This week’s news includes: The AVAM’s Ellen Owens thinks globally and locally, Louis Fratino interviewed by Jo Smail for BOMB Magazine, Spike Gjerde’s newest restaurant, the Statue of Liberty in American art, Frederick Douglass film screening at the Lewis Museum, performance artist goes “ham” in the Inner Harbor, Dr. Myrtis Bedolla moderates “The Black Built Environment” panel, the Hirshhorn’s big exhibition, , OperaDelaware’s new season, and two opportunities for artists from Create Baltimore.
Baltimore’s quirkiest museum is thinking bigger than ever
by Wesley Case
Published July 5 in The Baltimore Banner
When you hear a first-time visitor is planning a trip to Baltimore, certain itinerary ideas jump to mind: Cheer on the Orioles at Camden Yards. See the rain forest at the National Aquarium. And check out the American Visionary Art Museum, the mosaic-tiled shrine to artists without formal training.
For museum director Ellen Owens, that kind of recommendation to outsiders is priceless. But the flip side presents a tricky challenge. How do you reinvigorate the residents in your own backyard about a decades-old institution?
“The ways that it’s been promoted has been a lot of like, ‘I always invite my out-of-town guests here,’ which we are so grateful for,” said Owens, who became AVAM director roughly a year ago. “But we’d like to be more intentional about the practice of sharing out who we are.”
Louis Fratino by Jo Smail
Published July 8 in BOMB Magazine
In 1982, my husband and I arrived in Baltimore from South Africa. We bought a house across the road from the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA). We had no idea that the BMA had the largest collection of Henri Matisse in the world! I also had no idea that I would be teaching at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), and never in my wildest dreams did I think I would teach Louis Fratino, who one day would show his work side by side with Matisse!
Fratino adapts the visual languages of European and American modernism to contemplate the beauty and queerness of everyday gestures and experiences in nature, in the home, and in one’s own self-conception. I taught Louis in his second year as a painting student at MICA. He was struggling a bit to find his own voice. Then, suddenly—or so it seemed to me—he began to paint autobiographical subjects: his family and his love life surrounded by the objects he cared about. I remember, as if it were yesterday, a painting he made for his final critique in his third year. The painting was truly astounding. We were crowded, along with visiting critic Derrick Adams, into a small studio. The painting moved us to silence.
Why Spike Gjerde chose a hospital for his newest restaurant
by Christina Tkacik
Published July 7 in The Baltimore Banner
Spike Gjerde is thinking globally and acting locally.
Within the past year, the Woodberry Kitchen founder has opened a French bistro in Harbor Point, a Spanish tapas bar in Mount Vernon and announced plans for an Italian market in Hampden. Now, he’s unveiling his latest project: a Levantine-inspired coffee shop inside The Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Cafe Terracotta sits just inside the hospital’s newly renovated 1729 E. Monument St. entrance. The all-day menu features coffee drinks and pastries as well as wraps, flatbreads and customizable rice bowls. Breakfast sandwiches are set to come in the next few weeks, and grab-and-go options will arrive soon, Gjerde said.
What Does the Statue of Liberty Stand For?
by Aruna D’Souza
Published July 7 in Hyperallergic
Last July, Amy Sherald announced that she was canceling the National Portrait Gallery stop of her solo exhibition American Sublime because of concerns that the Smithsonian Institution had attempted to censor her painting of a Black trans woman, Arewà Basit, posing as the Statue of Liberty.
Lindsey Halligan, a special assistant to President Donald Trump, responded to Sherald’s decision with satisfaction. “The Statue of Liberty is not an abstract canvas for political expression — it is a revered and solemn symbol of freedom, inspiration, and national unity that defines the American spirit,” she said in a statement at the time.
‘Bear Me Into Freedom’ at Lewis Museum immerses audience in life of Frederick Douglass
by Aliza Worthington
Published July 8 in Baltimore Fishbowl
The life and legacy of Frederick Douglass is laid out in extraordinary fashion in an immersive film to be shown at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture.
From July 11–20, visitors can see “Bear Me Into Freedom: Frederick Douglass and the Struggle for America’s Promise”, a limited-engagement immersive film experience. Screenings are held at 11 a.m., 1 p.m., and 3 p.m. The film is included with museum admission and reservations are not required.
The production was developed by the Bear Me Into Freedom Collaborative in support of Maryland’s America 250 observance. The film combines historical storytelling with visual technology to create a unique museum experience.
Police remove naked performance artist from former Columbus statue pedestal at Inner Harbor
by Shayla Colon and Sara Ruberg
A naked man momentarily stood where the Christopher Columbus statue used to be near the Inner Harbor on Saturday morning.
But, like his predecessor, he was taken down from the pedestal.
A man posing as the Statue of David in full nudity stood atop the empty stand Saturday morning for nearly three hours, allowing others to bask in his chiseled beauty. A few feet below him, papers and drawing utensils lay on the ground, a gesture to welcome artists who wanted to sketch him.
Dr. Myrtis Bedolla to Moderate Panel during the Conference Black Portraiture[s]: Los Angeles: The Black Built Environment
Newsletter :: July 7
“Black Portraiture[s]: Los Angeles: The Black Built Environment will examine the historicity and rich panoply encompassing the Black built environment, both physical and imagined. Exploring the concept and its relationship to photography, architecture, urban planning, and visual culture, artists have reconceived and reconstructed visions of our built environment while exploring themes conversant with the spiritual and ritualistic continuities of the African diaspora. Moreover, this convening will explore the artistic contributions to forms of memory, visual legacies of Black townships, and the charges of conceived spaces therein. The conference will present and encourage research and scholarship on continuities between modern and contemporary visual and structural approaches, centering the audacity of Black-built environments from within the Diaspora’s politics, architecture, art, film, music, migrations, and global iterations.” – Black Portraiture[s]
During Black Portraiture[s], Founding Director and Chief Curator of Galerie Myrtis, Dr. Myrtis Bedolla, will moderate the panel Curating/ Collecting. Featured panelists include CCH Pounder, Janine Barrios, Lyndon Barrios, and Joy Simmons. The program is begin held on Wednesday, September 30th, from 11:15 am – 12:30 pm (pst). The conference takes place September 28 – 30, 2026 at the Getty Center and UCLA Luskin Conference Center in Los Angeles, CA.
Fight Night: Hirshhorn vs. UFC
by Noelle Bodick
Published July 3 in Art Forum
THE TITLE OF the Hirshhorn Museum’s exhibition “Big Things for Big Rooms” can sound blustery in a town of the genuinely colossal. Nearby, DCA-bound planes look like toys whirling around the Washington Monument. Abraham Lincoln’s mere knuckle, presiding over the National Mall, comes out the winner in most size-ups. Here, the favored scale of homes for football-team owners and Jordanian royalty alike is the faux-Versailles grandiosity of Potomac’s ersatz palaces.
The exhibit’s title may be a nod to the Museum of Modern Art’s 1983 show “Big Pictures by Contemporary Photographers,” which featured Tina Barney, Cindy Sherman, and other artists confronting the technical challenge of making larger-than-life photographs. But today, in a city still crawling with National Guardsmen, the “big” sounds more politically coded. It suggests less a democratic capaciousness or celebration of Whitmanian multitudes and more the braggadocio of our huckster-in-chief. This is the era, after all, of big, beautiful bills and big ballrooms (“I doubled the size of it, you dumb person”); statuary gardens of “American Heroes” (one dreads the prospect of one day finding near the Mall the diminutive Emily Dickinson looming large next to a ChatGPT-spun plaque); and a 250-foot “Arc de Trump” passing committee review, while the swimming-pool paint on the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool is already wearing.
Protecting the nation’s history from the ‘white-out pen’
by Dan Rodricks
Published July 2 in Baltimore Fishbowl
Though it has been in place for a year, the large, colorful sign on the north side of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African-American History and Culture jumped out at me only recently:
“Protecting Black History,” it says in bold black letters against red, yellow and white backgrounds on the rear of the museum at Pratt and President streets.
“Protecting” is the key word.
OperaDelaware Announces 2026/27 Season
Press Release :: July 6
OperaDelaware, the premiere professional opera company in Delaware and one of the oldest opera companies in the country, today announced its 2026/27 season under the new artistic vision of incoming General Director Eric Einhorn. The season offers audiences an ambitious and wide-ranging exploration of the operatic art form with two main stage masterworks at The Grand Opera House, a site-specific community production at the Sunday Breakfast Mission, and a series of intimate chamber performances at OperaDelaware Studios featuring Spanish Zarzuela, a rare Puccini gem, and electrifying monodramas.
Of the announcement, incoming General Director Eric Einhorn says, “I am incredibly excited to start my tenure by sharing this dynamic season with OperaDelaware audiences, which sets out to explore the different forms opera can take and the places it can go. Partnerships with pillars of the nonprofit arts and social services community in Wilmington and beyond also feature prominently throughout the season to enhance the impact of our productions.” He adds, “I look forward to working alongside the OperaDelaware staff and board to launch this new vision, which is built on the strong foundation created by my predecessor, Brendan Cooke.”
Calling all Baltimore City artists! Apply for MASB Travel Prize and Free Fall Baltimore grants now
by Aliza Worthington
Published July 7 in Baltimore Fishbowl
Opportunities await Baltimore City artists of all kinds thanks to Create Baltimore, which announced that applications are now open for the MASB Artist Travel Prize and grants for Free Fall Baltimore.
The 2026 Municipal Art Society of Baltimore (MASB) Artist Travel Prize is for emerging artists who live or work in Baltimore City. Create Baltimore recently announced the open call for artists to apply. The prize funds travel that is critical to an artist’s studio practice but might be out of their financial reach.
This year, the prize amount has been increased to $8,000. Another change to the Artist Travel Prize is that within one year of returning from their travel, the selected artist must publicly showcase new work created either during their travel or because of their travel experience.
Become a Member
Artist Memberships Include 2 Tickets to Each Magazine Release Party!
