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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<><><><><><><><>Sweaty Eyeballs: Best of Ottawa Int’l Animation Festival 2017
Tuesday, January 30th : 7:30pm
The Parkway Theatre
3 West North Avenue :: 21201
Sweaty Eyeballs, the Parkway’s monthly animation series curated by Max Porter and Phil Davis, kicks of 2018 with The Best of Ottawa 2017! This program, currently touring around the world, is a collection of jury-awarded short films and fan favorites from the 41st edition of the Ottawa International Animation Festival, which took place in September 2017.
Best of Ottawa 2017: International Tour
Running Time: 70 Minutes
RECOMMENDED FOR MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY
Persistance of Vision III | Ismael Sanz-Pena | Norway & USA | 1:45
Riot | Frank Ternier | France | 13:10
Mark Lotterman ‘Happy’ | Alice Saey | Netherlands & France | 6:35
Kotu Kiz (Wicked Girl) | Ayce Kartal | Turkey | 8:00
Any Road | Boris Labbé | France | 10:04
Negative Space | Max Porter & Ru Kuwahata | France | 5:30
Four Faces of the Moon | Amanda Strong | Canada | 13:00
Life Cycles | Ross Hogg | UK | 4:17
End of Recording | Lukas Conway, Stefan Jaroszonek & Olivier Sommelet | Canada | 2:09
Next up for Sweaty Eyeballs, on February 8: Sweaty Eyeballs Presents: 3 Shorts by Animator Ahn Jae Huun!
Sweaty Eyeballs Animation is curated by animators and animation professors Phil Davis (Towson University) and Max Porter (MICA). For more information visit: sweatyeyeballs.com
<><><><><><><><>Long Day’s Journey Into Night | Opening Night
Wednesday, January 31st – March 4th
Everyman Theatre
315 West Fayette Street :: 21201
Eugene O’Neill’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning masterpiece, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, storms to Baltimore’s Everyman Theatre with a masterful cast, fantastically moody and atmospheric realization, and sweeping themes of addiction, love and forgiveness—on stage January 31 through March 4, 2018.
What begins as an ordinary summer day at the Connecticut home of the Tyrone family morphs into a night filled with foggy, drink-laced demons where long-buried secrets are revealed—and once exposed cannot be ignored. The first Everyman Theatre production of an O’Neill work, Long Day’s Journey Into Night is an autobiographical insight into its late, legendary playwright—and a compassionately brutal look at one family’s struggle to fight for love itself.
A long-revered showcase for tour-de-force performances, Long Day’s Journey Into Night stars Everyman Theatre Resident Company Members Deborah Hazlett* as family matriarch Mary Tyrone, Danny Gavigan* as son Edmund Tyrone and Tim Getman* (in his first official role as a Company member) as son Jamie Tyrone. Everyman newcomer Kurt Rhoads* completes the family portrait, as James Tyrone, and M. Butterfly’s Katharine Ariyan returns to Everyman’s stage, playing Cathleen.
“It wouldn’t be a stretch to call Long Day’s Journey Into Night a ‘holy grail’ for actors,” stated director Donald Hicken, who directed 2016’s Outside Mullingar at Everyman with Getman in the lead. “O’Neill’s characters require a level of commitment, rigor and virtuosity that few roles match—and the level at which this cast delivers is nothing short of phenomenal.”
“Long Day’s Journey Into Night is the ultimate family tragedy because it lays bare what we all know to be true: the ardor of familial love cannot always protect you,” explained Everyman Theatre Founding Artistic Director Vincent M. Lancisi. “For the last decade I’ve been looking forward to the right moment to cast Deborah Hazlett as the matriarch at the center of this story, and it’s exciting to mark her 20th anniversary as a member of our esteemed Resident Company with such an iconic role.”
The design team for Long Day’s Journey Into Night includes Donald Hicken (Director), Daniel Ettinger (Set Design), David Burdick (Costume Design), Jay Herzog (Lighting Design), Patrick Calhoun (Sound & Composition), Lewis Shaw (Fight Choreography), Steve Satta (Dialects) and Amanda M. Hall* (Stage Manager).
Long Day’s Journey Into Night runs January 31 through March 4, 2018. Tickets ($10-65) are now on sale online (everymantheatre.org), by phone (410.752.2208), or at the Everyman Theatre Box Office (315 W. Fayette Street, Baltimore, MD).
*Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States
<><><><><><><><>False Monarchy | Opening Reception and Performance by the Artist
Wednesday, January 31st : 6:30-9:30pm
Stamp Gallery
University of Maryland Stamp Student Union :: College Park
In False Monarchy, Philadelphia-based artist Kyle Kogut uses the practices and symbols of occultism and the ubiquitous iconography of auto industry kitsch to explore the contemporary politics of American myth and despair. False Monarchy is on view at the Stamp Gallery at the University of Maryland, College Park, January 24 through March 17, 2018. An opening reception, free and open to the public, will occur on January 31, from 6:30 to 8:30pm, in the Stamp Gallery. A performance by the artist will take place during the reception, starting at 7:00pm.
This solo exhibition, curated by Raino Isto, presents a collection of new installations, objects, and two-dimensional works by Kogut, all examining the disturbing effects of America’s continued attachment to the myth of heavy industry as a miraculous source of economic growth and consumer euphoria. Kogut—the son of an auto mechanic—works in response to his own family background and upbringing, considering how narratives of the artist’s creative expression relate to labor, class, and mortality.
The work in False Monarchy includes a number of Kogut’s recent drawings, which are influenced by the visual idioms of American automotive propaganda, as well as by the precision and themes of Northern Renaissance draughtsmanship. Kogut’s work considers both the nihilistic and liberatory possibilities of repetitive, detail-oriented artistic practice, and links these processes to modes of self-creation that challenge dominant narratives of American society. At the same time, he explores a wide range of artistic influences, from Albrecht Dürer and Francisco de Goya, to Philip Guston and Jen Ray.
False Monarchy also includes an immersive sculpture and video installation that combines the extended soundscapes of drone metal with the meditative environments and symbology of the occult, inflected by Kogut’s abiding interest in the practices of chaos magick. As an environment, False Monarchy encourages critical overidentification with the metaphysical structures of American late capitalism, and reflection on the self-destructive direction of contemporary American politics.
<><><><><><><><>The Elements that Define Us | Opening Reception
Friday, February 2nd : 6-9pm
Prince George’s African American Museum and Cultural Center
4519 Rhode Island Avenue :: North Brentwood
The Elements that Define Us is a mixed media exhibition, highlighting color, materials, and composition style, that presents a contemporary perspective of the Black American experience. The exhibition will highlight portraits of the DC Metropolitan community and address the stylistic elements used to express the Black American experience locally and beyond. Curator Tomora Wright will focus on the compositional aspects of each piece, which lend symbolic meaning to the subject. Compositional styles and mediums in works of art are intentional and speak to Black American history, culture, communities, rituals, and lifestyles. In this exhibition, we want to give artists a chance to tell us the significance of their chosen artistic medium and how the elements they use play an important role in the stories they tell.
The Elements that Define Us will showcase 21 artist’s diverse perspective of the Black experience. Wright carefully selected a group of multigenerational artists from the Greater Washington DC Area who excel in various mediums and styles. From mixed media collages to installations, from paintings to drawings and more, this exhibition presents a dynamic and multifaceted selection of work. Exhibition artists include:
Alonzo Davis, Akili Ron Anderson, Gina Marie Lewis, Chanel Compton, Taryn Harris, Ulysses Marshall, Preston Sampson, Al Burts, James Terrell, Toni Lane, Jay Durrah, Egbert Evans, Will Watson, Ronald Jackson, Tre Wilkes, Elana Casey, Jamea Richmond Edwards, Curtis Woody, Michael Booker, Shawn Lindsay, Zsudayka Nzinga Terrell
<><><><><><><><>Butterfly Pictures by Aiden Dillard | Opening Reception
Saturday, February 3rd : 5-8pm
St. Charles Projects
2701 North Charles Street :: 21218
St. Charles Projects is pleased to present Butterfly Pictures by artist and filmmaker Aiden Dillard. Butterfly Pictures contains embroidered collage paintings and a butterfly themed video performance that explore issues relating to class, race, migration, death, and sexuality. Dillard has produced several internationally distributed “B” horror movies for the Troma Entertainment brand. This show marks his first solo painting exhibition.
In this series of paintings the omnipresent symbol of the butterfly both cloaks and uncovers the complexities of prescient social issues. For inspiration Dillard channels his complicated personal narrative which includes the recent death of his partner, an exile from Miami, and a stint in a rural southern trailer park. The symbol of the butterfly arrived as a joyful antidote to the emotional pain that he experienced while coping with the loss of his partner. The Butterfly Pictures initially began as abstract paintings, but figurative elements arrived to embody the politics of homoerotic imagery countering toxic masculinity. Other themes within this context of figuration are interracial relationships, contemporary national politics, class identity, and rural vs urban divides.
Woven throughout many of the paintings are images of Dillard himself embodying the butterfly symbol. A video-sculpture piece that was produced specifically for this exhibit features a fluttering Adien Dillard performing as the butterfly.
Dillard currently works as a truck driver in The Bronx, NYC, and grew up in North Carolina but was born in Southern California. Dillard is a graduate of The Cooper Union in New York, and has had film screenings and group shows along the East Coast from Brooklyn, Chapel Hill, Miami, to Havana, Cuba.
To view Aiden Dillard’s paintings and trailers to his movies, please visit www.aidendillard.com.
<><><><><><><><>Ornamenta | Benefit for Baltimore Jewelry Center
Saturday, February 3rd : 7-11pm
Impact Hub
10 East North Avenue :: 21201
Support the Baltimore Jewelry Center by attending Ornamenta, our annual fundraising party! The event features a raffle and silent auction with work from many art jewelers from around the country as well as donations from awesome local businesses and restaurants.
There will also be work on display by Baltimore Jewelry Center community members.
Food by Blacksauce Kitchen | open bar
music by AK of Ridiculous Entertainment | dancing
attire: creative cocktail
Tickets are $85
Buy a pack of 8 tickets for $550
https://
<><><><><><><><>.STABLE. presents: GROUNDWORK | Inaugural Community Fundraiser
Saturday, February 3rd : 8-11pm
.STABLE.
327 S. Street NE :: Washington DC
Come one, come all to the launch and first ever community fundraiser of .STABLE. who’s mission is to strengthen Washington, DC’s contemporary visual arts community by providing affordable and sustainable studio space, an engaged, diverse artist community and access to local, national, and international audiences through partnerships, programming and exhibitions.
The evening event will feature live music, dancing, refreshments, and the opportunity to meet the .STABLE. founders Caitlin Teal Price, Tim Doud, and Linn Meyers. The Founders Circle, a group of dedicated arts supporters who are committed to helping STABLE realize its vision of a diverse, vibrant and community-oriented arts space in the heart of the district, will also be on hand to help raise awareness of the project.
Tickets include entry to the party and one beverage ticket: good for a beer, glass of wine, or soda. Additional drink tickets may be purchased at the door. Guests must be 21 to consume alcohol.
MISSON
.STABLE.’s mission is to strengthen Washington, DC’s contemporary visual arts
community by providing affordable and sustainable studio space, an engaged, diverse artist community and access to local, national, and international audiences through partnerships, programming and exhibitions.
VISION
We envision .STABLE. becoming an active space for artists in DC and beyond. .STABLE. aims to change the arts landscape in DC by supporting a creative economy where visual
artist not only remain in the city, but thrive.
VALUES
.STABLE. is committed to: Visual Arts, Excellence, Community, Dialogue,
Partnerships, and Stability.
Have questions about .STABLE. GROUNDWORK Community Fundraiser? Contact .STABLE.