Press Room

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) today announced the June 27 opening of a branch location at Lexington Market, the world’s oldest continually operating public market. BMA Lexington Market is a 250-square-foot space that will host a variety of art programs and collaborative activities. The branch will host an opening reception on Wednesday, June 26, from 3 to 5 p.m., to showcase photography created by youth at the Greenmount West Community Center who worked with New Orleans-based artists Keith Calhoun and Chandra McCormick. BMA Lexington Market is located near the arcade in the East Market. It will have regular hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. Admission is free.

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The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) today announced the June 27 opening of a branch location at Lexington Market, the world’s oldest continually operating public market. BMA Lexington Market is a 250-square-foot space that will host a variety of art programs and collaborative activities. The branch will host an opening reception on Wednesday, June 26, from 3 to 5 p.m., to showcase photography created by youth at the Greenmount West Community Center who worked with New Orleans-based artists Keith Calhoun and Chandra McCormick. BMA Lexington Market is located near the arcade in the East Market. It will have regular hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. Admission is free.

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The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) announced today that it has added to its collection this year more than 70 historic and contemporary works by a range of national and international artists. Among the new acquisitions are 17 objects purchased with proceeds from the auction of recently deaccessioned works. These include mixed-media works by Charles Gaines, Ebony G. Patterson, and Wilmer Wilson IV; prints by Emma Amos, Geta Brătescu, and Faith Ringgold; drawings by David Driskell and Clio Newton; a film by Ana Mendieta; photography by Elle Pérez; and a painting by Mary Lovelace O’Neal, among others. The BMA, through gift and purchase, has also acquired a range of historic works, including a rare 18th-century miniature by Anna Maria Werner; 19th-century prints by Manuel Orazi; and a 20th-century painting by André Derain and drawing by Édouard Vuillard.

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The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) today announced it is relaunching its ambitious 1937 citywide survey to find out how the museum can best serve the interests of Baltimore’s communities. Titled Make It Now, the updated survey asks 300 organizations—including schools and civic, social, and religious groups—to tell the BMA what they want from Baltimore’s largest art museum. This initiative will help in planning for future exhibitions and programs while reinforcing longstanding relationships and developing new ones throughout the city.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents Generations: A History of Black Abstract Art, an exhibition that captures the significant contributions that black artists have made to the development of abstraction from the 1940s to the present. On view September 29, 2019, through January 19, 2020, Generations explores the multifaceted power of abstract art as experimental practice, personal exploration, and profound political choice for decades of black artists. The exhibition features nearly 80 paintings, sculptures, and mixed-media installations by such notable artists as Mark Bradford, Jennie C. Jones, Norman Lewis, Lorna Simpson, Alma W. Thomas, and Sam Gilliam, and unveils a newly commissioned work by Kevin Beasley. Generations is curated by Christopher Bedford, BMA Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director, and Katy Siegel, BMA Senior Research & Programming Curator and Thaw Chair of Modern Art at Stony Brook University. The exhibition is co-organized by the BMA and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) today announced a sweeping reinstallation of its contemporary collection galleries that focuses on the creativity of 20th- and 21st-century black artists. Titled Every Day: Selections from the Collection, the reinstallation features works by such visionary artists as David Hammons, Joyce J. Scott, Mickalene Thomas, Kara Walker, and Nari Ward, alongside those by Helen Frankenthaler, Ellsworth Kelly, and Andy Warhol, among others. Centering the works by black artists creates a multidimensional picture of contemporary art that also allows us to reimagine our collective past, revealing the vital role of artists and art in these conversations about history and the future.

The BMA's popular summer jazz series returns with three concerts featuring national and regional talent in the museum’s lush gardens. Featured performers are Vijay Iyer (June 29), Matana Roberts (July 13), and the Wendel Patrick Quartet (July 27). 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 are on sale Wednesday, June 5, and will sell out quickly, so reservations are highly recommended. Tickets for BMA Members are available beginning Wednesday, May 29.

The BMA’s Spring House is transformed this summer with a multimedia installation by Baltimore-based artist Oletha DeVane. On view June 19 through October 20, 2019, Oletha DeVane: Traces of the Spirit features a selection from the artist’s ongoing spirit sculpture series. Seven works are displayed in an altar-like setting with the sound of water, referencing both the cooling spring that once ran through the Spring House’s structure and the forced Atlantic migration of the enslaved persons who labored in it.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents an exhibition of photographs by New Orleans natives Keith Calhoun and Chandra McCormick. On view June 16–October 27, 2019, Slavery, the Prison Industrial Complex: Photographs by Keith Calhoun & Chandra McCormick features the husband-and-wife team’s poignant and celebrated photographs of life and labor practices at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, the largest maximum-security prison in the United States.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) will host a conversation with the celebrated musician, activist, and filmmaker Boots Riley and acclaimed artist Mickalene Thomas moderated by BMA Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director Christopher Bedford. The event is part of the BMA’s ongoing Necessity of Tomorrow(s) series, which bring together artists, writers, and thought-leaders to examine and discuss issues and ideas at the intersections of art, race, and social justice.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) brings together the work of MacArthur Award-winning artist Joyce J. Scott and her mother, artist Elizabeth Talford Scott, for a one-gallery exhibition that explores their profound mutual influence. The two artists lived and worked together in Baltimore for more than 60 years and the younger Scott credits her mother for showing her that she could realize her dreams as an artist. On view May 15–December 1, 2019, the exhibition demonstrates their exceptional creativity with needle and thread through 9 works that include an early collaboration, three stunning quilts, a beaded necklace and tapestry, and sculptures clothed in luminous glass and bead garments.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) is presenting an exhibition of 35 postwar graphics by some of the most significant modern and contemporary artists working in the United States thanks to a generous gift from Baltimore philanthropists Mary and Paul Roberts. Featuring works by Richard Diebenkorn, Jasper Johns, Elizabeth Murray, and Barnett Newman, Front Room: The Mary and Paul Roberts Collection celebrates a group of prints, drawings, and photographs remarkable for its range and quality. The exhibition also honors the legacy of Mary Roberts, who passed away in November 2018. The exhibition is on view in the BMA’s Contemporary Wing April 3 through June 30, 2019.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents the first major exhibition to examine how 20th-century European and American Surrealist artists used monsters and mythic figures to depict their experiences of war, violence, and exile. Monsters & Myths: Surrealism and War in the 1930s and 1940s includes 90 works by Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, André Masson, Pablo Picasso, Mark Rothko, Dorothea Tanning, and others who responded to the rise of Hitler and the spread of Fascism by creating some of the most compelling images of the Surrealist movement. On view in Baltimore February 24–May 26, 2019, this ticketed exhibition is co-organized by the BMA and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) today announced a gift of $3.5 million from Baltimore-based philanthropists Eddie C. and C. Sylvia Brown to endow the position of chief curator at the museum. The Browns’ support and advocacy for the BMA spans more than two decades and includes important contributions of both art and funds to expand the museum’s presentations and collections of works by African American artists. This most recent gift underscores the Browns’ ongoing generosity and commitment to the BMA and marks a critical development for the museum as it continues to enact its vision to position social equity at the core of its mission.

From bright watercolors to thickly painted landscapes with bold explorations of color and form, Expressions of Nature: Early 20th-Century Landscapes presents the many ways that European and American artists depicted the world around them during a period of great artistic change. On view March 10 through September 22, 2019, this intimate exhibition includes a selection of luminous paintings and rarely shown watercolors and drawings by William H. Johnson, Gustav Klimt, John Marin, Piet Mondrian, Grace Turnbull, Hale Woodruff, and other artists who made the natural world their own in new and compelling ways.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) announces today that its Board of Trustees recently approved the acquisition of 48 works of art, including four purchased using proceeds from the auction of recently deaccessioned works. The new acquisitions encompass paintings by Meleko Mokgosi and Amy Sherald; photographs by Louise Lawler, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Carrie Mae Weems; sculpture by Melvin Edwards and Senga Nengudi; and textiles by Stephen Towns. The acquisitions also include a major gift of 35 prints, drawings, and photographs from Baltimore collectors Mary and Paul Roberts, with works by Richard Diebenkorn, Jasper Johns, Glenn Ligon, Elizabeth Murray, Gabriel Orozco, Martin Puryear, Gerhard Richter, and others.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) announced today a major new biennial commission made possible by an historic endowment gift from Baltimore philanthropists Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker. As the first named public art commission for a U.S. museum, the Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker Biennial Commission fosters the creation of new works by international contemporary artists, cultivates aspiring curators through a parallel fellowship, and activates the BMA’s East Lobby with publicly accessible art.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg / Delights of an Undirected Mind, an exhibition of psychologically charged videos, sculpture, and immersive installations by the Berlin-based Swedish artists. Their captivating stop-motion animations embrace Surrealist themes—dreams, the subconscious, and the emotional and irrational—and convey both humor and darkness. This is the first U.S. museum presentation for each of these works. On view February 24–May 26, 2019, the exhibition is presented concurrently with Monsters & Myths: Surrealism and War in the 1930s and 1940s.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents an exhibition of more than 40 modern and contemporary photographs by artists mostly born in China, Japan, South Korea, or Vietnam who delve into various concepts of time. Their images could be focused on a time of day, a past legend or history, or an imagined future. Time Frames: Contemporary East Asian Photography is on view at the BMA from November 4, 2018, to March 24, 2019.

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) announces the U.S. debut of Mark Bradford: Tomorrow Is Another Day from September 23, 2018, through March 3, 2019. First presented at the U.S. Pavilion as part of the 2017 Venice Biennale, the exhibition is a complex, multi-layered narrative by Bradford using a variety of media—painting, sculpture, and video.

BALTIMORE, MD (August 3, 2018)—The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) announces it will present Tavares Strachan: In broad daylight, a new site-specific work commissioned by the museum that will be on view beginning August 8, 2018. For this installation, New York-based artist Strachan has rendered the words "In broad daylight" in a flowing neon script, setting the BMA's historic façade aglow day and night for the next nine months.

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.