Baltimore’s art museums are always evolving. Don’t miss these new exhibits.
by Wesley Case
Published June 27 in The Baltimore Banner
During the dog days of summer, apparently already here to our collective chagrin, an air-conditioned art museum is one of the best places to spend a day. If you haven’t been to any in Baltimore in a while, here are some new additions not to miss.
The Baltimore Museum of Art is one of the city’s most vital cultural crown jewels. It continues to earn its reputation — which included a spot on the Washington Post’s 20 best art museums in America list — with its always thoughtful and often breathtaking exhibitions.
Its latest, “Black Earth Rising,” is a stunner — a gorgeous meditation on the planet’s enduring, resilient beauty amid a climate crisis that can shake the faith of even the most devoted optimists. On display through Sept. 21, the exhibit is lean and efficient, with each piece packing layered punches that begin with bold aesthetic beauty and then unfurl and expand with deeper contemplation.
Climate change often conjures up gloomy images of melting ice caps and polar bears. But a goal of “Black Earth Rising,” its curator and renowned British writer Ekow Eshun told me, is to broaden that mindset by centering vividly colorful works by contemporary Latin American, Native American and African diasporic artists. They remind the viewer that humanity’s connection to the earth — its waters, its soil, its landscapes — is both essential and beautiful, and not to be taken for granted.
At the same time, the ticketed exhibit — which costs $5-$10 depending on age but is free on July 24 — doesn’t offer a finger-wagging moral.
”We’re not trying to tell you something or lecture,” Eshun said from London. “We’re trying to show you how these artists have considered these topics and how, in the process, they’ve made works of art that are beguiling and compelling and rich and complex.”
Don’t miss this: Teresita Fernández’s “Fire (America) 1” depicts a violent fire across an open plain at night. The massive landscape evokes a visceral reaction, as if you can feel the heat creeping toward your skin, an effect achieved through its composition of numerous glazed ceramic tiles. “The work itself is an act of creation through fire,” Eshun said. “I love the way that she’s thinking historically, aesthetically and functionally through material all at the same time.”
Lately, the brain rot I’m accumulating from endless social media scrolling — AI mukbangs, questionable wellness routines, vapid advice, and on and on — has been harder to ignore.
Maybe that’s why walking through the Walters Art Museum’s new permanent exhibit, “Latin American Art/Arte Latinoamericano,” felt so rejuvenating this week.
Located in the North Court galleries, which were recently renovated for the first time in four decades, the exhibit serves as a much-needed reminder of the power of the past. It features works from 40 cultures that span four millennia, all presented with the care and consideration that enriches the viewing experience. That ranges from relics like a Colombian gold nose ornament and a Mayan urn intricately detailed with jaguars and skulls, to contemporary work, like Baltimore artist Jessy DeSantis’ ethereal painting of a corn plant.
Highlighting the vast variety of backgrounds drives the exhibit, said Ellen Hoobler, who co-curated with Patricia Lagarde. It’s why they convened an advisory committee for input on how to best represent such a wide swath of people.
“Latinos are not a monolith,” Hoobler said. “When you think about Baltimore, we really do have this extremely diverse Latino community.”
The exhibit was smartly designed to reach as many people as possible, including the city and state’s growing Latino populations. Informational placards are written in English and Spanish, and there are video screens that play clips of locals like Jinji Chocolate owner Jinji Fraser talking about cacao traditions and Clavel’s Carlos Raba discussing nixtamalization, the traditional Mesoamerican process of preparing corn.
“We wanted a general museum visitor with no background on this region to be able to come away having learned something new, and to have the content be accessible for them,” Lagarde said.
Don’t miss this: The captivating ceramic sculpture “Wak’a del Agua” by Philadelphia-via-Peru artist Kukuli Velarde stacks five eye-catching stones, each with a distinct design style. It references different empires of Peruvian history and prehistory in a way that feels both contemporary and ancient. “That one really just encapsulates the whole installation,” Hoobler said.
After an 18-month renovation funded by a $1.5 million donation from Orioles owner David Rubenstein, the Jewish Museum of Maryland reopened in February, offering a glimpse of where museums could be headed in the future.
The building now seamlessly blends history — charming slices of Jewish life in Maryland, such as a 1945 dessert recipe written on a Cumberland jeweler’s stationery — with current technology. Visitors can scroll through German-issued passports from the Holocaust era and listen to new Jewish-focused podcasts via touchscreens and headphones.
There’s also a production studio where visitors are encouraged to share and record their personal histories and reflect on the museum’s offerings. The aim is to amass a collection of local voices to better tell the stories of Jewish Marylanders, said executive director Sol Davis.
“While an audio-video production studio may not be a common feature of a museum in 2025, we believe it will be a central core component of museums as we move through the 21st century,” Davis said.
Don’t miss this: There are common misconceptions about religious-based museums, such as they’re only for people of that faith. “The Jewish Museum of Maryland is for everybody,” Davis said. That rang true at the opening event for New York artist Steve Marcus’ new exhibit, “Psychedelicatessen: A Powerful Dose of Art,” which runs through Oct. 19.
While Jewish history can often be seen as strictly “challenging and dark,” Marcus is motivated to “bring people together, regardless of whether they’re secular, religious, right wing, left wing, Jewish or not Jewish,” he said to applause.
On Wednesday evening, baby boomers mingled with Gen Zers and millennials in tie-dye to check out Marcus’ brightly colored Jewish pop art, with its cheeky nods to Grateful Dead iconography and comic books. At its best, Marcus’ work fully leans into the silly and irreverent, like his LSD-inspired blotter art and Shabbat candlesticks perched atop glass bongs.
This story was republished with permission from The Baltimore Banner. Visit www.thebaltimorebanner.com for more.
