Madison Arts

For over 50 years, the Madison Arts Commission (MAC) has provided grants that enrich the cultural landscape of the city. In 2025, MAC awarded $106,000 to 60 organizations and individuals. Annual arts grants are funded by the Division. Additional funds came from the Wisconsin Arts Board, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Madison Room Tax Commission.

The City funds and supports public art and placemaking throughout the city. The following projects highlight how art was integrated into everyday spaces to strengthen community pride and enrich the public realm.

Mother and Child by Austen Brantley

The 2017 Darbo-Worthington-Starkweather Neighborhood Plan called for City investment in art to build neighborhood pride. This led the City to commission a work from artist Austen Brantley. Based in Detroit, Austen was an artist-in-residence at Madison College. Austen connected with community leaders and organizations while in town. This work inspired him to create Mother and Child, a figurative bronze sculpture. The sculpture at 3002 Darbo Drive is at the base of the Starkweather Path bridge and near the BRT station. The unveiling coincided with Parks Alive at Darbo Park. The Friends of the Madison Arts Commission sponsored funk band Rare Element and art activities by Thurber Artist-in-Residence Jennifer Bastian.

Blink Temporary Public Art

Cathy McCauley, Shari Gullo, and Pamela Self, known collectively as the Preserve Collaborative, installed Preserve at the UW-Madison Arboretum. A house-like armature, modeled after Aldo Leopold's shack, contains images of 1,000 documented species.

Wisconsin Landscape by Arnold Zweerts

The City acquired a significant mid-century mosaic by acclaimed Dutch artist Arnold Zweerts. The "Wisconsin Landscape" is displayed in the community room of the Parks Division offices at 330 East Lakeside Street. This gift to the City from Don and Barbara MacCrimmon was made possible through the generosity of the Kohler Foundation, Inc. The work was conserved by mosaic historian Lillian Sizemore.

Art on Trash & Recycling Trucks

Planning staff worked with the Streets Division to create art trucks. Artwork by Catherine Capellaro, Our Neighboring Turkey, is on a vehicle assigned to the west side. Artwork by Rachel Christopolous, Madison Skyline, is on a vehicle assigned to the east side.

Gilman Street Art

The City's SafeGrowth team studied the 400 block of W Gilman and recommended art to improve safety. Over the summer, Planning staff installed three public art projects. The art piece #59 Space Blob by Stephen Perkins was turned into a mural on the back of Porta Bella. Spatula&Barcode connected with the community through surveys and interviews. Their banners with historic street images now line the street and honor the past. Six light art sculptures titled Dragons Fly by Michael Young were added along the street. 

Dayton Street Pavement Painting

Planning staff worked with Traffic Engineering and arts consultants Chalk Riot to create asphalt art. The goal was to enhance road safety. A group of artists and volunteers painted Bernie Witzack's “Rainbow Over Zebra Mountain" to create curb extensions and median islands.

Madison Public Market

Planning staff installed five works at the Madison Public Market, including:

• Elizah Leonard by Tom Jones
• Axolotl & Alma by Issis Macias & Rodrigo Carapia
• And Still, She Blossoms by La Follette and Middleton High School students under the guidance of La Follette teacher Monique Karlen for the 2020 Downtown Street Art & Mural Project
• Flamingo, Musky, Cow, Sandhill Crane Cistern Wraps by Hello Madison (Mira Kim)

Warner Park Community Recreation Center

Artist Faisal Abdu'Allah led an eight-week workshop with 20 middle and high school students. The Madison Metropolitan School District and the Madison Arts Commission supported the project. The students participated in group discussions and created art. Their work inspired the new WPCRC logo and a public art installation to be unveiled in 2026. 
 

The Percent for Art ordinance increases the rate of investment in public art. The City commits one percent of City funds budgeted for capital projects exceeding $6,000,000 to public art. 

The Planning Division supported community engagement and design coordination for the following projects:

• Bartillon Shelter (1902 Bartillon Drive) Laurel True of True Mosaics, LLC designed an architectural mosaic titled Unity, Spirit, Community. It will be put on the exterior of the new purpose-built shelter. Fabrication and installation should happen in 2026.
• Far West Operations Facility (402 South Point Road) The Milligan Studio was on the project design team with Sketchworks Architecture. They have proposed a series of sculptural benches for the site. The benches will be reviewed by the Madison Arts Commission in 2026.

The Planning Division has released the following Call for Proposals:

• The Imagination Center at Reindahl Park (1814 Parkside Drive) This is a joint project between the Madison Public Library, Madison Parks, City Engineering, and the Madison Public Library Foundation. A landmark sculpture is proposed within the park that is visible from the library. Installation should happen in 2026.
• State Street Campus Garage/Hawthorne Court (415 N Lake Street) This was a request for public art to be installed on the State Street Campus Garage. The State Street Campus Garage/Hawthorne Court Ad-Hoc Public Art Committee chose three finalists to proceed to the design phase. The finalists came to Madison for a site visit, project orientation, and community meeting. The finalist should be selected in 2026. 
   

Every year Planning staff invite the Mayor to select one artwork for the City's permanent collection. The 2025 award was for Todos mis Muertos, a mixed media painting on canvas by Angelica Contreras. The artwork is now hung at the reception desk in the Department of Civil Rights in the City-County Building.

Poet Laureate 

Poet Laureate Steven Espada Dawson was reappointed to serve another two-year term. Dawson was awarded a $50,000 fellowship from the Academy of American Poets to launch The Triptych Project. The project aimed to address the realities of mass incarceration in Wisconsin. Particularly the disproportionate impact on American Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC). 

Youth Poet Laureate

Octavia Ikard is the 2025-2026 City of Madison Youth Poet Laureate. Ikard is a UW-Madison First Wave Scholar and creative writing major. Their poetry focuses on themes of Black womanhood, community, and personal history. On September 16, 2025, Ikard was inducted at a reception at the Madison Municipal Building. The Local Madison Youth Poet Laureate® Program is a program of the City of Madison in partnership with Urban Word.

Thurber Artist-in-Residence

The 2024-2026 Thurber Park Artist-in-Residence is Jennifer Bastian. In 2025, Bastian exhibited 13 banners across the Darbo-Worthington neighborhood in The Sun Will Find Us. Bastian and community members sewed the banners by hand in the studio at Thurber Park. Each one featured a section of a poem she wrote. She then hung the banners on 10 private buildings throughout the neighborhood. The banners transformed familiar, everyday places into points of reflection, connection, and care. 
 

#MadisonIsMusic Concert Series

Since 2023, the #MadisonIsMusic summer concert series has brought live performances to Frances Street Plaza during the first two weekends of September (Thursday through Saturday). The Planning Division works with local music stakeholders to create a diverse lineup of musical groups. The Business Improvement District (BID) manages artist contracts. The Division and the BID work together on community outreach and marketing efforts. 

Artist at Work – Workforce Development in the Arts

Room Tax funds supported $75,000 for the Artists at Work (AAW) program. The grants paid non-profit arts organizations to hire emerging arts professionals. Their work supported marketing and cultural tourism efforts. This program enriches and diversifies the pipeline of arts administrators. 2025 recipients included Music Makes a Difference, Make Music Madison, Urban Community Arts Network, Overture Center Foundation, and Madison Area Music Association.

Any Given Child Madison 

This City is a member of a collective effort to ensure all students have access to a comprehensive arts education. Partners include the Madison Metropolitan School District, Overture Center for the Arts, MyArts, Arts for All, the UW-Madison Community Arts Collaboratory, and the Madison Children's Museum. The Planning Division sponsored Dawry Ruiz to serve as the Madison Youth Arts Liaison through the AAW grant program. Dawry Ruiz guided students in exploring the intersection of music, poetry and theater. At the 2025 Creative Power Awards, the Any Given Child Madison Leadership Team was honored with an Outstanding Educator Award.

Interactive Culture Calendar  

The City gave Isthmus Media Inc. $50,000 to improve and grow their community events calendar. The money paid for a major redesign. It made the calendar easier to use on both computers and phones. It now has helpful tools like filters, an easy way for people to submit events, and an interactive map. Isthmus continues to be a go-to source of local information for residents and visitors. The events calendar is used by people from around the region, especially from Chicago and Milwaukee, who use it to plan trips to Madison.