Behind the Screens

Watch a special presentation of Preoccupied: Indigenizing the Museum. Dare Turner (Yurok Tribe), Curator of Indigenous Art at the Brooklyn Museum; Leila Grothe, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Baltimore Museum of Art; and Elise Boulanger (Citizen of the Osage Nation), Curatorial Research Assistant at the Baltimore Museum of Art, discuss this major BMA initiative that seeks to begin addressing the historical erasure of Indigenous culture by arts institutions while creating new practices for museums.

Artist Joyce J. Scott discusses her 50-year career retrospective Joyce J. Scott: Walk a Mile in My Dreams with BMA Associate Curator of Contemporary Art Cecilia Wichmann.

Joyce J. Scott: Walk a Mile in My Dreams is on view at the BMA through July 14, 2024.

Drawn from a group of nearly 1,000 prints entrusted to the BMA in 1943 through the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project, Art/Work: Women Printmakers of the WPA examines the contributions of women printmakers through the lenses of gender and labor in the United States. Watch as Virginia M.G. Anderson, Curator of American Art and Department Head of American Painting & Sculpture and Decorative Arts, and Robin Owen Joyce, Getty Paper Project Fellow in Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, discuss how these women responded—as both artists and activists—to the economic, political, and ecological crises of the 1930s.

Join Andaleeb Badiee Banta, co-curator and Senior Curator and Department Head, Prints, Drawings & Photographs at the BMA, for a special look at the groundbreaking exhibition, Making Her Mark: A History of Women Artists in Europe, 1400-1800. The exhibition is currently on view at the BMA through January 7, 2024.

This talk was recorded as part of the Council Members opening on September 30, 2023.

Leslie Cozzi, BMA Curator of Prints, Drawings & Photographs, provides an introduction to the exhibition Omar Ba: Political Animals. Dr. Cozzi discusses the techniques and themes that distinguish Ba, who is based in Dakar, Senegal, as one of the most significant figurative artists working today. The talk also includes behind-the-scenes glimpses into the making of the monumental site-specific mural, Not Fiction but Glory, a pinnacle achievement of the artist’s career.

Sarah Dansberger, the BMA’s Librarian & Archivist, offers an exclusive snapshot into the Museum’s Library & Archives, including how to access the resources and services available to staff and the community. She also sheds light on the recent renovation of the Library’s physical space and the refresh of its online public access catalogue.

Experience the new exhibition A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration during this a preview talk led by Jessica Bell Brown, Curator and Department Head for Contemporary Art.

Discover the exhibition Beatrice Glow: Once the Smoke Clears—the artist’s first exhibition in a major U.S. museum—with Sarah Cho, Curatorial Assistant of American Painting & Sculpture and Decorative Arts.

This month’s Behind the Screens explores the much-anticipated exhibition, Guarding the Art. Watch as BMA Security officers and guest curators Bret Click and Rob Kempton offer insight into their selections and the exhibition as a whole.

Take a closer look at the exhibition On Certainty: Gifts from the Collection of Suzanne F. Cohen with Cecilia Wichmann, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art.

The four artists in our upcoming exhibition All Due Respect—Lauren Frances Adams, Mequitta Ahuja, Cindy Cheng, and LaToya M. Hobbs—are among the many recipients across the U.S. who have benefitted from the Joan Mitchell Foundation’s awards at crucial moments in their careers. They each have connections to Baltimore and have been given the time, space, and money to create new work for this exhibition. In this video, associate curator of contemporary art Leila Grothe walks you through each artist’s installation.

This month’s Behind the Screens showcases the exhibition, Color and Illusion: The Still Lifes of Juan Gris, the first U.S. exhibition in over 35 years dedicated to the Spanish artist.

In this talk, Brittany Luberda, Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts and curator of the exhibition She Knew Where She Was Going, will describe what makes Gee’s Bend quilts so unique and how the Freedom Quilting Bee is instrumental to how Black craft impacted the 1960s.

A good brand projects the values of an organization. The BMA’s new brand visually articulates the Museum’s commitment to inclusivity, particularly in the way it signifies how the Museum’s identity is shaped by its community. This presentation, featuring the BMA’s Chief Innovation Officer Melanie Martin, looks at how the BMA arrived at its new brand identity and digs into the details of each of the key components.

A frame is wedded to the picture it surrounds, at least for a certain moment in time. In this Behind the Screens, Frame in Focus: The Marriage of Picture and Surround, BMA Associate Conservator of Frames Lauren Ross explores frames that exemplify these companionships in miniature, decorative, and modernist works as well as artist’s creations by Max Ernst, Horace Pippin, and Irene Rice Pereira.

End the year with a look at selections from the BMA’s Asian art with Associate Curator Frances Klapthor. Examine highlighted works around the theme of Seasons and Celebrations in recognition of the vanished months and postponed gatherings of 2020.

In this installation of Behind the Screens: Off the Walls, hear untold stories of the extraordinary 32-year tenure of curator and director Adelyn Breeskin, and details of the making of Adelyn Breeskin: Curating a Legacy, hosted by its organizer, Laura Albans, Assistant Curator of European Painting and Sculpture.

Darienne Turner, Assistant Curator of Indigenous Art of the Americas, discusses the concepts at the core of the exhibition Stripes and Stars: Reclaiming Lakota Independence.

Associate Curator of Contemporary Art Cecilia Wichmann leads a virtual tour of the exhibition Ellen Lesperance: Velvet Fist, recently on view in the BMA’s Out of Actions gallery. One of the inaugural shows of 2020 Vision, the BMA’s year-long celebration of the work of female-identifying artists, Velvet Fist opened in January 2020 and was cut short by closure due to COVID-19. With this talk, Wichmann aims to extend the life of the exhibition and bring into focus the current political implications of Lesperance’s work.

Leila Grothe, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art, reveals the often untidy affair of producing contemporary art installations. From handling radioactive minerals to bootlegging liquor across international borders, she will take you through some of her risk-taking adventures in making exhibitions with living artists over the past five years.

Brittany Luberda, Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts, provides insight into the BMA’s recent acquisition of its first large piece of South American silver, a tray from c. 1725 attributed to Potosí, Bolivia. Brittany discusses the tray’s decoration and context as well as its impact on the BMA’s presentation of colonial silver across continents and history.

Dr. Virginia M.G. Anderson, Curator of American Art, Department Head, American Painting & Sculpture and Decorative Arts, discusses the creation, installation, and context of the exhibition Katharina Grosse: Is It You?

Kevin Tervala, Associate Curator of African Art and Department Head, Arts of Africa, the Americas, Asia, and the Pacific Islands discusses African art and the slave trade, exploring the ways in which the transatlantic slave trade affected the arts of Africa. The key questions being asked include: How did artists respond to the slave trade itself? And, more broadly, how have artists responded to long-term effects of the slave trade (e.g., sudden and intense depopulation, the collapse of pre-existing political structures, and the rapid proliferation of firearms)?