Rec | NOT TO BE LIKE “IT DEPENDS” BUT

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…it depends. this is coming from someone who is watching an area close to me become slightly gentrified and works in a former predominantly black and hispanic area (where this residents were forcibly displaced years and years ago and yet the town hasn’t really reckoned with it)
i totally understand the new grocery store sentiment, but i wonder if they did take the initiative to do something like that, would the current residents be priced out of that store? or would they fund local businesses somehow or more accessible grocery stores? it’s like trader joe’s vs family run store type beat.
but i think also marginalized people are often shut out from the art world and in turn don’t always see themselves represented in it. i used to volunteer at an art program at a local family shelter and a lot of the clients (often marginalized, not white, from “rough” areas etc) there did not think that art was something they could do or “deserved.” the mission of the program was art as something that can be inclusive or therapeutic.
gentrification or not people deserve to see beauty and community around them. is there a way to pitch an idea for a mural that the current community can see themselves in or is it gonna be something to appeal to the “white/well-to-do gaze”?
i also wonder if seeing something like that in town would inspire the residents to take pride and stand their ground. perhaps even get involved, build community and maybe even get into local government stuff. it’s not an overnight thing. it can also perhaps lead to an increase in investment in third spaces that aren't places where you have to spend money and possibly even an improvement in infrastructure. your immediate environment does effect your mental health, and seeing dilapidated buildings and litter is unfortunately not a way to boost morale.
of course, gentrification can be a shitty thing, so i’m not defending it. but the aforementioned city near me has also gotten some new murals in the past few years, often from local artists or stuff that school kids make! they’re usually near parks and common areas that are kept much cleaner than they used to be.
i feel like i’m rambling a bit, so this isn’t a perfect answer. but all in all, art doesn’t need a “use” and i wonder if thinking about it as something that needs one can be used as a tool to further the corporatization of art. art should simply be a reflection of the human spirit.
(i also agree with the point made by @VALOORIE !)

@deardoveswings

2d ago

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@elleelleelleelle

Speak on it and say it LOUDER PLEASE!!!

2d ago

@valoorie

this was super well put, I totally agree with this !!!

2d ago

@deardoveswings

@VALOORIE your response is interesting food for thought as well! i so wish i could’ve taken that museum class you spoke of in the comment under your post. i work adjacent to higher ed so ive sat in on a lot of psychology of art and gentrification type classes and am always so jealous of the students

2d ago

@valoorie

@DEARDOVESWINGS That's really cool that you've got to sit in on those classes though !! It was always amazing to me the students who took those classes for granted and didn't pay attention. I was very lucky to take a few classes like that, a lot of interesting discussions.

2d ago

@worldonfire

@VALOORIE @DEARDOVESWINGS agree so hard with both of yall, just read your posts after i posted my reply and 100% agree with what yall have said, thank you both for sharing. it’s so lovely to have a place to talk and think critically about art, i feel like i haven’t hauch of this since my college days and it’s incredibly refreshing and fills me with hope 🕊️

2d ago

@deardoveswings

@WORLDONFIRE same! it’s nice to see a variety of opinions from fairly openminded people. it’s not always easy to talk critically about art in casual convos irl. i also agree with your response. the context and content is just as important as the person who painted it.

2d ago

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I don’t think art is ever bad or useless, but I think that propaganda masquerading as art is.
I just met up with a friend and former coworker who now organizes art projects and murals for public housing communities and his job has added so much to these neighborhoods. Kids who are in the epicenter of the global art world in NYC but completely removed from the moneyed culture controlling it are able to explore, learn about, and create art because of the nonprofit’s work.
The murals are also done with input and approval from the community at every point to create something that they feel is beautiful and look forward to seeing every day. The collaboration between the artist and the community is what gives the work value. The funding for this also comes from private arts grants, it’s not any money that could ever be allocated to improving plumbing or heating or any material other concerns of the community.
Art is subjective so slapping a mural up without any input of the audience feels to me like a work of propaganda. I think throwing up a trendy mural that reflects the current tastes of the macro-consumer culture without and thought or specificty to the real material culture surrounding it is an act of propaganda. Painting some corny non-native flowers on a building so that people will want to take a photo with it and then eventually want to build a matcha labubu cafe with $9 drinks is an act of propaganda by development companies.
Creating a work that doesn’t honor, let alone acknowledge, the life of the space it inhabits will always be artless. In a vacuum, the flower mural has nothing inherently bad or artless about it, but you simply can’t divorce public art from its setting: the public. Their houses, shops, the streets they walk every day, the cats hanging around the sidewalks, the yard that always has the prettiest marigolds pop up in the fall or whatever it may be that makes that place feel like home to the community.

@worldonfire

2d ago

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WHOSE ART MATTERS

Okay so obviously I co-sign everything @VALOORIE and @DEARDOVESWINGS said and wanted to add: I think *whose art* is a huge component of this.. like is it some guy who moved here a year ago? a Community Member? Someone who normally wouldn’t get their art funded that way? A friend in San Francisco who works for the cultural district told me a story about how they hire muralists from the neighborhoods they’re installing art in to make the work.. essentially there’s respect amongst street artists and while some random yuppies gentrification mural might get Graffitied over immediately (fair) the right artists work wont out of respect/community dynamics. I’ve always thought that was such a cool approach to the question of public art, representation and gentrification.

@cl0e

2d ago

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art is never useless

so long as it is being created for the purpose of creation and communication. If this mural or art piece is an idea coming from someone higher up (someone who isn't the artist, someone looking to make the neighborhood "beautiful") then that becomes questionable to me. Artists create to communicate. If the goal behind this project is empty or rooted with ulterior motives, I don't necessarily think it's useless but it's contradictory to what artists might be trying to say. Often times artists are members of these communities looking for positive change. I don't think I'm wording this in the best way I can. I guess what I mean is that art has a time and a place and usually an artist is the person who decides the best time and place for it, not someone who wants to beautify a neighborhood they know nothing about.

@valoorie

2d ago

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