page_title: American Visionary Art Museum
section_title: Reception
hierarchical_section_title: American Visionary Art Museum / Reception
caption_attribution_description: American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore, USA
context_page_description: The American Visionary Art Museum is an art museum located in Baltimore, Maryland's Federal Hill neighborhood at 800 Key Highway. The museum specializes in the preservation and display of outsider art. The city agreed to give the museum a piece of land on the south shore of the Inner Harbor under the condition that its organizers would clean up residual pollution from a copper paint factory and a whiskey warehouse that formerly occupied the site. It has been designated by Congress as America's national museum for visionary art.
  AVAM's 1.1 acre campus contains 67,000 square feet of exhibition space and a permanent collection of approximately 4,000 pieces. The permanent collection includes works by visionary artists like Ho Baron, Nek Chand, Howard Finster, Vanessa German, Mr. Imagination, Leonard Knight, William Kurelek, Leo Sewell, Judith Scott, Ben Wilson, as well as over 40 pieces from the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre of London. AVAM artists, the museum boasts, include “farmers, housewives, mechanics, the disabled, the homeless.. . all inspired by the fire within.”
context_section_description: At the time of the museum's 1995 opening, it had been reported that Hoffberger's rejection of academic scholarship and her refusal to follow tradition perhaps had upset prominent members of the art world. Despite this, the museum won the support of collectors, critics, and the public through its exhibitions that examine the relationship of art to the human condition rather than to the canon of art history. In her inaugural address, Hoffberger stated that “the American Visionary Art Museum opens its doors of perception not in an effort to make war on academic or institutionalized learning, but to create a place where the best of self-taught, intuitive contributions of all kinds will be duly recognized, explored, and then championed in a clear strong voice.” Since its designation—by a unanimous vote of the U.S. Congress—as America's "official national education center, repository and museum for self-taught, intuitive artistry," the museum has produced 18 thematic "mega-exhibitions" (as of 2012); added The Jim Rouse Visionary Center (in 2004) which more than doubled its exhibition space and provided an expansive, permanent home to its education department; and added new features to the Baltimore cultural landscape (including the Hughes Family Outdoor Theater, the LeRoy Hoffberger Speaker's Corner, and more). AVAM's Flicks from the Hill Outdoor Movie Series was included in Travel + Leisure magazine's list of "World's Best Free Stuff."  Further, the magazine also cited AVAM as one of the "10 Places to See Before You're 10."
caption: The art car
exif: {}