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Pop Culture
Jul 19, 2010, 09:21AM

Artscape: Baltimore's Best Festival to Avoid Completely

Couldn't our fair city be spending money on something a little less lame?

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My family and I moved to Baltimore in the summer of 2003, and one of the first activities we did in the city was go to Artscape. Recollections of that day are vague, but it was really hot and really boring. There was some art I guess, but my main memory was seeing all those big crab statues that were ubiquitous earlier in the decade. Mostly, there was a lot of fried fair food, and because of this I never really distinguished Artscape from August’s horrendous State Fair in Timonium. Since then though, Artscape hasn’t changed one bit, and it’s still just as bland and unexciting as it has been for years.

I know that isn’t a particularly revelatory statement; Artscape wasn’t interesting or unique for many years before I arrived in Baltimore. Like all government funded and sponsored events, Artscape is sterile, family friendly, and intended for everyone. Although this doesn’t make for a particularly stimulating event, the fact that it is such an all-inclusive event makes for some odd situations. It feels like everyone and their granduncle goes to Artscape, and predictably Mt. Royal and N. Charles St. are trouble spots for bumping into people. Everywhere I looked and everywhere I turned, more familiar faces appeared, faces I mostly didn’t feel like seeing or talking awkwardly to for five minutes. Friends, enemies, and vague acquaintances from every sphere of my life wouldn’t stop popping up, and after a while I’d had enough. Meat on a stick and some cool cars weren’t worth this.

After spending around four hours milling about and checking out Exotic Hypnotic at UB, my friend I walked back to his car to find that the front passenger-side window had been busted in, with an iPod and a GPS system gone. This was at Guilford and Federal Sts., only several blocks east of Artscape’s epicenter. This is the kind of juxtaposition one comes to expect living in Baltimore, and while aggravating, a car break-in just isn’t surprising. This is probably too much to ask, but if the government would concentrate on renovating and rebuilding the crumbling rowhouses destroyed in the 1968 riots, and work on ameliorating the de facto segregation that defines its neighborhoods, rather than pumping money into a sterile and homogenous street fair that has little if nothing to do with art, Baltimore might have a chance at being more than a third-tier city. Artscape is, at best, dull, but at worst, it’s a gigantic waste of resources, money and manpower that could be diverted into avenues that will aid the city, its people, and, in the long run, its very image.

Discussion
  • i've never been to this, but i can totally see how it could turn out a hot mess. as im sure you remember, we have things like the armory show or the whitney biennial in new york, which (though tame recently) are basically art festivals meant to introduce The World to art. it shouldnt be premade like that, because not all art is gonna be family friendly. i bet they didnt have the wax sculpture of the one dude sucking himself off.

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  • Good God, Splice. Really? You're going to publish this nonsense? Normally I like Smith's stuff, but Jeebus, this is tripe. • It's three days of free music, art, and food. Maybe it's not always bands you like, or capital-A art, or organic heirloom farm-raised whatever. But it's free music, art, and food. These are GOOD things and Artscape does them pretty well, especially given the vast numbers who flock to see them. • And in fact, this year it did them better than ever. The new layout eased the usual crowd congestion (especially right by the main stage) and made room for a lot more art—the most I've seen at an Artscape. (Or did you miss that because you were too busy complaining that you were running into people you know? At a festival! HORRORS!) • And as for blah blah renovating blah blah crumbling blah blah homogenized blah blah—seriously? Artscape is the most diverse scene you will find in Baltimore. Black, white, Latino, immigrant, young, old—all in one place. That never happens in B-more, except once a summer. It desegregates us in a way no neighborhood renovation program has. As well, it gives people a reason to journey into the city who otherwise might. And it's that kind of active cultural life—not United Colors of Benetton neighborhoods—that helps make a city top-tier (just ask very segregated Boston or Chicago). Sure we need to repair our neighborhoods, but events like Artscape give us a REASON to. • PS: It sucks you all got broken into. It does. But if you leave your iPod and GPS where someone can see them in ANY city—"first tier" or not—they are going to get ganked. From Seattle, WA, to Brunswick, ME, the result would have been the same. Call what happened to you a performance piece: "Lack of Common Sense" (2010).

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  • You left several hundred dollars worth of electronics in your car, visible from the street? Welcome to the city (any city), country boy.

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  • Damn Madison, I'd expect a little more populism from you on this. Heaven help the people who don't go to art school or make films or in general go out of their way to see art. The Whitney and Armory spend plenty of time showcasing inaccessible art. Good for them. I love that stuff. But why the hate on large affairs that a. pump money into cities and expose people to sights and sounds and ideas they wouldn't normally? Unfortunately I wasn't in town to check out the festival but, seriously guys, check your indie cred at the door and enjoy yourselves -- or just don't go.

  • I love inaccessible art, too. but i mean, think about something like Bravo's WORK OF ART, which i love to hate, mostly because i think that for better or worse, art is tied up in high intellectualism. it's really hard to capture the moment of art in only a few snippets. and while i do love the armory show, mostly for the crowd, i think it's too much: there is SO MUCH TO SEE and SO MANY PEOPLE that it can feel a touch...like being at Costco or something.

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  • What I'm trying to say is that Artscape is stale, and it doesn't offer anything new to the city. Introducing people to different areas in the city is great, so why not move the festival to Greenmount Ave., or the east side? I think Artscape serves a purpose, but I don't think it needs to stay stagnant in order to fulfill that purpose. I'm not trying to posture and I don't subscribe to any hipster's digest - as a Baltimorean, the festival just isn't exciting because it's more or less exactly the same every year.

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  • andrew - country boy? I've lived in cities all my life. the items in the car weren't visible.

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  • Where in the world did you ever get the idea that Madison's a populist? I doubt he'd describe himself that way.

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  • I feel you that when faced with so much art in a concentrated space, the art can lose some of its vitality. But I find that to be necessary, lest art stay confined to obscure galleries and the like. I don't think the Armory show and Artscape are for you and I; they're for people who don't go to the small galleries and the expensive special exhibits at the Whitney. Believe me, I can get as elitist and judgmental about art as the next guy, but I try not to hate on the fairs and gala shows because they're not ultimately made for me. Just because art is "family friendly" doesn't mean it's necessarily diluted or lesser art.

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  • Heh, I don't think he'd describe himself that way, either, and neither did I. I said I expected a little more populism from him. Big difference.

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  • I know you've lived in cities man. My gentle "country boy" remark was that these kinds of break ins happen in all cities, regardless of festivals or the like, and to use the incident as a mark against Artscape isn't fair.

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