Gallery at St. John’s College Reopens as Elizabeth Myers Mitchell Art Museum

Last month, nearly three years after it closed due to Covid-19, the Elizabeth Myers Mitchell Art Museum at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, reopened. Its return and renaming (from a gallery into a museum) was marked by an unusual opening act: an exhibition with no art on view.

The only art museum in Anne Arundel County accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, the Mitchell was founded in 1989. During its pandemic closure—initially due to lockdowns, and then because of renovations to its building—it maintained a presence through online programming.

Its first exhibition under its new name and in the revamped galleries, THE OPEN MUSEUM (until 26 March), doesn’t actually feature any art on display. Instead, the curators have invited viewers into an otherwise empty gallery to mark the clean, white walls with “doodles, diagrams, drawings and texts”, asking broad questions about the roles of museums in the communities they serve.

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