Three years after she was named Director of the American Visionary Art Museum, and one year after she became Harborplace’s Director of Experience, Jenenne Whitfield is following other pursuits.
Whitfield said in an email this week that she has left Harborplace and its owner, MCB Real Estate, to follow “what truly matters at this stage of my life.”
“Yes, it’s true that I’m no longer with MCB Real Estate-Harborplace,” Whitfield said in an email message. “A lot has shifted for me personally, and in our country more broadly, which led me to take a deeper look at what truly matters at this stage of my life.
“I made the decision to step away from MCB to instead focus more fully on my work as a holistic life coach and spiritual counselor — an area close to my heart and deeply rooted in my background,” she explained. “In a time when our country is in such need of hope and healing, this work feels especially urgent and meaningful. I’m also doing curatorial work in both Wisconsin and Detroit, and currently split my time between Baltimore and Detroit.”
Whitfield came to Baltimore to become Director of the American Visionary Art Museum starting in September of 2022. Before moving to Baltimore, she was President of the Heidelberg Project in Detroit, a cultural attraction and tourist destination that combined art with community revitalization.
AVAM opened in 1995 on Key Highway as America’s official national museum, education center and repository for intuitive, self-taught artistry. Whitfield succeeded Rebecca Alban Hoffberger, who co-founded the museum with her former husband LeRoy Hoffberger and planned to retire. Selected after a national search, Whitfield was at the time of her appointment the only director the then-28-year-old museum ever had besides Hoffberger.
Whitfield and the museum parted ways in September of 2023 and she joined Harborplace as its Director of Experience in the spring of 2024. She was the latest in a series of Harborplace executives with interesting-sounding titles, including Edwin “Ned” Daniels, who was known as The Rouse Company’s ‘Director of Good Taste’ and Robert “Bob” Rubenkonig, who was Harborplace’s ‘Director of Fun.’
MCB announced plans in October of 2023 to tear down the Harborplace pavilions at Pratt and Light streets and replace them with a $500 million mixed use development containing apartments, offices, shops, restaurants and green space. While it finalizes its plans, MCB has worked to fill vacant spaces in the two pavilions with short-term tenants who can attract people to Baltimore’s downtown waterfront.
As Director of Experience, Whitfield’s job was largely to draw on her background and help bring in arts-related tenants and programming. One tenant that opened while she was there was Creatively Black Baltimore, a sprawling gallery that occupies the former Ripley’s Believe It Or Not museum space on the second level of the Light Street pavilion. Creatively Black Baltimore was originally supposed to operate only until the end of 2024 but has been so successful that its lease has been extended until MCB is ready to tear the pavilions down.
While with Harborplace, Whitfield has served on Mayor Brandon Scott’s Arts and Culture Advisory Committee. She also was on the jury that selected five artists to paint portraits of Baltimore mayors not currently represented in City Hall.
P. David Bramble, the managing partner of MCB Real Estate, said Whitfield left Harborplace because “she had other things she wanted to do.” Bramble said he’s grateful for the time she spent with MCB: “She helped us a lot.”
This week AVAM got a new director after another national search. Ellen Owens, former director of the Castellani Art Museum at Niagara University, started her job at AVAM on Monday and will be one of the speakers at its summer gala on Saturday night.
