Public Video Art Projection Gallery Art projections "demo" at the Fine Arts Building

Thursday, February 29, 2024, 6-8 pm

The Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture (CADVC) inaugurates the "demo" of a new public video art projection gallery with work by artist Levester Williams, featuring his work "dreaming of a beyond: Baltimore" (2021-2024). The event will include a conversation between Williams and curator Lisa Freiman. Hot refreshments will be served. Showings of the work will continue on select evenings in late February and early March.

The work is the result of the artist's Exploratory Research Residency at CADVC, ongoing since 2023. During this time, Williams has been researching the histories and mythologies of Cockeysville (Maryland) marble, a material used in many salient objects in the local built environment, including the Washington Monument and iconic exterior steps of Baltimore rowhomes. The film results from this research as well as movement workshops and other activities that included the participation of UMBC students and other Baltimore residents. Artist Nia Hampton, a current IMDA graduate student, and her mother, artist and arts advocate Sheila Gaskins, are featured performers. The filmic work was assisted by IMDA graduate student Bao Nguyen and artist Savannah Knoop, who worked on the project as an intimacy coordinator and facilitator.

dreaming of a beyond: Baltimore is an embodied consideration of the labor histories, and mythologies, surrounding a marble building material that appears throughout Baltimore's built environment. In the movement experiments surrounding the film work, participants negotiated relationships to public space, monumental form, and connections to history. In Williams's words, the project underscores the "intertwined history of African-Americans' plight to self-determined agency and full citizenship, and a rather benign stone."

This public display of an art work-in-process is consistent with CADVC's commitment to showcasing the experimentation of artists and the visual culture of interdisciplinary research. Currently, CADVC's gallery is exhibiting Spectrum of Process, highlighting UMBC faculty approaches to art and culture through rigorous, experimental processes.

Admission is free.

Visitors who need specific accommodations should contact CADVC at cadvc@umbc.edu or 410-455-3188 as soon as possible.

Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture
UMBC, 1000 Hilltop Circle
Fine Arts Building, 105
Baltimore, MD 21250
(410) 455-3188

Plan your visit

Images - 1. Levester Williams, "dreaming of a beyond: Baltimore" (2021-2024); 4K color video/video installation still (In a park-like setting, a person with dark brown skin tone sits embracing a white marble column from behind. Their hands touch the stone. Their face, obscured. They wear a light pink sweatsuit and brown boots. In the background, a nude fountain sculpture spouts water from the center of a pool of water. White marble also forms the border around the pool.)

]]> Thursday, February 29, 2024, 6-8 pm The Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture (CADVC) inaugurates the "demo" of a new public video art projection gallery with work by artist Levester... https://cadvc.umbc.edu/cadvc-demos-public-video-art-projection-gallery/ https://beta.my.umbc.edu/api/v0/pixel/news/139240/guest@my.umbc.edu/bb293c25720939bed1659b1cc32599aa/api/pixel a art arts baltimore beyond building cadvc cahss dreaming fine frieman gallery levester lisa of projection public williams CADVC https://beta.my.umbc.edu/groups/cadvc https://assets3-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/000/957/df320a984cfb79b17d721a870665cdba/xsmall.png?1412266776 https://assets4-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/000/957/df320a984cfb79b17d721a870665cdba/original.jpg?1412266776 https://assets2-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/000/957/df320a984cfb79b17d721a870665cdba/xxlarge.png?1412266776 https://assets3-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/000/957/df320a984cfb79b17d721a870665cdba/xlarge.png?1412266776 https://assets4-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/000/957/df320a984cfb79b17d721a870665cdba/large.png?1412266776 https://assets3-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/000/957/df320a984cfb79b17d721a870665cdba/medium.png?1412266776 https://assets3-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/000/957/df320a984cfb79b17d721a870665cdba/small.png?1412266776 https://assets3-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/000/957/df320a984cfb79b17d721a870665cdba/xsmall.png?1412266776 https://assets1-beta.my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/000/957/df320a984cfb79b17d721a870665cdba/xxsmall.png?1412266776 CADVC 0 0 true Thu, 22 Feb 2024 20:35:14 -0500 CADVC's Exploratory Reseach Residency Spring Semester 2024 at UMBC Lion Bros. Building, Baltimore

The Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture at UMBC (CADVC) hosts an exploratory research residency that allows artists and interdisciplinary collaborators to take advantage of scholarly resources and to build partnerships at UMBC and in the Baltimore region. Artists In Residence (AIRs) are invited to pursue open-ended outcomes, and their engagements may develop into workshops, artworks, or other future projects.

This season, CADVC welcomes three low-residency AIRs who are developing research and creative projects in UMBC and Baltimore. The visiting artists will offer programs open to the general public in the UMBC Lion Brothers building in downtown Baltimore.


Paul Rucker

Paul Rucker is a multimedia visual artist, composer, and musician. His practice often integrates live performance, original musical compositions, and visual art installation. For over two decades, Rucker has used his own brand of art making as a social practice, which illuminates the legacy of enslavement and its relationship to the US prison industrial complex.An avid collector of artifacts and archives, Rucker holds more than 15,000 pieces about the history of the United States. Items that address false narratives of US history and the strategic withholding of historical events are used as a tool of  "demonization for colonization." His research visit to Baltimore will focus on Baltimore County and the history of "coordinated exclusion."

Paul Rucker and artist Kim Rice had a public discussion about their research into the history of urban redlining. Rucker and Rice discussed a project-in-process focused on discriminatory real estate practices and the power of art to change spatial injustice.



Tomashi Jackson

Tomashi Jackson is an expanded field painter whose multimedia work investigates the links between history, materiality, and current events. In her residency at CADVC, which began in 2022, she has been developing a body of research focused on the history of and advocacy for alternative art spaces. This work builds on Jackson's existing research that she calls the "Pedagogy Study Hall" project. The project is ongoing. 

February 20, 5:30pm: Join Tomashi Jackson for a discussion about her present research. Jackson will be in conversation with Dr. Nicole King, Associate Professor of American Studies and Director of the Orser Center for the Study of Place, Community, and Culture at UMBC.  Spaces are limited. RSVP required at this link: https://forms.gle/wqSCicNmUHYCvApb9.



Levester Williams

Levester Williams is a multimedia artist whose artistic production is rooted in explorations of the relationships between the material and social worlds. His sculptural work and multichannel video projects have been exhibited in museums and art spaces nationally and internationally. In the 2023-2024 academic year, Williams is making a series of visits to UMBC and Baltimore to complete a new filmic work under the project title "dreaming of a beyond: Baltimore." Williams is researching the histories of Cockeysville (Maryland) marble, a material used in many salient objects in the local built environment, including the Washington Monument and iconic exterior steps of Baltimore rowhomes. The movement art documented in Williams's film is an embodied consideration of the labor histories, and mythologies, surrounding this complex material. In Williams's words, the project underscores the "intertwined history of African-Americans' plight to self-determined agency and full citizenship, and a rather benign stone."

March 5, 6pm: Levester Williams will be in conversation with collaborators on his current work in progress, "dreaming of a beyond: Baltimore"(2021-2024). Other discussants will be announced. Spaces are limited. RSVP required at this link: https://forms.gle/cV5xEnT572A2e9zNA

More information about CADVC Exploratory Research at: https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/588001/cadvc-exploratory-research/


If you need a specific accomodation at one of our events or to experience an exhibition, please contact CADVC at cadvc@umbc.edu or (410) 455-3188 as soon as possible.

Learn more about Public Programs here.

Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture
UMBC, 1000 Hilltop Circle
Fine Arts Building, 105
Baltimore, MD 21250
(410) 455-3188

Plan your visit.

Photos courtesy of the artists (1. Black and white headshot of artist Paul Rucker. He is masculine-presented and wears a beard, wears glasses and a beret, a button-up plaid shirt, and an undershirt. 2. Artist Tomashi Jackson is sitting on a step ladder, looking to the left. She has brown skin and dark, long braided hair. She wears a floral blouse, jeans and Nike shoes. Behind her is an abstract painting  on canvas with rectangles in different shades of blue and pink. On top of the rectangles are different shades of red. 3. Artist Levester Williams is pictured from the chest up and looks straight forward toward the viewer. He is male-presenting with medium brown skin tone, short dark hair, and light facial hair. He wears a dark, long-sleeve t-shirt with a white and orange zig-zagging stripe across the chest and arms. He stands in the middle of an urban street with parked cars and buildings in the background.)



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CADVC announces States of Becoming, an exhibition that examines the dynamic forces of relocation, resettling, and assimilation that shape the artistic practices of a group of 17 contemporary African artists who have lived and worked in the United States within the last three decades and informs the discourse on identity construction within the African Diaspora.

The concept for "States of Becoming" evolved from curator Fitsum Shebeshe's lived experience following his 2016 move from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to Baltimore, Maryland, and his subsequent firsthand knowledge of the weight of cultural assimilation. Confronted with a different society, Shebeshe encountered a wide range of existential questions that shaped his relationship to institutions and culture. Shebeshe also had the realization for the first time that he was viewed as belonging to a minority because of the color of his skin, and a newfound awareness of the profound impact Ethiopia's traditional and conservative culture had on his personal sense of individuality.

Artists featured in the exhibition include Gabriel C. Amadi-Emina, Kearra Amaya Gopee, Kibrom Araya, Nadia Ayari, Vamba Bility, Elshafei Dafalla, Masimba Hwati, Chido Johnson, Miatta Kawinzi, Dora King, Helina Metaferia, Nontsikelelo Mutiti, Yvonne Osei, Kern Samuel, Amare Selfu, Tariku Shiferaw, and Yacine Tilala Fall.

Public events - free and open to the public:

Opening Reception
An opening reception will be held on Thursday, September 21, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. A 6 p.m. panel discussion will feature Chukwudumebi Gabriel Amadi-Emina, Elshafei Dafalla, and Helina Metaferia, moderated by Maleke Glee, director of Stable Gallery in Washington, D.C. Exhibition curator Fitsum Shebeshe will provide an introduction. Please visit here for additional information.
Public Program
On Thursday, October 26 at 5 p.m., the CADVC presents a conversation with the curator, Fitsum Shebeshe, and Jessica Bell Brown, curator at the Baltimore Museum of Art. The discussion, moderated by Rhea Beckett, founding director at Black Artist Research Space, will focus on curatorial approaches to African diasporic experience and migration. Please visit here for additional information.

Visitor Information

Admission is free. The CADVC is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Parking is free during evening and weekend hours, and metered parking is available at other times. Please visit here for directions and parking information.

For special accessibility needs or questions, please email abbotts@umbc.edu or call 410-455-3188 as soon as possible. We will do our best to provide accommodation and access.

_____

States of Becoming is a traveling exhibition curated by Fitsum Shebeshe and produced by Independent Curators International (ICI), New York. Independent Curators International (ICI) supports the work of curators to help create stronger art communities through experimentation, collaboration, and international engagement. Curators are arts community leaders and organizers who champion artistic practice, build essential infrastructures and institutions, and generate public engagement with art. ICI's collaborative programs connect curators across generations and across social political and cultural borders. They form an international framework for sharing knowledge and resources and for promoting cultural exchange, access to art, and public awareness of the curator's role. Lead funding is provided by the Hartfield Foundation as part of an initiative to support ICI's commitment to new curatorial voices who will shape the future of the field, and ICI's Curatorial Intensive alumni as they move through the stages of their career. States of Becoming is made possible with the generous support of ICI's Board of Trustees and International Forum. Crozier Fine Arts is the Preferred Art Logistics Partner. Exhibition graphics by Untitled Agency, Marrakech.

Image: Gabriel C. Amadi-Emina, Fade Catcher, 2021, Diptych photographic print on museo silver rag adhered flat on wooden panel. Courtesy of the artist. (Image: On the left a person wearing a blue COVID-era mask and dressed in patches of bright patterns holds long-stemmed roses in front of their face while sitting boot to knee in front of a brightly colored and highly patterned curtain. A hand-written message says, "Who will survive in America?" On the right, an abutting image is presented sideways with a figure in shadow wearing a fedora and holding long-stemmed flowers in their teeth. A TV test pattern sign says, "NO SIGNAL INPUT.")

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