 112 sculptures. Hess aims for this project to foster dialogue about one of the most volatile issues of our time – guns, who should or should not own them, whether or not to legislate them, ramifications of their use or misuse, and how issues of race, class, gender identity, and age impact every aspect of these questions.
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3rd Annual Baltimore Taxidermy Open
Thursday, September 7th : 5-8:30pm
Walters Art Museum
600 North Charles Street : 21201
On Thursday, September 7, the Baltimore Taxidermy Open returns for a third year to the Walters Art Museum, to highlight contemporary artistic taxidermy practices and the museum’s own Chamber of Wonders. The 2017 Baltimore Taxidermy Open is a one-night taxidermy competition featuring artists from around the country, in addition to a lecture, demonstration, art-making activity, and awards ceremony. Hampden-based curiosity shop Bazaar is once again teaming up with both the Walters and author Robert Marbury to curate this latest installment of the contest.
Contest judges Marbury, Greg Hatem and Brian Henry (co-owners of Bazaar), and Dr. Joaneath Spicer, James A. Murnaghan Curator of Renaissance and Baroque Art at the Walters, will evaluate one-of-a-kind works by visual artists as well as specimens from local collections of taxidermy enthusiasts. Prize categories include, but are not limited to: Best in Bones, Best Anthropomorphic, Best Mixed Media, and Aldrovandi’s Surprise (a fantastical specimen that could even fool a well-trained Baroque collector).
Alternative taxidermist Divya Anantharaman will deliver a talk on 16th-century taxidermy practices. Renowned taxidermist and instructor Katie Innamorato will offer a taxidermy demonstration. Anantharaman and Innamorato have co-authored Stuffed Animals, which will be on sale along with Robert Marbury’s Taxidermy Art. Anantharaman and Innamorato will be teaching taxidermy workshops at Bazaar the following weekend for those interested in learning more about the art form.
The Baltimore Taxidermy Open takes place on Thursday, September 7, 2017, from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Walters Art Museum, 600 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD. The event is free, and no tickets are required. For more information, please visit thewalters.org or the Baltimore Taxidermy Open on Facebook: facebook.com/baltimoretaxidermyopen
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Feminism Fights Patriarchal Power | Opening Reception
Friday, September 8th : 4-8pm
SpaceCamp
16 West North Avenue : 21202
Feminism Fights Patriarchal Power is a performative installation that plays on the bureaucratic systems of patriarchy. This collaborative installation hopes to engender deeper thoughts on how we all participate in a patriarchal society. The exhibition space will function as an educational and developmental recruitment system using matriarchal-inspired bureaucracy.
Opening: Friday September 8th from 4-8pm
Closing: Friday September 29th from 4-8pm
Open Hours: 4-8pm, Fridays and Saturdays, September 8th – 29th
Free Public Events!
Saturday September 9th
6pm Workshop: Semiotic Square: Gendered Terms and its Contradictions with Christophe
Friday September 15th
6pm Lecture: Rebecca A. Adelman
“You Know You’re a Support Junkie”: Care-Packaging and the Militarization of Gratitude
7pm Lecture: Lynn Cazabon
Hyperobjects of War
Saturday September 23rd
5pm: WOMBWORK PRODUCTION INC.
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Horse Dorm: Margaret Rogers | Opening Reception
Friday, September 8th : 7-9pm
ICA Baltimore @ Gallery CA
440 East Oliver Street : 21201
Using the framework of an unproduced TV pilot, Horse Dorm is a mixed media exhibit by Margaret Rogers presented by Institute of Contemporary Art Baltimore at Gallery CA in Baltimore, MD. Combining elements of screenwriting, drawing, collage, and paper mache horse butts with animatronic tails, Rogers explores the fictional world of Horse Dorm, an elite housing center at ‘Dakota University’ where horses and their student-owners board together.
Margaret Rogers was born and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. She holds a BA in Studio Art and Art History from Knox College and an MFA from The Mount Royal School of Art at The Maryland Institute College of Art. She was a 2012 recipient of a Fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center and a 2015 Semi-Finalist for the Janet and Walter Sondheim Prize. Her work has been shown in Chicago, New York, Baltimore, Providence and Toronto. She lives and works in Baltimore, MD.
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Emerging Curator Program Presents: Ashley DeHoyos | Opening Reception
Friday, September 8th : 7-9pm
VisArts
155 Gibbs Street : Rockville
Through a series of programs and events Cultural Platforms for Resistance highlights the radical creativity of a new generation blurring the boundaries between art, advocacy, and activism. Uniting together artist, collectives, cultural producers, educators, and emerging voices, Cultural Platforms for Resistance becomes an auxiliary for a rising generation. Featuring a cohort of seven artists from the DMV area, along with a flex space for community building, Cultural Platforms for Resistance seeks to provide a space for new and existing voices to be heard. culturalplatforms.com
About the curator: Ashley DeHoyos is an emerging curator from Houston, Texas, who currently lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland. She received her Bachelors of Fine Arts in Photography from Sam Houston State University and her Masters in Fine Arts in Curatorial Practice from Maryland Institute College of Art. She has worked as an intern at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in partnership with ArtTable, and was an Urban Arts Leadership Fellow under the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance at Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts. Most recently, Ashley has been working as a Community Art and Service Program Assistant at Maryland Institute College of Art and college mentor with Bloomberg Art Internship Baltimore.
Featured artists include Amarie Baker, Anahita (Ani) Bradberry, Kristen Brown, Edgar Reyes, Strange encounters (Ayesha Aijaz and Salsabeel Abdelhamid), Teens for Teens, and Yellow Jackets Collective.
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School 33 Presents Three New Exhibitions | Opening Receptions
Friday, September 8th : 6-9pm
School 33
1427 Light Street : 21230
Out/Side & In/Between (Main Gallery)
School 33 Art Center’s 2017 Annual Juried Group Exhibition #1
A group exhibition featuring Sobia Ahmad, Ric Garcia, Hedieh Javanshir Ilchi, Niloufar Kazemzadeh, Yuni Kim Lang, OLUSEYE, Eric Rivera Barbeito, and Ali Seradge. Curated by Jarvis DuBois.
The markers of what defines an individual’s ‘nationality’ are possibly more problematic than ever under the current U.S. administration. Immigration, as well as national and cultural identity are topics hotly debated globally. Many born outside North America who now call it home may find themselves marginalized- outside of the faulty parameters of mainstream society. The cultural practices, languages, religions and knowledge we add to the American and Canadian fabric are at times both embraced and rejected. At times contentious and tumultuous, and alternately affirming and enlightening, our relationship to home, both past and present, is explored in Out/Side & In/Between. The artists featured in this exhibition are first and second generation immigrants from Cuba, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Puerto Rico, and South Korea. Their rich backgrounds inform their work, often in response to the economic, social, and political climate in these countries and the U.S. and Canada.
(Image Credit: Yuni Kim Lang – Woven Identity 1)
The Holy Ghost Goes to Bed at Midnight (Members Gallery)
A solo exhibition of works by James Bouché
James Bouché’s work explores the overlap between post-minimalist aesthetic and contemporary subcultures. Inspiration is drawn from fictional realities and presented as if they are props, turning the gallery into a minimal stage. The viewer becomes a passive participant, like a ghost moving through space. Holy Ghost is a reconsidering of childhood truths and values. The absolute, once easily accepted, becomes flawed and dismissed in adulthood. This work represents the developement of Bouché’s relationship with his childhood spirituality; acceptance, frustration, dismissal, and reflection.
(Image credit: James Bouché – The Rider)
A Parable (Project Space)
A solo exhibition by NI Xin
NI Xin’s art practice explores sex, gender, and politics through humor, transforming ready-made objects, and utilizing her body to make objects, performance videos, and social interventions. Drawing influence from fashion, cultural parodies, politics, and her childhood experiences in Japan, she explores metaphors of daily life. Xin’s work is a reaction to her surroundings as she examines herself in the world, and the world in herself. “My work provokes self-questioning as well public-questioning, for I have determined that sex, politics, and humor are the common language among human beings.” -NI Xin
(Image credit: NI Xin – A Parable)
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A Woven Thread: Work by Alex Dukes and Liora Ostroff | Opening Reception
Saturday, September 9th : 7-10pm
Terrault
218 West Saratoga Street : 21201
Alex Dukes’ paintings are an autobiographical exploration of memory, identity, race, and how they all are intertwined. She recalls moments ranging from lighthearted childhood games with siblings, to heavier memories transitioning into adulthood. The presence of hands and feet reaching out and extended in her paintings work as a way of connecting the feeling of touch along with the innocence and carefree nature of a child. Dukes’ use of saturated colors represent the energy and noise of memory. She exaggerates the intensity of the colors and patterns in order to mirror the energy of the moments she experienced growing up in a large musical family.
Liora Ostroff’s current body of work uses paired art-historical themes with imagery drawn from contemporary life. Giotto’s architectural compositions meet Baltimore’s brick facades, and stiff groupings of saints become young partygoers and couples. She references Da Vinci’s lyrical hand gestures or Van Eyck’s colorful motifs to compose a new scene. Either violent or serene, these paintings exemplify Ostroff’s contemplations on time, place, politics and the self. Lust devolves into a misandrist fantasy; a quiet Shabbat table setting is overcome with swastikas. The incessant specter of droning helicopters over the city replaces the glow and radiance of angels, which are so ubiquitous in the Renaissance compositions. In these paintings, history and the present collapse in on each other.
Bios:
Alex Dukes (b. 1994) grew up in Long Island, New York with her mom, dad, two brothers, and four sisters. Over the years, her work shifted from solely focusing on the body and representational drawings and paintings to colorful personal narratives that centered on her family, Trinidadian American heritage, femininity, and blackness. She received her BFA in Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art in spring 2017.
Liora Ostroff (b. 1993) is an artist living and working in Baltimore, MD. She graduated from MICA with a BFA in 2016. Her work has been shown in Baltimore at the John Fonda Gallery and in Philadelphia at Little Berlin.
Exhibition runs: September 9 – October 28, 2017
Gallery Hours: Saturdays, 1-5pm (except opening day)
alexdukes.squarespace.com
lioraostroff.com
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Maryland Collects: Jacob Lawrence
September 9, 2017 – January 7, 2018
The Reginald F. Lewis Museum
830 E. Pratt Street: 21202
This exhibition features over 50 prints by artist Jacob Lawrence from personal collections in and around Maryland.
Lawrence, one of the best known artists of the 20th century, was a painter, storyteller and educator who is renowned for his portrayals of African American life, especially in Harlem. His prints reflect the vivid colors and simplicity of form seen in his earlier paintings. Jacob Lawrence is one of the best known painters of the 20th century.
Upcoming Lawrence Programs:
Teacher Open House – Tuesday, September 12th, 4pm
Saturday Fun: Printmaking for Kids – Saturday, September 16th, 11am
The Joy and Pain of Collecting Art – Saturday, September 16th, 1pm
Sunday @ 2 Films: I Know a Man … Ashley Bryan – Sunday, September 24th, 2pm
Jacob Lawrence Family Day – Saturday, October 7th, 4pm
Author’s Talk: Lawrence P. Jackson on Chester B. Himes – Saturday, October 14th, 1pm
David Driskell on Jacob Lawrence – Saturday, November 4th, 1pm
Dollar Day Celebrates Jacob Lawrence – Saturday, December 9th, 11am
