Gentrifcation:

The intersection between artists and

gentrification
SJI: Presentation-Laura Prieto
Bushwick, Brooklyn

End at 1:23
Neighborhoods like Bushwick, Logan Square, and several other urban centers have
been gentrified in the past years: Were going to start off with a video that illustrates
the usual businesses and development that is associated with gentrification:
Bushwick is number 4 on a recent NYU study on gentrifying neighborhoods
What do you think when you think Gentrification?

Artists are gentrifying foot soldiers of capitalism

Shifts from being starving to a gentrifying foot soldier of capitalism-why are art and
gentrification so closely tied? This presentation explores this question and looks into
the causes, the impacts, and the responses by artists and other community members.

Too Cool, Too fast

Hipster: a person who follows the latest trends and fashions, especially those
regarded as being outside the cultural mainstream.
Yuppies: a well-paid young middle-class professional who works in a city job
and has a luxurious lifestyle.
Techies: a person who is very knowledgeable or enthusiastic about
technology and especially high technology.
 What we dont understand about Gentrification?
Root Causes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqogaDX48nI
stop at 3:31
So to summarize, Gentrification is...

Gentrification is NOT revitalization

Revitalization: land redevelopment in areas of moderate
to high density urban land use (no displacement)
Gentrification: processes of higher income individuals
investing in lower income neighborhoods
Gentrification leads to displacement
Direct: rent prices rise the families are forced to leave
Indirect: their community leaves and this leads to isolation/businesses
they cant afford.
Gentrification is a social justice issue.

Revitalized architecture is not the definition-it is correlated but does NOT define it.
Low property values attract higher income individuals-they displace people who are
lower income-alter the culture of the neighborhood.

Spatial description of inequality--tied into racial inequality third point: deals with social
justice issue.
The History
Ruth Glass: the displacement of a working-class urban
population by the middle class.
Neil Smith: much more to do with capitals search for
profit
Rent gap: the difference between the current ground rent, and what rent the land c
potentially yield if it was put to a "better" (more profitable) use
Smith does recognise that certain cultural processes, like art studios and galleries, ca
the flow of capital" back into these "recycled" areas.
But it's capital, not culture, which is driving the process.
Why Art?/Root Causes and Impact
Here we see the first indication of complicity between art and capital. The disdain that
"aesthetically minded" people have towards commodified spaces

A 2012 report published by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Brookings Institution
analyzed whether the opening of a new gallery had any effect on development trends...Galleries
werent causing development as much as mirroring it: Art reflecting life or life reflects
art?

In addition, a 2014 study published by the Journal of the American Planning Assn. shows that fine
arts are more connected to neighborhood revitalization (improvements without signs of
displacement) than to gentrification.

Not such a problem as we thought

They deeper problem is the capital associated with art!
Racial Inequality and Art/ Gentrification
The common gentrification narrative that begins, first, it was the artists, is as whitewashed as the neighborhoods in
question.
[T]he unspoken but the understood word here is white. Because, really, there have always been
artists in the hood. They arent necessarily recognized by the academy or using trust funds
supplementing coffee shop tips to fund their artistic careers, but the presumptive, unspoken
white in the first round of artists gentrification narrative is itself an erasure of these artists of
color.

So, this made me think, so where is this thought coming from that artists cause
gentrification????
Responses: Protests

Start at 55-1:55
Responses

Amie Sells (Chicago Artist)

I was informed that Mark Fishman actually sits on their board and threatened to not open the space at all, which
would have made the group show unavailable to the public.
Fishman stepping down from I am Logan Square
#nicegentrifier

"I love building community!" while creating events only attended by whites in poc neighborhoods #nicegentrifier

Local Chicago artists have been fighting against gentrification through creating
art that challenges gentrification through connecting the experiences of
residents of the neighborhood through social media handles such as
#nicegentrifier: Amie Sells is one of these Chicago artists
Although Sells submission was selected by MAAF curators to be shown in the
gallery, her work was censored at the last minute. Her site-specific work
incorporated public information regarding M. Fishman, Logan Square real
estate tycoon and board member of I Am Logan Square, and focused on the
displacement of 52 low income tenants at the recently acquired building at
2536 N. Sawyer Ave. According to Sells blog,
Our Responses
When it comes to gentrification, ones benefit is anothers threat. If artists and residents
can be conscious of the ways their goals and careers are complicit in community
displacement, we can refuse to be compliant. Perhaps, instead, we can support the
pre-existing artists and communities instead of demolishing theirs only to rebuild our own.

1:44-2:30
References
https://youtu.be/8vccoaC_EJ4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqogaDX48nI

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/30/art-blame-gentrificat
ion-peckham

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAsBta25OGQ

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/02/realestate/artists-and-their-muse-gentrific
ation.html

https://chicagoliterati.com/2014/07/02/first-it-was-the-artists-the-myth-of-nice
-gentrification-in-art/