This Week: We are featuring online events that you can participate in from the comfort of your own couch and some that you can safely leave the house for, plus a few calls for entry to get involved locally and nationally. Stay home, stay healthy, stay engaged in the arts.
To submit your calendar event, email us at [email protected]!
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BMA x NMWA: Pride of Place
Tuesday, June 8 • 12-12:45
presented by The Baltimore Museum of Art + The National Museum of Women in the Arts
Join educators from the Baltimore Museum of Art and the National Museum of Women in the Arts for our final episode of BMA x NMWA, Pride of Place!
This month, we welcome artists Renee Stout and SHAN Wallace to celebrate the vibrancy of art in Baltimore and DC.
Watch live on both BMA and NMWA Facebook pages and on the BMA’s YouTube channel.
Pride Artist Talk: Richard Cleaver in Conversation with Adriana Proser
Tuesday, June 8 • 5:30-6pm
presented by The Walters Art Museum
Discover how historic collections offer new inspiration for contemporary artists. In celebration of LGBTQ Pride Month, Baltimore-based artist Richard Cleaver joins Adriana Proser, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Quincy Scott Curator of Asian Art, to discuss how Cleaver’s work was influenced by his early museum experiences. Cleaver’s sculptures are evocative of religious reliquaries and shrine architecture, intricate and bejeweled with secret compartments and hidden meanings.
About the Artist
Richard Cleaver has been working in sculpture for 45 years. He received a BFA from MICA and an MA from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. He has exhibited nationally, including solo exhibitions at the Baltimore Museum of Art, American University Museum, Kohler Arts Center, Noyes Museum, Bernice Steinbaum Gallery (New York and Miami), and Franz Bader Gallery. Group exhibition venues include: the Peabody Essex Museum, International Sculpture Center, Arizona State Museum, Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, Erie Art Museum, and Corcoran Gallery. His work is in the collections of the Crocker Art Museum, George and Dorothy Saxe Collection at the DeYoung Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art, Diane and Sandy Besser Collection at Arizona State Museum, Fuller Craft Museum, and Delaware Art Museum. Awards include: National Endowment for the Arts, Evergreen Foundation, Maryland State Arts Council, Trawick Prize, Franz and Virginia Bader Fund, and a Baker Artist Award.
Please note: This event is virtual and is available exclusively on our Facebook and YouTube pages. You don’t need an account on either platform to enjoy the program.
GREENER DEAL: A Conversation with Artist Hidenori Ishii and Art Advisor Myriam Erdely
Tuesday, June 8 • 6pm
presented by C. Grimaldis Gallery
In conjunction with C. Grimaldis Gallery’s current exhibition Greener Deal, we will be hosting a virtual conversation with our exhibiting artist, Hidenori Ishii, and New York-based Art Advisor, Myriam Erdely. Raised in Yonezawa, Japan, Hidenori Ishii creates paintings and prints that investigate personal narratives, environmental science, and global politics. This conversation will focus on the artist’s ability to create connections between developing technology and the natural world through the use of floral patterns and post-atomic materials.
Please join us on Tuesday, June 8th at 6PM on Zoom for this virtual conversation. We look forward to your presence and participation!
re:paired with the colors all around
Thursday, June 10 | Ongoing through July 3
@ The Shed Space
an installation by UK/Baltimore artist, Elaine Fisher, in which found objects are re-assembled and re-made with color, highlighting an adaptability to change that is in our nature(s). Includes a ‘free pile’ of healing Aloe Vera plants and ‘Brood X’, a natural cicada soundtrack.
Details: Visitors can sign up to visit the exhibition at https://www.
Sondheim Artscape Prize Finalist Artist Talk: Lavar Munroe
Thursday, June 10 • 5:30-6pm
presented by The Walters Art Museum
Join the 2021 Sondheim Artscape Prize Finalist Lavar Munroe in conversation with Dany Chan, co-curator of the Sondheim Artscape Prize exhibition and Assistant Curator of Asian Art at the Walters. For five programs through the months of May to July, each artist finalist will be featured in a program exploring the artist’s individual journey as a creative, their evolving voice, and what the opportunity of the Sondheim Prize and its visibility means to their art practice.
The 2021 Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize Finalists are Jonathan Monaghan, Lavar Munroe, Hoesy Corona, Tsedaye Makonnen, and Hae Won Sohn. The prestigious $25,000 Sondheim Prize is awarded to assist in furthering the career of a visual artist or visual artist collaborators living and working in the Greater Baltimore region. The Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize exhibition is on view at the Walters Art Museum from Thursday, May 27, through Sunday, July 18, 2021.
About the Artist
Lavar Munroe (b. 1982, Nassau, Bahamas) earned his BFA from Savannah College of Art and Design in 2007 and his MFA from Washington University in 2013. In 2014, he was awarded a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Munroe was included in Prospect.4: The Lotus in Spite of The Swamp, the New Orleans triennial curated by Trevor Schoonmaker, and the 12th Dakar Biennale, curated by Simon Njami, in Senegal. In 2015, Munroe’s work was featured in All the World’s Futures, curated by Okwui Enwezor as part of the 56th Venice Biennale. Recent group shows include those at the Nasher Museum of Art in Durham; Perez Art Museum, Miami; National Gallery of Bahamas, Nassau; MAXXI Museum of Art, Rome; Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco; Virginia Museum of Modern Art, Virginia Beach; and The Drawing Center, New York. Munroe was awarded residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, MacDowell Colony, the Headlands Center for the Arts, Joan Mitchell Center, Thread: Artist Residency & Cultural Center, a project of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation and was an inaugural Artists in Residence at the Norton Museum of Art. He is a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant. Lavar Munroe lives and works in Baltimore, MD, and Nassau, Bahamas.
The 16th annual Janet and Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize is produced by the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts in partnership with the Walters Art Museum.
Separate, But/ We Hold These Truths | Opening Reception
Friday, June 11 • 5-7pm | Ongoing through July 16
@ Waller Gallery
Featured Artist: McKinley Wallace III
Gallery Hours: Friday and Saturday 1-5pm by appointment
Waller Gallery is excited to show the captivating work of McKinley Wallace III in a solo exhibition, “Separate, But/ We Hold These Truths” and features the most recent and arresting series of the same name. Within his work McKinley pushes his audiences ideas about freedom, archives, power, “privilege as a weapon,” and new horizons. McKinley uses acrylic, charcoal, graphite, and ink on wood panels to communicate the varied messages within his artwork. Waller Gallery is happy to support the vision of McKinley for a second time. He was first featured at the gallery in the “Strength In Practice” exhibition in 2018. The exhibition will be supplemented by an artist talk in early July.
A short essay by the artist states:
“Within recent years, intent has never been more scrutinized. White rage and its propaganda have slowly evolved into a nuanced being. Its legacy and influence encompass charged spaces and place shrouds over racial beings — possessing minds that lack the conviction or knowledge to question, agitate, and resist systematic oppression.
Privilege is a weapon.
I explore race, place, history, and intersectionality. My ideas are often expressed in a graphic style that incorporates realism, Minimalism, and hard-edge painting. I create illustrative mixed media paintings of people caught within and absent from real, site-specific places in distress. I also place individuals in and out of hard-edged black and white zones, all used as a metaphor for segregation, defiance, and loss. The black space represents Black power, and the white space represents white rage. The blue I sometimes use above my scenes can carry different meanings based on what is happening underneath its band of color. The blue can symbolize peace or the abuse of power.
My work embodies a unique strength expounded by the oppressed. A power manifested in resilient peoples, determined to resist erasure and break free of master narratives.
Strengthened by my role as a Black educator, I capture moments of atmospheric and direct tension and rebellion to rattle America’s exclusionary ideals and legacies – choices enacted by the impact of deferring Black joy for centuries.”
Charles Mason III: Whose Pain Do We Acknowledge First? | Opening Reception
Saturday, June 12 • 4-7pm | Ongoing through August 6
@ Goya Contemporary
Goya Contemporary Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of artworks by Contemporary American artist Charles Mason III (B. 1990, Maryland), marking his first major exhibition with the gallery.
The Baltimore based artist and educator creates abstractions around identity politics and the “performative act of blackness” experienced and manifested through physical materials. Capturing the pulse of the city, and the beat of his own drum, Mason is “far more interested in creating spaces that allow for the audience’s own experiences of engagement with black identity.”
Mason’s improvisational ‘sculpt-painting’ is a non-traditional style that explores layers of personal expression through use of color, form, gesture, and texture, while remaining grounded in social realism. Mason’s work focuses on individual experiences, as well as police brutality, loss, and the generational trauma experienced by black Americans as a result of systemic racism. Mason seeks to reveal the essence of emotion and self-expression through material accumulations. Working between media, fluidly moving from paint on canvas to works made on, or of torn, printed, and impressed upon paper; Mason’s constructions are more about experimentation with materials to achieve an emotional response than they are about constraining himself to a defined and limited media.
The art historical narrative of American Abstraction has been told with an inordinately white cast of characters, misrepresenting the authentic story of abstract practitioners. More recently, Black artists’ contributions to the amplification of contemporary figuration have been acknowledged, almost to the point of erroneously pigeonholing all POC’s into the category of figuration.
As the art historical field makes corrections, acknowledging the significance of black abstract and expressionist painters of the past such as Alma Thomas, Sam Gilliam, Jack Whitten, Howardena Pindell, Norman Lewis, and Ed Clark; we come to comprehend their influence on the contemporary practitioners of our day including– among countless others– the work of David Hammons, Tomashi Jackson, Julie Mehretu, Glenn Ligon, Adam Pendleton, and Charles Mason III.
Where Mason certainly is aware of these artists and the influence they have on his practice, he has developed his own distinct vocabulary that engages a type of call and response between painting, printmaking, Photo Transfers, collage, performance, photographic appropriation, and life experiences.
Dragging material across the surface of his complicated matrix, Mason creates emotionally charged works that convey an array of complex messages that we cannot effortlessly untangle, and that we certainly cannot easily forget.
Mason received an AA in General Studies from CCBC in 2010 and a BFA in Graphic Design from the University of Maryland Baltimore County in 2014. He attended The New School in New York City, and earned a Master of Fine Arts in Studio Practice from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2019.
An active community member, Mason has both exhibited his work, and curated exhibitions on the east coast of the United States. He has been selected to exhibit in notable group exhibitions at Hudson Valley MOCA, NY; Woodmere Art Museum, PA; The Studio Museum in Harlem, NY; Urban Institute for Contemporary Art, MI; among others. His work is represented in many private and public collections, notably the permanent collections of the James E. Lewis Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD, and The Whitney Museum of American Art -Special Collections, New York, NY.
The artist has served as a guest lecturer and critic from California to Iowa. He has taught at a number of institutions throughout the mid-Atlantic region and was recently awarded the Maurice Freed Memorial Prize.
This exhibition is part of “25,” a yearlong series of exhibitions celebrating Goya artists in honor of our 25th anniversary
Calls for Entry // Opportunities
Baltimore Comedy Festival | Call for Submissions
deadline June 20
It’s that TIME of our Lives!
STAY FUNNY…STAY SAFE
Howard County Arts Council General Exhibit | Call for Applications
deadline July 1
sponsored by HCAC
Artists wishing to be considered for an exhibit in the Howard County Arts Council (HCAC) galleries are invited to submit a general exhibit application. The HCAC Exhibits Committee meets quarterly to review applications and select artists for the exhibit space. Artists, ages 18 and older, working in all media and styles including time-based and installation artists, are encouraged to apply either individually or as a group. The Committee also welcomes proposals from curators and organizations.
For detailed entry guidelines, visit https://hocoarts.submittable.com/submit or email [email protected]. The next deadline for submissions is July 1, 2021.
HCAC manages two galleries at the Howard County Center for the Arts with over 2,100 square feet of exhibit space. The HCAC gallery program was established to enhance the public’s appreciation of the visual arts, provide a venue to exhibit the work of local, regional, and national artists in a professional space, and provide leadership in the arts by presenting a broad spectrum of arts in all media from both emerging and established artists.
HCAC presents 11-12 exhibits per year of national, regional, and local artists, including two-person, small and large group, juried, curated, and community shows.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, gallery hours may be subject to change. For current gallery hours, or to learn more about HCAC programs and exhibits, call 410-313-ARTS (2787) or visit hocoarts.org.
Public Art Memorial to COVID-19 Victims at Lake Roland | Call for Submissions
deadline July 1
sponsored by Baltimore County Arts Guild
COVID-19 has claimed the lives of more than 8800 Marylanders, including more than 1500 Baltimore County residents, since Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski declared a local state of emergency on March 13, 2020. To honor the lives lost and all those affected by COVID-19, Baltimore County Arts Guild (BCAG) and Baltimore County, Maryland are partnering to seek a highly creative and dynamic public art concept representing hope, unity, and healing. The free-standing public art will be installed at Lake Roland Park, near walking and biking paths, and among acres of open space. The goal of this initiative is a finished public art project that will exist as a commemorative piece to honor the memory of those affected by this global pandemic, provide a place for remembrance and reconciliation, and create a meditative space.
Portals | Call for Entry
deadline July 4
sponsored by SE Center for Photography
Portals. A door or gate, an entry or opening, maybe a tunnel, a passage or connection between places, time, or dimensions. Literal or figurative, Color or BW, analog, digital or antique processes, photographers of all skill levels and locations are welcome.
Our juror for the Portal is Rebecca Sexton Larson. Rebecca is a Tampa artist working with photography-based processes. She graduated from the University of South Florida with a degree in Fine Arts and a degree in Mass Communications. She was awarded Florida Individual Artist Fellowships in 1998, 2002, and 2008. In 2006, she received an Artist Enhancement Grant from the State of Florida and, in 2005, was commissioned by the City of Tampa to be Photographer Laureate for a year.
35-40 Selected images will hang in the SE Center’s main gallery space for approximately one month with the opportunity to be invited for a solo show at a later date. In addition, selected images are featured in the SE Center social media accounts (FB, IG, Twitter) and an archived, online slide show. A video walkthrough of each exhibition is also featured and archived.
FOLKLORE AND TRADITIONS | Call for Exhibition
deadline July 7
sponsored by LOOSENART
Pictures cannot be considered to be merely documents. They are also able to capture, preserve, interpret and reinvent occurrences, situations, places that are progressively disappearing or – on the contrary – still surviving, like folklore and traditions. This call aims to collect photo, digital and video works that are capable of catching the essence, the traditional part of our society – e.g. agricultural objects that are not in use anymore, practices or celebrations, folkloristic costumes, ethnic museums and collections. In other words, everything reminding us of our roots, of the most genuine side of the society we live in.
2022 Solo Exhibitions | Call for Entry
deadline July 9
sponsored by VisArts
VisArts invites artists working in all media to apply for 2022 Solo Exhibitions in the Gibbs Street Gallery, Common Ground Gallery, and Concourse Gallery.
Exhibitions in each of the galleries explore the breadth of contemporary art featuring emerging to mid-career artists. Exhibits reflect a wide range of media and experimental approaches that offer the viewer unexpected interactions with art.
The Gibbs Street Gallery is approximately 1,100 square feet with 16 ft. ceilings. It is on the street level with floor to ceiling windows along one wall. International, national and local artists are welcome to apply.
The Common Ground Gallery is located on the second floor and is approximately 300 square feet. Artists must live in the Mid-Atlantic region to apply for a solo exhibition in this gallery.
The Concourse Gallery is located on the second floor and is approximately 500 square feet. It has curved windows along one wall. International, national, and local artists are welcome to apply.
Applicants who have participated in a solo exhibition at VisArts within the past two years are not eligible to apply.
Application Deadline: Friday, July 9, 2021 before midnight
*Incomplete applications will not be reviewed.
This Week: Joyce J. Scott + Josh Franco in conversation at SAAM, Wye Oak Lecture Series at MCHC, Edgar Reyes and valentina at Connect+Collect, Maryland Opera at St. Paul's, Charm City Craft Mafia's Holiday Heap, Current Space Art Market, Baker Artist Portfolios Literary Spotlight, and more!
This week's news includes: How craft is thriving in Baltimore, celebrating Maurice Berger, Pratt workers union reaches wage settlement, community exhibition and holiday sale at Baltimore Jewelry Center, better call Lou (Catelli), an interview with TU anthropologist Katharine Fernstrom, and more!
This week's news includes: the BMA celebrates 110 years and raises $1 million, Tubman statue restored at BDTM, Mount Vernon Conservancy announces Monument Lighting, AVAM's new exhibition, Poe Theater to be broadcast on WYPR, John Waters is America's Next Top (Spokes)model, and more!
