American Visionary Art

'Painted Prints' at the BMA It's a celebration of color as the Baltimore Museum of Art unveils Painted Prints: The Revelation of Color in Northern Renaissance and Baroque Engravings, Etchings and Woodcuts. The exhibit, running Sunday through Jan. 5, 2003, includes more than 100 pieces by Durer and other 16th- and 17th-century artists who used bold, vivid colors in their work. The pieces are on loan from major European and American museums and private collections. The Baltimore Museum of Art is located at 10 Art Museum Drive.

The most notable thing about this season of museum and gallery shows is that, for the first time in years, it seems, there's no blockbuster event in the offing to monopolize all the attention, interest and ticket sales to the public. Instead, area museums will be putting on shows that challenge, entertain and educate - in short, the kind of focused, thoughtful shows that have a reason for being other than how many people they can lure through the box office. In February, local museums will coordinate exhibitions for Vivat!

Hooray! Baltimore was named one of the Top 25 art destinations in the United States. Oh no! Charm City was ranked No. 25 out of 25 cities and was beaten out by ... Saugatuck, Mich.? Lahaska, Pa.? Published by AmericanStyle - a Baltimore-based arts and crafts magazine with a circulation of 60,000 - the annual list of Top 25 Art Destinations in America awards the title of No. 1 spot for visual arts lovers to New York. New Mexico's Santa Fe and Taos earn second place, San Francisco third and Baltimore just hangs on in 25th.

The rules for competing in the East Coast Kinetic Sculpture Race that snaked its way through downtown Baltimore yesterday were simple, if a tad offbeat: Participants must propel their human-powered vehicles over a 15-mile course composed of city streets, water loops, mud, sand and ice. Cheating - done well - was acceptable. "Rosie Ruiz is our hero," explained Hobart Brown, a Ferndale, Calif., sculptor who launched the first kinetic sculpture race 34 years ago in his hometown. Initially, "she got away" with it, he said, referring to the runner who took public transportation to win the Boston Marathon in 1980.

Mickey Mouse will weave classic stories into one magical tale at the Disney on Ice show Wednesday through Feb. 10 at the Baltimore Arena, 201 W. Baltimore St. Popular stories such as Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 101 Dalmatians and The Little Mermaid will come to life on the ice, accompanied by well-known Disney melodies, including "Whistle While You Work," "Someday My Prince Will Come" and "Under the Sea." The production features ice-skating champions from around the world.

There are enough visions of hell on display at the American Visionary Art Museum to disturb your sleep for years. In the painting "Officers' Club," Polish-born Irving Norman creates a smoke-filled cocktail lounge populated by the Nazi elite. SS officers painted in a hyper-realistic style seem simultaneously skeletal and mechanical as they play cards and order drinks from a waitress wearing a collar. Frenchman Francis Marshall uses cast-off stockings, human hair and rope to personify war with misshapen, life-size dolls lashed to wooden chairs.

While the works of art at the American Visionary Art Museum are always thought-provoking, it was the timing of the museum's new show that was the main topic of conversation at the exhibition preview party. Though "The Art of War and Peace" was scheduled almost a year ago, many of the 1,100 guests noted how current events had only deepened its significance. Now many of the 250 works, by 85 self-taught artists, took on a whole new meaning. "I'm requiring my students to come to this exhibit because it's extremely timely and powerful," said Nan Collins, an art teacher at Howard County's Centennial High School, "and perhaps it will help them think about the world situation."

Sometimes, it pays to live -- and parade -- in Charles Village.Because of the generosity of Philadelphia photographer Neil Benson and his fellow "Dumpster Divers," the American Visionary Art Museum is offering free admission tomorrow through Sunday to Charles Villagers and others in North Baltimore's 21218 ZIP code.The relationship between the City of Brotherly Love, Charm City, and the museum was launched in the spring when Benson and his team of recyclers -- the Dumpster Divers -- came to Baltimore to enter the first East Coast kinetic sculpture race, which involves creative vehicles that can move on land and float on water.

One of the signature characteristics of our age is the extraordinary number of people who claim to have witnessed so-called paranormal phenomena, from telepathy and extra-sensory perception to encounters with ghosts, angels and UFOs.Science has no explanation for these events other than to chalk them up to mistaken identity or mass hysteria.Yet the fact that so many people give credence to reports of alien abductions, miraculous visitations and sinister government cover-ups lends the whole subject a certain populist legitimacy.