Center for Maine Contemporary Art

Center for Maine Contemporary Art CMCA —Center for Maine Contemporary Art: Advancing contemporary art in Maine through exhibitions and educational programs. www.cmcanow.org

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SAY WOW TO THE NEW CMCA

Experience the art of this generation and the next. CMCA’s exhibitions and educational programs are made to inspire and attract visitors of all ages and backgrounds. With its iconic sawtooth roofline, CMCA’s striking new building—designed by architect Toshiko Mori—provides exceptional exhibition space for presentation of work by contemporary artists. The complex also inclu

des a gift shop, an ArtLab classroom, and a courtyard open to the public. Located in the heart of Rockland’s downtown arts district, CMCA is in walking distance of the Farnsworth Art Museum and Wyeth Center, the Strand Theatre, and dozens of art galleries, restaurants, and hotels. Be ready to say wow!

FIRST FRIDAY INCOMING >>>>Rockland’s First Friday Artwalk is back and we hope to see you 4–7pm for free admission to our...
06/04/2026

FIRST FRIDAY INCOMING >>>>

Rockland’s First Friday Artwalk is back and we hope to see you 4–7pm for free admission to our Summer Exhibitions 🌞 Enjoy live music by in our courtyard from 5-7pm and tacos for purchase by .max

A special thank you to whose generous support makes First Friday possible.

Blanca Beck
Umbilical Brain, 2022
Acrylic and oil on wood panel, with artist-made aluminum frame 24 × 20 inches
Courtesy of the artist, Uffner & Liu, and the Center for Maine Contemporary Art
Photo:

Abbey Williams | Fugue is on view. Fugue is a highly musical rumination on our charged historical moment. A five-channel...
06/03/2026

Abbey Williams | Fugue is on view.

Fugue is a highly musical rumination on our charged historical moment. A five-channel video installation displayed on horizontal monitors in freestanding black pedestals, Abbey Williams has reedited and “remixed” the work since its 2025 premiere in Basel for its American debut at CMCA—a recursive practice central to her process.

Williams’s invocation of the history of “the West” is a symbolic amplification of a through line in her work as a whole: the intersectional experience of Black womanhood. Fugue analogizes collapsing columns and architecture—the smashing of screens, the process of ruination—with the personal process of aging. It responds with a mixture of grief and punk repudiation to a society that still prioritizes a mode of beauty connected with whiteness, youth, and fertility. This punk spirit is further charged by a collaged score of music sampling Throbbing Gristle, Sonic/Ciccone Youth, Lena Lovich, Black Flag, Childish Gambino, and an intentionally unsettling cacophony of noise. Williams insists on continuing to desire despite the inevitable complications of physical decline. Her use of images of figures like Elizabeth Taylor and Faye Dunaway, who defiantly worked “past their prime” and refused to “age gracefully,” is a testament to endurance, to legacies undiminished by time but instead sharpened by it.

Plan your visit at the link in our bio 🎆

Images:

3rd channel 15.00_04_25_05
3rd channel 15.00_03_30_22
1st channel 15.00_05_20_11
2nd channel 15.00_07_07_01
3rd channel 15.00_05_20_11

As CMCA marks the 10th anniversary of its iconic building, this year’s Art Party celebrates the people whose vision, ded...
06/01/2026

As CMCA marks the 10th anniversary of its iconic building, this year’s Art Party celebrates the people whose vision, dedication, and expertise have made it possible.

The 2026 CMCA Art Party honors architect Toshiko Mori, contractor Jay Fischer of Cold Mountain Builders, 2016 Board Chair Charlotte Dixon, and Trustee and Building Committee Chair Jack McKenney.

Join us Wednesday, July 8 from 6–9pm as we celebrate our honorees.

21 Winter St, Rockland ME 04841

Cocktails | Oyster Bar | Movable Feast | E. Wales Hospitality | Jolie Rogers Raw Bar | Flaura Flowers & Wine

Tickets available through the link in bio 🪩

Marc Swanson | Death is Expensive is on view. Taken as a whole, the exhibition contemplates the cost of loss in all its ...
05/29/2026

Marc Swanson | Death is Expensive is on view. Taken as a whole, the exhibition contemplates the cost of loss in all its manifestations. It recognizes death as not merely the end of a biological cycle but as the unraveling of relationships, systems, identities, and occasionally ecosystems, and in doing so invites us to acknowledge that the expense and extent of loss corresponds to the depth of love.

Learn more and plan your visit at the link in our bio 🕯️

Marc Swanson
For Renée, 2026
Wood, metal, archival tape, frames, paper, porcelain figurine, shells, flowers, metal tassels, mirror, latex and clay dust, lightbulbs, paste necklace
48 x 24 x 11 inches
Courtesy of the artist and the Center for Maine Contemporary Art (Photo:

We really loved seeing you at our Summer Exhibitions opening reception! Thank you for coming! All four exhibitions are n...
05/27/2026

We really loved seeing you at our Summer Exhibitions opening reception! Thank you for coming! All four exhibitions are now on view 👀

BIANCA BECK | Eyes
WILL SEARS | The Third Field
MARC SWANSON | Death is Expensive
ABBEY WILLIAMS | Fugue

To learn more, visit the link in our bio 🥳

CMCA is pleased to celebrate the continued presentation of WILL SEARS // THE THIRD FIELD included in our summer exhibit...
05/21/2026

CMCA is pleased to celebrate the continued presentation of WILL SEARS // THE THIRD FIELD included in our summer exhibitions!

Join us for a reception this Saturday, May 23 from 3-5pm. To prepare, CMCA will be closed the morning of May 23, until 3pm.

By setting carefully selected colors alongside one another in a systematic, syncopated fashion, Sears creates works that are more than the sum of their parts. Sears knows, for example, that we often process red and blue stripes in close proximity into a field of purple, or that a neutral gray may read warm or cool depending on an adjacent color, and experiments with these effects. If Sears’s colors and forms act as two overlaid compositions existing with some independence—which we might consider as first and second visual fields—then sustained attention generates a third optical field as a result of their interaction. The third field is not merely optical but also meditative and emotional, suggesting things felt rather than seen. To paraphrase Martin, the third field is where the inner eye contemplates all that we have seen, and emotions rise to the surface.

Will Sears
Key I
2024
latex, wood assemblage
20.5 x 17.5 x 1.5 in

Will Sears
Key Il
2024
latex, wood assemblage
20.5 x 17.5 x 1.5 in

Photo:

ABBEY WILLIAMS // FUGUEIt’s happening! We hope you will join us for the opening of Abbey Williams solo exhibition Fugue,...
05/19/2026

ABBEY WILLIAMS // FUGUE

It’s happening! We hope you will join us for the opening of Abbey Williams solo exhibition Fugue, this Saturday, May 23 with a reception from 3-5pm!!

Fugue is a highly musical rumination on our charged historical moment. A five-channel video installation displayed on horizontal monitors in freestanding black pedestals, Abbey Williams has reedited and “remixed” the work since its 2025 premiere in Basel for its American debut at CMCA—a recursive practice central to her process. Over the course of its nearly eight-minute run time, Fugue montages overhead shots of the artist flipping through oversized photobooks of classical architecture, her hands pawing at or caressing marble statues and columns as if they were living flesh. The work eventually pivots to images of the artist’s hands painting on the surface of monitors that she ultimately shatters with a hammer, creating illuminated fissures akin to lightning that she also dangerously caresses. Throughout, Williams intersperses imagery from antiquity with canonical works of popular media, from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Network, and 2001: A Space Odyssey, to footage of performers Grace Jones and H.R. of hardcore band Bad Brains.

Read more at the link in our bio!

MARC SWANSON // DEATH IS EXPENSIVECMCA is pleased to present Marc Swanson’s solo exhibition Death is Expensive, opening ...
05/17/2026

MARC SWANSON // DEATH IS EXPENSIVE

CMCA is pleased to present Marc Swanson’s solo exhibition Death is Expensive, opening this Saturday, May 23, with a reception from 3-5pm.

A defining voice in the q***r contemporary art of his generation, Marc Swanson transforms made and found materials—photographs, taxidermy forms, ornate frames, and more—into remarkably original assemblages that conjure a faded glamor. Setting the lovingly crafted alongside the seemingly discarded, Swanson’s work manages the difficult task of appearing nostalgic and unsentimental all at once. Equally indebted to the conceptual and formal strategies of Marcel Broodthaers’s décors, the decidedly non-conceptual (and usually q***r-coded) professions of window dressing and interior and set decoration, and the almost Brechtian theatricality of the drag, club kid, and goth scenes of the 1980s, his art is a profound reckoning with the cost of love, longing, and survival in our present moment.

Read more about the show on our website at cmcanow.org

Marc Swanson
Still life with flowers, 2022
Wood, chains, antlers, glass, flowers with clay dust and latex, chainmail fabric 79 x 48 x 13 inches
Courtesy of the artist and the Center for Maine Contemporary Art (Photo: Art Index)

Summer break is almost here — and so is CMCA’s ArtCamp (!) where we invite youth ages 8-14 to look closely, get messy, a...
05/15/2026

Summer break is almost here — and so is CMCA’s ArtCamp (!) where we invite youth ages 8-14 to look closely, get messy, and discover new ways to engage with this captivating world.

Across four unique weeks, campers will study seeds and blooms, sketch in the galleries, experiment with printmaking and sculpture, and transform movement, color, and observation into original works of art. All inspired by CMCA’s summer exhibitions!

ArtCamp’s small class sizes and hands-on instruction from practicing artists help curiosity, confidence, collaboration, and self-expression to grow.

Programs begin July 20. Sliding scale tuition and a limited number of scholarships available.

To learn more, visit the link in our bio.

Address

21 Winter Street
Rockland, ME
04841

Opening Hours

Monday 10am - 5pm
Tuesday 10am - 5pm
Wednesday 10am - 5pm
Thursday 10am - 5pm
Friday 10am - 5pm
Saturday 10am - 5pm
Sunday 12pm - 5pm

Telephone

(207) 701-5005

Website

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