Find Your Happy Place in Baltimore This Fall With Four Extraordinary Arts & Cultural Exhibitions

BALTIMORE, Sept. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Find Your Happy Place in Baltimore" campaign continues this fall with a diverse mix of arts and culture offerings. With your pick of four new exhibitions; Games, Gizmos, and Toys in the Attic at The Walters Art Museum, What Makes Us Smile? exhibit at the American Visionary Art Museum, Andy Warhol: The Last Decade at the Baltimore Museum of Art and Odyssey's SHIPWRECK! Pirates & Treasure at the Maryland Science Center, there is an exhibit for everyone.

The Walters Art Museum celebrates the creative mind of renowned artist and children's book illustrator Walter Wick, whose I Spy and Can You See What I See? books have been read and loved by millions of children and adults around the world. Games, Gizmos, and Toys in the Attic features large-format color photos, sculptures and models representing the objects used to create Wick's books. Wick's most recent book, Can You See What I See on a Scary, Scary Night? includes models and illustrations inspired directly by the Walters' "Chamber of Wonders." The exhibit is open now through January 2, 2011. For more information, visit www.thewalters.org.

Want to know What Makes Us Smile? Visit the American Visionary Art Museum to see this exciting exhibition curated by master humorist and creator of "The Simpsons" Matt Groening, artist Gary Panter and museum founder Rebecca Hoffberger. Best-selling PostSecrets author, Frank Warren is contributing PostSecrets from his huge stockpile of anonymous, idiosyncratic, true-life confessions. Clown, humanitarian and physician, Patch Adams, MD will weigh in on his first hand experience of the healing power of laughter and local artist and filmmaker John Waters contributes with his take on Santa. Adding his insight into the biology/science of the origin of human laughter is renowned author and researcher, Dr. Robert S. Provine. The exhibit runs October 9, 2010–September 4, 2011. For more information, visit www.avam.org.

The Baltimore Museum of Art will be the last stop for Americans to see a critically-acclaimed exhibition exploring the late works of American artist Andy Warhol, bringing together more than 50 works that reveal the artist's energetic return to painting and renewed spirit of experimentation during the last decade of his life. Andy Warhol: The Last Decade highlights the psychologically revealing self-portraits with iconic fright wigs, Rorschach and camouflage pattern abstractions and three variations on Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" that stretch 25 to 35 feet in width. This exhibition also shows Warhol pushing beyond his earlier screen-printed images of soup cans and celebrity icons and reengaging in the physical act of art making through hand painting, folding, and staining. The exhibit runs October 17, 2010–January 9, 2011. For more information, visit www.artbma.org.

Last, but certainly not least, the Maryland Science Center will be the perfect place to cheer Aaaarrrggghh! this fall with the introduction of Odyssey's SHIPWRECK! Pirates & Treasure.  This exhibit features compelling stories behind some of the world's most famous shipwrecks, their treasure, historic artifacts and pirates. The first-of-its kind archaeological excavation produced more than 51,000 gold and silver coins and nearly 14,000 artifacts – a wealth of mid-19th century trade goods, hidden on the ocean floor for over a century. With the help of innovative technology, visitors can also pilot a virtual submersible over a shipwreck site, operate a robotic manipulator arm to recover gold coins, and battle the forces of nature while standing in a 75-mph hurricane tube. The exhibit runs from October 1, 2010–January 31, 2011. For more information, visit www.mdsci.org.

Need some help booking a trip? Check out Baltimore's Happy Stays hotel package, deals and discounts at Baltimore's top restaurants and attractions. You also have the ability to customize your own itinerary based on your interest at www.BmoreHappy.com.

Visit Baltimore – the official sales and marketing organization for Baltimore that generates economic benefits for stakeholders through the attraction of convention, group and leisure visitors. For more information, please visit www.baltimore.org.

SOURCE Visit Baltimore