Now Is The Time: Recent Aquisitions to the Contemporary Collection

Previously On View

Date

May 2, 2021 - July 18, 2021

In 2018, the BMA deaccessioned seven artworks from its contemporary holdings to create an acquisition fund for purchases of works by artists underrepresented in its collection and within broader art historical narratives.

Twenty-two of the 125 works acquired through the fund in the past three years are on view in Now Is The Time. Coupled with several extraordinary gifts the Museum has received, the exhibition offers an insightful snapshot of the BMA’s curatorial effort, led by Asma Naeem, Eddie C. and C. Sylvia Brown Chief Curator, and Katy Siegel, Senior Programming and Research Curator and Thaw Chair of Modern Art at Stony Brook University, to identify artists deserving of greater scholarly research and public attention, placing the highest priority on those artists who are also women, Black, Indigenous, self-trained, and/or have connections to Baltimore.

This includes established figures such as Betye Saar, Valerie Maynard, Benny Andrews, Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, and Virginia Jaramillo alongside emerging voices such as Firelei Báez, Laura Ortman, Jerrell Gibbs, and Theresa Chromati, creating dialogues across generations. The exhibition also captures an expansive range of approaches to making, developed through both self-taught and academic training with examples by artists Beverly Buchanan, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Thornton Dial, Fred Eversley, Ficre Ghebreyesus, Lonnie Holley, and Suzanne Jackson, among others.

Visual displays and descriptions presented within the gallery explore the history of collecting at the BMA from different perspectives.

This exhibition is curated by Christopher Bedford, Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director, Asma Naeem, Eddie C. and C. Sylvia Brown Chief Curator, and Katy Siegel, Senior Programming and Research Curator and Thaw Chair of Modern Art at Stony Brook University.

Gallery Images

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Gallery Images (139)

Location

Special Exhibition Galleries

Media

Virtual Gallery Walk

Select Artworks in this Exhibition

Mark Bradford

Untitled (Buoy)

2014

Sonya Clark

Unraveling

2015

Tomashi Jackson

Mary Lyons, Yudy Ventura & the Co-op Women (Red Line/Red Scare)

2019

Valerie Maynard

Rufus

1961

Valerie Maynard

Mourning for Maurice

c. 1970

Fred Eversley

Untitled (Black Light)

1974

Ed Clark

Untitled

2004

Firelei Báez

Convex (recalibrating a blind spot)

2019

Ramsess

Sojourner Truth

2006

Thornton Dial

Ground Zero: Nighttime All Over the World

2002

Lonnie B. Holley

The Fifth Child Burning

1994

Get Your Life!

Rainbow Pants

2016

Laura Ortman

My Soul Remainer

2017

Mary Lovelace O'Neal

Forbidden Fruit

c. 1990

Barbara Chase-Riboud

Malcolm X #15

2017

Suzanne Jackson

Night Birds – Singing Nest

2019

Benny Andrews

The Blacksmith

1988

Theresa Chromati

Stepping Towards My Darkest Bits to Hear a Familiar Song. The Words Have Changed, But the Melody Caresses Me All the Same (Woman Led by Her Intuition, Supported by Scrotum Flowers)

2020

Betye Saar

The Destiny of Latitude & Longitude

2010

Jerrell Gibbs

Come Home With Me

2020

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith

Echo Map I

2000

Beverly Buchanan

Inside Out

2010

Mickalene Thomas

Resist #2

2021

Shinique Smith

Eutaw Place

2010/2018

Ficre Ghebreyesus

Red Room

c. 2002-2007

Virginia Jaramillo

Untitled

1967