Baltimore Museum of Art’s newly renovated Contemporary Wing reopens
November 18, 2012
The Baltimore Museum of Art
10 Art Museum Drive
Baltimore, MD 21218
T 443 573 1700
The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) unveils an exciting new look at the art of our time when it reopens its newly renovated contemporary wing on November 18, completing the first phase of its renovation. Visitors will discover 16 refreshed and revitalized galleries showcasing masterworks by Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol alongside more than a dozen new acquisitions created by established and emerging artists working today, including a major architectural intervention by Sarah Oppenheimer.
More than 100 objects—including paintings, sculpture, photography, drawings, prints, and video—are presented thematically in galleries improved with state-of-the art lighting and new interiors. The BMA’s contemporary wing, which opened in 1994, houses a significant collection of American art from the last six decades with major late paintings by Warhol, as well as works by Jasper Johns, Donald Judd, Glenn Ligon, Bruce Nauman, and Anne Truitt. The museum also holds an outstanding group of works by influential international artists such as Olafur Eliasson, Thomas Hirschhorn, and Franz West; and artists whose work makes a profound social statement, including pieces by David Hammons, General Idea, Zoe Leonard, Josephine Meckseper, and Felix Gonzalez-Torres.
Among the many acquisitions making their debut this fall are The Shallow Sea (2010), a haunting sound installation by Turner Prize-winning artist Susan Philipsz, and Sarah Sze’s Random Walk Drawing (Eye Chart) (2011), a vibrant mixed-media sculpture composed of intricate areas of digitally cut paper and everyday objects, and a series of photographs and videos from Oliver Herring’s Areas for Action (2011) project. Other recent additions to the collection include works by Walead Beshty, GuytonWalker, Elad Lassry, Julie Mehretu, R.H. Quaytman, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and Nari Ward.
“The BMA is known for its extraordinary commitment to contemporary art and artists, and in reimagining the wing, we wanted our audiences to be exposed to artists expressing a wide array of styles, points of view, and experiences,” said Kristen Hileman, the BMA’s Contemporary Art Curator. “Our new acquisitions, paired with our outstanding core collection, encompass works by some of the most important voices of the 20th and 21st centuries.”
A series of innovative art exhibitions and programs focuses on emerging and mid-career artists, giving visitors opportunities to experience a variety of cutting-edge perspectives every four months. The following exhibitions and projects will be launched in conjunction with the November 18 reopening:
Sarah Oppenheimer
November 18–ongoing
Architectural intervention
The BMA is the first major museum to commission and acquire a site-specific installation by this award-winning artist. For this dramatic two-part work, Oppenheimer has cut through the floor, ceiling, and walls to connect visitors and periods of art history using meticulously crafted mirrored and aluminum sculptural forms.
Front Room: Zwelethu Mthethwa
November 18, 2012–February 10, 2013
Eight stunning color portrait photographs by this acclaimed artist include selections from three of his most compelling series. These large-scale images show South African youths in elaborate church uniforms, interior portraits of South Africans, and laborers amidst the stark landscape of the sugar cane industry.
Black Box: Allora & Calzadilla
November 18, 2012–February 3, 2013
The BMA’s new black box gallery debuts with a special presentation of A Man Screaming is Not a Dancing Bear (2008), a recently acquired 11-minute video set in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans.
On Paper: Drawings from the Benesch Collection
November 18, 2012–February 10, 2013
A new dedicated space for the BMA’s renowned holdings of contemporary prints, drawings, and photographs opens with ten outstanding drawings from the 1960s and ’70s by contemporary masters Jasper Johns, Philip Guston, Lee Bontecou, Claes Oldenburg, Antoni Tàpies, and others.
Gaia
November 18, 2012–May 5, 2013
Site-specific installation
Baltimore-based street artist Gaia has created two mural-sized artworks inspired by the museum’s iconic Vahine no te Vi (Woman of the Mango) painting by Paul Gauguin and individuals living in the Museum’s neighboring Remington community.
*Image above:
GuytonWalker, Untitled, 2011. The Baltimore Museum of Art: Fanny B. Thalheimer Memorial Fund, BMA 2011.39.1-27. Courtesy of Greene Naftali Gallery, New York.
