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For more information contact: 
Cathy Byrd, Executive Director at 410.962.8565 or cathybyrd@mdartplace.org

Maryland Art Place Announces Reinvent, MAP’s First Public Art Project
Unveiling Ceremony: 6pm, December 10, 2009

Maryland Art Place is pleased to announce the creation of a public art project at 8 Market Place, Power Plant Live! in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Reinvent, a dynamic 70-foot-long wall installation, heralds one of MAP’s newest initiatives: a series of urban art projects to be presented outside the nonprofit contemporary art center’s galleries. Reinvent will be on view through December 2010.

MAP offered the creative opportunity to graduate students working with Ellen Lupton, director of the Graphic Design MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art. Artist collaborators Lauren Adams, Christina Beard and Christopher McCampbell responded to MAP’s vision for broader community engagement in their site-specific design.

Conceived for the hallway that leads to MAP’s galleries, Reinvent represents innovation and change in a series of shifting motifs. The linear cut-vinyl display begins with a city stoplight, and continues through evolving emblems of nature and culture to end in a wall-sized 3-D digital network.

Reinvent will be introduced in tandem with Instant Messages, an exhibition of new work by Chris Clark, Elizabeth Herrmann, Ann Liu, Chris McCampbell, Ryan Shelley, Wesley Stuckey, Beth Taylor, Isabel Uria, Supisa Wattanasansanee, and Krissi Xenakis, also of MICA’s graduate program in graphic design. The works in Instant
Messages explore signs and messages in contemporary culture. On view are posters, screen prints, graffiti, projected animations, and interactive exhibits that invite visitors to create their own messages.

Instant Messages presents the occasion for another MAP first: Family Day. On December 5, from 1 to 4pm, MICA students invite families to join them at MAP for an afternoon of designing buttons, alphabet blocks, magnet art and more.

MAP will celebrate Reinvent and Instant Messages with a special reception from 5 to 8pm, Thursday, December 10, at MAP’s final Rush Hour: Art Beats Traffic event for 2009. All of MAP’s programs are free and open to the public.

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Maryland Art Place is a not-for-profit contemporary art center located in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, at 8 Market Place, Suite 100. Gallery hours: 11am to 5pm, Tuesday through Saturday. For further information, please visit mdartplace.org or call 410.962.8565. All programs and exhibitions are free and open to the public.