BMA Today - Winter/Spring 2023

Issue #170 Winter/ Spring 2023

THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART

The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century

On View

April 5 – July 16, 2023

Design and

Cover

Monica Ikegwu. Open/Closed (Detail). 2021. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Myrtis, Baltimore

Board of Trustees

OFFICERS

James D. Thornton, Chair

Clair Zamoiski Segal, Immediate Past Chair

John Gilpin, Vice President & Treasurer

Fiona Ong, Secretary

Kwame Webb, Vice President

David Wallace, Vice President

John Meyerhoff, Vice President

Ellen Dame, Vice President

Darius Graham, Assistant Vice President

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

James D. Thornton, Chair

Clair Zamoiski Segal, Immediate Past Chair

John Gilpin, Vice President & Treasurer

Fiona Ong, Secretary

Kwame Webb, Vice President

David Wallace, Vice President

John Meyerhoff, Vice President

Ellen Dame, Vice President

Darius Graham, Assistant Vice President

Virginia K. Adams

Amy Gould

Patricia Lasher

Katherine Schulze

TRUSTEES

Virginia K. Adams

Rheda Becker

Michael Brown

Adam Burch

Sharon Butler

Sam Callard

Ellen R. Dame

Nupur Parekh Flynn

Denise Galambos

John A. Gilpin

Joanne Gold

Amy Gould

Darius Graham

Nancy Hackerman

Pamela Hoehn-Saric

Elizabeth Hurwitz

Sherrilyn Ifill

Lori N. Johnson

Patricia Lasher

John Meyerhoff

Sheela Murthy

Fiona Ong

Steven Pulimood

Paul Oostburg Sanz

Katherine Schulze

Clair Zamoiski Segal

Michael Sherman

Stuart O. Simms

Anne L. Stone

James D. Thornton

David W. Wallace

John Waters

Kwame Webb

HONORARY TRUSTEES

Alexander C. Baer

Constance R. Caplan

Kathryn (Lynn) Deering

Nancy L. Dorman

Janet E. Dunn

Sandra Levi Gerstung

Katherine M. Hardiman

Margot W.M. Heller

Louise P. Hoblitzell

Freeman A. Hrabowski III

Mary B Hyman

Patricia H. Joseph

Susan B. Katzenberg

Jeanette Kimmel

Frederick Singley Koontz

Jeffrey A. Legum

Amy Frenkil Meadows

James S. Riepe

Frederica K. Saxon

Jean Silber

Louis B. Thalheimer

David Warnock

Ellen W.P. Wasserman

NATIONAL TRUSTEES

Sylvia de Cuevas

Monroe Denton

Barbara Duthuit

Phillips Hathaway

Joseph Holtzman

Edward S. Pantzer

EX-OFFICIO TRUSTEES

The Honorable Bob Cassilly

The Honorable Edward Rothstein

The Honorable John Olszewski

The Honorable Steuart Pittman

The Honorable Wes Moore

The Honorable Bill Henry

The Honorable Calvin Ball

The Honorable Brandon M. Scott

The Honorable Nick Mosby

Contributors

Image Services & Rights MEGHAN GROSS COLLEEN HOLLISTER

Images of BMA Staff CHRISTOPHER MYERS

BMA Today

Baltimore Museum of Art 10 Art Museum Drive

Baltimore, MD 21218-3898

HOURS & ADMISSION

Wednesday, Friday through Sunday: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday now open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Closed Mondays and Tuesdays, New Year’s Day, Juneteenth, July 4, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Day.

Free general admission—for everyone, every day!

There may be a charge for certain special exhibitions. Only BMA Members receive unlimited free admission to ticketed exhibitions.

Extended Evening Hours are generously supported by The Rouse Company Foundation.

Ongoing support for free admission at the BMA has been provided through generous endowment gifts from the Cohen Family Fund for Free Admission, Lord Baltimore Capital Partners, LLC, Mary J. and James D. Miller, the James S. Riepe Family Foundation, and the DLA Piper Fund.

The BMA would like to thank the following donors for their combined generosity: City of Baltimore, Citizens of Baltimore County, and Howard County Government and Howard County Arts Council. Major support is also provided in part by the Maryland State Arts Council.

ACCESSIBILITY

The Zamoiski East Entrance, the Museum, and the Sculpture Garden are wheelchair-accessible. A limited number of wheelchairs are available for use free of charge. Van-accessible parking spaces are available in the BMA East and West Lots. Please check in at the Welcome Desk in the Lobby upon arrival. TTY/HCO

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CONTACT US

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The Citizens of Baltimore County

The BMA is supported in part by an American Rescue Plan Act grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support general operating expenses in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

BMA Today is published three times a year for Members of the Baltimore Museum of Art. ©2023 Baltimore Museum of Art

Water Goddess (Chalchiuhtlicue)

Nahua (Aztec), Mexico, 14th-16th Century

Depicted as an idealized young woman in a kneeling pose associated with women, the Nahua (Aztec) goddess of fertility and fresh waters wears her distinctive headdress of bands, large earrings, and a tasseled shawl called a quechquemitl. These adornments signify her beauty, youth, and divinity. Deftly carved from basalt sometime during the 14th–16th centuries in Mexico, this goddess, Chalchiuhtlicue, translated as “Jade is Her Skirt,” may have once been painted or her eyes may have been inlaid with shell as both were common embellishments for such figures, though no traces remain today.

Seen in the round, the statue demonstrates the artist’s attention to detail and would likely have been displayed in a temple to receive offerings and sacrifices. This stunning work of devotional practice is one of more than 1,300 objects in the BMA’s Indigenous Arts of the Ancient Americas collection. Fifty-six cultures and civilizations from the ancient American world across a 4000-year timespan are represented in the collection. This includes the widely recognized Aztec and Maya of Mesoamerica, Nasca and Moche of Andean South America, and Nicoyan and Atlantic Watershed cultural spheres from the Isthmian region.

In 2021, the Museum created a permanent space dedicated to the display of works from the Indigenous Arts of the Americas. The gallery presentation focuses on the creation and evolution of artworks from North, Central, and South America before Spanish colonization.

Space for Our Stories

It’s an absolute thrill to be writing my first message to you all as the Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director. I have a special place in my heart for the BMA as Baltimore is my hometown, and this museum is the first museum I ever visited. I know many of you have your own story about why you love the BMA. As for me and my story, I was born thousands of miles away, in Karachi, Pakistan, and my parents and I moved to Baltimore City when I was around 2 years old. As a little girl, I remember being entranced by the museum and its grand scale whenever my parents would drive by. It was only years later as an undergrad at Johns Hopkins University, in a class with noted art historian Yve-Alain Bois, that I finally visited the BMA. As soon as I walked in, though, I knew I never wanted to leave.

The wonderful thing about the BMA is that this is a place that can hold all of our stories, whether they are wholly local or span the globe. I know there are many of you who are new to Baltimore and have just recently joined the BMA. Regardless of whether you are a new or familiar face, please know this is your museum, and it’s my honor to make you feel welcome and share our peerless collection of art, rich public programs, and the talents of our staff with you.

The BMA is your space to explore, create, enjoy, and reflect upon how ways of making can convey a sense of place, a moment in history, and, yes, even your story. Our upcoming exhibition, The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century offers precisely all these things by bringing together the works of superb Baltimore-born artists alongside performers, artists, and fashion designers of international acclaim to display how hip hop has influenced contemporary art. We hope all our neighbors will be the first through the doors to experience this show. We know there is brilliance in the art, music, food, and design being made throughout Baltimore. The BMA wants to come together with you to share this brilliance, celebrate it here and across this vibrant city, and telegraph it across the world.

I hope you are planning to join us again soon. And please take a moment to introduce yourself if you see me in the galleries.

Going Out Golden

Melanie Harwood’s 50 Years at the BMA

Melanie Harwood was hired in January 1973 as an assistant exhibition designer by BMA Director Tom Freudenheim. Fifty years later, she is retiring from the Museum, where she spent the entirety of her career. She has served as the senior registrar for the BMA since 1988. Registrars, as Melanie will tell you, are doing their jobs well if all the work flies under the radar. The keepers of the records about each of the 97,000 works in the Museum’s collection, registrars also oversee the packing and movement of objects between galleries and across the globe. As a tribute to Melanie’s expert leadership in the care of the Museum’s collection, we are bringing into the light a few stats about her work. To read more about her incredible career, or to make a tribute donation in her honor visit artbma.org/harwood.

Art Outside the Museum

During Melanie’s tenure, the BMA has exhibited art at two BMA Downtown Galleries, Baltimore City Hall, and, among other venues around the state, the Maryland Science Center. While a science center might seem like the least obvious of places to mount an art show, an exhibition entitled 200 Years of American Painting that the BMA was tapped to help organize to tour Europe at the time of the U.S. Bicentennial could not be shown at the BMA at the completion of its tour due to construction. The recently opened Maryland Science Center had the space, and Melanie worked with BMA colleagues to quickly arrange a gallery and install the show.

By Hand

In 1977, for an exhibition of Morris Louis works, Melanie helped carry 22 crates up the stairs of the Museum’s Merrick Entrance. The BMA did not yet have a freight elevator, and some of the works were taller than the 106” doors at the historic entrance. They had to be carefully tilted to fit into the museum.

A Fabergé Birthday

A Favorite First

The first traveling exhibition that Melanie oversaw as a BMA registrar was the 1986-1987 show about German painter Oskar Schlemmer. In preparation for the show, she traveled to Stuttgart, Germany, with BMA curator Brenda Richardson to see the artist’s works and meet with his widow, daughter, and grandson, Raman. During a tour of Stuttgart in the family’s VW bug, Raman drove at high speed as his mother offered lively narration in German, most of which Melanie and Brenda could not understand. Despite language barriers, the family was wonderful to them, and Melanie still keeps in touch with Raman.

CATALOG

A comprehensive catalog features artworks from the exhibition and contributions from more than 50 scholars, artists, curators, and arts leaders.

Pre-order your copy at shop.artbma.org.

The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century

April 5 – July 16, 2023

Since its emergence in the Bronx in the 1970s, hip hop has grown into a global phenomenon, driving innovations in music, fashion, technology, and visual and performing arts. Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip hop, The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century captures the extraordinary influence hip hop has had on contemporary society through more than 90 works of art and fashion by some of today’s most important and celebrated artists and iconic brands including Virgil Abloh for Louis Vuitton, Derrick Adams, Mark Bradford, Cross Colours, Dapper Dan and Gucci, Lauren Halsey, Julie Mehretu, Adam Pendleton, Tschabalala Self, TELFAR, Hank Willis Thomas, and Carrie Mae Weems. The Culture, co-organized with the Saint Louis Art Museum, explores the past two decades of hip hop through a wide range of painting, sculpture, photography, installations, video, and fashion organized into six themes— Language, Brand, Adornment, Tribute, Ascension, and Pose.

“Hip hop’s impact, meaning, and influence are both imperceivable and obvious, and are felt, in equal measure, across both mainstream culture and fine art in the U.S. and abroad,” said Asma Naeem, the Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director. “With this exhibition, we are developing a greater depth of scholarship about hip hop, and how it appears as its own canon in so many aspects of contemporary artmaking, allowing us to better understand its distinct qualities and the reasons why it has so deeply embedded itself in the global psyche.”

Co-organized by the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) and Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM), the exhibition is co-curated by Asma Naeem, the BMA’s Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director; Gamynne Guillotte, the BMA’s Chief Education Officer; Hannah Klemm, SLAM’s Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art; and Andréa Purnell, SLAM’s Audience Development Manager.

The Culture is further supported by an advisory committee comprising experts and artists across a wide range of disciplines, including Martha Diaz, founder and president of the Hip-Hop Education Center; Wendel Patrick, professor at the Peabody Music Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University; Tef Poe, rapper and activist; Hélio Menezes, anthropologist and curator of Afro-Atlantic Histories; and Timothy Anne Burnside, public historian and museum specialist in Curatorial Affairs at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

This exhibition is generously supported by the Henry Luce Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support is provided by The Alvin and Fanny B. Thalheimer Exhibition Endowment Fund

TICKETS

Free for Members

$15 Adults

$13 Seniors

$5 Youth

To purchase, visit artbma.org/culture

Beats, rhymes, culture and finances for this exhibition are generously provided by hip hop ambassadors “DJ Fly Guy” Flynn & Nupur Parekh Flynn, inventor of BAGCEIT®

Martha Jackson Jarvis: What the Trees Have Seen

May 7 – October 1, 2023

Histories Collide: Jackie Milad x Fred Wilson x Nekisha Durrett

April 26, 2023 – March 17, 2024

Following an open call to artists based in Maryland and neighboring states, Nekisha Durrett and Jackie Milad were selected by a jury of contemporary art experts to create new works in dialogue with Fred Wilson’s Artemis/Bast (1992). Durrett and Milad responded with compelling proposals that engage with the provocation: “What images and thoughts emerge when myths and histories collide?” This initiative provides an opportunity for the artists to explore critical questions integral to their own practices, while also examining the complex and unresolved legacies in Wilson’s art, which has at key moments intersected with Baltimore’s cultural history. Wilson’s Artemis/Bast, currently on extended loan to the BMA, will be presented in the John Waters Rotunda and Durrett’s and Milad’s new installations will be presented in the two adjacent galleries.

Co-curated by Cecilia Wichmann, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art, and Dave Eassa, Director of Public Engagement

Location: John Waters Rotunda and adjacent galleries

Inspired by family research into her great-greatgreat-great grandfather Luke Valentine’s service as a free Black militiaman in the American Revolution, Martha Jackson Jarvis has created mixed-media works that imaginatively retrace his journey from Virginia to South Carolina during the Revolutionary War. The result is a tour de force in abstract painting with 13 grandly scaled works on paper, and a focused group of smaller works inspired by the meditative form of the mandala. Jackson Jarvis imagines her ancestor’s movements on foot across shifting terrains—venturing from home into thickets, waterways, weather, and bugs—through a landscape at once treacherous and verdant. She continues this body of work while meditating on the emotions from bravery to fear and serenity that Valentine may have felt on his journey during the Revolutionary War.

Co-curated by Leila Grothe, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art, Cecilia Wichmann, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art, and Jessica Bell Brown, Curator and Department Head for Contemporary Art

Location: Contemporary Wing, including the Ellen & Jack Wasserman Gallery, and the T. Rowe Price Associates Foundation & James S. Riepe Family Gallery

Below: Martha Jackson Jarvis. Red Road Dissemblance. 2020. From the series Adaptation Courtesy of the Artist

The Matter of Bark Cloth

May 7 – October 1, 2023

Recasting Colonialism: Michelle Erickson Ceramics

May 7 – October 1, 2023

Contemporary ceramicist Michelle Erickson draws from historic ceramic techniques to create works that expose the persistence of racism and exploitation in post-colonial countries. Erickson is a second-generation American and grew up near Colonial Williamsburg, where she studied the clay bodies and glaze formulas of ceramics imported to the American colonies. These works were integral to a vast network of investment, mercantile exchange, and material movement under English Colonial oppression. For this exhibition of sixteen ceramic works, the artist recreates historic forms and palettes but alters the shape and decoration to present her viewpoints in ways that are both witty and jarring. Subjects addressed include the importation of Chinese goods, child soldiers, former U.S. President Donald Trump, police brutality, and the Second Amendment. These works are paired with 17th- through 19th-century Asian and European ceramics from the BMA’s collection that invite viewers to consider the continuation of colonialism in the present.

Produced across the world, bark cloth is an artistic object made from the inner bark of trees and is often a critically important artistic product for the communities that produce it. Bark cloth’s ability to function as both a textile as well as a painted decorative surface extends its importance. However, because Euro-American artists have not historically created artworks from bark, the artform has been understudied and under-collected by Euro-American art museums. It also defies traditional Western categorizations of artistic genre (such as painting, textile, and work on paper). This presentation, drawn almost entirely from the BMA’s collection, foregrounds the importance of this unique artistic medium with 19 beautifully patterned artworks from across Africa and Oceania that expand our considerations about the nature of art and the limits imposed by categorization.

Location: Contemporary Wing, including the Vivian and Edward Benesch Gallery

Below: Unidentified Mbuti artist. Painted Barkcloth (Pongo or Murumba) Mid-20th century. Democratic Republic of Congo. The Baltimore Museum of Art: The Amy Gould/Matthew Polk Fund, BMA 2021.216. Courtesy Andres Moraga Textile Arts. Ralph Koch Photography

Wild Forms: Fauve Woodcuts

May 14 – October 15, 2023

Matsumi Kanemitsu: Figure and Fantasy

May

14 – October 8, 2023

While living and working in Baltimore in the late 1940s, Matsumi Kanemitsu created a remarkable record of his life thus far. This exhibition of 60 early works–largely drawings as well as rare examples of painting and sculpture bequeathed by dedicated Baltimore collector J. Blankfard Martenet–offers an intimate glimpse into Kanemitsu’s past experiences and surreal imagination. The works on view (for the first time in seven decades) show the artist’s evolution before his later established Abstract Expressionist style. Autobiographical subjects include Kanemitsu’s boyhood in Japan and his fascination with the local flora and fauna, his dual experience as both a prisoner of the U.S. military and an enlisted U.S. soldier who completed a tour of duty in Europe, and portraits of those who formed his community in Baltimore while beginning his artistic career. This concise survey demonstrates the artist’s innate talent for capturing life through line and his unique synthesis of Eastern and Western aesthetics.

Organized by Leslie Cozzi, BMA Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs

Location: The Nancy Dorman and Stanley Mazaroff Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings and Photographs

Below: Matsumi Kanemitsu. Self-Portrait (Detail). 1949. The Baltimore Museum of Art: Bequest of J. Blankfard Martenet, BMA 2012.711.32. © The Estate of Matsumi Kanemitsu

Henri Matisse, André Derain, Raoul Dufy, Maurice de Vlaminck, and Othon Friesz were all members of the influential group of French artists known as the Fauves (or Wild Beasts). This focus exhibition examines more than a dozen woodcut prints produced early in the careers of Fauve artists and those associated with them. Best known for their bold and brash use of intense color in their paintings often applied in quick dramatic strokes, the Fauves experimented with woodcuts to create powerful and expressive works mostly in black and white. They explored the high contrast between tones in their woodcuts, while also simplifying form and line in their innovative compositions.

This exhibition is curated by Katy Rothkopf, The Anne and Ben Cone Memorial Director of The Ruth R. Marder Center for Matisse Studies and Senior Curator of European Painting and Sculpture at the BMA.

Generous support for this exhibition is provided by Clair Zamoiski Segal.

Location: Jay McKean Fisher Gallery in The Ruth R. Marder Center for Matisse Studies

Making Her Mark: A History of Women Artists in Europe, 1400-1800

Opening October 2023

For centuries, women artists in Europe were considered rare and less talented than their male counterparts. Women who achieved professional artistic careers were deemed anomalous or exceptional, while those who engaged in creative pursuits in the home were dismissed as amateurs, and their works were categorized as material culture rather than art.

Making Her Mark: A History of Women Artists in Europe, 1400-1800, the BMA’s much anticipated major exhibition opening this fall, aims to correct these broadly held

but mistaken beliefs through more than 175 works of diverse media and scale. From royal portraits and devotional sculptures to embroidered objects, tapestries, costumes, wax sculptures, metalwork, ceramics, graphic arts, furniture, and more, Making Her Mark will feature objects from the 15th to 18th centuries that reflect the multifaceted and often overlooked ways that women contributed to the visual arts of Europe.

The exhibition’s focus on displaying exclusively objects made by women or toward

which women contributed their labor distinguishes this project by putting women makers of all social levels in conversation with each other through their works. Examples by artistic heroines such as Sofonisba Anguissola, Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Leyster, Luisa Roldán, Rosalba Carriera, Rachel Ruysch, and Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun will join exceptional products of female artisanal collectives and talented amateurs who operated outside of the maledominated professional arena

and often remained anonymous in the historical record. Further, sublime examples of ceramics, metalwork, and cabinetmaking from this era will reflect women’s involvement in major manufactories and workshops.

By presenting a wide range of objects made by women across four centuries, the exhibition “reassesses the traditionally male-determined criteria for what constituted important or legitimate art in Western culture,” said Andaleeb Badiee Banta, Senior Curator and Department Head of Prints, Drawings & Photographs. “Once we expand the focus beyond large-scale painting and sculpture, we see that women were engaged with every manner of artistic production, from design and execution to the sourcing and processing of materials. In Making Her Mark, we aim to promote the stories of creative women who worked as artists, innovators, laborers, and entrepreneurs.”

Making Her Mark: A History of Women Artists in Europe, 1400-1800 is co-organized by the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Co-curated by Andaleeb Badiee Banta, Senior Curator and Department Head, Prints, Drawings & Photographs at the BMA, and Alexa Greist, Associate Curator and R. Fraser Elliott Chair, Prints & Drawings at the AGO.

This exhibition is generously supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this project do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Schaun Champion Reflects: Rest on the Flight

The light and the dramatic cluster of clouds in JeanHonoré Fragonard’s Rest on the Flight lured photographer Schaun Champion to the painting, on view in the BMA’s European art gallery. Champion is a Baltimore-raised artist known for photographing subjects in quiet moments surrounded by natural environments. Her rich color palettes ornament the ordinary.

“Whenever I look at my favorite paintings, they always look like they’re in the middle

of catching someone doing something,” Champion said. “It never feels staged, it never feels forced. It literally feels like someone could have taken a camera and captured that [scene].”

The scene in Rest on the Flight is a single moment in the life of Christ. The artist, best known for lighthearted and whimsical paintings in the “Rococo” style, took an unusual detour into religious subject matter. The painting shows Joseph, Mary, and the

Christ child in a moment of rest during an escape to Egypt from the wrath of King Herod. Mother and child pause to share a tender embrace as Joseph looks back in fear at the hostile forces they’ve evaded. Joseph, and a billow of clouds, seemingly protect the pair from harm. A distant light warms their respite.

Champion’s own path to image-making began at eight years old when her father, also a photographer, bought her a Kodak 110 camera. By her teenage years, she’d begun documenting travels and archiving special family moments, collecting inspiration along the way from the vibrant color tones of her favorite classic films from the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘80s.

After losing a family member to gun violence in 2020, she channeled her grief into her existing series, A Black Bouquet. She has since exhibited the series in galleries and commissioned murals across the U.S. and internationally. The photographs depict Black men and women wearing haloes of fresh flowers posed in verdant settings—themselves escaping the world around them to luxuriate in a moment of pause, a necessary rest that mirrors the ease of Mary and child in Fragonard’s Rest on the Flight “I admire when a painter can make lighting look so natural and dramatic,” Champion said of the painting. “It’s warm and inviting. It looks like a little snapshot of a story, and I want to know more.

In those moments when we are overwhelmed by trauma and grief, I want to share some joy, solace, or maybe even courage. I want people to see my work and see themselves and their emotions.”

Bringing the BMA into Baltimore

A conversation with Dave Eassa, Director of Public Engagement

The latest evolution of the BMA’s branch location, BMA Lexington Market, reopens this spring in the newly expanded Lexington Market. The nation’s oldest continuously operating market recently underwent a $45 million renovation and developers debuted a new shed-style building reminiscent of the Market during the early 1800s.

Dave Eassa, Director of Public Engagement, oversees BMA Lexington Market. In 2019, BMA Lexington Market co-hosted over 40 artist talks, workshops, screenings, and performances with Baltimore-based creatives.

When it reopens this spring, BMA Lexington Market will continue to welcome all for artmaking experiences, public programs reflective of our city, and opportunities to view films and other time-based media from the BMA’s collection.

Who is the BMA Lexington Market for?

The BMA Lexington Market is a microcosm of Baltimore. We’re here for everyone, from those who shop at Lexington Market regularly but never knew the BMA or BMA Lexington Market existed, to those somewhat familiar with arts organizations in town, to the creative community who highlight their practices and expand their audiences at the BMA’s space within the Market. Through our open hours program, visitors to the Market are able to use our space to connect, learn, and make art. When we’re not hosting an activity or other program, visitors will be able to see time-based media from the BMA’s collection.

Who is a part of the BMA Lexington Market team and what do they do?

We’re fortunate to have two multi-faceted individuals who deftly facilitate the space. The Manager of Public Engagement is Malaika Clements, who is responsible for much of the success of the BMA Lexington Market. She is a

critical perspective in developing programming, guiding relationships, and maintaining the atmosphere necessary to accomplish our goals at the location. Colby Ware, our new Public Engagement Coordinator, will be assisting Malaika in enacting programming and facilitating the space, making sure that we build upon our operations in an intentional way.

What has surprised you about working on the BMA Lexington Market?

It wasn’t a surprise so much as a reminder that art can be an effective vehicle for connection and seeing in my work at the Market how quickly art has the power to intentionally build community among individuals.

What makes the BMA Lexington Market stand out?

The Market has the excitement and frenetic energy of a dance party while also simultaneously being a place for sharing hard histories. I’ve seen conflicts resolved, relationships develop, and friends laughing. Our space is a conduit for it all and that to me is special.

The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century captures hip hop’s extraordinary influence on contemporary art and culture over the past two decades of its 50-year history

Featuring more than 90 works by established and emerging artists, design houses, streetwear icons, and musicians working in a wide range of media, this major ticketed exhibition demonstrates hip hop’s proliferation from the street to the runway, the studio to the museum gallery, and countless sites in between.

The Culture weaves a compelling narrative about art and culture that is rarely experienced in a museum context—and one that highlights a broad array of conceptual and material innovation.

What follows is an edited excerpt from the exhibition catalog’s leading essay, Watch the Throne by Asma Naeem, Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director.

Co-organized by the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) and Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM), the exhibition is co-curated by Asma Naeem, the BMA’s Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director; Gamynne Guillotte, the BMA’s Chief Education Officer; Hannah Klemm, SLAM’s Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art; and Andréa Purnell, SLAM’s Audience Development Manager.

The Culture is further supported by an advisory committee comprising experts and artists across a wide range of disciplines, including Martha Diaz, Founder and President of the Hip-Hop Education Center; Wendel Patrick, professor at the Peabody Music Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University; Tef Poe, rapper and activist; Hélio Menezes, anthropologist and curator of Afro-Atlantic Histories; and Timothy Anne Burnside, public historian and Museum Specialist in Curatorial Affairs at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

This exhibition is generously supported by the Henry Luce Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support is provided by The Alvin and Fanny B. Thalheimer Exhibition Endowment Fund

Beats, rhymes, culture and finances for this exhibition are generously provided by hip hop ambassadors “DJ Fly Guy” Flynn & Nupur Parekh Flynn, inventor of BAGCEIT®

Over its now 50-year trajectory, hip hop has evolved: once rooted in the Black and Latinx youth experience and its hyper-local origins at a Bronx house party thrown by Kool Herc and his sister Cindy Campbell in 1973, it is now the most streamed form of music. Growing out of dancehall and dubstep, celebration and joy, along with a make-do-withwhatever-is-at-hand creative approach, hip hop began its blaze as a movement with four pillars: breakdancing, DJing, MCing, and graffiti. (A fifth pillar of social consciousness was later added.) Throughout the decades, rap has expanded its scope, exploring themes including civil rights and protest with such pioneering songs as Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message” (1982); criminality and the gangsta lifestyle with groups like N.W.A. and DMX; male vulnerability and bravado in the lyrics of Tupac Shakur and Gucci Mane; celebrity status and conspicuous consumption with such icons as Lil’ Kim and Pop Smoke; female liberation and sexuality through Nicki Minaj and Megan Thee Stallion; and more recently the blurring of club, dance, house, and R&B in the work of Drake and newcomers like Bandmanrill.

To those contemporary art lovers who may think that when it comes to a conversation about hip hop, they can sit this one out, I will say the following: Many of the most compelling visual artists working today are directly engaging with central tenets of this canon in their practices, in both imperceivable and manifest ways. I am not just talking about the underground legacy of graffiti and the affordability of such things as spray paint, or the appropriation of such collage-like tactics as sampling and remixing, or the in-your-face bravura of rapping, or the ecstatic finessing and posing that is breakdancing. In contemporary art today, whether through the poetics of the street, the blurring of high and low, the reclamation of the gaze, the homage to hip-hop geniuses, or the experimental collaborations across such vastly disparate fields as painting, performance, architecture, and computer programming, the visual culture of hip hop along with its subversive tactics and its tackling of social justice surface everywhere in the art of today. For many visual artists, hip hop has enabled a radical interrogation of such previously stable and homogenously white aspects of art history and culture as strategies of representation, genius, and who is the beholder. I would go so far as to say that with

hip hop’s mind-blowing migration from the margins to mainstream popular culture, we are in the midst of a second Pop art movement—one that is far more layered, polyphonic, commodified, sustained, and frankly, popular—than the one in the 1960s that Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, and others developed.

works, in a tacit and sometimes not-so-tacit disapproval of the subject matter, the vernacular syntax and materials, or the embedded values. This is to say nothing about the questions of artistic excellence and mastery that continue to be whispered among certain gatekeepers. Jamaican philosopher Sylvia Wynter, in her reflections

Here’s another thing: Until now, visual art reflecting the culture of hip hop has been primarily limited to moving between artists’ studios and auction houses, galleries, and private collections. Art museums have largely stayed silent when it comes to acquiring these

of race and colonialism, wrote that we need to give humanness a different future, and that our current system of knowledge cannot hold the changes that are occurring and arising.1 For me, hip hop is not only part of this discourse about the future of humanness,

… the visual culture of hip hop along with its subversive tactics and its tackling of social justice surface everywhere in the art of today

but is also actively reshaping it, creating a new system of knowledge. This exhibition articulates these consequential stakes as well as signals how art museums need to step up beyond showcasing the work of such designers as Virgil Abloh for Louis Vuitton in temporary shows, which is an all-too-safe way to bring in crowds without devoting long-term resources or making the cultural commitment of acquiring works for their collections.

To put it simply, as vital civic and cultural centers of humanness, art museums need to embrace the culture Objects of artistic excellence—paintings, sculptures, assemblages, fashion, wigs, and whatever else—shaped by the culture and canon of hip hop need to be placed permanently in the hallowed spaces of museums, alongside the Delacroixes, Géricaults, and DaVincis.

Endnotes

1 Sylvia Wynter and Katherine McKittrick. “Unparalleled Catastrophe for Our Species? Or, to Give Humanness a Different Future: Conversations,” In Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis, edited by Katherine McKittrick. Durham: Duke University Press, 2015, 9-89.

Questioning Histories and Myths

Two New Works Commissioned by the BMA Confront Misleading Perceptions of the Past

Artists Jackie Milad of Baltimore and Nekisha Durrett of Washington, D.C., were selected from over 100 applicants to create new works in dialogue with Fred Wilson’s Artemis/Bast (1992), for the exhibition Histories Collide: Jackie Milad x Fred Wilson x Nekisha Durrett. Scattered plaster shards surround this sculpture, suggesting the aftermath of a collision. Artemis/Bast joins two deities associated with protection, fertility, and the moon: the body of Artemis, Greek goddess of the hunt, and the head of Bast (also known as Bastet), the more ancient Egyptian cat goddess. The black feline head sits atop the white plaster body, asserting Africa as a vital source of knowledge across the ancient world. The sculpture counters narratives that erased Africa’s cultural contributions.

Associate Curator of Contemporary Art Cecilia Wichmann and Dave Eassa,

Director of Public Engagement, are co-organizing the commission and exhibition. A jury of distinguished cultural workers, including Angela N. Carroll, Teri Henderson, Ashley Minner, and Ginevra Shay, consulting with George Ciscle as the jury’s advisor, selected proposals by Durrett and Milad for commission.

Beginning April 26, Histories Collide: Jackie Milad x Fred Wilson x Nekisha Durrett will be on view in the John Waters Rotunda and adjacent galleries. Below, Milad and Durrett speak about their proposed works and how they engage with Wilson’s investigations into cultural, historical, and museological issues.

Who Owns Egyptian Antiquities?

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s expansive collection of ancient Egyptian works inspired Baltimore-based artist Jackie Milad to consider the histories of collecting Egyptian antiquities for her

BMA proposal. “There are over 350 institutions across 27 countries that have Egyptian objects,” the artist explains. “The British Museum [alone] has over 100,000 works of Egyptian art.”

Milad’s father was born in Egypt, and she has studied her family’s history, finding that museums often neglect the contributions of living artists of the Egyptian diaspora and often fail to make meaningful connections with Egyptian viewers. “Going into these spaces, there’s a feeling of ‘it’s yours, but it’s not yours.’ There’s a very disconnected experience and a real missed opportunity for museums to connect,” Milad said.

For her multimedia works for the exhibition, Milad will create two large-scale collaged-paintings, a cut-out fabric painting, as well as a bronze

statuette. Her paintings incorporate ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and ancient American figures (Milad’s mother, an art lover, hails from Honduras), pictures and letters from her family, irreverent pop culture references, fragments of poems, and contemporary aesthetics. Hot pink is a dominant hue, and hip-hop lyrics swirl their way into her collages.

Milad’s father, a goldsmith from a multigenerational background in the craft, will fabricate golden medallions. Milad designs the icons based on ancient artworks from her ancestors’ cultures. These medallions will be sewn into Milad’s collaged paintings, linking past and present, family and history.

“This puts the icons and objects into a new context that I have control over,”

Milad said. “There’s so much to think about when using these [historical] objects. When I draw out my icons, I have a feeling like, ‘I’m going to take care of you.’”

Navigating Harriet Tubman’s Genius Washington, D.C.-based artist Nekisha Durrett turned to the legacy of Harriet Tubman for her proposed BMA installation Frontiers. Instead of a traditional portrait of Tubman’s physical attributes, Durrett will produce an abstract study of Tubman’s revolutionary and visionary way of thinking. For the multi-media work, Durrett will create a 10-foot black reflective circle, mounted to the wall and bisected by a line of white light. The circumference will be ringed with soil collected from the root of a tulip poplar

“When I draw out my icons, I have a feeling like, ‘I’m going to take care of you.’”

known as the Witness Tree at Mt. Pleasant Acres Farms in Preston, Maryland, with permission from its stewards, Paulette Greene and Donna Dear. Born into slavery near this site, Tubman escaped in 1849 but returned in 1854 to rescue her father Ben, a free laborer, and her enslaved brothers Ben, Robert, and Henry.

“Tubman once had this vision of a white line, an astral projection,” Durrett explains. “[To me,] on the one side of the white line there is suppression and then on the other side is freedom, but that line keeps moving. [Tubman was] seeing beyond that line. She’s looking at that viewer in the future. That’s what I am trying to portray in this piece.”

While working on a previous portrait of Tubman, Durrett would lay across the large canvas delicately dabbing countless dots to recreate Tubman’s likeness. The hours spent toiling away on the portrait afforded Durrett time to listen to biographies about Tubman. In Sarah Hopkins Bradford’s widely read 19th-century biography, the white woman described Tubman’s “ignorant, dark mind.” This belittling depiction did not make sense to Durrett; Tubman was

an organized tactical thinker, able to navigate halfway across the country while protecting the lives and securing the freedoms of others.“We don’t really talk about the complexity and depth of mind of our heroes” Durrett said. “The biographer tried to reduce her mind to darkness and ignorance, but she contains the vastness of the universe.”

Histories Collide: Jackie Milad x Fred Wilson x Nekisha Durrett is on view from April 26, 2023 through March 17, 2024.

“We don’t really talk about the complexity and depth of mind of our heroes”

From the Ground Up

New Interpretation for the Antioch Floor Mosaics Reflect Many Cultural Influences

Situated near the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in present-day Türkiye, the ancient cities of Antioch and Daphne were thriving cultural, business, and political centers between the 1st and 6th centuries. Since the 1940s, fragments of floor mosaics from the homes of cosmopolitan elites of those metropolitan locales have adorned the walls of the Baltimore Museum of Art’s colloquially named Antioch Court. And until the summer of 2022, very little had changed in how the Museum has explained these mosaics to visitors.

As curator Dr. Kevin Tervala, Associate Curator and Department Head for the Arts of Africa, the Americas, Asia, and the Pacific Islands, explained, 20th century art history framed the ancient floor mosaics as stand-ins for Roman painting. So, the mosaics are hung on the

walls in the BMA’s Antioch Court like paintings and were given names similar to paintings — like The Striding Lion. But far more problematically, the floor mosaics were serving as a stand-in for all of Roman antiquity.

the Iranian Plateau, for example,” Tervala noted. Further, it was a city where traders and travelers congregated, with a populace of Syrians, Greeks, Romans, and people from throughout the Arabian

the diverse and vibrant life of ancient Antioch and set aside the overdetermined idea of the Roman empire that formed the basis of how the mosaics were interpreted for so long.

Antioch was located on the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire, and the city held fast to the Greek cultural ideals that preceded Roman rule more deeply than the other cities that comprised the empire. “Antioch was also greatly influenced by empires to its east—the Sasanian Empire centered on

Peninsula. With this history in mind, Tervala asserts, “it really is incorrect to interpret these mosaics solely through a Roman lens— and a Christian one at that.”

So, Tervala and colleagues at the BMA set about researching, writing, and designing new text panels to accompany the mosaics in the Museum, ones that honor

Take, for example, the Fragment of floor mosaic depicting beribboned parrots. The new text explains how the design of the mosaic reflects the artistic exchanges between Antioch and the Sasanian Empire. “The motif depicted on the mosaic is a Sasanian one found on textiles, silverwork, and stucco. And the pattern of the parrots—with one row facing one direction, and the next facing another direction—is deeply reminiscent of the sort of silk imported into the Sasanian Empire from China,” Tervala said.

Maps accompanying the new texts place ancient Syria, the historic location of the mosaics, at their center. While Italy and Greece do not appear in these maps, the Iranian Plateau, the

The ancient world was much like our own. It was a globalized space in which people and ideas and artworks were always moving and flowing, irrespective of borders.

Arabian Peninsula, and Egypt do, further underscoring the importance of the people, cultures, and resources of those locations to the mosaics. One small example surfaced in the texts is that while many of the tesserae (cubes) used in the mosaics were sourced from local stone, some of the glass tesserae required minerals mined as far away as Egypt.

Visitors might notice each mosaic label contains a sector location. These sectors reflect the archeological sites from which each mosaic was excavated during the exploration and excavation project undertaken in the 1930s by Princeton University, the Worcester Art

Museum, the Musées Nationaux de France, and of course, the BMA, with the approval of the Syrian Antiquities Service. Adding the sectors to the texts is a reminder that these mosaics are fragments of entire floors, of homes and built spaces where people once walked every day. Furthering this, is that each piece is titled to reflect its fragmentary nature. So, The Striding Lion is now called Fragment of floor mosaic depicting a striding lion, birds, and crops.

Under the guidance of Dr. Asma Naeem, Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director at the BMA, the BMA’s curatorial team continues to work to share with visitors how art defies geopolitical

borders and creates real connections between people across space and time. Tervala points out how this is manifested in the new texts for the Antioch Floor Mosaics, saying, “we see that the ancient world was much like our own. It was a globalized space in which people and ideas and artworks were always moving and flowing, irrespective of borders.”

The new texts offer Museum visitors the opportunity to see the Antioch Floor Mosaics with new eyes and connect with them through material history, stories of conservation, archaeology, and, of course, the people who lived with and around them. “The people and gods and patterns

that we see in these mosaics are reflective not only of the values and desires of ancient Antiochenes, but they are also reflective of the material and artistic world in which they’ve

lived,” Tervala said. “Museum visitors can look at these floor mosaic fragments and understand a larger world that really was not all that different from the one that we live in today.”

The Community at Work

Kevin Tervala worked with Johns Hopkins University Professor Jennifer Stager as she taught the Antioch Recovery Project Research Lab in 2020 and 2021. More about Stager’s course and class research can be found at antiochrecoveryproject.org.

JHU’s Professor Jennifer Kingsley invited Tervala to teach a course with her on how to interpret the Antioch Mosaics with a global lens in 2021. Both courses, as well as the work of Stager, Kingsley, and their students, were instrumental in the interpretive refresh of the Antioch Floor Mosaics.

Art After Hours: John Waters

Friday, March 10, 8–11 p.m.

Members: $20

Non-members $25

Join us for Baltimore’s favorite evening art party in celebration of individualism and self-expression. Enjoy a variety of interactive activities, live entertainment, specialty cocktails, appetizers, artmaking, and music, inspired by the exhibition: Coming Attractions: The John Waters Collection. This event is for adults 21 or older. Tickets will be available at artbma.org.

Community Day: The Culture

Sunday, April 16, 1– 5 p.m.

Celebrate the public opening of The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century with an event for the entire family exploring the impact and influence of hip hop on music, performing arts, fashion, and technology. Enjoy free access to the exhibition, live entertainment, hands-on artmaking, light bites, and a wide range of activities for all ages.

Drop-in Tours

Thursdays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. BMA drop-in tours have returned! Join a free one-hour thematic tour of our collection.

Baltimore County Public Schools Student Exhibition

Baltimore City Public Schools Student Exhibition

On view Wednesday, March 15 through Sunday, March 19

Free Family Sundays

Select Sundays

Express your inner artist with monthly, pop-up artmaking and activity workshops for children and families. Explore exhibitions and works from the collection with local guest artists and educators. Stay tuned to artbma.org and sign up for the BMA Families emails list for upcoming program information.

On view Wednesday, March 8 through Sunday, March 12

Now for the 35th time, the BMA is hosting the annual countywide student exhibition, Art is for Everyone, presenting artwork of Baltimore County public school students from pre-K through 12th grade. The breadth of the county schools’ art program is highlighted by a variety of two- and three-dimensional artworks, including sculpture, photography, drawing, painting, and digital art.

The BMA is proud to host once again fyi...For Your Inspiration, a city-wide student exhibition presenting artwork by students from pre-K through 12th grade from Baltimore City public schools. Experience the creativity and imagination of Baltimore youth in a range of artworks using traditional and surprising materials and techniques.

All programs and events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.

Membership offers unique opportunities to celebrate and explore the arts at the BMA. Members enjoy invitations to select exhibition openings and other events, discounts on programs and concerts, and access to digital programming offered throughout the year. Don’t miss these upcoming events! Be sure to check our website for the most up-to-date events schedule and details.

Behind The Screens: An Exclusive Members’ Benefit

We are proud to continue our digital talk series Behind the Screens. An exclusive benefit for Members, these specially created lectures by our curators will be sent directly to your inbox. The library of videos is available at artbma.org/behindscreens (password: weloveart). Have a topic suggestion or are not receiving our emails? Please contact membership@artbma.org. To join or renew your Membership, visit artbma.org/join or call 443-573-1800.

Member Preview Days

Saturday, April 1 and Sunday, April 2

Members are invited to be the first to experience this exhibition. Reserve your tickets ahead of time at artbma.org or stop by the welcome desk when you visit.

Council and Members Opening Party

Sunday, April 2 RSVP Required. Invitations will be mailed 4:30 p.m.-6:30 p.m.

BMA Council Members are invited to an auditorium talk and reception with curators of The Culture, Asma Naeem, Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director and Gamynne Guillotte, Chief Education Officer.

6:30–8:30 p.m.

Open to all Membership levels. Enjoy light bites and entertainment. Cash bar and guided parking will be available.

Women in the Arts Networking Event

Wednesday, April 19, 6–8:30 p.m.

Join us for a fun evening inspired by The Culture. The night features a panel discussion on women in hip hop, food and drink from women-led businesses, and evening access to the exhibition. Tickets and more information will be available online at artbma.org this March.

May is for Members

BMA Members are the best! We couldn’t be more thankful for the generosity we have received. In thanks for your support, we hope you will join us in May, for a month-long special celebration of BMA Members featuring giveaways and prizes, exclusive digital programs, an ice cream social, and more.

Members Shopping Evening

Wednesday, May 3, 5:30–7:30 p.m. Invitations will be emailed

Members enjoy 20% off at the BMA Shop, evening access to The Culture, and light refreshments in the Lobby.

Members Spring Shopping Days

Wednesday, May 3–Sunday, May 7 Stop by the BMA Shop and enjoy a 20% discount.

Members Ice Cream Social

Sunday, May 7, 1–4 p.m.

Invitations will be emailed

Members and their families are invited to join us for an afternoon in the Sculpture Garden. Featuring live music, Taharka Brothers ice cream and family-friendly craft activities.

Council Talk & Reception: Martha Jackson Jarvis

Wednesday, May 17, 6–8 p.m.

Invitations will be mailed

Council Members are invited to a special evening with the curators and artist.

Save the Date!

Corporate Council Family Day

Saturday, June 10, 12–2 p.m.

Invitations will be emailed

All employees of Corporate Council Members are invited to bring their families for a day at the Museum! Guests will enjoy lunch, an artmaking activity, and complimentary access to The Culture. This event is free and open to all employees but RSVP will be required. Please reach out to Alli Baldwin at abaldwin@artbma.org with any questions.

BMA Corporate Partner Spotlight

A BMA partner for more than 35 years, T. Rowe Price supports Baltimore’s arts community. The firm’s philanthropic efforts focus on increasing youth opportunity, advancing creativity and innovation, and financial well-being. T. Rowe Price provides annual support for core BMA operations at the Founder’s Level with additional support for numerous special projects, most recently including our branch location, BMA Lexington Market, and its preceding Outpost mobile-museum program.

A Movement in Every Direction Opening Celebration

Wednesday, October 26, 2022

Exhibition donors, sponsors, key supporters, and artists gathered together with their family and friends to celebrate the realization of this historic exhibition.

A Movement in Every Direction Council & Members Opening Party

Saturday, October 29, 2022

Members at all levels took part in a special evening celebrating the opening of A Movement in Every Direction. Guests enjoyed previewing the exhibition and mingling with many of the artists featured in the show.

The John Waters Collection Contributors’

Evening November 18, 2022

Guests enjoyed hearing personal stories and insights into the exhibition during an evening discussion with guest curator Jack Pierson, John Waters and BMA curator Leila Grothe (pictured at bottom). After the presentation, guests mingled with Waters and the curators in the galleries.

Corporate Council Night

Wednesday, December 7, 2022

Corporate Council Member employees enjoyed a happy hour reception featuring music by DJ Amy Reid, artmaking, and free access to A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration. This annual event is a free benefit offered to all employees of BMA Corporate Council Members.

Creative Collaboration

In early December, Guy and Nupur Flynn hosted several leaders from museums across the city. It was a good evening of conversation and consideration of the work we share in uplifting the creativity of Baltimore.

From left to right, front row: Asma Naeem, Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director, BMA; Christine Dietze, Chief Operating Officer, BMA; Guy Flynn, President, Walters Art Museum Board of Trustees; Payal Parek, Payal Arts International; Nupur Parekh Flynn, BMA Trustee; Drew Hawkins, Chair, Reginald F. Lewis Museum Board of Trustees. Second Row: Jenenne Whitfield, American Visionary Art Museum Director; James D. Thornton, Chair, BMA Board of Trustees; Peter Bain, President Elect, Walters Art Museum Board of Trustees; Julia Marciari-Alexander, Director, the Walters Art Museum; Millicent Bain.

Member Benefits

Gertrude’s Chesapeake Kitchen

Lauded by Food & Wine, Travel & Leisure, The Washington Post, Edible DC, The Baltimore Sun, and a multi-year winner of Baltimore magazine’s “Best of Baltimore,”

Gertrude’s serves locally sourced farm-fresh food that preserves Chesapeake culinary traditions.

HOURS

Monday and Tuesday Closed

Wednesday–Friday 11:30 a.m.–8 p.m.

Saturday Brunch: 11:30 a.m–3 p.m.

Dinner: 4:30 p.m.–8 p.m.

Sunday Brunch: 10 a.m.–3 p.m.

Dinner: 4:30 p.m.–7 p.m. BMA MEMBERS SAVE 10%

Don’t wait to reserve a table

It’s never too early to make reservations for a special day or celebration and you will certainly need a reservation for a table at Gertrude’s on Easter (April 9), Mother’s Day (May 14), or Father’s Day (June 18). Gertrude’s is open for brunch and dinner on those days offering fare from the regular menu as well as seasonal specialties. Reservations often fill up for these dates weeks in advance.

Planning a wedding or event?

Whether you’re planning a corporate party, a celebration with family and friends, or a wedding, Gertrude’s makes a memorable event. No matter the size of your group, we will cover all the details to make it perfect. Call 410-889-3399 for more information.

RESERVATIONS

gertrudesbaltimore.com or 410-889-3399

Our Picks

Members save 10% or more at the BMA Shop

Proceeds from the BMA Shop benefit the Museum’s educational programs.

1. Tracey Beale earrings, $275

2. Tracey Beale necklace, $245

Ongoing Exhibitions

Baltimore, Addressed: Baker Artist Awards Through March 12, 2023

Elle Pérez: Devotions Through March 19, 2023

Omar Ba: Political Animals Through April 2, 2023

Coming Attractions: The John Waters Collection Through April 16, 2023

Darrel Ellis: Regeneration Through April 23, 2023

Stanley Whitney: Dance with Me Henri Through April 23, 2023

Arctic Artistry Through May 14, 2023

The Culture: Hip Hop and Art in the 21st Century April 5, 2023–July 16, 2023

Omar Ba: Political Animals Through April 2, 2023

New Exhibitions

The Culture: Hip Hop and Art in the 21st Century April 5–July 16, 2023

Histories Collide: Jackie Milad x Fred Wilson x Nekisha Durrett April 26–March 17, 2024

Martha Jackson Jarvis: What the Trees Have Seen May 7–October 1, 2023

Recasting Colonialism: Michelle Erickson May 7–October 1, 2023

The Matter of Bark Cloth May 7–October 1, 2023

Matsumi Kanemitsu: Figure and Fantasy May 14-October 8, 2023

Wild Forms: Fauve Woodcuts May 14-October 15, 2023

March

2 THURSDAY Drop-in Tour: Women Artists, 2 p.m.

4 SATURDAY Drop-in Tour: Women Artists, 2 p.m.

8 WEDNESDAY Baltimore County Public Schools Student Exhibition

9 THURSDAY

Drop-in Tour: Matisse and Friends, 2 p.m. Baltimore County Public Schools Student Exhibition

12 SUNDAY Free Family Sunday Baltimore County Public Schools Student Exhibition

15 WEDNESDAY Baltimore City Public Schools Student Exhibition

16 THURSDAY Baltimore City Public Schools Student Exhibition

Drop-in Tour: Sculpture Inside and Out, 2 p.m.

17 FRIDAY Baltimore City Public Schools Student Exhibition

18 SATURDAY Baltimore City Public Schools Student Exhibition

Drop-in Tour: Sculpture Inside and Out, 2 p.m.

19 SUNDAY Baltimore City Public Schools Student Exhibition

April

1 SATURDAY

Drop-in Tour: Matisse and Friends, 2 p.m.

Members Preview Day: The Culture

2 SUNDAY Council Preview Event: The Culture, 4:30–6:30 p.m.

Members Preview Party: The Culture, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Members Preview Day: The Culture

6 THURSDAY

Drop-in Tour: European Art, 2 p.m.

8 SATURDAY

Drop-in Tour: European Art, 2 p.m.

13 THURSDAY Drop-in Tour: Antioch Mosaics, 2 p.m.

15 SATURDAY Drop-in Tour: Antioch Mosaics, 2 p.m.

16 SUNDAY

Community Day: The Culture, 1–5 p.m. Free Family Sunday

19 WEDNESDAY Networking Event: Women in the Arts, 6-8:30 p.m.

20

May

3 WEDNESDAY

Members Shopping Evening, 5:30–7:30 p.m.

Members Spring Shopping Day

4 THURSDAY

Drop-in Tour: African Art, 2 p.m. Members Spring Shopping Day

5 FRIDAY Members Spring Shopping Day

6 SATURDAY Contributors Brunch & Talk: The Culture, 8–11 a.m.

Drop-in Tour: African Art, 2 p.m.

Members Spring Shopping Day

7 SUNDAY Members Ice Cream Social, 1–4 p.m.

Members Spring Shopping Day

11 THURSDAY

Drop-in Tour: Women Artists, 2 p.m.

13 SATURDAY

Drop-in Tour: Women Artists, 2 p.m.

17 WEDNESDAY

Council Talk & Reception: Martha Jackson Jarvis, 6-8 p.m.

18 THURSDAY

10 FRIDAY Art After Hours: John Waters, 8–11 p.m. Baltimore County Public Schools Student Exhibition

11 SATURDAY

Drop-in Tour: Matisse and Friends, 2 p.m. Baltimore County Public Schools Student Exhibition

23 THURSDAY Drop-in Tour: Women Artists, 2 p.m.

25 SATURDAY Drop-in Tour: Women Artists, 2 p.m.

30 THURSDAY

Drop-in Tour: Matisse and Friends, 2 p.m.

Drop-in Tour: Sculpture Inside and Out, 2 p.m.

20 SATURDAY

Drop-in Tour: Sculpture Inside and Out, 2 p.m.

21 SUNDAY Free Family Sunday

Willy

Doron Langberg, 2021

Doron Langberg connects the transcendent feeling of witnessing a magenta sunset and the preciousness of moments when love is most felt in Willy, recently acquired by the BMA. Brooklyn-based Langberg created the luminous portrait of his close friend Willy inside his apartment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Beer cans, cigarettes, a backpack, boots, scented candles, and a lighter are remnants of a prolonged time at home while quarantining.

Willy exemplifies Langberg’s intimate domestic interiors, known for their vibrant colors, textural

emphasis, and compositions inspired by the artist’s loved ones and the history of painting. His masterful treatment of textiles and patterns (exterior and interior) establish the environment. Large swathes of yellows, pinks, and blues depict the electric blue night sky of New York and the warm glow of the floor lamp, giving the figure a rich energy that locks the viewer in his gaze.

Willy is on view in the Contemporary Wing as part of the installation How Do We Know the World?

Revisit your favorite BMA exhibitions any time

Exhibition catalogs published by the BMA feature incredible artwork, essays, and creative writing from leading writers, curators, and artists.

Available at the BMA Shop. Members save 10% on every purchase. Visit in-person or at shop.artbma.org