BmoreArt’s Picks: January 31 – February 6
This Week: Tahir Hemphill at UMBC CIRCA, Larry Poncho Brown and CJay Phillip in conversation at Motor House, Greedy Reads and Fadensonnen host HIDDEN PLACE at Fadensonnen, Lee Boot virtual artist talk presented by The Peale, Blackscope Cinema Series: Hargrave at Creative Alliance, Emma Childs and Penn Eastburn opening at The Gallery at Manor Mill, Highlandtown First Friday Art Walk, Idle Times: Pop Disorder closing reception at Current Space, and Erin Raedeke, Neil Callander, and Nicole McCormick Santiago opening reception at Exeter Gallery — PLUS Baltimore Jewelry Center Residency call for applications and more featured opportunities!
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 events@bmoreart.com!
Tahir Hemphill: Rap Research Lab | Exhibition Opens
Tuesday, January 31
@ UMBC CIRCA
“Tahir Hemphill: Rap Research Lab” showcases an artist who proudly occupies a space that he describes as the “hybrid area between art, technology, social engagement, and interdisciplinary research.” A technologist, researcher, facilitator, designer, and artist, Hemphill’s 2021-2023 UMBC faculty fellowship in Visual Arts fosters experimentation and learning through visual and material explorations of geographies of Hiphop.
Between January 30 and March 18, 2023, the Center for Art, Design & Visual Culture (CADVC) at University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) will be occupied by Hemphill’s active research laboratory and studio focused on data visualizations of rap culture and history.
CADVC will also operate as a forum for learning through “Mapper’s Delight,” a middle-school curriculum designed by Hemphill in collaboration with Verizon Innovative Learning. All of these activities will happen in the context of an exhibition of Hemphill’s evolving body of multimedia artwork, including a presentation of his growing series titled “Maximum Distance, Minimum Displacement,” and new interactive works and works-in-progress on view for the first time. Among the new works is “Visualisation of Authority,” a kinetic sculpture illustrating the evolving data of library holdings that were the subject of Hemphill’s 2018 research as the 2018 Harissios Papamarkou Chair in Education at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.
“Rap Research Lab” at CADVC will also operate as the classroom for Hemphill’s teaching. His Spring 2023 course, “IRC Fellows Topics in Art and Technology,” invites an interdisciplinary group of students to work on translating ideas into new visual and material form through creative technologies. The course is offered in collaboration with the UMBC Image Research Center. Hemphill and his collaborators will mine the Rap Almanac, a vast dataset of rap lyrics that Hemphill has assembled from various archives over the course of many years, to produce new artworks, experiments, and visualizations. The presentation at CADVC will grow and change as new work is produced.
The first meeting of Hemphill’s class will occur on January 30, followed by a “soft”opening on January 31, when the CADVC Rap Research Lab space will open to the public. Through the course of the presentation, the Rap Research will invite audiences into the design and research process in a number of ways. In addition to sharing interactive works and data processing activities within the CADVC gallery space, Hemphill will offer public viewings of a series of public choreographed activations of a programmable robot arm, produced as a prototype for a partnership project with Dr. Foad Hamidi (Department of Information Systems, UMBC). Details on how to sign up and attend these performance-lecture events will be announced at cadvc.umbc.edu.
Rap Research Lab runs from January 30-March 18, 2023. A closing event will occur on March 16, with details to be announced.
Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope | Artist Talk
Tuesday, January 31 • 8pm
@ Motor House
Join us for a chat with “COPE” artist Larry Poncho Brown, featured in our Main Gallery, and founder of our resident theatre company, Bmore Broadway Live, CJay Phillip, director of “Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope.”
Dance & Bmore has announced its newest program, Bmore Broadway Live, dedicated to producing Broadway-caliber shows with Baltimore talent. Each Bmore Broadway Live season will include two musicals: one historic Black musical during Black History Month in February and another show in the spring, alongside a variety of community classes and events for theater-lovers.
The inaugural Bmore Broadway Live season will begin in February 2023 with a production of Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope. This musical revue focusing on the African American experience holds an important place in theater history. Its director, Vinnette Carroll, was the first Black woman to direct a Broadway show; its trailblazing composer, Micki Grant, was the first woman to write the book, music, and lyrics of a Broadway show.
Fadensonnen & Greedy Reads presents: HIDDEN PALACE
Wednesday, February 1 • 7pm
@ Fadensonnen
Fadensonnen & Greedy Reads presents: HIDDEN PALACE
a reading featuring
Donald Berger
Blake Butler
Emma Ensley
Jean McGarry
Wednesday Feb 1st, 7pm
Fadensonnen Upstairs Tavern
3 West 23rd St. Baltimore
