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.
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Seeing Sound: Mary Ellen Bute Retrospective
Tuesday, August 8th : 7:30pm
The Parkway Theater
3 West North Avenue : 21201
SIGHT UNSEEN SCREENING SERIES PRESENTS
Seeing Sound: Mary Ellen Bute Retrospective
Presented in association with Center for Visual Music
16mm!
The Parkway, Theatre 3
5 West North Ave.
Baltimore, MD 21201
7:30PM
$10 general admission/$9 students/$8 members
http://
http://mdfilmfest.com/
Notes courtesy Center for Visual Music’s Bute Research site
ABOUT MARY ELLEN BUTE
A pioneer of visual music and electronic art, Mary Ellen Bute produced over a dozen short abstract animations between the 1930s to the 1950s. Set to classical music by the likes of Bach, Saint-Saens or Shostakovich, and filled with colorful forms, elegant design and sprightly, dance-like-rhythms, Bute’s filmmaking is at once formally rigorous and energetically high-spirited, like a marriage of high modernism and Merrie Melodies. In the late 1940s, Lewis Jacobs observed that Bute’s films were “composed upon mathematical formulae depicting in ever-changing lights and shadows, growing lines and forms, deepening colors and tones, the tumbling, racing impressions evoked by the musical accompaniment.” Bute herself wrote that she sought to “bring to the eyes a combination of visual forms unfolding along with the thematic development and rhythmic cadences of music.” (Ed Halter)
Known for her pioneering early abstract films (some of which were screened regularly at Radio City Music Hall, New York in the 1930s), Bute made a series of Visual Music films which she called “Seeing Sound.” The Retrospective Program from Center for Visual Music features all 14 of her short abstract films, including some rarely-seen films, most in 16mm prints: Rhythm in Light, 1934; Synchromy No. 2, 1935; Dada, 1936; Parabola, 1937; Escape, 1937; Spook Sport (animated by Norman McLaren), 1939; Tarantella, 1940; Polka Graph, 1947; Color Rhapsody, 1948; Imagination, 1948; New Sensations in Sound, 1949 (RCA Commercial); Pastorale, 1950, Abstronic, 1952 and Mood Contrasts, 1953.
Center for Visual Music (CVM) is a Los Angeles archive dedicated to experimental animation and visual music. Prints are from the Cecile Starr Collection at CVM.
www.centerforvisualmusic.o
More about Mary Ellen Bute: http://
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Cerebral Sorcery
Shows Friday, August 11th – Sunday, August 13th
Baltimore Theatre Project
45 West Preston Street : 21201
Magicians Francis Menotti and David London bring Cerebral Sorcery back to the stage, 15 years after it first premiered! Featuring a series of magical vignettes, the duo takes audiences on a philosophical journey into the human mind, and the quest for understanding.
Its a magic show for your brain!
Recommended for ages 16+
Showtimes:
Friday, August 11 @ 8:00pm
Saturday, August 12 @ 5:00pm & 8:00pm
Sunday, August 13 @ 2:00pm
Ticket Packages: General Admission; VIP First Three Row Seating; VIP First Three Row Seating + Close-up Magic show BEFORE the show!
Purchase Tickets here: http://
Learn more at www.CerebralSorcery.com
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Baltimore Youth Arts End of Summer Celebration
Friday, August 11th : 5-8pm
116 West Mulberry Street : 21201
BYA End of Summer Celebration!!!!!!!
Come join Baltimore Youth Arts for another end of summer celebration and art show FRIDAY AUG 11th, 5-8pm at 116 W Mulberry St. This summer we experimented with various types of art making and design techniques, played with babies, painted a mural, went to Washington DC, and to the Reginald Lewis Museum. We are eager to share our experiences and the art we made along the way.
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Blush + Brews Presents: B&BBQ
Saturday, August 12th : 1-6pm
Station North Ynot Lot
4 West North Avenue : 21218
A benefit for Planned Parenthood of Maryland
OUR FIRST OUTDOOR B+B
A day of positivity and beauty
Inspired by the complexity of femme
Relating strength + empathy
Practicing love + tenderness
Empowering one another
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Dance All Day
Enjoy Yourself
Be Yourself
Embrace Your Palette
Apply The Blush
FREE
ALL AGES
Dj Haram https://soundcloud.com/
:3lon https://soundcloud.com/
Andrea Valle https://soundcloud.com/
Ayes Cold https://soundcloud.com/
Bobbi Rush https://soundcloud.com/
Food available from PIZZA LLAMA + more
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C O N C R E T E / C O M P L E X: a portrait of McKeldin Fountain
Saturday, August 12th : 7-10pm
Current Space
421 North Howard Street : 21201
“Architecture is the establishing of moving relationships with raw materials” – Le Corbusier
Using photography, video, and sound, Baltimore-based artists Shannon Collis and Liz Donadio documented McKeldin Fountain’s last days. Their portrait of the once-functional space culminates in an immersive installation that conjures a meditation on the essence of this urban landmark. The installation’s sculptural forms reference the fountain’s Brutalist design, and celebrate its minimalism and strong angles; video shot on site traverses each of these surfaces. Collis and Donadio’s abstract, visual, and auditory impressions offer a sensory memorial experience of McKeldin Fountain, opening a layered engagement with viewers.
Erected in downtown Baltimore in 1982, McKeldin Fountain was an unembellished structure, poetically designed to evoke natural rock formations of the Susquehanna River—the longest river on the east coast and one of the oldest in the world. Its cliff-like forms were made in the architectural style of Brutalism, an uncompromising aesthetic known for minimalism and modular components. McKeldin was part of Baltimore’s urban landscape for over three decades, fusing natural ecology and modern design into the heart of the city.
A designated free-speech zone, the fountain was home to Occupy Baltimore in 2011 and to Black Lives Matter protests in 2015. Bridges and walkways crossing concrete forms allowed pedestrians to gather, sit, and experience a singular space. The fountain’s rushing water muffled the sound of constant traffic, offering an unlikely oasis in the middle of a hectic downtown.
In late 2016, city planners and developers dismantled McKeldin Fountain. Outcry against removal went unheeded and arguments lauding its significance as public art were ignored. Passersby witnessed the fountain’s ultimate demolition that November. Huge machines pummeled away at concrete as hoses sprayed water to prevent dust from flooding the air. For weeks McKeldin was surrounded by chain-link fence and black plastic, allowing only brief glimpses in. The fountain was hastily replaced with an uninspired lawn. What remains of the monumental structure are mental images and memories, full of history but no longer existing in the physical realm. Even in absence, McKeldin retains its significance.
Architecture can be an extension of the physical self: buildings tell us about our bodies, personal and social, and structure our experiences and memories. We assert the right and need to witness and commemorate those public spaces that have been our venues for communal gathering, spaces where we’ve exchanged simple pleasantries or radical ideas. Concrete / Complex is an artists’ tribute to McKeldin Fountain, to its design, history, and life in Baltimore.
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Opening: Paolo Morales + Nara Park
Saturday, August 12: 7 – 9 PM
Hamiltonian
1353 U St NW, Ste 101, Washington, District of Columbia 20009
Hamiltonian Gallery is pleased to present two new bodies of work by Paolo Morales and Nara Park. “Between You and Me” and “What Remains” and will run from August 12 – September 16, 2017 with an opening reception on Saturday, August 12 from 7 – 9 pm. Both artists will be in attendance.
Photographer Paolo Morales newest body of black and white pictures, “Between You and Me”, pairs staged and extemporaneous documentary-style photographs of people, landscapes and things that tenderly communicate the sensation of dislocation and isolation. With an acute eye for detail, Morales focuses his lens on fleetingly delicate moments captured in the American suburbs: the awkwardness that accompanies intimacy in human relationships, and still lives that act as visual metaphors for isolation. Taken together, the images serve as record of the small but indelible moments that punctuate daily life; moments that would otherwise be overlooked or dismissed altogether.
Continuing her elegiac sculptural exploration of impermanence and immortality, artist Nara Park’s newest exhibition “What Remains” meditates on the sensation of loss and the fragility of life. In “What Remains”, Park creates an installation comprised of monuments teetering on the brink of collapse: crumbling structures made up of razor-thin pieces of broken formica, shattered mirrors and objects made of sand. Park’s exploration of loss delicately plays with her signature trompe l’oeil techniques, creating an evocative world comprised of fragile false facades; seemingly solid forms that hang by threads, standing in for things and people lost to time, and what remains in their absence.
Paolo Morales is a photographer. Born and raised in New York City, Morales holds an MFA in Photography from the Rhode Island School of Design (2015). Morales has exhibited extensively at venues throughout the US, including the Detroit Center for Contemporary Photography, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, ClampArt, and Gallery 102 at The George Washington University. His photographs have appeared in Witness, Papersafe and Vice. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture in 2015, Blue Mountain Center in 2016, and Philadelphia Photo Arts Center in 2017. He currently lives in Arlington, Virginia, and teaches at George Mason University and The Potomac School.
Nara Park holds an MFA in sculpture from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2013, where she received the Henry Walters Traveling Fellowship and the Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award by the International Sculpture Center. Her work has been on exhibited in solo and group shows at the Kohl Gallery at Washington College, Chestertown MD; Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, NJ, Baltimore/Washington International Airport, Aqua Art Miami, Miami, FL and Rush Arts Gallery, New York, NY. Her work has been featured in the Sculpture magazine, The Washington Post, Huffington Post, and NY Arts Magazine. She lives and works in Washington, DC.
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Red Bull Amaphiko Academy Open House and Gallery Show
Monday, August 14th : 7pm
Eubie Blake Cultural Center
847 North Howard Street : 21201
Come see inside the Eubie Blake Cultural Center, recently renovated for the Red Bull Amaphiko Academy, featuring a Made In Baltimore pop-up market featuring some of Charm City’s top apparel, home goods, print and bath & beauty brands.
In addition to the already announced grand opening of the “What We Learn While Waiting” exhibit by Malaika Clements, Shan Wallace, and LieAnne Navarro, additional exhibits will include “Notes in Time,” the sights of the sounds in Baltimore, showcasing images from 3 generations of Baltimore photographers – I. Henry Phillips Sr., Irv Phillips Jr., and Webster Phillips III – as well as “Sowebo / Soweto,” a photography exhibit by famed lifestyle photographer Martha Cooper.
DJ Ducky Dynamo will provide sounds for the evening, and closing out the night of performances will be a one-of-a-kind open mic night curated by Pipe Dreamz, and hosted by AC Abdullah featuring the house band The Breedz with special performances from Tragedy Hiphop, Zaldea and Moe Speaks Truth.
