Cara Ober: Innovative Leadership, Arts Administration, Curatorial Expertise, Fundraising, and Community Building

Ober received the Sue Hess Legacy Arts Advocate of the Year Award in 2022, a Rabkin National Arts Writers grant in 2019, A Commissioning grant from Common Field and the Warhol Foundation in 2019, two Mellon Arts Innovation Grants from Johns Hopkins University (2015,14), and a Grit Fund Grant from The Warhol Foundation in 2015.

Ober earned an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2005, an MS in Art Education from McDaniel College in 1998, and a BA, Phi Beta Kappa, in fine arts in 1996 from the American University in Washington DC and in Rome with a concentration in art history.

“Cara Ober is relatively easy to spot at an art exhibit preview.

It’s not only because of her art-chic style and general confidence and authority when it comes to art, but because she is deeply, passionately inquisitive about the work. Even if you were to close your eyes, you could most likely recognize her by her voice; she is often the first person, in a room buzzing with press, to look directly at the artists and start firing off insightful questions—the ones that either seem too difficult to ask or had eluded others, sometimes even the artists themselves.”
- Lauren LaRoca “Meet Cara Ober” in Baltimore Magazine, May 2019

Professional Expertise and Accomplishments

As Executive Director of BmoreArt, Cara Ober has spent over a decade building a local, national, and international audience for art and culture.

Ober has successfully raised public awareness and the significant funding necessary to support it, capitalizing on opportunities for collective success and working collaboratively with museums, colleges, businesses, government agencies, and artistic communities.

Since its earliest days as an online publication to its current status as a multimedia publisher, art gallery, collecting initiative, and curatorial consultant, Ober has steered BmoreArt as a multifaceted and mobilizing force, inclusive of individual artists and grassroots arts organizations, as well as institutions and patrons, creating a culture where diverse communities come together to enact positive change.

BmoreArt currently produces print journals and award-winning art books, hosts multiple panel discussions per month with experts across multidisciplinary fields, numerous exhibitions and events, assists institutions and individuals in investing in artist’s careers, and advocates for Baltimore as a site of significant cultural production.

Baltimore Magazine: 30 Women to Watch, 2021

BmoreArt is a leading resource for contemporary art and culture in the Baltimore region; a source of curatorial expertise and a platform for creative and critical discussions.

BmoreArt applies editorial and community building capabilities including digital publication, a biannual print journal, art books, Art Gallery, community events, lectures, curatorial consulting, and social media, to further the cultural and economic interests of artists, arts organizations, cultural institutions, and diverse audiences for arts and culture in the region.

BmoreArt works collaboratively with artists, organizations, businesses, museums, colleges, and publications to champion a vibrant cultural ecosystem in Baltimore.

BmoreArt’s vision is for Baltimore-based artists, creative business owners, arts organizations, and cultural institutions to achieve new levels of individual and collective success and recognition, both locally and globally. BmoreArt’s role is to increase awareness, build relationships, and stimulate discussion in order to catalyze support for artists throughout the region.

Cara Ober with John Waters at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Conducting an Interview about his Retrospective, Indecent Exposure in 2018

Cara Ober writes about Baltimore's unique cultural landscape from the perspective of a maker and feminist. She approaches all kinds of cultural production from a constructive and critical perspective informed by material and pop culture, history, social movements, and political context.

Over the last two decades, Ober's critical reviews, essays, and interviews have explored the political and economic impact of the arts in Baltimore and the way artists thrive in a city full of rich and diverse cultural traditions as well as serious social issues.

She writes regularly about artist and museum culture and and the way they intersect and collide, assessing how this impacts communities and establishes hierarchies of value.

BmoreArt Magazine Release Party 3 at The Walters Art Museum, 2017

Select Articles and Essays:

Baltimore Banner: Nine Art Gallery Shows to Explore in Baltimore this April, 2024

Baltimore Banner: Seven Baltimore-based Artists On the Rise–and on Display Across the Nation, March, 2024

Baltimore Banner: 10 Soul-Warming Art Exhibitions to See In February, 2024

BmoreArt: Radically Simple, Unmistakably Betty Cooke at The Walters, December 2021

BmoreArt: Maryland State Arts Council Shifts Grants to Address Equity, Bringing Cuts to Largest Organizations, September 2021

BmoreArt: A Cure for Toxic Museum Culture: Laura Raicovich’s New Book, Culture Strike, August 2021

Bmoreart: Fever Dream: Symptoms but no Covid-19 Tests or results, 2020

BMOREART: Only Women: 27 Women in the Arts on the BMA’s Recent Collecting Announcement

BmoreArt: Artspeak and Audience: Art Writing as Bridge or Barrier

BmoreArt: Anarchy at 72: John Waters’ Indecent Exposure

hyperallergic: Jack Whitten’s Secret self

NY Magazine/ Vulture: John Waters is the Godfather of the Baltimore Art Scene

Hyperallergic: Artists and Curators Weigh In on Baltimore Museum’s Move to Deaccession Works by White Men to Diversify Its Collection

Cara Ober with Mera Rubell, Sylvia Snowden, and Jeffrey Kent at the Rubell Family Museum, DC

Cara Ober founded BmoreArt in 2007 as an online magazine to encourage accessible and rigorous dialogue about arts and culture in the Baltimore region. Named "Best of Baltimore" by Baltimore Magazine in 2024, 2017, and 2014, BmoreArt questions and analyzes issues of gender, race, social justice, and cultural institutions with emphasis on institutional culture and practices, as well as material and process, and how they influence ideas and social behavior.

Ober launched BmoreArt: A Journal of Art + Ideas in 2015. The biannual, full color print journal explores Baltimore's cultural landscape thematically, offering a deep and diverse perspective on individuals and cultural institutions, as well as a curated content-laden experience, more like an exhibition in print than a traditional magazine. In both the online and print publications, Ober seeks to ask challenging questions, to build community dialogue through digital, printed, and in situ formats, and to celebrate the rich and diverse cultural landscape of Baltimore.

From 2010-2012, Cara was the online arts and culture editor at The Urbanite Magazine. She has penned art reviews for Art Papers, ARTnews, Hyperallergic, and BurnAway and numerous other national publications. In addition, Ober taught Professional Development, Online Journalism, and Painting classes for a decade at MICA and Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.