I’ve lost count of how many people have recommended to me the American Visionary Art Museum that opened near Baltimore’s Inner harbor in 1984, and I finally paid it a visit. located just south of the Inner Harbor, it’s only a 30-minute drive from here (off-rush).
This bus outside the entrance reminds me of the ones we see parked at Roosevelt Center, so already the place felt like home. The museum celebrates not just contemporary artists, but unfettered creativity and, apparently, weirdness.
Officially, the museum defines visionary art as “art produced by self-taught individuals, usually without formal training, whose works arise from an innate personal vision that revels foremost in the creative act itself.”
The works are displayed in three buildings, starting with this one where you buy tickets. The cost is $10 for kids, $14 for seniors and $16 for adults. Not bad for museum pricing. (We’re just spoiled by all the free ones in D.C.)
One reviewer called the art here “exotic, mind blowing, beautiful, intriguing and unique” and I couldn’t agree more. If you liked the Burning Man Show currently at the Renwick Gallery downtown, you’ll love this museum.
Above, Divine on the left – because it’s Baltimore, Hon! – and Eleanor Roosevelt, just because.
A staffer tipped me off to NOT miss the basement, where the Fart Machine is located, in an exhibit praising fart humor. We don’t see that at the Smithsonian, do we?
The Baltimore Sun described the gift shop this way: “Sideshow is a general store for outsiders, chocked with practical jokes and impractical toys, giggle-provoking gags and provocative books celebrating life’s infinite amusements. Sideshow is a place where hopeless irony brackets spiritual kitsch.”
What I bought – 9 pairs of earrings from the best collection of super-cheap earrings I’ve ever seen. (I got 9 pairs for less than $50 total.) And I couldn’t resist the political stuff, of which there’s a nice assortment especially for lefties.
If you Go
On-street parking is plentiful and just 50 cents an hour.
It’s closed Mondays.
Donnie Dorsey
I’d love to go if the trip is n a weekend!