ORG CONTEMPORARY. ARTIST RETREAT 2016 #CAMPTC16 2 Introduction 3 The Contemporary Team 4 Artists 9 Consultants 15 Guests 17 Speakers + Seminars 18 Schedule at a Glance 19 Main Building Map 20 Campus Map — Places to Know — Emergency Contacts Welcome to The Contemporary’s inaugural Artist Retreat, convening 50 Baltimore artists and dozens of national arts consultants including critics, curators, gallerists, and collectors, for three days of intensive professional development, community building, and networking. We believe that this weekend will be a testament to the richness of the field and the power of community, and we kindly ask that you be open, present, and engaged. This retreat is inspired by the important cultural work happening in Baltimore, and is generously supported by the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation and Surdna Foundation. The Contemporary is a nomadic, non-collecting art museum based in Baltimore, Maryland. Our mission expands the idea of a museum as an incubator that commissions site-specific and subject-oriented projects. We engage diverse audiences and advance contemporary art through projects and educational programming. Our work is inspired by three guiding principles: artists matter, collaboration is key, and audience is everywhere. Thank you for joining us. contemporary.org @thecontemporary #camptc16 2 Artist Retreat 2016 | Introduction The Contemporary Team Deana Haggag Ginevra Shay Molly Young Executive Director Artistic Director Intern Dominiece Clifton Lizzie Smith Monika Borkovic Advancement Manager Intern Intern Erica Goebel Lee Heinemann Olivia Obineme Volunteer Education Director Photographer Erin Stellmon Lu Zhang Stephanie Wallace Volunteer Deputy Director Volunteer The Contemporary Team | Artist Retreat 2016 3 has been a member and resident at the artist cooperative, Artist Housing, Inc, located in the heart of Baltimore City. Artists Christina is an instructor and Ceramics Manager at the Columbia Art Center in Columbia, Maryland. She has also taught sculpture and 3D design at Howard Community College and Towson University. Antonio McAfee D. Watkins Antonio McAfee is an artist living in D. Watkins is a columnist for Salon. His Baltimore, MD. He received his BFA in work has been published in the New York Photography from the Corcoran College Times, Guardian, Rolling Stone, and of Art. He also earned his MFA in Photog- Adam Holofcener other publications. He holds a Master’s raphy from the University of Pennsylva- Adam Holofcener grew up in Baltimore in Education from Johns Hopkins Uni- nia, where he was awarded The Dedalus County and now lives in Baltimore City. versity and an MFA in Creative Writing Foundation MFA Fellowship. In 2010, As of late, his work has focused on build- from the University of Baltimore. He is he was a Fulbright student scholar in ing electro-acoustic environments with a college professor at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, where he Max/MSP, improvising on the electric Colette Veasey-Cullors Baltimore and founder of the BMORE studied Art and Culture Management at and nylon string guitar, dipping his toe Colette Veasey-Cullors is Chair of the Writers Project. Watkins has been the the University of Witwatersrand. McAfee into hip-hop/club/r&b, and peddling pop Undergraduate Photography program recipient of numerous awards including is currently an instructor at Montgomery music in the ABAB format. at MICA. Colette has exhibited her Ford’s Men of Courage and a BME College and Corcoran School of Art at work throughout the United States at Fellowship. Watkins is a lifelong East George Washington University. museums, including The California Baltimorean. He is the author of The African American Museum in Los Cook Up: A Crack Rock Memoir and The Angeles, The African American Museum Beast Side: Living (and Dying) While in Philadelphia and The Museum of Black in America. Fine Arts Houston/Glassell School of Art. Her work is included in the publication BLACK: A Celebration of a Culture by Deborah Willis, Ph.D. She has worked with a number of community-based organizations and programs, including: Alice Valenti Art Source South Africa, Communities Alice Valenti is from Baltimore, Mary- Audrey Gair in Schools, Project Row Houses, Art on land, where she lives and works. She re- Audrey Gair was born and raised in Purpose, 901 Arts, National Building ceived a BFA from the Maryland Institute Miami, FL. She stayed in Baltimore Museum, Open Society Institute and College of Art, an MA from Drexel Uni- after graduating from MICA and now Johns Hopkins’ Baltimore Youth Film versity, and an MFA from Towson Univer- Dave Eassa has a studio in East Baltimore. Recent Arts Program. sity. Valenti has taught drawing and art Dave Eassa is a painter and activist projects include Something Crossed My appreciation at Towson University and living and working in Baltimore. Recent Mind, a multimedia fashion event that at the Community College of Baltimore solo and two person exhibitions include she both planned and participated in County, respectively. She has exhibited “The Road to Rio” at Little Berlin “WIDE as a designer, 20/15 Night Visions, her her work locally and nationally, in states EYED” with Nicole Dyer at Savery first solo exhibition, and Brass in Pocket, including Maryland, Delaware, Rhode Gallery both in Philadelphia, PA. He has Third Chorus, with Bb Gallery. Island and New York, and has received shown nationally and internationally several awards for her work, including in exhibitions, most notably at LVL3, an Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation SessionSpace, Sophiajacob, Marianne grant as well as research and travel Boesky Gallery, artSTRAND, Reh Kunst, awards from Towson University. Current Space and Casa das Artes Curtis Miller Criação Ambiente Utopias. Eassa is Curtis Miller moved from Texas to currently a Baltimore Community Fellow Baltimore in 2011 to attend Maryland with the Open Society Institute. He is Institute College of Art’s Hoffberger the founder and director of Free Space, School of Painting. Upon graduation in which brings arts classes to incarcerated 2013, he moved to the Hamilton neigh- individuals within the Maryland prison Christina McCleary borhood of Baltimore with his wife and system. Born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, daughter and works out of his basement Christina McCleary earned a BFA at the studio. Along with painting, he enjoys Maryland Institute College of Art in 1996 cooking Indian and Asian food, sharp- and later an MFA at MICA’s Rinehart ening his kitchen knives and listening to School of Sculpture in 2004. She actively witch house music. He has shown work exhibits her work in solo/group shows throughout Texas, Baltimore, DC and throughout Maryland. Since 2000, she New York. 4 Artist Retreat 2016 | Artists from the Academy of Art University found” and how objects often enmesh from the Instituto Allende in San Miguel in San Francisco and later that year themselves into the complex realities de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico. Her attended the Illustration Master Class of identity and self. The rich combina- work is in the collection of the Baltimore at Amherst College. His commissions tion of the collected and the natural Museum of Art, Mint Museum of Craft + have included book illustrations, album that filled her childhood living room Design, Spencer Museum of Art, and the covers, and murals as well as private continue to be a point of inspiration for Smithsonian American Art Museum. portraits. In 2012, his work was selected her work. She is also the founder BALTI as the People’s Choice for the Black GURLS, a women of color arts collective Art In America Juried Art Exhibition focused on “cultivating platforms and and displayed at the Harlem Fine Arts creative safe space”, currently based in Dirk Joseph Show. He was a semifinalist in the 2013 Baltimore’s Bromo Arts District. Dirk Joseph is a visual artist working in Bombay Sapphire Artisan Series. He was the mediums of painting, sculpture, pup- on Afropunk.com’s “Best of 2014” list. petry, animation, and short story writing. He is currently working towards a Master He has free-lanced as a graphic designer of Fine Arts in Studio Art at Towson and web animator while being an arts University in Maryland, where he is also facilitator in the public school system. an adjunct professor of drawing. Khadija Nia Adell Dirk has exhibited his artwork in several Khadija Nia Adell is a young multi-me- group and solo shows, and also exhibits dia artist, independent curator, writer his work at a few street festivals each year. and scholar, invested in social activism He is part of an artist co-op called Artist and entrepreneurship. Born and raised Housing Inc. and partners with com- Jerrell Gibbs in Miami, FL, she is a transplant to munity-based organizations to facilitate Jerrell Gibbs is a multifaceted visual Baltimore as of 2011. Through her com- creative workshops. Dirk performs puppet artist, born and raised in Baltimore, bined written, visual arts, and curatorial shows for kids and adults as a member of Maryland. He uses multiple creative practice, Adell aims to provoke human the Drapetomaniacs puppetry group and tools to create his engaging artwork, consciousness through discussion, in a group called “String Theory.” such as acrylic paint, spray paint, graf- contemplation, and action. As a cultural Hoesy Corona fiti markers, and newspaper. His most content producer she is interested in Hoesy Corona is a multidisciplinary notable paintings incorporate cartoon promoting, preserving and adding to the artist and founding co-director of imagery; specifically “Franklin”, from rich legacy and history of the African Labbodies performance art laboratory. Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts ” characters. Diaspora. As an honors graduate of His sculptural and performance based Jerrell’s paintings can be found in local Maryland Institute College of Art, and a works have been deeply influenced by Baltimore book stores as well as several founding member of Baltimore-based his queer immigrant experience in the private collectors in various cities.