EPHEMERA(L)

Archer Hawkins Gallery is proud to announce EPHEMERA(L), the gallery's inaugural exhibition, opening September 18, 2026, in Baltimore at our new location at 5722 Falls Rd. Bringing together twelve artists from Baltimore and the surrounding region, the exhibition considers what remains after a moment has passed, and how ordinary objects, fleeting experiences, and material traces become carriers of memory, meaning, and value.

The title draws together ephemeral, that which exists only briefly, and ephemera, objects or documents considered temporary or disposable, yet often retained as evidence of a life or moment. Between the two lies a fundamental human impulse: the desire to give permanence to what cannot last. Fleeting experiences, gestures, fragments, and notes become carriers of meaning and value, giving form to moments that have passed. The artists consider how these traces accumulate meaning, challenging distinctions between the permanent and the impermanent, and between the significant and the ordinary.

The exhibition situates these contemporary practices within a longer history of artists grappling with transience and the passage of time. From Impressionism's attention to ever- changing light and atmosphere to Dada's reconsideration of the everyday and Fluxus's questioning of the permanence of the art object, artists have continually explored how art can respond to a world in constant change. EPHEMERA(L) brings these questions into the present.

In an era defined by social media, the attention economy, and an unprecedented accumulation of discarded objects and moments, we simultaneously preserve more of our lives than ever before and abandon more than we can possibly retain. EPHEMERA(L) asks what survives this accumulation, and what artists today choose to preserve. The exhibition itself is temporary. When EPHEMERA(L) closes, what remains will be the traces, memories, and meanings formed along the way.

These questions take on particular significance as Archer Hawkins Gallery opens its doors. A gallery is, in part, an act of preservation: to exhibit an artist is to ask an audience to pay attention, and to build a program is to make propositions about what deserves to be remembered. With EPHEMERA(L), AHG begins its programming by presenting fresh voices in conversation with art history while looking toward what comes next.