This week’s news includes: Jerrell Gibbs’ solo exhibition opens at the BMA, Baltimore’s theater community reacts to Kennedy Center closing, the sun sets on Camp John Waters, The Phillips Collection acquires a Bria Sterling-Wilson diptych, Chukwudumebi “Chuks” Amadi-Emina wins the 2026 MASB Artist Travel Prize, Much Here Is Beautiful photography exhibition opens at SAAM, Kelly Carnes named BROS new executive director, taylor Dante Baylor, Steve Ziger’s new book, Gaia’s Mount Vernon mural, David Rubenstein purchases Joel Shapiro’s Blue, and Lindsey Baker to leave Maryland Humanities.
Jerrell Gibbs opens home-inspired exhibition at Baltimore Museum of Art
by Marcus Dieterle
Published September 16 in Baltimore Fishbowl
A new solo exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art is a homecoming in more ways than one for Baltimore-based artist Jerrell Gibbs.
Titled “Jerrell Gibbs: Come home with me,” the show features about 30 paintings inspired by Gibbs’ childhood, family, friends, and the idea of home. It will be on view at the BMA from Sept. 16, 2026, through May 2, 2027.
“The BMA has long championed Jerrell’s distinct vision and work. We are delighted to now present this major solo exhibition in his hometown and revel in his ongoing celebration of Black families and daily life,” said Asma Naeem, the BMA’s Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director. “‘Come home with me’ is both an intimate view into the artist’s world and an ode to the enduring influence of home and community on our lives. I am certain that our many audiences will find reflections of themselves in this joyful presentation.”
image: “Portrait of a family” depicts artist Jerrell Gibbs’ immediate family.
‘A collective grief’: Maryland theater lovers react to the Kennedy Center’s closure
by Hannah Yasharoff
Published September 16 in The Baltimore Banner
They knew it was coming, but the Kennedy Center board’s Tuesday vote to shut down the national performing arts center for two years still shocked the Maryland theater community.
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which opened in 1971, looms large in Maryland artists’ backyards.
The shuttering of the main building follows President Donald Trump’s replacement of the center’s board with his allies more than a year and a half ago, which prompted widespread performer and audience boycotts.
image: Maryland’s theater community saw the Kennedy Center shutdown coming. It was devastating nonetheless. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo)
Kennedy Center will close for renovations after judge blocks returning Trump’s name to building
by Steven Sloan and Ashraf Khalil
Published by The Associated Press
“Simply put, Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing,” U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said in the latest ruling on Tuesday.
After nine years, John Waters wraps up his Camp for superfans: “We didn’t want to give it a chance to kind of peter out.’
by Ed Gunts
Published September 14 in Baltimore Fishbowl
ohn Waters will appear in five of the 13 episodes of “American Horror Story: 13” when the new season premieres on Sept. 24. He has a talking John Waters doll coming out. He’ll travel to 19 cities on his nationwide tour of spoken-word performances between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The title of his latest show is: “John Waters: Let’s Take Over the World.”
That’s just some of the news that came out of Camp John Waters, the annual gathering for several hundred John Waters superfans that takes place every September at Club Getaway in Kent, Connecticut, where many of the Campers come every year.
image: John Waters. Photo by Greg Gorman.
The Phillips Collection Acquires The Get Together by Bria Sterling-Wilson
Newsletter :: September 14
Galerie Myrtis is honored to announce that The Phillips Collection has acquired The Get Together by Bria Sterling-Wilson. This is the artist’s first museum acquisition, representing a significant milestone in Sterling-Wilson’s practice. The collage is currently on display as part of The Phillips Collection Juried Exhibition, Tomorrow the Sun Will Rise.
“The Get Together (2025) brings together family photographs and found imagery to explore the evolving nature of Black familial life. Drawing on memories of family reunions and her grandmother’s aging, the diptych holds space for the energy of togetherness and the quieter emotions of nostalgia and loss. Sterling-Wilson honors memory as something living, layered, and deeply felt, inviting viewers to consider how family histories shape our sense of connection and belonging. Tomorrow the Sun Will Rise marks Sterling-Wilson’s first museum exhibition.“ – The Phillips Collection
Tomorrow the Sun Will Rise is on view through September 20th at 1600 21st Street, NW, Washington, DC. Click the link below for more information on the exhibit.
image: Bria Sterling-Wilson, The Get Together, 2025, Collage, found imagery, family photographs
MASB Artist Travel Prize and Free Fall Baltimore grantees announced
by Aliza Worthington
Published September 11 in Baltimore Fishbowl
Create Baltimore has announced the winner of the 2026 Municipal Art Society of Baltimore (MASB) Artist Travel Prize and 2026 Free Fall Baltimore grantees, which include both Baltimore City individual artists and small arts organizations.
The 2026 MASB Artist Travel Prize winner is Chukwudumebi “Chuks” Amadi-Emina, a Nigerian (Igbo and Yoruba) American multidisciplinary contemporary artist based in Baltimore, Maryland. The $8,000 prize is meant to fund travel that would be considered crucial to an artist’s studio practice but otherwise financially out of reach. Within a year of returning from the artist’s funded travel, they must offer a public-facing presentation showcasing new work created either during the travel or because of their travel experience.
image: Chukwudumebi ‘Chuks’ Amadi-Emina won the MASB Artist Travel Prize. Photo via his website, artbychuks.com
Smithsonian American Art Museum Unites U.S. Bicentennial Photography Surveys for the First Time
Press Release :: September 15
“Much Here Is Beautiful: Photography Surveys of the U.S. Bicentennial” at the Smithsonian American Art Museum brings together, for the first time, photography surveys that capture an expansive and evocative portrait of America in the years surrounding the 1976 U.S. Bicentennial. From the California coast to the Kansas heartland to the streets of New York City, the exhibition features images taken across the country by more than 70 photographers as part of the federally funded Surveys Grant Program. Bringing together 225 photographs, “Much Here Is Beautiful” places the Bicentennial images within the broader legacy of federal survey photography dating back to the 19th century and its lasting impact on generations of artists. “Much Here Is Beautiful” is the culmination of years of research, drawing on the museum’s rich photography holdings and uncovering U.S. Bicentennial survey photographs held in collections nationwide, revealing new discoveries and previously unseen works.
The exhibition, organized by John Jacob, the McEvoy Family Senior Curator for Photography and Krystle Stricklin, assistant curator of photography, is on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum from Friday, Sept. 18, to Sunday, April 18, 2027.
image: Ted Wathen, Former Company Houses, Jenkins, Letcher County, Kentucky, 1975
Baltimore Rock Opera Society Names Kelly Carnes as Executive Director
Press Release :: September 14
The Baltimore Rock Opera Society, known to its community as BROS, has named Kelly Carnes as its new Executive Director, effective September 8, 2026.
Carnes, brings more than 21 years of experience in arts leadership, nonprofit strategy, communications, fundraising, operations, and creative community building. She joins BROS at a pivotal moment as the organization continues developing its first permanent headquarters at 2950 Loch Raven Road and strengthening the infrastructure needed to support its next chapter.
Founded in 2007, BROS creates original live rock theater through a collaborative, volunteer-powered model that brings together musicians, performers, writers, designers, builders, technicians, crafters, and artists from across the Baltimore region. As Executive Director, Carnes will work with the Board of Directors, staff, Artistic Council, volunteers, funders, and community partners to advance the organization’s long-term sustainability while preserving the unique, eclectic energy that powers the BROS team and community.
image: Kelly Carnes, BROS’ new executive director
He learned to sew in Baltimore. Now he’s dressed everyone from Usher to the Royal Ballet.
by Shayla Colon
Published September 14 in The Baltimore Banner
Dante Baylor was home in Harlem, ready to call it a night, when he got a call from a friend in dire need of his help last October.
She was tailoring an outfit for R&B legend Mary J. Blige and needed someone to dress Usher for the Studio Museum Gala in Harlem because she couldn’t do both jobs at once, he recalled. And the star-studded event was starting soon.
So the Baltimore native, 41, threw some clothes on and went straight to Usher’s hotel room. That night marked one of many in Baylor’s career as a celebrity tailor and clothing designer. More importantly, it represents how far he has risen from his start designing costumes and performing in Baltimore.
image: Courtesy of Dante Baylor
Drawing About Architecture: Q&A With Steve Ziger, author of ‘While Away’
by Marion Winik
Published September 14 in Baltimore Fishbowl
Steve Ziger, a founding partner of Ziger|Snead Architects in Baltimore, recently retired after 40 years, has played an important role in shaping Baltimore’s built environment, with major civic projects including the Baltimore Museum of Art, Center Stage, the SNF Parkway Theatre. He co-designed the striking Brown Center at MICA and several buildings at Friends School.
He is about to launch a beautiful coffeetable book called While Away, characterized as part visual memoir, part travel guide, part drawing manual. It features an introduction by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson, in which she gives a thumbnail portrait of Ziger’s life and work. In his own introductory comments, Ziger explains that what first sparked his desire to draw was the “foreignness of the landscape” when he visited his grandparents’ farm in Central Mississippi. “Removed from the usual sights and sounds of my suburban home, something awoke in me. A desire to capture the world and not merely record it — we had a Kodak Brownie camera for that—but to experience it. I wanted to be fully in the moment and drawing became my portal.”
The decision to keep a Mount Vernon mural is a victory for art, free speech and peace
by Leslie Gray Streeter
Published September 10 in The Baltimore Banner
Olive branches are generally considered a positive thing. They’re about peace and reconciliation. But this week, a huge depiction of dramatic green fruit, branches and leaves, set off by an intriguing swath of Arabic, was front and center in a debate about art and historical preservation.
The image, from a contested Mount Vernon mural, was at the heart of a decision entwining two of my favorite things: free speech and art. The former is how I make my living, and the latter is what I live for. And when the gavel came down, free speech and art won the day. Huzzah.
“I hope this emboldens more people to make art,” said a relieved Joseph Orzal, of art collective NoMüNoMü. He and street artist Gaia won retroactive approval from Baltimore’s Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation for the mural on the side of a home at 902 Tyson St. in Mount Vernon.
image: A mural featuring olives, branches and leaves, along with Arabic and English text, at 902 Tyson St. in Baltimore. (Jerry Jackson/The Banner)
Trump-Ousted Kennedy Center Chairman Buys Removed Shapiro Sculpture
by Anna Lee
Published September 8 in Hyperallergic
David Rubenstein, the former board chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, has purchased Joel Shapiro’s “Blue” (2019) just days after the National Park Service deinstalled the iconic sculpture from center grounds.
The agency began removing late artist Joel Shapiro’s 24-foot-tall sculpture from the Kennedy Center’s REACH (Renew, Experience, Activate, Create, and Honor) campus on September 2, leaving its future to the Joel Shapiro and Ellen Phelan Foundation. Amid renewed attempts to stamp Trump’s name on the Kennedy Center facade and grounds, the seemingly nonsensical removal of “Blue” prompted condemnation from artists, cultural workers, and organizations like Hands Off the Arts.
image: courtesy Chris Raleigh
Maryland Humanities Announces Leadership Transition of CEO, Lindsey Baker
Press Release :: September 16
Maryland Humanities announced today that Lindsey Baker, its Chief Executive Officer, will depart for another leadership opportunity this fall following six years of dedicated service to the organization. Her last day will be October 8, 2026.
Since joining Maryland Humanities as CEO, Baker has guided the organization through periods of extraordinary change and challenge, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2025 federal funding crisis, which resulted in the loss of more than 50% of Maryland Humanities’ operating budget. Throughout these challenges, Baker has remained committed ensuring that the humanities remain accessible and relevant to Marylanders in every community.
image: Lindsey Baker (Photo Credit: Portia Wiggins)
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