This Week: CPM’s Art Matters (in Baltimore) seminar, VILLAGER opening reception at Motor House, closing reception for The Walter’s School Partner Showcase, TURNSTILE: NEVER ENOUGH screening at SNF Parkway, Baltimore Clayworks Seconds Sale Preview Party, Wickerham & Lomax opening reception at Current, In a Mood gala at The Walters, The Speed of Fashion opening reception at Crow’s Nest, and 50 years of Baltimore Pride! — PLUS apply for the Municipal Art Prize 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!
Art Matters (in Baltimore) | Seminar
Tuesday, June 3 :: 6:30-8pm | Ongoing through June 24
@ Critcal Path Method
The goal of this seminar is to build community in Baltimore around a shared passion for contemporary art & a curiosity to consider our participation locally & globally.
The course will be led by CPM’s founder, Vlad Smolkin, who has been working with artists, galleries, art fairs, museums, & institutions for over 20 years.
Pricing:
$400/individual & $700/couple.
Sessions:
Tues, June 3, (6:30 – 8pm)
Tues, June 10, (6:30 – 8pm)
Tues, June 17, (6:30 – 8pm)
Tues, June 24, (6:30 – 8pm)
(Doors open at 6pm)
* Each session will consist of a group discussion of assigned pre-readings as well as case studies on the given topics
Topics
(Subject to time and participants’ interest)
– The power of the province(s): building economy and identity outside of traditional cultural centers
– “Making it”: definitions of success for art and artists
– What do you see? : methods of looking at and understanding an artwork
– To have and to hold: what it means to collect art
Location:
CPM Gallery, 1512 Bolton St, Baltimore, MD 21217
(Free street parking)
Email info@cpmprogram.com if you would like to participate.
Space is limited.
(O)KAN: recent collage works by VILLAGER | Opening Reception
Wednesday, June 4 :: 6-8pm
@ Motor House
(O)KAN is a wordplay rooted in the tonal richness of the Yorùbá language, where a shift in intonation opens up vastly different meanings. In one register, ọkan means “one”—a symbol of unity, singularity, or wholeness. In another, ó kán translates as “it broke”—evoking rupture, fragmentation, and loss. Other permutations speak to the heart, the soul, the conscience, bitterness, and the sensations of being included, touched, affected, or broken open.
In (O)KAN: a solo exhibition of recent collage works, Nigerian-born International Transdisciplinary Artist VILLAGER activates this linguistic multiplicity to explore the fragile and fluid relationship between language, memory, and meaning. In this evocative series of works on paper, VILLAGER uses found objects like forks and combs to inscribe textured foundations into the collage by grafting the acrylic surface with vibrational marks of energetic potential. These abstract sites become ground for uncovering the layered architectures of memory. The image-making process of selecting, deconstructing, and reassembling found images from old books, magazines, and catalogs results in a visual language that reflects the ambiguity and contradiction at the heart of mourning and mending.
By weaving together personal histories, lived experiences, and ancestral mythologies through collage and drawing, (O)KAN, emerges as a recursive act of remembering. It is an intimate intervention–a revisiting, rewriting, and reimagining of personal and collective memory that traces the looping echoes of grief, loss, love, and healing as they slip across time, body, and spirit.
Rather than presenting fixed narratives, (O)KAN holds space for ambiguity, contradiction, silence, and what lies beyond sight. It invites viewers to discover meaning in the in-between: between images and words, between presence and absence, between what is spoken, seen, felt, and forgotten. In this quiet tension, VILLAGER calls us to reflect: How do we carry what has been broken? How do we touch the bitterness held in our hearts and souls? And what wholeness might begin to take shape from the act of holding?
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(O)KAN will be on view from June 4 – June 25, 2025, at Motor House West Bay Gallery, 120 W North Ave, Baltimore, MD 21201. Please join us for the public opening reception (rsvp) on June 4 from 6 PM – 8 PM, with a final walkthrough to follow on June 25 from 6 PM – 8 PM.
Gallery Hours: Fridays from 11 AM to 1 PM, or by visiting during Motor House’s regular operating hours. Please email info@vllager.com to request a viewing and for all acquisition inquiries.
School Partner Showcase | Closing Reception
Thursday, June 5 :: 5-7pm
@ The Walters Art Museum
Location: Sculpture Court, Level 2A
Registration is not required.
Join us for an evening celebration of student artwork and creativity! We welcome students, families, teachers, school staff, and the general public to the closing reception of Baltimore, Imagined: Artists from the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women. This annual exhibition, which is on view in our Sculpture Court from May 28 to June 5, is curated by Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women (BLSYW) teacher Caroline Cook and her students. The show highlights BLSYW students’ best work from the school year, including some artworks inspired by the Walters’ new installation of Latin American Art / Arte Latinoamericano. Light refreshments will be provided.
Read more of this week’s picks at BmoreArt.
