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BmoreArt’s Picks: Baltimore Art Openings, Galleries, and Events January 9-15

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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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Lillian Hoover: Holding Space | Opening Reception
Wednesday, January 10th : 6-8pm

Goya Contemporary
3000 Chestnut Avenue, Mill Centre 214 :: 21211

These new paintings venture into the uncomfortable space of uncertainty, partial destruction, and incomplete information. They ask the viewer to dwell here, to wait, to look, to hold space for what is to come.

January 10 – March 2, 2018

<><><><><><><><>Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration
Thursday, January 11th : 5-8pm

Walters Art Museum
600 North Charles Street :: 21201

Celebrate the life and continuing legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., with an oratory performance by Baltimore Urban Debate League, a choral concert by Joyful Noise Gospel Singers, and civic engagement with Synergy Baltimore. Attendees can also participate in art-making activities and stop by the free photo booth.

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Opening Reception: Adapt/Adorn: Works by Amy Boone-McCreesh and Bonnie Crawford 
Thursday, January 11 : 7-9 PM

Ballston Gallery at Marymount University
1000 N Glebe Rd, Arlington, VA 22203, United States

The Ballston Gallery at Marymount University is pleased to present Adapt/Adorn by Baltimore based artists Amy Boone-McCreesh and Bonnie Crawford. Adapt/Adorn speaks for the artists intuitive studio practices and the ways the work furthers into site specific installation. Juxtaposing highly visceral forms that shift from the two dimensional to three dimensional, the conceptual and the decorative, and the minimal to maximal, both artists source a wide variety of materials that fully encompass the space of the gallery. Themes of time, memory, melancholy, and humor are infused in an experiential approach to the work presented.

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Opening Reception for Legends Ball: Alter & Celebrity Portrait Series by Megan Lewis
Friday, January 12: 6-8 PM

Jubilee Arts
1947 Pennsylvania Avenue, Baltimore : 21217
January 12 – February 28, 2018

Local Muralist and Illustrator Megan Lewis (@urbanhipsta) will exhibit a series of new celebrity portraits on Friday the 12th from 6-8pm at Jubilee Arts. Lewis will also be designing a mural to accompany her printed series in the front lobby. Apparel giveaways and  light refreshments will be served.

Concurrently, the Jubilee Open House will include a free workshop with teaching Artist Herb Massie. You can make a plate with Massie to be included in an exhibition at the Walters Art Museum and also enjoy African drumming performance by Jumoke Ajanku.

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Elvis’ Birthday Fight Club
Friday, January 12th + Saturday, January 13th

Creative Alliance
3134 Eastern Avenue :: 21221

“Elvis” and Kittie Glitter take care of business as hosts of this hilarious underground fight club. In seven elaborately staged rounds, this action-packed, punch-drunk evening offers flim-flam fisticuffs, cartoon-like violence, below-the-belt comedy, and hot tah-tahs. Burlesque talents Nona Narcisse, Maria Bella, and Candy del Rio will help keep the audience “all shook up” between fights!  Don’t miss this sexy, subversive, satirical, and nonsensical tradition that celebrates The King’s birthday month!

The 2018 fight roster is top-secret, but past match-ups have included “Freddie Mercury” vs “The Queen of England”, “Pringles” vs “Sally the Utz Girl,””Congress” vs. a Clown, and “Putin” vs. a Unicorn.

FRI JAN 12 & SAT JAN 13 | 8PM | $25, $22 members (+$3 at the door)

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What Would Martin Say About the Black Lives Matter Movement?
Baltimore Racial Justice Action

Saturday, January 13 at 2 PM – 4 PM
Park School of Baltimore
2425 Old Court Rd, Baltimore: 21208
Martin Luther King Jr. has been packaged and promoted in many ways, most of which are incorrect or incomplete. Some have compared the movement he led to the Black Lives Matter Movement. Are these movements the same? How would MLK respond to issues today? Is the kind of leadership needed today different from what was needed in the 60’s?

Please join Baltimore Racial Justice Action to discuss these and other questions during this special event in partnership with the Park School of Baltimore’s Office of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion and the Office of Civic Engagement & Service Learning.

This event will take place at the Park School in the Multipurpose Room/cafeteria.

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Art Studio Tour: The Fox Building
Saturday, January 13: 5-7 PM

3100 Falls Cliff Rd

Come out and check out Baltimore’s newest studios and art hub in the making! We are celebrating the new space with DJ Amy Reid and there will be free beer and refreshments.

The artist studios at The Fox Building will open in Summer 2018. The purpose of the tour is to give an overview of the site plan for the space and network. There will be a total of 22 art studios, 4 live/work spaces, a gallery and a tool library.

The space features a private entrance, ample parking, and is a 10 minute walk to The Avenue (36th Street) in Hampden, a great spot from which to work, meet other artists, and also to attract a local following.

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Retreat / William Lamson / Lu Zhang Closing Event
Saturday, January 13: 6 – 9 PM

Area 405
405 E Oliver St, Baltimore, Maryland 21202

AREA 405 is pleased to have been able to present the work of Lu Zhang and William Lamson over the past 3 months. Join us at the closing this Saturday, January 13th to view the exhibition in its final iteration.

Lu Zhang transformed the front gallery space into an expanded series of experiments in flux throughout the course of the exhibition. William Lamson’s videos are projected in the back gallery. Curated by Stewart Watson, AREA 405 is pleased to be a part of the process of these two exemplary artists’ work this fall.

Press: Retreat was named a top 10 exhibition of 2017 by both BmoreArt and Baltimore Beat

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Horizon Compromise // Nature | Opening Receptions
Saturday, January 13th : 7-10pm

Current Space
421 North Howard Street :: 21201

Current Space is proud to present Horizon Compromise, a solo exhibition by Brad Ziegler; and Nature, a solo exhibition by Natalie Conn.

Opening Reception : January 13, 7 – 10pm
Exhibition Duration : January 13 – February 4
Gallery Hours : Sat & Sun, 12 – 4pm

Horizon Compromise is a love letter to the inherent loneliness found within the collective spirit of America. Created over the course of three years spent traveling 46 states, both the show and book explore active and dormant sites of meaning scattered within the liminal spaces of our country’s landscape.

Brad Ziegler is a Baltimore-based photographer and educator. He graduated from Muhlenberg College in 2014, and has been teaching Photography and Digital Media at Loyola Blakefield since then. He finds inspiration for his work in long drives on blue highways, karaoke bars, and Wal-Mart parking lots.

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Nature

Natalie Conn is an artist who uses photography, film, and animation to document fleeting moments of disorienting reality—an optical illusion, a reflection in a window, a cell phone tower disguised as a fir tree. Frequent visits to the Museum of Natural History in New York, with its dark bunker-like rooms and glowing dioramas offered a reprieve from a year of abhorrent and anxiety-inducing news. Eye to eye with an antelope and thinking about human desire to collect, catalog, monetize, exploit, romanticize, and recreate. Taking photos of the scene’s details, making it feel as though we are in there, hiding in the vines, fearful of these uncharted trails, at night, as the museum fluorescents join the mirage perhaps as UFOs. A blending of what’s real, not real, and surreal. ‘Nature’ reflects on the dioramas’ duality of the fear of the wild unknown combined with our unrelenting desire to conquer.

She is completing an MFA degree in Integrated Media Arts at Hunter College which is a program geared to telling non-fiction stories in multiple mediums. She works as a freelance photographer and teaches filmmaking and photography classes at Hunter College and Wagner College in Staten Island.

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Opening Reception | Antonio McAfee + Rachel Guardiola
Saturday, January 13: 7 – 9 PM

Hamiltonian
1353 U St NW, Ste 101, Washington, District of Columbia 20009

 For its first exhibition of 2018, Hamiltonian Gallery is pleased to present two new bodies of work by multi-media artists Antonio McAfee and Rachel Guardiola. The exhibitions will open with a reception on Saturday, January 13 from 7 – 9 pm; both artists will be in attendance.

In “Old Bad Air”, artist Antonio McAfee presents a series of haunting images that use 19th century black and white portraits of people of color as source material. These spectral portraits have an unsettled presence due to the collaging, stripping and manipulating McAfee enacts upon the images during their creation. Collectively, the images are a revisiting of the storied and traumatic past of people of color in the United States; a history with, as author Ralph Ellison phrases it in his classic novel “Invisible Man”, the putrid whiff of “Old Bad Air”. That troubled history, much like the figures in McAfee’s images, demands exhumation, re-examination and re-framing in order to continue its evolution into the present day and beyond.

“A Hand Without A Horizon is Taller than its Other” is artist Rachel Guardiola’s ongoing project that explores humanity’s relationship to the wilderness through a fantastical narrative that charts the activities a series of fictional characters on an earth-like planet. In this installment, Guardiola performs as a time-traveling surveyor and a horticultural pirate that conduct experiments and mysterious rituals as they traverse mysterious topographies including icy desert landscapes and lush, hidden forests. Using lens-based media, Guardiola fleshes out an alternate universe in which her characters discover and re-cultivate a distant, post-industrial wasteland.

<><><><><><><><>MLK Day Celebration 2018
Monday, January 15th : Noon

Reginald F. Lewis Museum
830 East Pratt Street :: 21202

Join us for live performances, community discussions, films, and crafts that reflect on, and honor, the civil rights leader. The Celebration includes the musical concert, “Man of Peace: The 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.”  featuring choral presentations and spoken texts from Martin Luther King, Jr. set to chamber music written by music composer Benny Russell and performed by Peabody’s Tuned In Orchestra.

Additional activities include:

  • MLK STEP Salute by the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women Step Team
  • “Combatting Violence in Our City” Community Discussion Part II moderated by Dr. Harold Carter of New Shiloh Baptist Church
  • Freedom Square Quilting Party crafting quilt blocks honoring King and other Freedom fighters. In conjunction with Freedom: Emancipation Quilted & Stitched.

RSVP to let us know you are coming. $5 Special Admission

<><><><><><><><>MLK Dare to Dream Day!
Monday, January 15th : 10am-6pm

American Visionary Art Museum
800 Key Highway :: 21230

FREE! A celebration in honor of the life and dreams of one of the greatest visionaries in America’s history. Join us for guided tours, birthday cake, music, workshops, and special performances at this FREE, fun-filled day! The museum is FREE & open to the public from 10am–6pm: see our latest exhibition, The Great Mystery Showand tour our entire wonderland campus, including the Jim Rouse Visionary Center & more! A special invitation extended to educators and all the wonderful people who help to empower the next generation. Teachers, come pick up our educational materials and discover the many educational offerings we have available for you and your students.

<><><><><><><><>18th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Parade
Monday, January 15th : Noon

MLK Boulevard + Eutaw Street

Mayor Catherine E. Pugh and the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts celebrate the life of civil rights leader and icon Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with the 18thannual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Parade on  Monday, January 15, 2018 at noon.  More than 70 groups participate in the parade including high school and community bands, honor/color guards, equestrian units, fraternities and sororities, lively dance squads and civic organizations. The grand marshal of this year’s parade is “The Voice” finalist and Baltimore native Davon Fleming.

The parade steps off at the intersection of Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard and Eutaw Street, proceeds south on Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard and disbands at Baltimore Street.  Spectators are invited to view the parade from along the route or near the reviewing stand at Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard and Franklin Street.  The parade is emceed by a personality from Radio One. The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Parade is produced by the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts with support from Radio One: 92Q, Magic 95.9, Praise 106.1, Spirit 1400 and WOLB 1010; The Afro-American Newspapers and Lexington Market.

Also on Monday, January 15, 2018, Mayor Catherine E. Pugh will host the inaugural Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service. This year, the City of Baltimore welcomes residents to emulate Dr. King’s leadership and compassion for others by volunteering in their communities. Opportunities to volunteer and more information can be found at mlkday.baltimorecity.gov/mlk.

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