Artscape 2014: Baltimore enjoys being itself
Big, friendly crowds mark this year’s art festival
Above: The Artscape vibe is something worth getting lovey-dovey about. (Rose A. McNeill)
It’s over, those three days in July where Baltimore puts aside its siloed and segregated self and joins hands as the city that, well, dances together.
By all accounts, Artscape ’14 was a rip-roaring success: record-breaking crowds, plenty of good music at Mt. Royal Station and other stages, first-class art thanks to curators who weeded out the run-of-the-mill stuff, and new “After Hours” performances on North Charles Street.
There was the promised mobility, but mobility that favored the two-legged type and Light Rail, where the automobile was featured as an expression of creativity (the Art Car exhibit) rather than a tyrant of urban life.
The home-grown feel of Baltimoreans embracing artists and performers from elsewhere.
But what we liked best about Artscape is how it maintains the home-grown feel of Baltimoreans (from the city and the greater metro area) enjoying their own diversity, quirkiness and continuity as a unique corner of America while embracing artists and performers from around the country.
So bravo to BOPA, Mayor Rawlings-Blake and her staff, and to BCPD and Commissioner Batts, whose officers handled the crowds with a light touch.
One suggestion for 2015: more benches so that families, old-timers and others can recuperate from all the visual and aural stimulation.
BELOW: Some views of Artscape yesterday evening shortly before the DPW crews took over.
Looking down Charles Street from Penn Station. The scaffolded Washington Monument can be seen in the distance. (Rose A. McNeill)
Crowds peruse the vendor exhibits on Mt. Royal Avenue. Note the mother sitting on the curb next to her babystroller, underscoring the need for more benches. (Rose A. McNeill)
Next to Artscape’s ferris wheel, the Male/Female sculpture outside of Penn Station almost, maybe, seems like a natural fit. (Dawne Allette)