Welcome to Project 20.

December 2009 marks the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the Contemporary Museum.

From the museum’s first exhibition, a courageous community-based examination of the AIDS crisis through art, the Contemporary Museum has been a bold and experimental institution, responsive to the cultural, social, and political climate of our times and serving as a laboratory for new ideas and new models for exhibitions of contemporary art. The museum’s first ten years were spent itinerant, known as the “museum without walls” with groundbreaking exhibitions staged in temporary sites throughout the city. Following a decade of nomadic programming the museum moved in to a more permanent facility to accommodate the growing audience, expand financial support, and offer year-round exhibition programming. With the Contemporary’s Mt. Vernon location as its home base, the past decade has been marked by ambitious new commissions, national tours for Contemporary Museum projects, innovative programming for teens, and off-site installations that have engaged communities throughout the city of Baltimore.