This week’s news includes: Full schedule announced for MD Film Fest, Merritt Gallery closing, Creative Baltimore Fund awardees announced, Jill Orlov is a big deal in miniatures, Nature Deficit Disorder at the BMA, Medieval Mindscapes and a missing manuscript at The Walters, MICA alum Yumi Hogan and indigo dyeing, Mark Anthony West Jr.’s Lord Baltimore show, NGA’s new acquisitions, and The Kennedy Center to close for two years.
Maryland Film Festival Announces Full Line Up
Press Release :: March 12
This year’s lineup at the Maryland Film Festival (MdFF) is a celebration of Baltimore, diverse voices, and creative risk-taking, intentionally designed to help people go beyond streaming and gather in person for unique experiences and encounters. With more than 170 works, free programming, community discussions and events, plus expected attendance from 200 filmmakers, MdFF is set to deliver an unprecedented program that’s both locally rooted and globally minded. A national festival teeming with local work and community culture, the 5-day event promises to deliver a robust mix of offerings, some free and open to the public, others ticketed, all extending a unique way to gather, reflect, and celebrate. It runs April 8-12 at the historic SNF Parkway Theatre in Baltimore’s Station North District https://snfparkway.org/mdff/.
From Opening and Closing Night celebrations to live performances, filmmaker conversations, local student films, repertory screenings, and community partnerships, these programs showcase the full creative range of MdFF. “We’re thrilled to offer an extraordinary program for 2026, full of powerful docs, entertaining narratives and so many fantastic short films. We have some great parties and stellar entertainers in store, too, as our audiences have come to expect.” said KJ Mohr, Director, Maryland Film Festival & Film Programming at the SNF Parkway Theatre.
“Being part of the Maryland Film Festival is as easy as seeing one film–you don’t have to be a film expert. It’s as welcoming and down to Earth as we know Baltimore to be,” said Nancy Proctor, the SNF Parkway’s executive director. “Audiences will find stories outside of their algorithms, so to speak, and discover something they didn’t know they were looking for. I, for one, am especially inspired by all the strong Black women featured in this year’s festival,” added Proctor. “At MdFF 2026, we’re not only going to be able to see their stories on screen, but also hear from game changers like Leslie King-Hammond, Joyce J. Scott, Maria Broom, Sharayna Christmas, Shelley Halstead, and Angela Carroll in person. It’s that opportunity to get out of our online bubbles to share films and have conversations ‘IRL’ that makes the Maryland Film Festival so special and particularly vital today.”
“The team has done an amazing job adding new features to MdFF this year and enhancing returning ones,” Proctor added. “The verticals program will bring made-for-mobile content to the big screen for the first time, offering a view into a whole new genre of filmmaking that’s being invented before our eyes. I’m excited to hear filmmakers pitch their new projects in the Pitch Fest, and of course see all that Cinetech will bring us from new and emerging media.”
‘A shock’: Baltimore’s Merritt Gallery is closing after more than 40 years
by Wesley Case
Published March 14 in The Baltimore Banner
When Baltimore’s Merritt Gallery & Renaissance Fine Arts announced its upcoming closure after more than four decades, artist clients immediately reached out with heartfelt tributes.
“This is a shock,” Canadian-born painter Joseph Adolphe wrote.
“As this chapter closes, you leave behind a precious cultural legacy,” added Nathalie Boissonnault.
”It is not possible to describe the effect of being represented by your gallery has had on my life,” wrote Maryland artist John Brandon Sills.
Create Baltimore and Mayor Brandon M. Scott are proud to announce the 2026 recipients of the Creative Baltimore Fund.
Press Release :: March 18
“Congratulations to all of the selected artists and organizations, who represent the incredible talent of Baltimore’s creative community,” said Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott. “Each year, this grant opportunity is a chance for the city to support local art and creativity. I want to thank the teams at Create Baltimore and MOACE for supporting this process, as well as all of the jurors who helped us choose the final recipients.”
Through this grant opportunity established in 2005, Create Baltimore as the city’s arts council grants funds to qualified artists and arts and cultural organizations based in Baltimore City.
“It’s always a hard decision choosing awardees given the caliber of talent and intentionality the artists and arts organizations in this city show in their applications,” said Create Baltimore CEO Robyn Murphy. “From our perspective that’s a great problem to have. It shows continued growth in the ecosystem and fuels our advocacy on behalf of artists for more opportunities like the Creative Baltimore Fund.”
The Creative Baltimore Fund awards in two categories:
General Operating Support which provides core support for established arts or cultural organizations that benefit the public and are artistically or culturally vibrant, and
The Mayor’s Individual Artist Award which provides support for an artist’s individual practice or program that promotes public access and encourages the breadth of arts and/or cultural programming in the community.
The 2026 Mayor’s Individual Artist Awardees:
Maria Gabriela Aldana
Nicoletta Darita de la Brown
Amelia Deloney
Savannah Imani Wade
Wallace Lane
Rob Lee
Shamari Pratt
Unique Robinson
Zola-Jourdan Savage
Louis Williams, III
The 2026 General Operating Support Awardees:
Arena Players, Inc.
Baltimore Black Dance Collective
Community Concerts at Second
Eubie Blake Cultural Center
Friends of Gwynns Falls Leakin Park
Intersection of Change
Magical Experiences Arts Company
Our Joyful Noise Baltimore
Strand Theater Company
Theatre Project
Arts Collective
ArtsCentric
AZIZA PE&CE Inc
Bach in Baltimore
Baltimore Folk Music Society (BFMS)
Baltimore Improv Group (BIG)
Baltimore Rock Opera Society
Baltimore Science Fiction Society, Inc.
Beadly Speaking Jewelry
Black Cherry Puppet Theater
BRUSH Mural Fest
CreativeMornings/Baltimore
Dance Baltimore, Inc
Fells Point Corner Theatre
Full Circle Dance Company
Gallery Reimagined
Highwire Improv
icarus Quartet, Inc.
Making Space Bmore
Muse 360
R.I.S.E ARTS CENTER OF BALTIMORE INC
Submersive Productions
The Arts Project Incorporated
The Filmmakers Playground
Wombwork Productions, Inc.
Writers in Baltimore Schools
Jill Orlov is Making Big Waves in Miniature Art
by Ron Cassie
Published March 18 in Baltimore Magazine
When Jill Orlov was a University of Virginia student, a friend randomly asked one day if she’d accompany her to the architectural school. Not for any academic purpose. Her friend hoped to set up a guy she knew in the architecture program with their suitemate.
“So, she’s talking to him about fixing him up with our girlfriend, and meanwhile I’m fascinated by these meticulously built models and miniature fragments of buildings,” Orlov recalls. “I am in heaven.”
Baltimore Museum of Art exhibition takes on ‘Nature Deficit Disorder’ in unusual ways
by Aliza Worthington
Published March 17 in Baltimore Fishbowl
An upcoming installation at the Baltimore Museum of Art invites visitors to disconnect from technology and reconnect with nature — but first they must surrender their phones and are offered a drink of Mountain Dew from a urine specimen cup.
Rachel Lee Hovnanian’s immersive installation, “Nature Deficit Disorder,” opens in the museum’s historic Spring House on April 1 and runs through May 31. This is Hovnanian’s first solo museum installation and reflects decades of interaction with and study of the impact of technology on our lives. Visitors step into a simulated nighttime forest, encouraged to reconnect with the natural world.
Missing Page of Archimedes Manuscript Found in France, Shedding Light on Century-Long Mystery
by Andy Battaglia
Published March 12 in ARTnews
A page missing from The Archimedes Palimpsest, the oldest extant copy of writings by the ancient Greek mathematician, was rediscovered at the Museum of Fine Arts in Blois, France. One side of the page, which had been missing for 120 years, contains part of Archimedes’s treatise On the Sphere and the Cylinder, while the other was covered over with an illumination sometime in the 20th century.
The Palimpsest dates back to the 10th century in Greece and features several written works by Archimedes, parts of which were erased in the Middle Ages so as to reuse the parchment for other material. “This practice of recycling was common at the time for such animal-skin writing materials, which were extremely costly,” according to the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), one of whose researchers made the rediscovery.
‘Medieval Mindscapes’ exhibition on view at the Walters Art Museum through Aug. 23
by Marcus Dieterle
Published March 13 in Baltimore Fishbowl
A new exhibition showcasing illustrated prayer books from the Middle Ages is now on display at the Walters Art Museum.
The “Medieval Mindscapes” exhibition features 22 works curated from the Walters’ collection of rare books and manuscripts. It will remain on view on the third level of the museum’s Centre Street building through Aug. 23.
“Books of hours” were portable manuscripts containing daily prayers and images that “provided an opportunity for intimate interactions with art in service of the user’s Christian faith in medieval Europe,” according to a news release.
Creativity Rooted in Memory: The Indigo Project and Yumi Hogan
Published in MICA 200
The work of Yumi Hogan, artist, educator, and MICA alumna, beautifully illustrates how creativity can connect memory, culture, and community.
Hogan’s artistic journey spans continents and generations. Born in rural South Korea, she grew up surrounded by traditional craft practices, including the use of indigo and other natural dyes. These early experiences later inspired her work with the Indigo Project, a collaborative initiative that brings together artists, students, farmers, and community partners to cultivate dye plants and explore the cultural histories behind natural pigments.
Exhibit at Lord Baltimore Hotel by local artist Mark Anthony West Jr. evokes starry skies
by Aliza Worthington
Published March 18 in Baltimore Fishbowl
The Lord Baltimore Hotel invites visitors to contemplate the artists’ worlds as universes in its next Good Taste art exhibition, “Seven Stars Between Two Skies,” a new body of work by Baltimore-born visual artist Mark Anthony West Jr.
West created the exhibition in Rio de Janeiro, and features portraits of American and Brazilian creatives envisioned as sovereign forces, powerful figures in complete command of their own universes.
The National Gallery of Art’s New Acquisitions Expand Historical and Contemporary Holdings
Press Release :: March 18
The National Gallery of Art today announced an expansive group of recent acquisitions, adding hundreds of works to the nation’s art collection. The acquisitions represent a significant expansion of key areas of the National Gallery’s collection, including photographs ranging from the early development of the medium to modern and contemporary; rare examples of 17th- and 18th-century miniature painting; and large-scale installations by leading contemporary artists.
Notable among the wide range of new additions are an important selection of early American photographs of the Civil War and archetypal works by contemporary artists such as Dan Flavin, Charles Gaines, and Barbara Kruger. Many works also introduce significant artists to the National Gallery’s collection for the first time, including Teresa del Pò, Teresita Fernández, Mark Lombardi, and Salman Toor. Others meaningfully deepen existing holdings of works by notable artists, for example the first drawing by Italian artist Giorgio De Chirico to enter the collection and a major work by Jacques Lipchitz that illustrates his pioneering use of cubism in the sculptural realm.
Kennedy Center to shut down for 2 years starting this summer
by Hannah Yasharoff
Published March 16 in The Baltimore Banner
The Kennedy Center will close for two years beginning this summer after an Independence Day celebration, the performing arts center announced Monday.
The Kennedy Center’s board of trustees, appointed by President Donald Trump, voted unanimously to temporarily close for a revitalization project, the center said in a press release.
The board also selected Matt Floca — who had been the center’s vice president of operations — to step in as the chief operating officer and executive director.
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