Calendar

Beauty stops us in our tracks. It makes us pause, look, consider. Sometimes it overwhelms us. We are often told art should aspire to this standard and be proportionate, symmetrical, naturalistic, and orderly. But what of work that is designed to revolt and terrify? Across sub-Saharan Africa, artists working across a range of states, societies, and cultures deliberately created artwork that violated conceptions of beauty, symmetry, and grace—both ours and theirs. Subverting Beauty features approximately two dozen works from sub-Saharan African’s colonial period (c. 1880–c. 1960) that are accumulative, composite, crude, uncanny, and disproportionate. More importantly still, it explores the reasons why artists working during this turbulent period in the continent’s history turned against beauty in order to express the meaning and vitality of their day-to-day existence.

Shop for fresh produce, flowers, prepared foods and more! Don’t live near Pikesville? No problem. There are farmers markets all over the Baltimore metropolitan area.

Shop for fresh produce, flowers, prepared foods and more! Don’t live near Pikesville? No problem. There are farmers markets all over the Baltimore metropolitan area.

Shop for fresh produce, flowers, prepared foods and more! Don’t live near Pikesville? No problem. There are farmers markets all over the Baltimore metropolitan area.

Shop for fresh produce, flowers, prepared foods and more! Don’t live near Pikesville? No problem. There are farmers markets all over the Baltimore metropolitan area.

This exhibition of dazzling Kuba textiles presented in the BMA’s Cone Collection galleries reveals how a central African kingdom independently developed a form of modernist abstraction in the 20th century. The Kuba kingdom, on the southern edge of the Congolese Rainforest in central Africa, developed one of the greatest civilizations in the history of the continent. Art and design were central to their life. In addition to an elaborate and varied masquerade tradition, Kuba men and women were prolific textile artists, even weaving houses and embroidering currency. As the kingdom grew richer and more powerful, Kuba men and women began to create increasingly abstract designs. Works produced in Kuba’s earlier periods are defined by repeating patterns and minute details. Textiles created at the height of the kingdom’s power and prestige are characterized by bold, inventive designs that are constantly in flux. The BMA is proud to partner with the Historic Textile Research Foundation on this groundbreaking exhibition.

Shop for fresh produce, flowers, prepared foods and more! Don’t live near Pikesville? No problem. There are farmers markets all over the Baltimore metropolitan area.

Shop for fresh produce, flowers, prepared foods and more! Don’t live near Pikesville? No problem. There are farmers markets all over the Baltimore metropolitan area.

In the fall of 2018, the BMA’s oldest friends group, the Print, Drawing & Photograph Society (PDPS), will celebrate its 50th anniversary by sponsoring an exhibition to highlight a selection of late 19th-century, modern and contemporary works on paper that PDPS has helped the BMA acquire over the years. Installed in a gallery adjacent to the Cone Collection, this one-gallery exhibition will be organized in two six-month presentations, each including 20–30 prints, drawings, and artists’ books. The crown jewel of the group’s celebration is the gift to the museum’s collection of Joan Miró’s Plate 6 from the “Black and Red Series.”

Shop for fresh produce, flowers, prepared foods and more! Don’t live near Pikesville? No problem. There are farmers markets all over the Baltimore metropolitan area.