Artscape 2025 is one month away from opening in a new downtown location, and local artists are leading a multi-pronged effort to get the area ready.
As part this year’s preparations, artists have begun painting murals underneath the elevated portion of the Jones Falls Expressway, where the weekly Baltimore Farmers Market takes place on Sundays.
The market area is a major part of the 2025 festival’s new downtown footprint, which also includes War Memorial Plaza near City Hall; the War Memorial building at 101 N. Gay St., and portions of Holliday Street and Guilford Avenue.
This year’s event is being produced by the city of Baltimore, which just created a new Mayor’s Office of Arts, Culture and Entertainment (MOACE), and the independent Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts (BOPA). The main dates are May 24 and 25, with a preview event at the War Memorial Building on May 22. The farmers market, which began its season on April 13, won’t take place May 25 but will return the following weekend.
To help transform the area for the festival, producers have commissioned 32 artists or teams of artists to paint murals on 43 concrete columns that support the elevated expressway, and the first eight artists began work last week.
Most of the columns were last covered with murals between 2006 and 2008, and their surfaces had become cracked and faded over time. Instead of restoring all of the older murals, the way John Ellsberry restored his “The Alligators” mural on 28th Street last year, the Mayor’s Office asked the recently-selected artists to paint new murals on all but one of the previously-painted columns, plus some new ones. The artwork that is being preserved is a 2008 mural by the late Pontella Mason entitled “Bebop: Charlie Parker and Bettie Carter.”
Urban Oasis
The theme of the new murals is Urban Oasis. A few are now complete or well underway, including works by Public Art Innovations (Andy Dahl); Kid Balloon; Hiro (George Hiromitsu Hubbard); Gary Mullen and Ham and Cheese Studio (Sami Seezox and Chelsea Henery.) The rest are scheduled for completion between now and the start of the festival.
Andrew Pisacane, the artist also known as Gaia, is curating the effort, and Bilal Ahmad Farid is the project manager. Some artists are painting one mural and some, including Mullen, are painting two. Mullen is also one of four artists who painted murals under the JFX two decades ago, along with Danamarie Hosler; Michael Kirby and Ernest Shaw.
They have been joined by the following artists and teams: Afr0delic; Rowan Bathurst; Bridget Cimino; Camila Leao Lopes; Dirk Joseph Artworks; Gaia; Ground Zero Studio (Jordan Lawson); Farid; Hope and Faith Creations (twins Tonisha Hope and Eleisha Faith McCorkle); Ian Pearson and Insanely Dope Designs (Reginald Lewis).
Also, LaToya Peoples; Liz Miller; MadeBySaba (Saba Hamidi); Megan Lewis; Nether 410; Pablo Machioli; Paige Orpin; Priyanka K; Rosy Sunshine; Red Swan (Lindy Swan and Hanna Moran); Barbara Thompson; WGF Studio (Sarah Etherton) and Jenn Wait. In addition, artist Adam Stab is painting a 20-foot-long mural on a wall that frames the ramp leading from Gay Street to the JFX.
‘Botanical garden experience’
The murals come in a variety of styles, but all are linked by the Urban Oasis theme. Subjects include carnivorous plants, local wildlife, abstract shapes and mythical figures. Dahl has titled his “Lake Trout.” Hiro calls his “Day and Night.” A palette of suggested colors further links the designs.
“Every artist is creating sort of a botanical garden experience,” Tonya Miller Hall, the mayor’s Senior Advisor for Arts and Culture, said. “How they’ve interpreted this work has been really exciting. Big bold colors, lush green flowers and reds and blues and purples…Everyone has a different take on what an urban oasis looks like.”
In addition to the murals, lighting installations will be added to 14 of the columns for even more color. The immersive lighting, which will remain after the festival ends, is intended both to make the area more inviting and to contribute to public safety.
“The really cool thing about the light installation is that it can be programmed” to change color to celebrate “some of our milestone moments, whether it’s the Ravens win or Orioles win or something else,” Miller Hall said.
Lasting improvements
The Urban Oasis Mural Project is reminiscent of the way the Mayor’s Office engaged artists Jaz Erenberg, Hamidi, Stab and others to create murals along the North Charles Street corridor when Artscape’s footprint was expanded from Midtown into the Station North Arts District in 2023.
The goal then was to use the energy of the arts festival to make physical improvements that will last long after the event is over. Miller Hall was a key proponent of the idea that temporary events can create jobs for artists and bring long-term enhancements to the city.
“It’s incredible how something as simple as a mural or sculpture can completely change an environment,” Miller Hall said in 2023. “Art has a way of transforming spaces, the hearts and minds of communities.”
Artscape’s move into Station North provided an opportunity to be “really intentional about putting artists to work and having some economic impact and creating some sustainable places…that the community can love after the festival is over,” she said.
Downtown Rise Initiative
In February, Mayor Brandon Scott announced that he wanted to relocate the festival to support his Downtown Rise initiative, which aims to boost Baltimore’s downtown core. Scott said he wanted to move the event as a way of “leveraging the power of art” to spark reinvestment, attract new energy and reimagine the heart of the city.
The new location will make use of and provide exposure for places that weren’t part of previous Artscape festivals, including The Peale, Baltimore’s community museum at 225 Holliday St.; the War Memorial Building, Zion Church at 400 E. Lexington St.; and the Icon events venue at 316 Guilford Ave., also known as The Vibe.
Miller Hall said this month that she and the mayor wanted to follow the same strategy that was employed for Station North in 2023 — using a temporary event to make lasting improvements.
“We made some decisions: How can we use this festival, in the way that we did in 2023, to really transform space?” she said. “This is the crown jewel of the festival in my opinion: We’re going to leave something sustainable for the residents of Baltimore once the festival is over.”
Additional preparations
In addition to the murals and lights, city workers have begun running wiring throughout the new festival footprint to provide electricity for vendors and other participants.
Other work includes preparations to:
- Turn the War Memorial Building into the setting for a curated exhibit called SCOUT Art Fair, a showcase for artists exhibiting work that will be for sale and will need protection from the elements, the same way Art Basel in south Florida uses the Miami Beach Convention Center and other sites to exhibit valuable works of art. Derrick Adams is the curator, and BOPA will get a 35 percent commission for any artwork sold at the Scout Art Fair. “We have over 44 artists that are going to be vending or exhibiting their work,” Miller Hall said. “It really is touted for art buyers and art collectors. All of the work will be priced under $5,000, so it’s accessible. This is going to be a new addition and we hope year after year it really starts to elevate our art in a way that Baltimore deserves.”
- Prepare space at Zion Church for the Baltimore Rock Opera Society.
- Use The Peale to exhibit work by semifinalists in the 2025 Janet & Walter Sondheim Art Prize competition.
- Use the Real News Network headquarters on Holliday Street as a lounge for media representatives and influencers.
- Convert the former Ida B’s restaurant space on Holliday Street to a headquarters for festival staffers and volunteers.
- Transform the Mercy Medical Center parking lot off Guilford Avenue for Kidscape and other events that will be activated by the city’s parks department, Everyman Theatre and Port Discovery.
- Use the Icon/Vibe building on Guilford Avenue as a setting for Artscape Art Dark events. Hotel Ulysses in Mount Vernon will be another location for Artscape After Dark.
- Improve landscaping throughout the area. “We’re replanting and cutting grass and pulling up dead trees so the whole footprint is going to be revitalized,” Miller Hall said.
Baltimore Center Stage at 700 N. Calvert Street will be the setting for the festival’s ‘In Conversation’ series and film screenings.
“All of the conversations are about ‘Art and…’” said Robyn Murphy, BOPA’s board chair and interim director. “Some of them are about Art and Technology, and so we have people that are working in the beauty industry on technology and how that is art. We have a panel on the female archetype, how that shows up in art…One of my favorite ones is we have a rocket scientist who will be in conversation about how science influences motion, movement and dance.”
One of the benefits of moving Artscape downtown is that “there are so many opportunities to have things indoors in case of inclement weather,” Miller Hall said. “We have the Icon space. We have Center Stage. We have the War Memorial. We have The Peale. We have the underpasses to protect our vendors from inclement weather.”
More information about Artscape 2025 is available at artscape.org and on Instagram, @promoandarts.
