On view through July 16, the showcase celebrates 50 years of hip-hop with multidisciplinary works from local and national artists.
Upstairs, inside the Baltimore Museum of Art’s Special Exhibition Galleries, sounds of rapping, nostalgic hip-hop, and muffled vocals fill the floor. Small groups are gathered around the front half of a repurposed, graffiti-marked police car, as well as a framed image of a man wearing a Tupac Shakur T-shirt. It’s a new kind of exhibit for the BMA—one that is meant to break the stereotype of museums being quiet places.
DEVAN SHIMOYAMA
This flashy, floating fixture by the Philadelphia contemporary art visionary is proof that any conversation about hip-hop would be incomplete without mentioning Timberlands. Rhinestone-covered Timbs, to be exact—which are entwined with silk flowers and hang over coated wire.
Co-curated by the BMA’s new Dorothy Wagner Wallis director Asma Naeem and the museum’s chief education officer Gamynne Guillotte, The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century celebrates 50 years of of the genre’s impact on storytelling, song, fashion, and performance.
The exhibit is on view at the BMA through July 16, when it will transfer to the Saint Louis Art Museum—which co-organized the display. The ticketed exhibit will be free and open to the public on family days scheduled for April 16, May 21, and June 18.
