BmoreArt’s Picks presents the best weekly art openings, events, and performances happening in Baltimore and surrounding areas. For a more comprehensive perspective, check the BmoreArt Calendar page, which includes ongoing exhibits and performances, and is updated on a daily basis.
To submit your calendar event, email us at [email protected]!
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Stephen Kelly: Wings of Desire – Author’s Talk
Wednesday, August 24th : 7pm
The Ivy Bookshop
6080 Falls Road : Baltimore 21209
Stephen Kelly’s The Wages of Desire is a mystery set in a small Hampshire village in the late summer of 1942. As the war in Europe drags on, the body of a young woman – a former conscientious objector – is found shot to death in the church cemetery. The woman’s only connection to the village of Winstead seems to be that she lately had joined a group of conscripted workers who are building a prisoner of war camp on an abandoned farm near the village. But Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Lamb, who is called in to solve the case, suspects that the murder has implications beyond personal political disagreements.
The mystery deepens when workers at the farm find the remains of a child in the foundation of the old farmhouse, and a tramp who had been squatting in the wood near the church turns up dead. Lamb begins to believe that the crimes might be related to a tragic event that occurred in Winstead more than twenty years earlier—the suicide of a village woman who took her life in despair after her husband abandoned her. As Detective Lamb pieces together the connections between the crimes, he draws closer to the source of evil in Winstead’s past—and present—and must risk his own life to uncover the truth.
Stephen Kelly’s work has appeared in The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Post and Baltimore Magazine. He was awarded an MA from the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars and has taught writing and journalism at Hopkins, Towson University and Sweet Briar College, in Virginia. He lives in Columbia, Maryland.
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ART / SOUND / NOW : Bonnie Jones + Lafayette Gilchrist
Thursday, August 25th : 7pm
The Walters Art Museum
600 North Charles Street : Baltimore 21201
Electronic artist Bonnie Jones will use the themes of migration, mobility, and impermanence to highlight the Renaissance and Medieval collections. Jazz pianist Lafayette Gilchrist will use his compositions to examine the components of great civilizations in the Egyptian galleries.
Presented in collaboration with The Red Room, a project of the High Zero Foundation.
ART/SOUND/NOW is a live music series in which performers use sound to create a new context for viewing the galleries of the museum.
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SHAG Presents: It’s About Time
Saturday, August 27th : 11am
The National Watch & Clock Museum
514 Poplar Street : Columbia, PA 17512
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Race Recounted [x] Our Voice – Opening Reception
Saturday, August 27th : 6-8pm
The Creative Alliance
3134 Eastern Avenue : Baltimore 21224
“It’s about race: both the way we view ourselves, and the way others view us as racialized beings” – Juan Ortiz
From August 27th to October 2nd, Creative Alliance and the Neighborhood Voices committee members present Race Recounted, an exhibition uncovering the personal stories and complexities of individual identity as expressed community members who have participated in the program and in exhibition-related workshops. Since its inception in 2013, the Neighborhood Voices program, its founders, institutional partners (Creative Alliance and Banner Neighborhoods), and its resident-led committee have made a concerted effort to address social tensions through conversations about race that foster public spaces for dialogue and equity. Race Recounted is a celebration of our stories, our artwork, our collectivity, and our mission to confront many Americans’ automatic response to racial inequality: to remain silent.
Race Recounted asks visitors to participate in the creation of artwork that tells the story of their own racialized identity through audio/visual portraits in a recordable greeting card (materials are provided). Participants must choose from a selection of 6 prefabricated exteriors that announce their race as defined by the US Census: White, Black, Latino, Asian/Pacific Islander, Native American, and Other. A workshop table in the center of the gallery guides them through the process of decorating the inside of the card and making a recording that re-plays when the card is opened. These stories and personalized images complicate the categorical generalizations made by the census classifications, and provide deeply moving insight into the complexities of identity that differentiate and define us all.
Performances by internationally renowned spoken word artists and storytellers from the Neighborhood Voices workshops act as loci for activity during the exhibition. Confirmed participants include: The Cornell West Theory, a group from Washington, DC who are inspired by social justice struggles, Hip Hop, and the center of world politics. Cornell West Theory’s music is rooted in hip hop, but smashes into a firebrand sound containing elements of punk, go-go, blues, jazz, and industrial noisescapes (Aug 27); and Noelle Ghoussaini, who will direct and coach neighborhood residents and committee members on personal storytelling through theatrical performance. She will also share her own story about her Lebanese-American identity (Aug 27). Additional program dates include a roundtable discussion led by Juan Ortiz in conjunction with Creative Alliance’s Activist Speaker Series (Oct 2); a performance-oriented Neighborhood Voices workshop, and open calls for schools, community groups, and the general public to participate in either the greeting card project or storytelling on the gallery’s stage.
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Artist Talk with Marian April Glebes: Commons Collaboration
Saturday, August 27th : 2pm-5pm
The Baltimore Museum of Art
10 Art Museum Drive : Baltimore 21218
Marian April Glebes will give a summative talk on her artist project in the Commons and the satellite locations at The Loading Dock and her home. Hear her reflections on the performative qualities of the sculptures and the unique ways she engaged the larger community in the work. Reception to follow.
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Shane McCallum: These Eyes
Saturday, August 27 : 7-10pm
Gallery Four
405 W. Franklin Street
On view 8/27- 9/4
Gallery hours Saturdays 12-5 and by appointment
Organized and curated by Dave Eassa
Where does the mind go when it’s cut off from the world? If it wanted to be an artist, but wasn’t allowed?
Shane McCallum spent thirty seven years of his life exploring these questions. McCallum entered the Maryland prison system as a young man, still in his teenage years. He found himself in a place with the power to reduce a person to a number and crush aspirations. He turned to art as support and managed to hold on to his identity.
Throughout his incarceration, McCallum experienced waves of artistic accessibility. At times, materials were provided by the institutions, but there were also years when he was cut off, unable to order paints or supplies. He constantly tried to use his talents to benefit everyone around him, to help uplift those struggling in the same situation. McCallum painted murals in the prison’s visiting rooms to help children feel more at ease visiting their fathers, operated facepainting booths during Family Day, and painted portraits of loved ones to other incarcerated men. He donated is artwork to outside events to help benefit service organizations while also working on his own body of work. His paintings can be read like snippets of history seen through Time magazine. A lion behind bars depicts a struggle individuals in prison face daily, feeling powerless against a system designed to keep to keep them at bay. It is a system in which rehabilitation is no longer the goal and self worth is extinguished. A system that, all too often, locks the lion up and doesn’t think twice.
After thirty seven years Shane McCallum was released from prison, only to be diagnosed with terminal cancer a couple months later. This is not only the first solo exhibition of his work, but also a celebration of his life. The exhibition will move from Gallery Four to the Delaware Hospice Center in Millford, DE. The work will be available to raise funds for funeral costs and a donation to the Hospice Center where he spent his remaining days.
“Shane McCallum: These Eyes” is made possible with the help of Shane’s brother Kelley McCallum and with support from Dave Eassa, Free Space, the Open Society Institute-Baltimore, the Gutierrez Memorial Fund, and the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts.
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Break Dance Showcase: Dark Matters Performance by Jefferson Pinder
Saturday, August 27 at 2 pm* date corrected
Reginald F. Lewis Museum
830 E. Pratt Street, Baltimore 21202
Multimedia artist Jefferson Pinder studied images from the Ferguson uprising and worked with international b-boy crew Lionz of Zion to direct this performance. Following, Orlando Pinder screens the short video, “I, Too, Am B-CC [High School],” exploring racial stereotypes at his school. A post discussion follows with father and son. You’re invited to also attend the preceding program Expressions of Baltimore at 12:30pm. In conjunction with the exhibition Question Bridge: Black Males.
Please let us know that you’re coming. Click here to RSVP online to this event.
Date and Time: Saturday, August 27, 2:00 pm
For more information call 443-263-1800
Admission: Included with museum admission
More info here: http://www.lewismuseum.org/event/2016/break-dance-showcase-dark-matters
