American Visionary Art Museum facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
American Visionary Art Museum

Established	November 24, 1995; 29 years ago (1995-11-24)
Location	Baltimore, Maryland, US
Type	Art museum
Visitors	Over 100,000 annually

The American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) is a unique art museum in Baltimore, Maryland. It's located in the Federal Hill neighborhood. This museum is special because it focuses on "outsider art," also known as "visionary art." This is art made by people who are not trained artists. They create amazing things from their own imagination and inner vision.

The city of Baltimore gave the museum land near the Inner Harbor. But there was a catch! The museum's founders had to clean up pollution from old factories that used to be there. The U.S. Congress has even called AVAM America's national museum for visionary art.

AVAM's campus is about 1.1 acres big. It has 67,000 square feet of space for showing art. The museum's permanent collection has about 4,000 pieces. You can see art by famous visionary artists like Ho Baron, Nek Chand, Howard Finster, Vanessa German, Mr. Imagination (Gregory Warmack), Leonard Knight, William Kurelek, Leo Sewell, Judith Scott, and Ben Wilson. The museum also has over 40 pieces from the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre in London. AVAM proudly shares that its artists include "farmers, housewives, mechanics, people with disabilities, and even those who have been homeless." They are all inspired by a strong creative spark inside them.

The museum's main building has three floors of art. There's also a Tall Sculpture Barn, a Wildflower Garden, and large spaces for exhibits and events in the Jim Rouse Visionary Center. AVAM doesn't have its own art curators. Instead, they invite guest curators for their shows. They don't just focus on one artist or art style. They create themed exhibitions with fun names like Wind in Your Hair and High on Life. The museum's founder, Rebecca Alban Hoffberger, likes that AVAM is "pretty un-museumy," meaning it's not like a typical, stuffy museum.

History of AVAM

How the Museum Started

The idea for AVAM came from Rebecca Alban Hoffberger. She was working with a program that helped people facing mental health challenges. She saw the amazing artwork these people created and was "impressed with their imagination." She wanted to focus on their strengths, not their difficulties.

Hoffberger found inspiration when she visited the Collection de l'art brut in Lausanne, Switzerland. This museum was started by French artist Jean Dubuffet. He collected "l'art brut," which means "raw art," because of the strong feelings in it. Hoffberger thought it was the "best, most imaginative, most original museum." She then decided to create her own visionary museum based on this idea.

In 1987, Hoffberger and Baltimore art expert George Ciscle held an art show called "American Outsider Art." At this event, she officially announced her plans for AVAM. Her husband at the time, LeRoy Hoffberger, helped fund the museum. He sold some of his own art to raise money. With help from friends and family, Hoffberger asked the city of Baltimore for support. The city gave her two buildings near the Inner Harbor, worth $1.1 million. The State of Maryland also provided $1.3 million to help with construction. Hoffberger also raised $7 million in six years from many donors, including Anita Roddick.

Architects Rebecca Swanston and Alex Castro designed the museum. It officially opened on November 24, 1995. Visionary artists Gerald Hawkes and Vollis Simpson were the first people to walk through its doors.

Growth and Events

In 1999, AVAM teamed up with Hobart Brown to bring the Kinetic Sculpture Race to the East Coast. This fun race became an annual event in Baltimore. In 2004, the museum opened its third building, the Jim Rouse Visionary Center. This building used to be a whiskey warehouse.

The Jim Rouse Visionary Center now displays cool things like Kinetic Sculptures from AVAM's yearly race. It also has Baltimore painted screens, Leonard Knight's "Love Balloon," and DeVon Smith's "World’s First Robot Family." You can also find interactive displays of moving sculptures called automata from London's Cabaret Mechanical Theatre. This center also has classrooms and a large banquet room for events.

Since 2005, AVAM has hosted "Flicks from the Hill." This is a free outdoor movie series in the summer. The movies are shown on a big screen under artist Adam Kurtzman's "Giant Golden Hand." The natural hillside of Federal Hill acts like an amphitheater, holding over 1000 people for these popular films.

The museum also has a summer arts camp and an after-school program, which started in 2009. AVAM is also a popular place for weddings, hosting over 70 each year. The money from rentals and admissions helps the museum a lot. AVAM is currently working to raise a large fund to help it grow even more.

AVAM's Mission

Hoffberger believes that "a good museum does more than just have objects that stand there on pedestals." She thinks great museums inspire people. AVAM has special goals for what it wants to teach visitors:

• To help people see what a valuable life can be.
• To encourage respect and joy for the talents of others.
• To show the many different choices available in life, especially for students.
• To inspire everyone to use their own special knowledge and inner strengths.
• To promote using your natural intelligence, intuition, and creative self-reliance.
• To confirm how much people want to find out what they can do best, in their own way, at any age.
• To help individuals choose to do something really, really well.

These same goals were adopted by The Lower East Side Girls Club when it started in 1996.

Community Involvement

The Attack of the Sculpturians, a human-powered vehicle, participating in the American Visionary Art Museum's Kinetic Sculpture Race, Baltimore, Maryland.

AVAM has a long history of helping the community. In 1997, some of AVAM's first full-time employees were hired from local homeless shelters. The colorful murals on the museum's outside walls were created by young people in AVAM's mosaic training program in 2000.

AVAM supports many art events in Baltimore. These include art car events and the yearly East Coast Championship Kinetic Sculpture Race. In 2010, AVAM started an After School program with Federal Hill Preparatory School. This program gives students a chance to explore the museum's art and take part in art workshops. In 2012, some art made by these students was sold to help the Children's Home in Catonsville. AVAM also expanded this program into free workshops called The Institute for Visionary Explorers at the Enoch Pratt Free Library. AVAM was also the location for the first Steps for the Cure, an event to raise awareness and money for breast cancer.

Exhibitions

As of 2015, AVAM has hosted 20 yearly "mega-exhibitions." These shows always pick "one grand spirited theme that has inspired or troubled humankind." This fits with the museum's "Sure-Fire Recipe for Enchantment."

Main Thematic Exhibitions

• Tree of Life • November 1995 – May 1996
• Wind in My Hair • May 1996 – May 1997
• The End is Near! • May 1997 – May 1998
• Love: Error and Eros • May 16, 1998 – May 30, 1999
• We are Not Alone - Angels and Other Aliens • October 2, 1999 – September 3, 2000 • Curated by Susan Subtle
• Treasures of the Soul: Who is Rich? • October 7, 2000 – September 2, 2001
• The Art of War and Peace—October 6, 2001 – September 1, 2002
• High on Life • October 5, 2002 – September 1, 2003
• Golden Blessings of Old Age & Out of the Mouths of Babes • October 4, 2003 – September 5, 2004
• HolyH20: Fluid Universe • October 2, 2004 – September 4, 2005
• Race, Class, Gender ≠ Character • October 1, 2005 – September 3, 2006
• Home & Beast • October 7, 2006 – September 2, 2007
• All Faiths Beautiful • October 6, 2007 – August 31, 2008
• The Marriage of Art, Science and Philosophy • October 4, 2008 – September 6, 2009
• Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness • October 3, 2009 – September 5, 2010
• What Makes Us Smile? • October 9, 2010 – September 4, 2011
• All Things Round: Galaxies, Eyeballs & Karma • October 7, 2011 – September 2, 2012
• The Art of Storytelling: Lies, Enchantment, Humor, and Truth • October 6, 2012 – September 1, 2013
• Human, Soul & Machine: The Coming Singularity! • October 5, 2013 – August 31, 2014
• The Visionary Experience: Saint Francis to Finster • October 4, 2014 – August 30, 2015
• The Big Hope Show • October 3, 2015 – September 4, 2016

Single Gallery and Special Exhibitions

• Out of this World: Centennial Celebration of Eugene Von Bruenchenhein • March 2, 2010 – March 2, 2012
• Gretchen Feldman: Love Letter To Earth (1934-2008) • April 2012 – June 2013
• A Very Visionary Star-Spangled Sidewalk • Ongoing, opened Summer 2013
• Frank Bruno: A Life Devoted to The End. • July 9, 2013 – February 2, 2014
• Donald Pass: The Hope We Seek • February 28, 2014 – March 1, 2015
• Heaven's Carousel by Tim Otto Roth – Celebrating The Hubble Space Telescope's 25th Anniversary (outdoors) • April 24, 2015 – May 2, 2015
• Mr. Eddy Lives! • April 11, 2015 – April 2016

See Also

• Federal Hill, Baltimore
• Inner Harbor
• Kinetic Sculpture Race