6th Annual Arts, Culture & Creativity Month
April 2025
Inaugurated by Senator Ben Allen in 2019, Arts, Culture & Creativity Month has spotlighted the incredible impact the arts have on our state, and the vibrant cultural and creative tapestry that makes California so unique.
Read on to learn some of the various ways Santa Monica values and highlights its artists and creatives, and join us in celebrating all they do to make our city and state colorful.
2025 Business Specials & Events
In honor of the 7th annual Arts, Culture & Creativity month, check out specials from the artists, galleries, and businesses celebrating creativity in its varying forms.
Check back for 2025 specials soon!
Events
Arts, Culture & Creativity Month launch
Sunday, April 6 from 2PM – 4PM
Join the City of Santa Monica, Cultural Affairs Division for the local launch of April’s Arts, Culture, & Creativity Month with a celebration in partnership with Arts for LA. Stop by Annenberg Community Beach House for printmaking, an art exhibition tour, workshop, and more. The event will include a printmaking activity. Get tickets here.
Barnyard Madness with the Three Little Pigs
April 12 – June 29
Join Santa Monica Playhouse for family musical comedy, Saturdays at 2PM and Sundays at 12:30PM. Audience participation, photo opportunities, and a fun, zany musical experience.
Galleries & Exhibitions
Adam Norton: Visiting Artist in Residence
18th Street Art Center through May, 2025
Adam Norton is an Australian artist based in Sydney. He is interested in the effects of technology and place on the human condition. His work reveals an influence in technology, science fiction, ufology and the historical presentations of these ideas. Learn more.
Art for Renewal: A Benefit Art Sale for Fire Recover
18th Street Art Center through May 18, 2025
All the proceeds will go to the LA Arts Community Fire Relief Fund and every purchase directly benefits artists who have been affected by the fires, helping them rebuild and continue their vital contributions to our cultural landscape. Learn more.
FORT/ LA: The Healing the Heart of LA Design Competition
18th Street Art Center from April 28, 2025 – May 2, 2025
Curated by Matthew Nevin & Ciara Scanlan, this exhibition showcases a range of visual art forms, including performance, digital media, sculpture, and print, offering visitors a glimpse into the cutting-edge talents of contemporary artists based in Ireland and Los Angeles. Learn more.
Hilla Toony Navok: Visiting Artist in Residence
18th Street Art Center through May, 2025
Hilla Toony Navok is a Tel Aviv-based artist working across sculpture, installation, drawing, and video. Ranging from monumental sculptures to small paper pieces, her work is inherently modular, balancing between growth and collapse. Learn more.
Maj Hasager : Artist Residency
18th Street Art Center through April, 2025
Maj Hasager is a Danish artist based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her work deals with power structures, identity, memory, architecture, and the construction of history, looking at how these interlinked phenomena are interpreted and represented culturally and spatially. Learn more.
This Suspended Moment: Redux by Jeff Beall
18th Street Art Center through June 30, 2025
Beall’s practice, often engaging with perception, layering, and the threshold between what is there and what is suggested, meets a moment where the instability of meaning is not just a theoretical exercise but a lived condition. If these are the good old days, as the title suggests, then they are days that are always arriving, always receding. The question remains: What, exactly, are we suspended in? Learn more.
Performances
Check back for 2025 performances soon!
Check back often! Specials and Events will be added until the end of April.
Are you a Santa Monica business with a special or event that you would like included on this page? Submit your special here.
Community Events
This April, Santa Monica invites you to celebrate the arts with us!
Join us at one (or many!) of the events happening in support of our creative community. Let’s make this year’s celebration of the arts in Santa Monica the biggest and brightest yet.
Discover Santa Monica
Explore itineraries, local tips, hot spots and curated adventures to make sure you get the most out of your Santa Monica experience.
