Upcoming Exhibitions

Mickalene Thomas’ immersive two-story installation will transform the BMA’s East Lobby into a living room for Baltimore. The experience will extend onto an enclosed terrace where the BMA will host a series of events, such as film screenings, artist talks, performances, workshops, book clubs, and self-care seminars. Influenced by the 1970s and 1980s, Thomas’ signature aesthetic incorporates geometric patterns, prints, textures, wood paneling, and shag carpeting, among other nostalgic motifs.

Across sub-Saharan Africa, a strict gendered division of artistic labor existed throughout much of the 19th and 20th centuries. Men worked in wood and metal, carving and casting works that glorified leaders and paid homage to deities, while women created works in clay, cloth, and beads, stitching and firing the art of everyday life. This exhibition brings together two dozen works from the BMA's collection to demonstrate the critical role of women in shaping and maintaining social identities across 20th-century Africa.

This exhibition presents a selection of embroidery, ceramics, and jewelry by innovative mid-century American artists who shifted away from the functional aspect of craft towards an avant-garde engagement with abstraction and expression. Objects featured include works by textile artist Mariska Karasz, a Hungarian immigrant to the U.S. who moved away from her established business as a women’s clothing designer to focus on embroidery as an artistic practice; Baltimore-area designer and embroiderer Gloria Balder Katzenberg, who was influenced by Karasz’s philosophy and produced works that evoke gardens, ponds, fireworks, or celestial scenes with unconventional materials; ceramic artists Gertrud and Otto Natzler, who fled Nazi-occupied Austria and founded their own workshop in Los Angeles, California, in 1938; and metalsmith and jewelry maker Betty Cooke, a nationally acclaimed Baltimore native and an alumnus of the Maryland Institute College of Art who began her career in the mid-1940s and is still making work today.

This exhibition is supported by Susan B. Katzenberg and Carol D. Macht, in memory of Gloria Balder Katzenberg.

Curated by Virginia Anderson, Curator of American Art