Press Room Archive

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) and Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) today announced their participation in For Freedoms, a national platform for creative civic engagement, discourse, and direct action. Through its 50 State Initiative, For Freedoms is bringing together a multiplicity of voices to spark a national dialogue about art, education, commerce, and politics. Members of the public are invited to join in the conversation during a reception and artist talk with For Freedoms co-founder Hank Willis Thomas on Wednesday, October 17, 5–7:30 p.m. at MICA’s Falvey Hall.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents DIS │ A Good Crisis, an exhibition of video works organized by the New York-based collective DIS (run by principals Lauren Boyle, Solomon Chase, Marco Roso, and David Toro, in dialogue with their numerous collaborators). On view November 14, 2018, through November 17, 2019, this immersive video installation invites visitors into critical conversations on the subjects of money, politics, and contemporary media. The exhibition will be presented in two installation environments in the BMA’s Joseph Education Center, as well as online as part of The DIS Edutainment Network at dis.art.

The Baltimore Museum of Art’s (BMA) fourth Commons Collaboration in the Joseph Education Center showcases an exhibition of video works created by Get Your Life!—a collaboration between Baltimore artists who produce narratives developed by and featuring local middle school students. On view November 14, 2018, through November 2019, Commons Collaboration: Get Your Life! presents the breadth of the group’s practice, including a dozen videos displayed in a brightly colored gallery with youth-designed furniture and lighting, as well as props, costumes, and other related ephemera.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents an exhibition of dazzling mixed-media works by Ebony G. Patterson. On view October 10, 2018–April 7, 2019, Ebony G. Patterson: …for little whispers… features an immersive installation that creates a new context for her glittering jacquard tapestry …and babies too… (2016) in the museum’s Berman Textile Gallery, as well as a sculptural intervention in a nearby gallery in the BMA’s American Wing.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents a special exhibition of recent works by inventive artist collaborators Lizzie Fitch and Ryan Trecartin. On view from October 7, 2018, to January 6, 2019, Lizzie Fitch / Ryan Trecartin will showcase three video projects, with two of them presented in unconventional, immersive interiors. These sculptural theaters filled with odd furniture that evoke a bar and a gym provide the settings for disorienting and fragmented narratives inspired by social and entertainment media.

From October 7, 2018, to January 6, 2019, The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents John Waters: Indecent Exposure, the first major retrospective of the artist’s visual art in his hometown of Baltimore. Through more than 160 photographs, sculptures, and sound and video works made since the early 1990s, Waters’ renegade humor subverts mainstream expectations of representation and reveals the ways that mass media and celebrity embody cultural attitudes, moral codes, and shared tragedy. Waters freely manipulates images of less-than sacred, low-brow references—Elizabeth Taylor’s hairstyles, Justin Bieber’s preening poses, his own self-portraits, and pictures of individuals brought into the limelight through his films—to entice viewers to connect to his astute and provocative observations about society.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) today announced the appointment of Asma Naeem as Chief Curator; Andaleeb Badiee Banta as Senior Curator of Prints, Drawings & Photographs; and Virginia Anderson as Curator of American Art. Naeem, Banta, and Anderson are joining the BMA at a time of rapid and systematic change throughout the museum, including the adoption of a new mission that places diversity, equity, and inclusion as central to the BMA’s vision.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) celebrates the 50th anniversary of its oldest collectors’ friends group, the Print, Drawing & Photograph Society (PDPS), with an exhibition highlighting a selection of works that PDPS has helped the BMA acquire over the years. A Golden Anniversary: Celebrating 50 Years of the Print, Drawing & Photograph Society will be organized in two six-month presentations from August 29, 2018 to October 6, 2019. Each installation will include 20–30 prints, drawings, and artists’ books dating from the late 19th century through present day.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Baker Artist Awards with an exhibition of visual art works by 2017 and 2018 awardees. Baker Artist Awards 2017 & 2018will be on view from September 12 – October 14, 2018, featuring Abraham Burickson (interdisciplinary, 2018), Sara Dittrich (interdisciplinary, 2017), David Marion (visual art, 2017), and Amy Sherald (visual art, 2018). This exhibition will present a small selection of sculpture, painting, video art, and mixed media works by these four recent award recipients, showcasing the breadth and exceptional talent of these artists.

The Baltimore Museum of Art and the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts (BOPA) are proud to announce that Erick Antonio Benitez is the winner of the 2018 Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize. The coveted $25,000 prize was presented at this evening’s awards ceremony at The Baltimore Museum of Art. The five other finalists—Nakeya Brown, Sutton Demlong, Nate Larson, Eunice Park, and Stephen Towns—will receive a $2,500 honorarium established by M&T Bank in partnership with BOPA. Works of art by the winner and finalists are on view at the BMA through Sunday, August 5.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) and Art + Practice (A+P) present a solo exhibition by artist Maren Hassinger in Baltimore from July 18 to November 25, 2018. Maren Hassinger: The Spirit of Things features a career-spanning selection of sculptures, drawings, photographs of performances, and videos that explore the emotional dynamics of relationships amongst different communities of people and the environments in which they live. The exhibition will be presented in the BMA’s contemporary wing.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) announces today that its Board of Trustees approved the acquisition of 23 works of art, including seven purchased in full or in part using proceeds from the auction of recently deaccessioned works. The new acquisitions encompass paintings by Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Odili Donald Odita, Amy Sherald, Jack Whitten, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye; sculpture by Wangechi Mutu; prints by Enrique Chagoya, Bruce Conner, Yun-Fei Ji, and Adam Pendleton; films by Isaac Julien, and Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley; textiles by Stephen Towns; and photographs by Harry Callahan, Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley, Kenji Nakahashi, Wang Qingsong, Chuck Ramirez, Toshio Sasaki, Noh Suntag, and Yoshihiro Tatsuki. Most of these works were acquired through gifts and other funds, and many are the first by the artist to enter the BMA’s collection.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) is opening two new exhibitions of African art this summer. Subverting Beauty: African Anti-Aesthetics, on view July 15, 2018–June 2019, presents nearly two dozen works from sub-Saharan Africa’s colonial period (c. 1880–c. 1960). This focus exhibition highlights how artists used unattractive or disturbing visual characteristics to give works social and spiritual power. It is presented in one of the galleries adjacent to the BMA’s African collection. Kuba: Fabric of an Empire, on view August 19, 2018–January 20, 2019, features 20 breathtaking textiles that show how art and design in central Africa’s Kuba Kingdom were used as a political and diplomatic tool to navigate the increasingly complex world of the 19th and 20th centuries. These works are presented in one of the Cone Collection galleries, surrounded by Matisse’s bold figures and patterns.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) are co-organizing a comprehensive retrospective of American artist Joan Mitchell. The exhibition will bring together a breathtaking array of paintings, drawings, and prints from public and private collections in the U.S. and Europe that together reveal Mitchell’s inner landscape—experience, sensation, memory—expressed with an intensely athletic grace. Mitchell’s acclaimed masterworks will be joined by rarely seen paintings and works on paper, bringing to life the artist’s varied creative processes and the intense experiences they embody, inviting the viewer to experience the trajectory of her career. The exhibition is co-curated by Katy Siegel, BMA Senior Programming & Research Curator and Thaw Chair of Modern Art at Stony Brook University, and Sarah Roberts, SFMOMA Andrew W. Mellon Associate Curator of Painting and Sculpture. It will open in Baltimore in April 2020, travel to San Francisco in September 2020, and then move to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in February 2021.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) today announced the appointments of four members to the senior leadership team guiding the museum. Chief Operating Officer Christine Dietze and Chief Education Officer Gamynne Guillotte are both internal promotions, while Chief Advancement Officer Heather Hueglin Marchese and Chief Innovation Officer Melanie Martin are new to the organization.

Explore the extraordinary output of leading black artists with a global vision at the BMA’s lively Art After Hours on Friday, June 22 from 8 to 11 p.m. The theme of the evening is Afropolitanism, a movement that emphasizes the international influence of African arts and culture. Highlights of the event include the Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture, 1963–2017 and Meleko Mokgosi: Acts of Resistance exhibitions, plus live music by Baltimore-based performers Abdu Ali and Sarah Hughes, and a variety of interactive art experiences.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) and the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts (BOPA) present one of the summer’s most highly anticipated exhibitions. On view June 20 through August 5, 2018, the Sondheim Artscape Prize Finalists 2018 exhibition showcases artwork by the six finalists competing for the 13th annual Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize, a $25,000 fellowship given each year to a visual artist or visual arts collaborators living and working in the Greater Baltimore region. The finalists this year are Erick Antonio Benitez, Nakeya Brown, Sutton Demlong, Nate Larson, Eunice Park, and Stephen Towns.

In 1939, The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presented one of the first major exhibitions in the U.S. to feature African American artists. Contemporary Negro Art served “as a declaration of principles as to what art should be in a democracy and as a gauge of how far in this particular province we have gone and may need to go,” wrote renowned philosopher and art critic Alain Locke in the exhibition brochure. Nearly 80 years later, the museum pays tribute to this exhibition with 1939: Exhibiting Black Art at the BMA. On view June 13 – October 28, 2018, it features 14 prints and drawings by artists who were included in the 1939 show along with archival materials.

The Baltimore Museum of Art’s (BMA) popular summer jazz series returns with three concerts inspired by artist Jack Whitten’s passion for jazz. The series includes performances by Ravi Coltrane (June 2), The Sun Ra Arkestra (July 7), and Lafayette Gilchrist Quartet (July 28). General admission tickets are $50 for a single concert or $135 for the three-concert series. BMA Member tickets are $35 for a single concert or $90 for the three-concert series. Tickets sell out quickly, so advance reservations are highly recommended. Each ticket includes evening access to the Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture, 1963-2017 exhibition from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

The interior of The Baltimore Museum of Art’s (BMA) neoclassical Spring House will be transformed with light, haze, and color as part of a special installation by Brussels-based artist Ann Veronica Janssens. On view from May 30 through October 31, 2018, Ann Veronica Janssens: Fog Star is the newest work in the artist’s series of Fog Star installations that explore the shifting nature of perception.

This spring, The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) will present the first exhibition dedicated to sculptures by renowned contemporary artist Jack Whitten. Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture, 1963-2017, on view April 22 through July 29, 2018, reveals an extensive and entirely unknown body of the late artist’s work. Co-organized with The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met), Odyssey features 40 of Whitten’s sculptures made in Greece over the course of his five-decade career. Created from a diverse spectrum of materials—including wood, marble, copper, bone, fishing wire, and personal mementos—the works are contextualized with African, Minoan, and Cycladic sculptures and objects that inspired Whitten through the years. The exhibition also unites Whitten’s Black Monoliths series for the first time to reveal how sculpture influenced his paintings. This ticketed exhibition is curated by Katy Siegel, BMA Senior Programming and Research Curator and Thaw Chair in Modern American Art at Stony Brook University, and Kelly Baum, Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon Polsky Curator of Contemporary Art at The Met.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) announced today that its Board of Trustees has approved plans to deaccession seven works from its contemporary collection, following an extensive analysis of the museum’s holdings in this area. The funds raised will be used exclusively for the acquisition of works created from 1943 or later, allowing the museum to strengthen and fill gaps within its collection. During the same meeting, the trustees approved the acquisition of nine works by contemporary artists Mark Bradford, Zanele Muholi, Trevor Paglen, John T. Scott, Sara VanDerBeek, and Jack Whitten, several of which are the first by the artist to enter the collection.

This spring and summer, The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) hosts a series of events honoring the art, the legacy, and the music behind Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture, 1963 – 2017, the first-ever exhibition devoted to renowned artist Jack Whitten’s sculpture. The ticketed exhibition includes 40 works inspired by the materials and traditions of Africa and ancient Greece, plus Whitten’s Black Monolith paintings honoring prominent African Americans such as Muhammad Ali, Maya Angelou, and James Baldwin.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents Meleko Mokgosi: Acts of Resistance, an exhibition that includes a suite of new paintings by the artist that examines the idea of resistance, defined by Mokgosi as any instance in which a subject refuses to give in to the oppression of her or his spirit. On view May 2 through August 12, 2018, these large-scale figurative paintings rethink the tradition of historical European compositions by depicting daily life in southern African nation-states and post-colonial ideals of democracy. The exhibition is presented in the museum’s galleries of European art.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) will present a conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates, Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer and author of Marvel’s The Black Panther comic book series on Thursday, May 17 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. The program is part of The Necessity of Tomorrow(s), the BMA’s free series of creative conversations and social events featuring nationally recognized artists, writers, and thought-leaders to consider key ideas at the intersection of art, race, and social justice—and imagining the futures we want. The discussion with Coates and BMA Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director Christopher Bedford will be centered on Afrofuturism and its role in today’s cultural landscape.

From October 7, 2018, to January 6, 2019, The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents John Waters: Indecent Exposure, the first major retrospective of the artist’s visual art in his hometown of Baltimore. Through more than 160 photographs, sculptures, soundworks, and video made since the early 1990s, Waters’ renegade humor subverts mainstream expectations of representation and reveals the ways that mass media and celebrity embody cultural attitudes, moral codes, and shared tragedy.

In collaboration with the Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Advanced Media Studies, The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley: We Are Ghosts on view April 4 through August 19, 2018 in the Contemporary Wing. The exhibition presents two dramatically stylized films that artfully resurrect history and poetry.

“Art After Hours: Moondust & Stargazing” takes place Friday, March 23 from 8- 11 p.m. at The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) and features a night of music, interactive art experiences, and cash bar. Tickets are $25 general admission and $20 for BMA Members and can be purchased at the BMA Box Office or online beginning March 2.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents an exhibition of 15 beguiling Vienna Secession and Art Nouveau poster and prints thanks to the generosity of the late Baltimore philanthropist LeRoy E. Hoffberger. On view March 25 – July 29, 2018, Sacred Spring: Vienna Secession Posters from the Collection of LeRoy E. Hoffberger and Paula Gately Tillman Hoffberger brings together an array of styles by artists such as Gustav Klimt, Kolomon Moser, and Egon Schiele to advertise everything from food and furniture to exhibitions and entertainment. These late 19th- and early 20th-century artworks share a modern aesthetic that is echoed in the galleries by a selection of decorative objects from the same period.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) announced today it has named visual artist and landscape designer Paula Hayes as its first Landscape Artist in Residence. In this role, Hayes will develop the overall creative direction of the museum’s physical environment for the next two years, reengaging audiences with the institution’s landscape through her fresh vision. The BMA encompasses 7.5 acres, including two sculpture gardens, a historic building designed by John Russell Pope, several building additions, and adjacent lawns.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) announced today it is hosting a conversation between internationally acclaimed artist Mark Bradford and Baltimore-based artist Stephen Towns on Wednesday, March 7, in conjunction with the opening of Stephen Towns: Rumination and a Reckoning. The event will focus on how each artist explores the boundaries of painting through a variety of materials and forms, as well as mines U.S. history in their recent work. The conversation will take place from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the BMA’s newly renovated Meyerhoff Auditorium. Additionally, the BMA will keep the Stephen Towns exhibition open until 7 p.m. that day so attendees will have an opportunity to see it prior to the conversation. Admission to the museum and the event are free. Seating is limited and provided on a first-come, first-served basis.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) has partnered with the popular Baltimore-based Stoop Storytelling Series to present an evening of seven true, personal stories about creative exchange across the U.S.-Mexico border. Intercambio: Stories About Inspiration and Exchange Across the Border takes place Friday, March 9, from 7-10 p.m. at the BMA’s Meyerhoff Auditorium.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents the first exhibition dedicated to the stunning textile work of Baltimore-based artist Stephen Towns. Stephen Towns: Rumination and a Reckoning, on view March 7 through September 2, 2018, features 10 luminous quilts constructed in fabric, glass beads, metallic threads, and translucent tulle that delve into the perspectives of women, people of color, and the institution of slavery in American history.

Today the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) announced that it has named celebrated contemporary artist and Baltimore resident Amy Sherald as a new trustee on the museum’s board. Sherald will officially take her board seat on February 20, joining Board Chair Clair Zamoiski Segal and Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director Christopher Bedford, as well as 39 other active trustees guiding the institution. This diverse group is comprised of regional and national leaders in art, philanthropy, and business, including another recently named artist trustee, Adam Pendleton, who joined the board last August.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) is transforming Fox Court, the stately columned lobby in the 1929 building designed by John Russell Pope, for the next seven years with an extraordinary light work by acclaimed artist Spencer Finch. On view February 21, 2018 through October 14, 2024, Spencer Finch: Moon Dust presents an abstract sculpture comprised of 417 LED light bulbs that together represent the molecular structure of the moon dust gathered from NASA’s 1972 Apollo space mission. Finch’s installation conveys scientific information and offers a poetic experience as its glowing composition evokes the sensation of being immersed in a star-filled sky.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents a focused exhibition of works by Senga Nengudi, one of the most inventive artists to combine abstract sculpture and performance art. Head Back & High: Senga Nengudi, Performance Objects (1976–2015), on view at the BMA through May 27, 2018, features a selection of eight works that span the artist’s career and underscore her continued ability to construct poetic environments out of salvaged materials. The exhibition is presented in collaboration with the Los Angeles-based arts and education nonprofit, Art + Practice (A+P). The second presentation will be hosted by A+P in Los Angeles from June 23 through August 25, 2018.

This spring, The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) will present the first exhibition dedicated to sculptures by renowned contemporary artist Jack Whitten. Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture, 1963-2017, on view April 22 through July 29, 2018, reveals an extensive and entirely unknown body of the late artist’s work. Co-organized with The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met), Odyssey features 40 of Whitten’s sculptures made in Greece over the course of his five-decade career. Created from a diverse spectrum of materials—including wood, marble, copper, bone, fishing wire, and personal mementos—the works are contextualized with African, Minoan, and Cycladic sculptures and objects that inspired Whitten through the years. The exhibition also unites Whitten’s Black Monoliths series for the first time to reveal how sculpture influenced his paintings. This ticketed exhibition is curated by Katy Siegel, BMA Senior Programming and Research Curator and Thaw Chair in Modern American Art at Stony Brook University, and Kelly Baum, Cynthia Hazen Polsky, and Leon Polsky Curator of Contemporary Art at The Met.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents approximately 20 works from sub-Saharan artists who drew inspiration from the birds that occupied their world in Beyond Flight: Birds in African Art. On view December 20, 2017 through June 17, 2018, this exhibition explores the varied roles of birds across 19th-and 20th-century African states, societies, and cultures. From the largest ostrich to the smallest warbler, the works on view highlight the symbolic meaning and aesthetic appreciation of birds in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, and Uganda.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) announces it will present Mark Bradford: Tomorrow Is Another Day, the current exhibition in the U.S. Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale, from September 2018 through March 2019. Co-curated by Christopher Bedford, BMA Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director and Commissioner of the U.S. Pavilion, and Katy Siegel, BMA Senior Programming and Research Curator and Thaw Endowed Chair of Modern American Art at Stony Brook University, Tomorrow Is Another Day is a multilayered narrative of new and existing work by Bradford in a variety of media—painting, sculpture, installation art, and video. These works reflect the artist’s longtime social and intellectual interests, most notably in marginalized populations, and reveal his belief in art’s ability to expose contradictory histories and inspire action in the present day. The Baltimore exhibition will also include a new site-specific installation, a spectacular painterly “waterfall” that sweeps through the East Lobby to the second floor, adjacent to the galleries featuring Tomorrow Is Another Day.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents Phaan Howng: The Succession of Nature, an immersive experience that highlights local environmental issues using intense, unnatural colors inspired by toxic waste. The installation was created by Baltimore-based artist Phaan Howng in partnership with Blue Water Baltimore and will be on view November 3 through August 2018 in the Commons gallery adjacent to the Imagining Home exhibition in the BMA’s Patricia and Mark Joseph Education Center.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) explores an unprecedented period of cultural and intellectual exchange between Mexico and the U.S. in Crossing Borders: Mexican Modernist Prints, on view November 19, 2017 through March 11, 2018. The exhibition features 30 prints and drawings created in the 1930s and 1940s by artists such as Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Elizabeth Catlett. Crossing Borders is also the first exhibition to highlight the BMA’s outstanding holdings of works by Mexican modernist artists.

Explore the collision of art, science, and nature with a fun art-filled evening for ages 21 and over. The Baltimore Museum of Art’s (BMA) next Art After Hours on November 3 is inspired by the art in four amazing exhibitions: iridescent spheres and spider webs in Tomás Saraceno: Entangled Orbits; colorful, swirling collages in Spiral Play: Loving in the ‘80s; digitally produced textiles and sculptures in Annet Couwenberg: From Digital to Damask; and the intense, immersive environment of Phaan Howng: The Succession of Nature. This popular event is held 8–11 p.m. and includes DJ, light refreshments, and a cash bar. Tickets are $25 general admission and $20 for BMA Members and available at artbma.org.

On Saturday, November 11, The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) is launching a series of free creative conversations and social events that brings together nationally recognized artists, writers, and thought-leaders to consider key ideas at the intersection of art, race, and social justice—and imagining the futures we want.
The Necessity of Tomorrow(s) speaker series will kick off with a conversation between acclaimed artist Mark Bradford and BMA Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director Christopher Bedford, who most recently collaborated on the BMA’s presentation of the U.S. Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale. Drawing on themes explored in Bradford’s installation, Tomorrow Is Another Day, their conversation will focus on the topic of making a path to power where none has existed before, a theme often explored in Bradford’s work.

This fall The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents a suite of new monumental paintings from Los Angeles-based artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby. On view in the contemporary wing from October 25, 2017 through March 18, 2018, Front Room: Njideka Akunyili Crosby | Counterparts includes six visually stunning mixed-media paintings on paper that draw upon the artist’s experience of moving from Nigeria to the United States, maintaining ties with her family in Nigeria, and building relationships in America. Akunyili Crosby will give a free talk about her work at the Maryland Institute College of Art’s Falvey Hall auditorium on Wednesday, October 25 at 6 p.m. The program is presented in partnership with Maryland Institute College of Art Painting Department.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents 12 exuberant collages by the late African American artist Al Loving in Spiral Play: Loving in the ‘80s, on view October 18, 2017 through April 15, 2018. The exhibition reveals the artist working free from the constraints of academic taste, conventional thought, commercial reward, and the four corners of the canvas with three-dimensional works that nearly leap off the wall with their brilliant colors and radical forms. The exhibition is presented by the BMA and the Los Angeles-based arts and education nonprofit, Art + Practice (A+P), which debuted the show in April 2017.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) has commissioned a major new work by internationally acclaimed artist Tomás Saraceno for an exhibition that will dramatically change the East Lobby and several galleries. Tomás Saraceno: Entangled Orbits, on view October 1, 2017 through June 2018, brings together a group of fascinating sculptural works by the Argentinian artist and trained architect who is also a pioneer in scanning, reconstructing, and reimagining spider webs and possesses the only three-dimensional spider web collection in existence.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) announced today seven new trustees have joined its board: Heidi Berghuis, Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, Brooke Lierman, David H. Milton, Adam Pendleton, Scott Schelle, and Wilma Bulkin Siegel. These will join Board Chair Clair Zamoiski Segal and Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director Christopher Bedford and 40 other active trustees in leading the BMA. The Board of Trustees is responsible for the governance and oversight of the museum, fostering ongoing support for the BMA’s ambitious mission and vision. This diverse group is comprised of regional and national leaders in art, philanthropy, and business who are deeply engaged and committed to ensuring the long-term strength of the museum.

The BMA is showcasing Kimono and Obi: Romantic Echoes from Japan’s Golden Age, as part of We wear culture, a Google Arts & Culture project launching today that uses state-of-the-art technology to present 3,000 years of fashion in the world’s largest virtual exhibition of style.

The BMA presents Annet Couwenberg: From Digital to Damask, an intimate exhibition of 10 extraordinary works by Maryland-based artist Annet Couwenberg. On view August 16, 2017–February 18, 2018, the exhibition shows how art, science, and history can produce fascinating innovations in textiles.

The BMA presents two compelling works that explore the legacy of slavery in America in Black Box: Kara Walker & Hank Willis Thomas. On view June 28, 2017–March 18, 2018, the installation brings together Kara Walker’s Salvation, one of the most significant works in the BMA’s contemporary collection, and Hank Willis Thomas’ And I Can’t Run, a recent promised gift to the museum.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) explores abstraction through more than 40 photographs by three of the most important and influential American photographers of the 20th century: Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind, and Minor White. Black, White & Abstract: Callahan, Siskind, White, on view May 17-October 1, 2017, is drawn from the museum’s Prints, Drawings & Photographs collection, considered one of the most significant holdings of works on paper in the country. Acquired in 2012, Minor White’s nine-part sequence The Sound of One Hand Clapping, Sequence 14 has never before been on view at the museum.

The Baltimore Museum of Art announced today that Baltimore-based artist Phaan Howng and Blue Water Baltimore have been selected as the next artist/non-profit team to take over the Commons in the BMA’s Patricia and Mark Joseph Education Center. Beginning November 2017, the team will unveil a colorful art installation that encompasses the entire gallery and present a series of public programs that explore the effects of environmental issues on community and home. This is the third year of the Commons Collaboration project, which seeks to engage audiences through innovative art and programs inspired by the adjacent Imagining Home exhibition.

The Baltimore Museum of Art, the presenter of the U.S. Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale along with the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, today announced the publication of Tomorrow Is Another Day, the official catalogue accompanying the exhibition of the same name featuring new work by Mark Bradford for the U.S. Pavilion. The catalogue was created in close collaboration with the artist and Poly-Mode, the design studio of Silas Munro, and is published by Gregory R. Miller & Co. in conjunction with The Baltimore Museum of Art. Tomorrow Is Another Day includes new essays by Zadie Smith, Anita Hill, and others about the importance of Bradford’s work in the current social climate. The catalogue also delves into the development of Bradford’s career as an artist with behind-the-scenes images of Bradford’s creative process and vibrant photography of the art created for the Venice Biennale.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) hosts Building an Inclusive Baltimore: A New Lens for Inclusion at The Baltimore Museum of Art in partnership with Beyond Conflict, a global initiative internationally recognized for its powerful new approaches to achieving peace in divided societies. Open to the public, the free event on May 4, 2017, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. brings together leaders in the arts, conflict resolution, and behavioral science to share the drivers of exclusion and the ways people consciously and unconsciously act. The event seeks to apply these insights to spark strategies for cultural organizations to more meaningfully engage with and reflect their communities.

The BMA presents Documenting the Spirit, a panel of practitioners, scholars, and observers of different religious traditions. Panelists will explore how spiritual experience is depicted through diverse formats such as art, literature, and mass communication, as well as how the spiritual can be made tangible to believers and non-believers alike. The conversation is inspired by Captain Gervasio’s Family (2013-2014), a film by artists Tamar Guimarães and Kasper Akhøj, on view in the museum’s Black Box Gallery. Presented in partnership with The Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Advanced Media Studies, the free event will be in the BMA Meyerhoff Auditorium on Saturday, April 1 from 4–5 p.m.

The BMA announced today the acquisition of major works by Mark Bradford, Paul Chan, Norman Lewis, and Ellsworth Kelly. Spanning a range of media, the acquisitions complement the BMA’s holdings of contemporary art, from mid-20th-century American abstraction to the art of today, and demonstrate the museum’s commitment to expanding the narrative of art history through the representation of diverse artists.

The BMA presents Front Room: Adam Pendleton, a dramatic installation of new and recent work by the New-York based artist that examines the relationship between abstraction and representation through layered and fragmented texts and images sourced from the artist’s personal library. On view March 26–October 1, 2017, the exhibition transforms the wall adjacent to the East Lobby staircase with a monumental Wall Work by Pendleton. The Contemporary Wing’s Front Room Gallery will feature three immersive floor-to-ceiling Wall Works overlaid with paintings, collages, and silkscreens on Mylar by the artist.

This spring, take a closer look at prints by leading contemporary artists and innovators in printmaking when the BMA brings approximately 20 vendors from around the U.S. for the Baltimore Contemporary Print Fair on Saturday, April 1 from 10 a.m.–8 p.m. and Sunday, April 2 from 10 a.m.–5 p.m. This highly anticipated event provides new and established collectors the opportunity to peruse and purchase limited editions, single prints, portfolios, photographs, and drawings by established and emerging artists. Visitors are encouraged to take advantage of the museum’s intimate and informal setting to talk with artists, curators, and printers to learn more about contemporary art and printmaking techniques.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents Artist Conversation: Guerrilla Girl Frida Kahlo in Conversation with Senior Curator Kristen Hileman on Sunday, March 12 from 3–4 p.m. in the Meyerhoff Auditorium. The afternoon of dialogue will feature artist-activist Frida Kahlo of the anonymous feminist collective Guerrilla Girls and BMA Senior Curator of Contemporary Art Kristen Hileman of the BMA.

The BMA announced today that the museum’s most anticipated exhibition of the spring, Off the Shelf: Modern & Contemporary Artists’ Books, will be on view March 12-June 25, 2017. The exhibition presents more than 130 artists’ books—artworks conceived of and produced in book form—and prints by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Kiki Smith, David Hockney, and Ed Ruscha. Stephen King, Frank O’Hara, and Robert Creeley are among the 30+ authors represented. More than half of the artists’ books and related prints in the exhibition have never before been on view at the BMA.

The BMA presents Timeless Weft: Ancient Tapestries and The Art of Louise B. Wheatley, an intimate exhibition that celebrates the more than 40-year career of Maryland artist Louise B. Wheatley. Internalizing the lessons of ancient masters, represented by Coptic textile fragments from the museum’s collection, Wheatley creates art that is unmistakably a reflection of her own unique vision and her self-imposed sense of technical perfection. The exhibition is on view in the Jean and Allan Berman Gallery through July 30, 2017.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents Black Box: Tamar Guimarães & Kasper Akhøj, on view February 8 through June 11, 2017. The exhibition includes a presentation of Guimarães’ and Akhøj’s 16-minute film Captain Gervasio’s Family (2013-2014), featuring the many spirit mediums of Palmelo, Brazil. The presentation of the film is organized by Senior Curator of Contemporary Art Kristen Hileman and presented in the Black Box Gallery in the museum’s Contemporary Wing.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents Creativity Exchange: Intersections Between Black Artists and Black-Owned Businesses, on Saturday, February 11, from noon to 5 p.m. The afternoon of free activities features Finding Your Niche: Storytelling Workshop; networking reception; and panel discussion with strong black voices leading Baltimore’s arts and commerce communities: nationally recognized artists and entrepreneurs Pierre and Jamyla Bennu, named the Coolest Black Family in America by Ebony; Myrtis Bedolla, founding Director of Galerie Myrtis; and Jay Jacksonrao, CEO of The Next Phase Studios. A unique selection of jewelry, apparel, woodwork, and body care products will be available to purchase noon to 5 p.m. during a vendor fair featuring local designers and artists.

The BMA's Art After Hours party on Friday, January 27 from 8-11 p.m. celebrates the landmark Matisse/Diebenkorn exhibition, which has received critical acclaim and a record number of visitors. The Art After Hours ticket includes the exhibition (a $17.50 value), plus one complimentary drink or food item from Alma Cocina Latina, live music, extraordinary art experiences, and much more. Art After Hours guests are also invited to join the TASK Party that lets everyone participate in selecting, carrying out, and writing tasks for others using a variety of colorful supplies and props supplied by the BMA. Tickets—$25 or $20 for BMA Members—are on sale at artbma.org.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) will be hosting a day of free art activities held in conjunction with the Presidential Inauguration on Friday, January 20, 2017. Throughout the day, visitors will be able to participate in gallery talks about key works of art and join-in readings of the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and other founding documents. The BMA will also offer mobile-device self-guided meditations with artworks and provide information on how to contact your political representatives.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) announces that the museum hours will shift to 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends beginning February 1, 2017. The current hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. When the new hours take effect, the museum will be open consistently from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. General museum admission is still free, but some special events may have an admission charge.

The BMA today announced it will offer extended hours on Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays for visitors to see the popular Matisse/Diebenkorn exhibition before it closes on Sunday, January 29. The BMA’s regular museum hours are: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. Beginning Thursday, January 5, visitors can see the exhibition for additional hours on Thursday evenings from 5 to 8 p.m. and one hour earlier on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 to 11 a.m. These times apply only to the Matisse/Diebenkorn exhibition.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents Shifting Views: People & Politics in Contemporary African Art, the first exhibition of contemporary African art drawn from the museum’s collection. It features a selection of powerful prints, drawings, and photographs by seven artists who offer pointedly political perspectives on the lives of Africans and their diasporic descendants. The exhibition is on view in the African Art Galleries December 18, 2016–June 18, 2017.

The BMA and The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University today announced that they will collaborate on the presentation of Mark Bradford as representative for the United States for the 2017 Venice Biennale. The Venice Biennale is the oldest and most prestigious international exhibition of visual art showcasing leading contemporary art from around the world. It is often referred to as the Olympics of the art world. The two institutions will work in cooperation with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The new work being created by Bradford will be on view in Venice from May 13 to November 26, 2017.

Celebrate the connections between art and politics at the BMA's Election Night Party on Tuesday, November 8, 7–10 p.m. This nonpartisan special event is inspired by the Front Room: Guerrilla Girls exhibition and will feature political poster- and button-making, lively gallery conversations on art and politics, Wright-Right-Now playwriting from Center Stage, and art-inspired music by DJ Isabejja. Cash bar and concessions will be provided by Alma Cocina Latina. Tickets are $10 or $5 for BMA Members and students with valid I.D. Tickets can be purchased at the BMA Box Office in the East Lobby or artbma.org.

The BMA today announced that visitors to the museum on Saturday, October 1 will have the rare opportunity to see a performance of one of Oliver Herring’s Areas for Action performances directed by the artist. When the BMA opens at 11 a.m., four volunteers will begin spitting colored food dye onto three walls of a gallery adjacent to the BMA’s East Lobby, creating a vibrant backdrop for a new installation of Herring’s work that will be on view beginning Saturday, October 22.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) announced today nine new trustees: Ellen R. Dame, John A. Gilpin, Robyn Brenza Kress, Daniel Leraris, Rhonda Overby, William Taylor IV, Kenneth Ulman, David W. Wallace, and Leana S. Wen. These prominent Baltimore community leaders were elected to the board in June 2016, joining Board Chair Clair Zamoiski Segal and the recently appointed Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director Christopher Bedford in leading the BMA. The Board of Trustees is responsible for the governance and oversight of the Museum, fostering ongoing support for the BMA’s ambitious mission and vision. This group is comprised of a diverse group of regional and national leaders in art, philanthropy, and business who are deeply engaged and deeply committed to ensuring the long-term strength of the BMA.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents Queer Interiors, a multimedia installation that explores facets of domestic life experienced by LGBTQI+ communities. It was created by Baltimore-based artists Rahne Alexander and Jaimes Mayhew working in conjunction with Chase Brexton Health Care’s LGBT Health Resource Center. The installation is on view in the Commons gallery adjacent to the Imagining Home exhibition in the BMA’s Patricia and Mark Joseph Education Center from September 18, 2016 through August 2017. The only other major museum to feature an installation by transgender artists is the Whitney Museum of American Art.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) today announced the appointment of Katy Siegel as Senior Programming and Research Curator. In this new part-time position, Katy will play a key role in the museum’s future exhibitions, public programs, audience development initiatives, institutional identity, and partnerships, and will also advise on capital projects. Siegel begins this new position on September 1.

The BMA presents Front Room: Guerrilla Girls, a selection of 48 works by the New York-based anonymous feminist collective known for using humor to confront sexism and racism in the art world. The exhibition is on view September 25, 2016 through March 12, 2017 in the Front Room Gallery of the museum’s contemporary wing.

The BMA presents Black Box: John Waters’ Kiddie Flamingos, a 72-minute film of children reading a G-rated version of Waters’ cult classic, Pink Flamingos. The film is presented in the Black Box Gallery in the museum’s contemporary wing from September 21, 2016 through January 22, 2017.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents Baker Artist Awards 2016, a multi-disciplinary exhibition of works by the five recipients of this year’s awards. On view July 31–September 11, 2016, the exhibition includes sculptural beadworks by artist Joyce J. Scott, print and audio versions of stories by author Jen Grow, documentary video and photographs of performances by Naoko Maeshiba, a multi-screen presentation of Take What You Can Carry by filmmaker Matthew Porterfield, and gouache and ink paintings by artist Bill Schmidt.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents the first major exhibition to explore the profound influence of French artist Henri Matisse on the work of American artist Richard Diebenkorn. Co-organized with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and on view at the BMA October 23, 2016 – January 29, 2017, Matisse/Diebenkorn brings together 92 objects—including 36 paintings and drawings by Matisse and 56 paintings and drawings by Diebenkorn—drawn from museums and private collections throughout the U.S. and Europe.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts (BOPA) are proud to announce that FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture is the winner of the 2016 Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize. The coveted $25,000 prize was presented at this evening’s awards ceremony at The Baltimore Museum of Art. The six other finalists—Theo Anthony, Stephanie Barber, Darcie Book, Larry Cook, Eric Kruszewski, Christos Palios—will receive a $2,500 honorarium established this year by M&T Bank in partnership with BOPA. Works of art by the winner and finalists are on view at the BMA through Sunday, July 31.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) explores the ways in which nomadic life shapes creativity and artistic form. On view now through November 27, Design for Mobile Living: Art from Eastern Africa presents 28 visually striking works, including examples of necklaces, bracelets, shields, fertility dolls, and vessels. Many never before on view, the objects were created by 19th and 20th century artists who lived in cattle herding groups from the Great Rift Valley to the horn of the African continent. Light-weight, portable objects showcase how in mobile societies body ornamentation becomes art. Kalenjin, Maasai, Samburu, Somali, and Turkana artists are represented.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents Kimono & Obi: Romantic Echoes from Japan’s Golden Age, an exquisite selection of late 19th-to-21st century kimono and obi on view July 10, 2016–January 15, 2017. Never before exhibited, these stunning garments, including seven kimono and an array of obi, were made after sumptuary laws were lifted in 1867, when commoners were no longer banned from wearing showy clothing with colors like red or purple.

The Baltimore Museum of Art and the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts present one of the summer’s most highly anticipated exhibitions. The Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize Finalists exhibition is on display in the Baltimore Museum of Art’s special exhibition galleries from Wednesday, June 22 through Sunday, July 31, 2016. The exhibition showcases artwork by the seven finalists competing for the Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize, a $25,000 fellowship given each year to a visual artist or visual arts collaborators living and working in the Greater Baltimore region. The Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize exhibition is held in conjunction with Artscape and is produced by the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts in partnership with the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Maryland Institute College of Art.

The BMA’s popular Jazz in the Sculpture Garden concert series is back! Join fellow jazz enthusiasts for this one-of-a-kind summer event with regional and national talents performing amidst a fantastic collection of modern art in the Museum’s lush Sculpture Garden. Performers this year are Tizer Quartet featuring Karen Briggs, Don Braden Quintet featuring Vanessa Rubin, and Tony Tovar y Proyecto Jazz. These casual concerts take place on select Saturdays in August at 7 p.m. Concerts regularly sell out so advance ticket purchase is strongly recommended. Tickets are $45 and go on sale to the general public beginning June 15. BMA Member tickets are $30 and go on sale June 1.

The Baltimore Museum of Art’s (BMA) Board of Trustees announced today that they have appointed Christopher Bedford as its new director. Bedford is currently the Henry and Lois Foster Director of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University. He will begin his new role as the BMA's Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director on August 15, 2016, succeeding Doreen Bolger, who served as director of the BMA from 1998 until her retirement in 2015. Bedford was selected following an international search overseen by a committee created by the BMA’s Board of Trustees.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) recently completed an ambitious multi-year initiative generously supported by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). A $69,556 grant from NHPRC made it possible for the BMA’s Library &Archives to process five key collections: the museum archive’s photography collection, audiovisual collection, curatorial records for exhibitions and publications, juried and invitational exhibition records, and education department records.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents a distinguished panel of experts to speak at Collecting Now on Saturday, April 16, 7-9 p.m. in celebration of the stunning exhibition, New Arrivals: Gifts of Art for a New Century. The lively night features five short talks on aspects of collecting, from how collecting patterns have changed in the digital age to how the BMA has grown its world-class collection and how museums and private collectors preserve their works.

The BMA announced today it has selected Baltimore-based artists Rahne Alexander and Jaimes Mayhew, working in conjunction with Chase Brexton Healthcare’s LGBT Health Resource Center, to produce artwork and a series of free public programs related to the exhibition Imagining Home. The artwork debuts in October 2016 in the Commons of the BMA’s Patricia and Mark Joseph Education Center. This is the second year of the Commons Collaboration project, which launched in October 2015 with the opening of the Education Center and an installation by artist Marian Glebes and The Loading Dock.

The BMA presents new photography, copper plates, sculpture, and film by Adam Broomberg (1970, South Africa) and Oliver Chanarin (1971, United Kingdom) in the exhibition Front Room: Broomberg and Chanarin, on view April 13 through September 11, 2016. The creative partners have worked together since the late 1990s, challenging the concepts and structure of power through their photography-based practice. Their new body of work underscores the changes technology has wrought on warfare, revealing the fallacies we tell ourselves about it.

The Baltimore Museum of Art presents four large-scale, dramatic color photographs that bring new meaning to masterworks of painting in On Paper: Picturing Painting, on view March 30—October 23, 2016. The featured works combine elements of historical paintings with traits particular to photography to create images with a unique and powerful presence.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) is honoring African-American History Month with several initiatives to increase awareness of works by African-American artists represented in its world-class collection. Beginning today, an online exhibition of 18 artworks by African-American artists in the BMA’s collection can be viewed by people around the world thanks to a new partnership between the Google Cultural Institute and more than 40 other organizations with African-American artworks and historical artifacts. The BMA is also hosting a Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon for entries about African-American artists represented in the BMA’s collection, and offering a new self-guided tour of works by African-American artists whose works are currently on view in the galleries.

The first major exhibition to show the profound influence of French modern artist Henri Matisse (1869-1954) on the work of American artist Richard Diebenkorn (1922-1993) will premiere at The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) on October 23, 2016, before traveling to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) in the spring of 2017, after it opens its expansion on May 14, 2016. Co-organized by the BMA and SFMOMA, Matisse/Diebenkorn will feature over 90 objects—including more than 30 paintings and drawings by Matisse with 60 paintings and drawings by Diebenkorn from museums and private collections throughout the U.S. and Europe, as well as a selection from Diebenkorn’s personal library of books on Matisse.

Updated February 1 - The BMA celebrates the evolution of its world-class collection in this stunning exhibition of more than 200 artworks—many on view for the first time—with masterworks by Degas, Kelly, Magritte, Matisse, Rodin, and many others given to the BMA during its enormously successful Campaign for Art. Nearly every area of the collection is represented with objects spread across geography, culture, chronology, and medium.

The BMA presents a sublime exhibition of works by Henri Matisse, one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. On view December 9, 2015-July 3, 2016, New Arrivals: Matisse Prints & Drawings features approximately 40 recently acquired prints and drawings, most bestowed to the BMA by the collection of Matisse’s daughter, Marguerite Matisse Duthuit, and The Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation in New York. The exhibition—one of nine celebrating the museum’s enormously successful Campaign for Art—demonstrates the legacy of renowned collectors Etta and Claribel Cone and the BMA’s continued relationship with members of the Matisse family.

The BMA presents five striking late-20th century art quilts on view for the first time. On view December 16, 2015–June 19, 2016, New Arrivals: Art Quilts is one of nine exhibitions in a series celebrating the museum’s enormously successful Campaign for Art. The intricately designed, vibrant quilts were created for display on the wall, rather than a bed, by some of the nation’s most acclaimed textile artists, including Baltimore-native Adrien Rothschild, currently based in Pennsylvania, and the late Elizabeth Scott, who lived in Baltimore’s Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood.

The Baltimore Museum of Art has issued a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) to artists in the Greater Baltimore area interested in being considered for a collaborative project in the museum’s new Patricia and Mark Joseph Education Center. The BMA will contract with one artist or artist team, in partnership with an area non-profit, to produce a year-long project on the theme of home. The selected artist/non-profit team will activate the Center’s commons with artwork and with a series of free public programs implemented between October 2016 and August 2017.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents Seeing Color: A Conversation About Race & Art on Saturday, November 14, 2 p.m. The free panel discussion will bring insights to the national conversation on race, identity, and social justice addressed by artists and shed new light on challenging artworks in the BMA’s historic and contemporary collection.

New Arrivals: Joachim Koester at The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) explores the power of photography to document otherwise lost moments. On view October 28, 2015 through March 6, 2016, the exhibition features Danish artist Joachim Koester’s 3-minute, 16mm film inspired by a tragic 1897 hot air balloon expedition across the North Pole and two large-scale lithographs that appear to advertise the voyage.

BMA Board of Trustees Chair Clair Zamoiski Segal announced today that the BMA has received an extraordinary $3 million gift from Patricia and Mark Joseph to support the museum’s new 5,500-square-foot education center. This is one of the largest individual gifts the museum has ever received.

The Baltimore Museum of Art’s (BMA) enormously successful Campaign for Art has secured more than 3,500 objects during the past decade in honor of the museum’s 100th anniversary in 2014. These gifts have joined the museum’s renowned collection—now 95,000 objects—most of which came from generous donors in this community like Claribel and Etta Cone, Jacob Epstein, and Saidie A. May. To celebrate these new gifts and their donors, the BMA is presenting a series of New Arrivals exhibitions and installations in nearly every area of the museum from September 2015 through May 2016.

On October 20, 2015, the BMA announced the Center for People & Art would be renamed the Patricia and Mark Joseph Education Center, in honor of the extraordinary donors who gave $3 million to support the center and its programs.

The BMA presents an innovative thematic exhibition, Imagining Home, in conjunction with the opening of the Center for People & Art, a new education area of the museum. On view October 25, 2015 through August 1, 2018, this extraordinary exhibition presents more than 30 artworks from across the collection in a lively space that incorporates video, audio, and other experiences that encourage visitor participation. More than a third of the objects in the exhibition are light sensitive and will change every six months so there will always be something new to experience.