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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John Ruppert: Terra Firma
Opening reception Wednesday, September 27, 6 – 8pm
C. Grimaldis Gallery
523 North Charles Street 21201
September 27 – November 4, 2017
C. Grimaldis Gallery is pleased to present Terra Firma, a solo exhibition by John Ruppert. The exhibited works extend from the artist’s ongoing investigation of human intervention on the natural within a framework of material-based processes.
Consuming the entire front of the gallery, Bittersweet, 2017 is a sprawling installation of cut and reassembled Asiatic bittersweet vine. The artist manipulates this invasive plant’s tendrils to construct a drawing in space. With its thin bark and drastic coils, the vine appears limb-like and alien in stark contrast to the gallery’s architecture.
Exposing evidence of the artist’s hand in otherwise seamless reproductions of natural objects is an integral part of Ruppert’s process-based work. If not for a polished edge or buffed surface, the patina on oxidized bronze or rusted iron can easily be mistaken for stone. Ruppert’s sculptures at once preserve natural phenomena and confound material, producing a harmonic balance between natural order and human effort.
John Ruppert has exhibited widely at institutions in the US and abroad including The Academy Art Museum, Kreeger Museum, OMI International Sculpture Park and DeCordova Museum. He is the recipient of many awards and grants, as well as commissions at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport and The American Visionary Art Museum. Terra Firma is the artist’s sixth solo exhibition at C. Grimaldis Gallery. He is a Full Professor in the Department of Art at the University of Maryland, College Park and currently lives and works in Baltimore.
C. Grimaldis Gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10am – 5:30pm.
Image: John Ruppert, “Force Field I” (2017), earth magnet and volcanic sand.
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Baltimore STYLE Poetry Reading
Wednesday, September 27th : 7pm
The Ivy Bookshop
6080 Falls Road : 21209
Featured poets are Shirley J. Brewer, celeste doaks, Kathy Mangan and Michael Ratcliffe.
Shirley J. Brewer graduated from careers in bartending, palm-reading and speech therapy. She serves as poet-in-residence at Carver Center for the Arts & Technology in Baltimore. Her poems garnish BarrowStreet, Poetry East, Slant, Gargoyle, Comstock Review, and many other journals. Shirley’s poetry chapbooks include A Little Breast Music and After Words. In 2017, Main Street Rag released her first full-length collection of poems, Bistro in Another Realm. Shirley was awarded the first Creativity Award for Excellence in Plorking (Play + Work) from the University of Baltimore, where she earned her Master’s degree in Creative Writing/Publishing Arts.
Poet and journalist celeste doaks is the author of Cornrows and Cornfields and most recently the editor of Not Without Our Laughter. Cornrows was listed as one of the “Ten Best Books of 2015” by Beltway Poetry Quarterly. Her multiple accolades include a Lucille Clifton Scholarship to attend Squaw Valley Writers Workshop, the 2010 AWP WC&C Scholarship, and residencies at Atlantic Center of the Arts and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Her journalism has appeared in the Huffington Post, Village Voice, Time Out New York, and QBR (Quarterly Black Book Review). Doaks, who garnered a 2015 Pushcart Prize nomination, will be the 2017-2018 Visiting Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at University of Delaware.
Kathy Mangan lives in Baltimore and teaches creative writing and American literature at McDaniel College, where she is Professor of English and holds the Joan Develin Coley Chair in Creative Expression and the Arts. Her books include a chapbook, Ragged Alphabet, and Above the Tree Line. Her poems have been published in Georgia Review, Gettysburg Review, Ploughshares and Pushcart Prize, as well as many anthologies, including Boomer Girls: Poems by Women from the Baby Boom Generation.
Michael Ratcliffe is a geographer whose poetry is often rooted in observations of people, places, and the landscape. His work has appeared in a variety of print and on-line journals, including Fredericksburg Literary and Arts Review, Fourth & Sycamore, Peacock Journal, and Free State Review. Michael Ratcliffe’s chapbook, Shards of Blue, was published in 2015. When he is not writing poetry or managing geographic programs, he can be found bicycling throughout Central Maryland.
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Kyle Bauer: chatter | Opening Reception
Thursday, September 28th : 5-7pm
Julio Fine Arts
Loyola University Maryland : 21210
Clearly a formalist, Bauer’s work is elegant and at the same time playful. He stacks, piles and arranges sculptural elements to convey balance, tension and control. Bright, primary colors are an important aspect of the work, though, more recently, wood surfaces are also apparent. The work references navigation and architecture and leads the viewer on a journey through the gallery.
Bauer earned an MFA from Louisiana State University. Since 2012, he has been the conservation technician of prints, drawings, and photographs at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Recently he was awarded the 2016 Hamiltonian Fellowship in Washington D.C. Bauer completed a three-year residency at Baltimore Clayworks and is a 2014 Sondheim Artscape Prize finalist, a 2015 and 2017 Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Grant Award recipient, and a finalist for the 2015 Miami University Young Sculptors Competition for the William and Dorothy Yeck Award, where he received third place. Since 2011, Bauer’s mixed-media sculptures and installations have been featured in more than 36 exhibitions regionally, nationally and internationally, including galleries such as the Hamiltonian Gallery, Walters Art Museum, Vox Populi, Flashpoint Gallery, Randall Scott Projects, Towson University, McDaniel College, Arlington Art Center, School 33 Art Center, and Maryland Art Place. Bauer was also invited to present at MAP Gallery’s THIRTY speaker series, a program that brings attention to 30 emerging Baltimore artists under the age of 30.
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Here and There | Opening Reception
Friday, September 29th : 5-7pm
Make Studio
Schwing Art Center, 3326 Keswick Road Front : 21211
Opening September 28th, “Here and There” is not one exhibition, but two!
Two distinct shows — reflecting a curatorial collaboration and exchange between Maxine Taylor (maxinetaylorfinearts.com) and Make Studio — will take over MAXgallery in Butcher’s Hill and Make Studio’s Showroom Gallery in Hampden throughout October. Join the artists for free events both here and there, and there and here! In our gallery, we’ll be showing work by Maxine and other MAXgallery affiliated artists.
First up at Make Studio is this opening reception on September 29, featuring artist talks and light refreshments. Stay tuned for other related events at both galleries.
“Here and There” at Make Studio can also be viewed from 9/28-10/27 during our open hours and by appointment.
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Made in Baltimore Short Film Festival
Saturday, September 30th : 7:30pm
Creative Alliance
3134 Eastern Avenue : 21224
This festival honors and awards the best filmmakers in the Greater Baltimore region. We selected short films that push the envelope and inspired audiences to view film and video through a uniquely Baltimore lens. Made In Baltimore accepted fiction, documentary, animation, experimental, horror, mockumentary—you name it! Submissions are judged on technical excellence, originality, and Baltimore flavor.
Here are the OFFICIAL SELECTIONS of the Made In Baltimore Short Film Festival (in no particular order):
Dina Fiasconaro, “Commercial for the Queen of Meatloaf”
Bob Rose, “BLACK JEANS WHOA”
Margaret Rorison, “One Document for Hope”
Joel Flora, “Medium – Luke Martin”
Danielle Gibson, “75 MG + 150 XL MG”
Skizz Cyzyk, “David Fair Is The King”
Daniel St Ours, “In The Wood”
A. Moon, Rebecca Reynolds, and Pat Doyen, “Exquisite Corpse”
Kim Loper, “Denylium”
Titus Burrell, “Black In Blue”
Arian Boroumand, “Tea and Tragedy”
Phallon Beckham, “Blue Before Gray”
Join us on the 30th to view these stunning, original short films at the Patterson Theater–and to find out who will will the top prizes!
7:30pm | $10, $7 mbrs | + $3 at the door
Thank you to our sponsors!
Paul and Mary Ament Streb
Paul and Debbie Silber
Cammack Family Gift Fund
Deric Emry
David and Jennifer Troy
Who chose these films? Meet the jury!
Matt Porterfield has written and directed four feature films, Hamilton (2006), Putty Hill (2011), I Used To Be Darker (2013) and Sollers Point (2017), all of which are set in and around Baltimore, MD. His work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art and the Harvard Film Archive, and has screened at the Whitney Biennial, the Walker Arts Center, the Centre Pompidou, the CInémathèque Française and film festivals such as Sundance, the Berlinale and SXSW. Matt teaches screenwriting, theory and film production at Johns Hopkins University and is currently developing his next feature, Check Me in Another Place.
Abbie Algar is the Associate Film Programmer and PR Manager at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center. Previously, she was Film Curator at the Honolulu Museum of Art, where she oversaw the museum’s diverse film and music programs, and Literary Associate at Great North Artists Management in Toronto, where she assisted screenwriters, playwrights and novelists with their work for film, television and stage. Abbie studied Fine Art, before going on to receive a BA in History of Art & Italian from the Universities of Reading and Bologna. She has also worked at the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, The Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, and the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Dave Troy is a Baltimore-based entrepreneur and activist. He is currently CEO of 410 Labs, which makes the popular email tools Mailstrom and Chuck. He is also co-founder and an administrator of Baltimore City Voters, a Facebook group dedicated to local policy issues in Baltimore. He has had a long-time interest in film and the arts, and has exhibited original visualization projects at MoMA New York (Design + The Elastic Mind, 2008). He is an investor in Baltimore director Matthew Porterfield’s latest feature, Sollers Point (2017).
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LabBodies Presents AntiConfederate + Closing Reception
Saturday, September 30th : 4-6pm
CHM Sculpture Park
1450 Homestead Street : 21218
Please join us for the Closing Reception for the CHM Sculpture Park on SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 30th, 4-6 PM
Sculpture in the Park, Light Refreshments by Terrell Williams of Sugar Therapy & Performance(s) by LabBodies (description below) with a clay portrait bust workshop led by Lisa Dillin
LabBodies Presents AntiConfederate
In the wake of the end of Confederate monuments in Baltimore City, these performances will investigate the use of the body as architecture and the form of the body as the clay to mold a concept of what it means to be a black body in the United States of America.
Featuring Performances by
Noelle Tolbert
Amorous Ebony
Talbolt Johnson
Sculpture by Lorenzo Cardim, Hoesy Corona, Dave Eassa, Bobby English Jr, Alice Gadzinski, Rachael London, Malcolm Peacock, Ada Pinkston, Samantha Sethi (with Andy Holtin), and Leanna Wetmore on view.
More info and links to the websites of CHM Sculpture Park artists: www.chmsculpturepark.com
More info on LabBodies: http://www.labbodies.com/
More info on Sugar Therapy: https://www.facebook.com/
In association with Coldstream Homestead Community Corporation
Image courtesy of Amorous Ebony
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Tomás Saraceno: Entangled Orbits | Opening Celebration
Sunday, October 1st : 12-4pm
Baltimore Museum of Art
10 Art Museum Drive : 21218
Internationally acclaimed artist and trained architect Tomás Saraceno (b. 1973, Argentina) is creating an ambitious, site-specific installation that will be suspended across the BMA’s East Lobby. The luminous sculpture combines clusters of iridescent-paneled modules suspended within a net of strings reminiscent of a “spiderweb” that will be woven onsite across a two-story open area bordered by the lobby staircase and mezzanine.
Tomás Saraceno. Many suns and worlds. 2016. Solo exhibition at The Vanhaerents Art Collection. Courtesy the artist; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York; Andersen’s Contemporary, Copenhagen; Pinksummer contemporary art, Genoa; Esther Schipper, Berlin. © Photography by The Vanhaerents Art Collection, 2017
