This Week: Yay museums! Baltimore has so many great ones. Get out of the house and have an indoor stroll around an exhibition, some of which will be closing early next year. Be sure to check hours as the holidays have affected open times.
The BmoreArt Arts & Culture Guide also provides resources to help you find museums and galleries in the area!
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Bodies of Information: Understanding Slavery through the Stearns Collection
ongoing through January 4
@ The Reginald F. Lewis Museum
Bodies of Information: Understanding Slavery through the Stearns Collection explores how archives help us tell nuanced stories of slavery. The exhibit features select items from the Stearns Collection, an 87-piece collection spanning more than 100 years, painstakingly collected by Herbert Stearns. Through this exhibit we can examine how people – from researchers, educators, and historians to students and family genealogists – use documents to confront the complicated role that slavery played in American life. By looking closely at the newspapers, images, ads, and bills of sale from the period, we see how slavery existed in every part of life in the United States.
A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration
ongoing through January 29
@ The Baltimore Museum of Art
Enjoy free admission on Thursday, December 15 from 4:30-9 p.m. and Sunday, January 8 from 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
The Great Migration (1915–1970) saw more than six million African Americans leave the South for destinations across the United States. This incredible dispersal of people across the country transformed nearly every aspect of Black life and culture. A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration explores the ways in which its impact reverberates today through newly commissioned works across media by 12 acclaimed Black artists, including Akea Brionne, Mark Bradford, Zoë Charlton, Larry W. Cook, Torkwase Dyson, Theaster Gates Jr., Allison Janae Hamilton, Leslie Hewitt, Steffani Jemison, Robert Pruitt, Jamea Richmond-Edwards, and Carrie Mae Weems.
The exhibition is co-curated by Jessica Bell Brown, Curator and Department Head of Contemporary Art at the BMA and Ryan N. Dennis, Chief Curator and Artistic Director of the Center for Art & Public Exchange (CAPE) at the Mississippi Museum of Art.
Lee Boot: Abstracts & Artifacts
ongoing through February 12
@ The Peale
Media artist Lee Boot stepped away from a promising artworld career to join scientists and others doing research to find ways to meet some of our most significant public challenges. For more than twenty-five years he has brought artist’s thinking into rooms where it is seldom seen. Literally and figuratively, he has colored outside the lines, spilled paint on his colleagues, flipped the script and reframed conventional thinking to reimagine how we meet the challenges of our time and better ground our efforts in the cultures, experiences, and lives of the people they are intended to serve.
Works that will be on view are selected largely from projects Boot has led as a researcher, and more recently, Director of, the Imaging Research Center at UMBC. The exhibition is aptly located in Baltimore’s newly renovated community museum, The Peale. As the Peale Museum, it was the first dedicated museum building in the US and it was established before art and science went their separate ways. Abstracts and Artifacts, illuminates how and why it is essential that they rediscover one another and work together once again.
Activating the Renaissance
ongoing through February 26
@ The Walters
The Italian galleries of the Walters Art Museum bridge the past and the present in an exhibition that seeks to illustrate the connections between the Italian Renaissance and Baroque periods and contemporary art, each offering insights into the other.
Activating the Renaissance features paintings, photography, and sculpture by six artists, the majority from the Baltimore area: Jessica Bastidas, Tawny Chatmon, Bernhard Hildebrandt, Murjoni Merriweather, Stephen Towns, and Ventiko. Their art is displayed alongside paintings and sculpture from the Walters collection by masters such as Jacopo Pontormo and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.
Joaneath Spicer, James A. Murnaghan, Curator of Renaissance and Baroque Art, selected the artists and artworks in the exhibition based on their ability to draw forward and reflect upon stylistic and thematic elements in both classic and contemporary work. The artworks are placed throughout the Italian Renaissance and Baroque galleries to show the techniques and stylistic elements that artists past and present use to share personal experience and portray their subjects.
The Walters Italian paintings constitute one of the most significant holdings in the Americas and some of the most popular and well-known works in the museum.
Visions of Night // Losing Winter
ongoing through June 2023
@ Maryland Center for History and Culture
Visions of Night
Artists have been creating visions of nighttime for centuries. Photographers have long attempted to capture images at night, but truly successful attempts did not come to fruition or common practice until the 1930s, when technology caught up with artistic vision. Visions of Night showcases photographs taken at night in the city from the collections of the Maryland Center for History and Culture, as well as contemporary photography, including the work of Sydney J. Allen, J.M. Giordano, John Clark Mayden, Webster Phillips III, and others.
Losing Winter
A frozen lake, a buried street, shoveling feet of snow as it begins to fall again—these special winter experiences serve as landmarks in our life and memory. Yet with each year, we find such moments are disappearing. At the heart of this participatory exhibition and art project are Marylanders’ memories about the winter season, collected by featured artist, Lynn Cazabon. These recollections intersect with individual lifetimes and places found in the film and photograph collections at MCHC, UMBC’s Special Collections, MARMIA’s WJZ-TV collection, private collections, and interviews conducted by Cazabon. Memories and images intertwine, providing a window into personal loss in the face of a changing climate.
A History of Houseplants
ongoing through June 4
@ Evergreen Library and Museum
Evergreen’s new exhibition, A History of Houseplants, explores the forces that catalyzed the Victorian obsession with houseplants, reveals how the trend manifested at Evergreen and in Baltimore, and examines how today’s houseplant craze both recalls and differs from the Victorian version of 150 years ago.
ABUNDANCE: Too Much, Too Little, Just Right
ongoing through September 2023
@ AVAM
AVAM’s 27th original thematic mega-exhibition is a wildly joyful, community-building contemplation of just what constitutes real wealth by exploring what lies at the heart of deep satisfaction, productive happiness, and gratefulness, both individual and collective. Nowhere is the quest for personal freedom in the expression of work, nor the pursuit of joy, more evident than in the creations of artists who have wrought new worlds from modest, often discarded, materials—equipped only with their hands, hearts, and fertile imaginations.
The Underground Railroad: Freedom Seekers on the B&O Railroad
permanent exhibition
@ The B&O Railroad Museum
The Underground Railroad: Freedom Seekers on the B&O Railroad examines the role of the physical railroad in the Underground Railroad network and gives an intimate look at the lives and journeys of 27 individuals who sought freedom from slavery along the B&O. The exhibition is located in the museum’s historic Mt. Clare Station – a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Site and the exact location through which eight Freedom Seekers, including Henry “Box” Brown and William and Ellen Craft, traveled. The exhibition also examines the Black travel experience during this time as well as the use of railroad terminology as a secret, coded language for Freedom Seekers.
Exhibition highlights include an immersive 180-degree multimedia experience and a new recording of Henry “Box” Brown’s own song produced in collaboration with the Howard University Department of Music. It is likely that many more people’s stories are undocumented or yet to be rediscovered. Research is ongoing and the museum is committed to continuing to document and provide a voice to these harrowing journeys.
NYE at the Meyerhoff with the Night Brunch
December 31: 7:30 pm
NYE at the Meyerhoff kicks off on 12/31 with the “Lit Lobby” cocktail experience powered by Revival at 7:30pm. Then at 8:30pm, guests will get to enjoy the Fusion concert – From Beethoven to Beyonce conducted by the brilliant Steve Hackman. The night will round out with a special edition of The Night Brunch at 10:30 pm where food, partying, and fun will carry us into the New Year. Tickets can be purchased here.
Full Bleed | Call for Submissions
deadline January 15
sponsored by MICA
Full Bleed, an annual journal exploring the intersection of the visual and literary arts, seeks submissions for its sixth issue, forthcoming in Spring 2023.
We publish criticism, belle lettres, visual art, illustration, fiction, poetry, and graphic essays. We are always happy to feature collaborations between writers and artists; ekphrastic creations; and groundbreaking critical essays.
For Issue Six, we are especially interested in submissions on the theme of materials—their unique aesthetic qualities, social histories, means of production, environmental costs, and layered meanings. Send us work that contemplates the virtues, potential, or politics of ink, paper, oil paint, dye, textiles, charcoal, lead, soil, wood, etc.
This call is open to all with the exception of current students at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), which publishes Full Bleed.
All submissions should be sent through our Submittable page by January 15, 2023. Those interested in first sharing essay proposals may do so by November 15 (also through our Submittable page). Note that acceptance of proposals does not guarantee publication in the issue. Also, you need not have sent a proposal to submit completed work.
Final selections for the issue will be made by the journal’s editor and board members in close consultation with participants in Publishing Culture, an upper-level, spring-semester course at MICA. Each contributor will receive a modest honorarium and a complimentary copy of the issue. More information at: https://www.full-bleed.org/submit.
Artist Research Fellowships
deadline January 15
posted by the Folger Institute
Folger Institute Artist Research Fellowships are open to artists working in all media whose work would benefit from significant primary research. This includes, but is not limited to, visual artists, writers, dramaturgs, playwrights, performers, filmmakers, and composers. Artist fellowships may be conducted either as a virtual fellowship for one month or as a residential fellowship at the Folger for one, two, or three months.
While a terminal degree is not required for the Artist Research Fellowship, applicants should describe their training and level of industry-specific experience in their CV. All applicants must apply as individuals, including artists working as collaborators. See additional Frequently Asked Questions.
Research Fellowship Program
deadline January 15
posted by Winterthur Museum, Garden, & Library
Winterthur Museum, Garden, & Library in Delaware has fellowships available. Fellows can utilize the 20,000 American and European imprints, 3,000 record groups of manuscripts, as well as trade catalogues, ephemera, photographs, and archives of the Winterthur Library. They can also examine Winterthur Museum’s expansive object collections of more than 90,000 artifacts, and explore 7,500 plant specimens and more than 1,000 acres of landscape and gardens, using these spaces and materials for research, or for respite and recharging.
2023 Post-Graduation Residency Opportunity
deadline January 15
posted by Torpedo Factory Art Center
The Torpedo Factory Art Center Post-Graduation Residency is a competitive juried program that provides meaningful support and a three-month term solo studio space in the nation’s longest continually operated community of publicly accessible artists’ studios in a converted industrial space. This residency is open to recently graduated art students who earned a bachelor’s or master’s degree in the visual arts from an accredited university. This greater Washington DC region program is unique for addressing the critical post-graduation juncture in an emerging artist’s career, offering an opportunity for professional development, and a chance to define independent work process outside of the academic context.
Selected artists receive a studio space as well as public presentation opportunities, including an artist talk and participation in a culminating curated exhibition in the Target Gallery, the contemporary exhibition space for the Torpedo Factory Art Center. Selected artists are active participants in the Art Center’s unique creative community and benefit from engagement with local, national, and international artists.
New for 2023! Artists may apply as partners to share a studio, or apply solo, depending on preference. If two artists are accepted together, they will share the studio space for the residency term (see residency dates below). This allows an opportunity for artists who might not be able to commit to more hours to participate in the program. More information provided in the guidelines below.
The Hambidge Center Residency
deadline January 15
The Hambidge Center is situated on 600 forested acres in the mountains of north Georgia and offers miles of nature trails, meadows, waterfalls, a swimming hole and an abundance of wildflowers.
The oldest residency program in the Southeast, Hambidge provides a self-directed program that honors the creative process and trusts individuals to know what they need to cultivate their talent, whether it’s to work and produce, to think, to experiment or to rejuvenate. Residents’ time is their own; there are no workshops, critiques, nor required activities.
Each resident is given their own private studio which provides work and living space with a bathroom and full kitchen. The studios are designed to protect the time, space and solitude that allows residents to focus on their work.
Resident groups are intentionally kept small enough (8-10 people) to gather around the dinner table each evening, Tuesday through Friday, for delicious vegetarian meals prepared by our chef. These communal meals are an essential part of the Hambidge residency experience. Serious topics are discussed (and light-hearted ones, too), experiences are shared, and encouragement is given. Many a collaboration and life-long friendship have begun at the Hambidge dinner table.
Members of each resident group come from different walks of life and work in different creative disciplines; from musicians, culinary artisans and scientists, to visual artists, writers, dancers and arts & culture administrators. Each year, residents of all ages come to Hambidge from over 30 states across the U.S., as well as internationally.
Specialized equipment and facilities include the Antinori Pottery Studio, and a beautifully rebuilt turn-of-the-century Steinway grand piano housed in Garden Studio.
18th annual Baltimore Screenwriters Competition
deadline January 16
posted by The Baltimore Film Office + BOPA
The Baltimore Film Office at the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts (BOPA) is accepting entries for the 18th annual Baltimore Screenwriters Competition. This is an opportunity to craft a winning screenplay highlighting Baltimore. Screenplays may be submitted in both the feature and short categories, and scripts must be set in or able to be filmed in Baltimore.
The Baltimore Screenwriters Competition is a project of the Baltimore Film Office in conjunction with film programs at Johns Hopkins University and Morgan State University. The final screenplays are judged by industry professionals in film and television, including producers and writers working on projects for HBO and other studios. The top entries in each category will win cash prizes and are scheduled to be announced during the 2023 Maryland Film Festival in May 2023.
All screenwriters are encouraged to apply. Director of the Baltimore Film Office Debbie Donaldson Dorsey emphasizes, “The Baltimore Screenwriters Competition nurtures all levels of writers and the many wonderful Baltimore stories waiting to be told.”
Image: Druid Hill Park snow scene, Baltimore, A. Aubrey Bodine (1906-1970), c. 1930. MCHCCulture, Baltimore City Life Museum Collection, B959-4
This week: Evan Woodward's museum, Blaze Star, John Waters turns 78, Juius Wilson at AVAM, Megan Lewis, Joyce J. Scott, MICA UP/Start Venture Winner Announced, and RuPaul winners to race at Baltimore Pride, and more!
In Conjunction with BmoreArt’s C+C Exhibit featuring Fostel’s charcoal drawings of women’s bedrooms, a conversation with the Co-Director of the Baltimore Abortion Fund
This Week: MICA Community Art & Service Program exhibition, In the Stacks performance at Peabody Library, City of Artists I closing reception at Connect + Collect, Mari Black at Manor Mill, Open Works yard sale, screening of Black Printmakers of Washington DC at Smithsonian Anacostia, and more!
This week's news includes: Baynard Woods on Larry Hogan's "error-laden" memoir, BMI's new Labor Activism Exhibit, Blacksauce Kitchen, Joyce J. Scott, Glenstone Outdoors this Summer, Rob Lee profiles Anthony Gittens, BSO's Summerfest at the Meyerhoff–and more!
