The Art of Gentrification

Too bad art can't create itself. Then it wouldn't be so damn annoying.
If you've lived in North Brooklyn for at least 3 yrs, you've witnessed first hand the dynamic relationship
shared between gentrification and the art of the streets. They not only co-exist, but rather share an
elaborate contingency that cannot be ignored. In the past five years, I've come to realize that the rate
at which graffiti (and street art) changes from day to day and that its directly relational to the speed
and scope of real estate development within neighborhoods of rapid gentrification. This situation is well
documented and debated elsewhere and will not be exhausted further here. Rather, I would like to
discuss just three ways in which street level art will cycle in relation to the pace of property
revitalization. As you will see through examples provided from my lens, you are never far removed
from this process-in fact, you may even get a glimpse of an image from a walk home from the past.
There are countless ways in which our streets change, but for the sake of brevity, I've narrowed this
discussion to just three. First, I'd like to show you how street level art will change due to the covering
up or destruction that occurs with new markings-i.e. new art. Secondly, you'll get a chance to see how
art and messages of the street will just disappear due to development and demolition of existing
properties. And finally, we will explore the situtation of street art destruction and collection. It is my
goal to demonstrate in brief the vast connections that exist between gentrification as a process and the
constant revision of street messages and art during times of rapid neighborhood transmutation.
First it is important to realize that there is a markedly huge difference between those who are referred
to as "street artists" and individuals who consider themselves to be "graffiti writers." Quite simply,
graffiti writers express the "Fuck You," while street artists say "look at me." Each have their own
reasons for doing so and their validity will not be challenged here. What is most important to
understand is that both types of artists have an inherent need to both battle others within their class
and challenge those of the opposite type. In other words, a graffiti writer might tag the wall of a
building which has already been hit by a member belonging to a rival crew, but for our purposes lets
explore a situation where the work of a street artist gets challenged. Art takes over the space of other
art...most times, just placed on top (such as in the case with Roebling and Metropolitan IMAGE#)It
happens everyday, in North Brooklyn and everywhere else on the urban landscape-the newly wheat
pasted giant duck or row of paper penises will all of a sudden, one day you'll walk by and it will have
been covered up with huge, indecipherable black spray painted scribbles with arrows the maybe the
words "fuck" or "white boy" somewhere in there. Even in the recent case of the "Splasher" (a street
artist posing as a writer), you have an individual expressing beef [IMAGE#]with his own peers. Often, in
the midst of his "splashing"[IMAGE#], the Splasher will leave behind some sort of wheat-pasted
manifesto that attacks the street-artists as "tools of capitalism," calling their work a "fetishized action of
banality" or "a representation of the most vulgar kind: an alienated commodity." Gentrification brings
unwanted change for some and "art beef" is an inevitable product. The fact of the matter is, graffiti
writers (for the most part) are annoyed with street artists because of several reasons. For example,
almost never will you find a puerto rican native new yorker wheat pasting pee wee herman cut outs
down Kent Avenue, because in their eyes, that shit is stupid and why would they fuck their
neighborhood up like that? At the same time, why would a frustated graphic designer with a college
education scribble his mother's initials outside of a bodega. He wouldn't because his mother lives in
Providence Rhode Island and has never even been to his new loft in Williamsburg. New residents with
no native relation to a neighborhood brings unwanted change for those who have grown up in an area
and will be soon forced to leave due to skyrocketing property values. This is one of the main reasons
why street art gets destroyed by graffiti and/or graffiti becomes covered up with street art. Neither
artist has much respect for the other because they do not understand one another's intentions.
now

In the second case, those who watch the streets closely notice all too often the case where a truly
terrific piece of art which has lasted many years will all of a sudden disappear along with the building
that it was attached to. Real estate development demolishes street level messages along with
buildings and their history. Developers and artists do not share similar interests, however it could be
argued that they have the same agenda. Developers aim to distribute their products in as many places
as possible, so as to maximize their profits. Street level artists merely take a mode of distribution into
their own hands, by not only using every viewable physical surface as a canvas, but also installing
artist-run galleries into neighborhoods like Williamsburg, Bushwick and Greenpoint-hoods which artists
have a horrible time trying to afford space to live in. Why? Because real estate developers have very
little love for anything that doesn't stuff their pocketbook. Developers aren't artists and aside from
their recent infatuation with the "buzz" (that they have discovered) surrounds street art, most couldn't
really care less about where it all goes when their big box gets installed. In this case, you have a
situation similar to the one before, in that the interests of one group (i.e to instantiate metamorphisis of
real estate values within an area) run counter to those who've been working for some time to change
the area as well, through creation of a dense network of indentifiably similar works and messages. In
the case of North 10th and Berry [IMAGE#], a piece that I'd come to appreciate on my daily walks to
the train, came down right before my eyes one evening as I came home late from the city. The same is
true for the (what is referred to now as the) "See-Thru" building on Bedford and North 4th [IMAGE].
Here one day, gone the next. The transient state of street level messages can be said to be a direct
result of gentrification process in this manner.
In this last scenario, lets look at how street level art vanishes. Think of that Flower Face Killah
[IMAGE#]wheatpasting that you saw just yesterday, plastered across the door of the Mill Building on
North 3rd and Wythe. Its not there today because either someone found it to be stupid or really good.
People have many reasons for thinking certain things to be inadequate or unwarranted-whether it be
the case of an owner feeling as though the art devalues his over-priced property or merely a drunk
passer-by trying to show off his cool through ripping shit down, the fact of the matter is that all street
level messages are up for public debate. Personally, this type of act is frustrating and sad. Not just
because Flower Face Killah is my friend (which she happens to be), but because work takes time and
energy which people of a destructive nature seem unfamiliar. Street art can express the discontent of
an artist with the nature of change occuring all around them. For example, take a look at Flower Face's
marking on the construction barrier which used to sit on North 5th between Bedford and Berry. It was
apparently created with cattle chalk. I'll let you draw your own conclusions. I'll also challenge anyone
to try taking that shit down. It says a lot about the discontent of the artist with the influx of Manhattan
transplants to the neighborhood and this can be seen similarly in Judith Supines work [IMAGE#] found
2 blocks away. Many times, a fantastic art piece will end up on the road or in the trash merely due to
disapproval by a small portion of the public or an individual. At the same time, there are those who
writers and artists refer to as "collectors" that run around the city carefully peeling works off of
buildings and construction barriers in order to keep them for themselves and decorate their personal
space. In a way, they might regard themselves to be 'preserving' the piece which will be eventually
destroyed anyway (as in case above) or even saving them for a later time, when the work might
actually be worth money to those who percieve it to be 'rare'-at which time, you might be able to
stumble across it on an Ebay auction. The latter may be seen as stealing and may get your ass beat if
caught, but in either case, people have their own reasons for doing what it is that they do and during
times of rapid change, the majority of the people running the streets do not see eye to eye. Street
messages are inherently created with the understanding that they will not last.
Gentrification, if anything causes confusion and mis-alignment of values within a community. In the
case of street art, the fact of the matter is that artists notoriously live day to day and it would be naive
to assume that a piece of street art would be created in order to fullfill some sort of long-ranged vision.
A given piece may last years, weeks, or mere hours. For graffiti writers, this is expected and in fact
fundamental to their process, which they perceive as an ongoing dialogue. However, most city dwellers
experience this constant change only at a subconscious level. Artists are neither (and both) the victim
and the villain of gentrification, but the images that paint our everyday lives deserve to have a history-
along side of their creators. I suppose I have come to view the streets as one of the few places where
the public can openly battle out their ideas. And graffiti is one form of those discussions taking place in
society. In my interpretation graffiti is a form of tribal marking, a quest for adventure, and a way of
artifying the physical environment in a way that is very common in pre-modern societies but that was
lost with industrialisation.Brooklyn has become widely recognized as an epicenter of cultural assent- a
place of color and an extension of the New York City that non-natives are no longer warned about, but
rather encouraged to hunt. When the street speaks, you are almost forced to listen. Check out Shepard
Fairey's work[IMAGE#] that sat on Berry at North 3rd last year and how it changed the very next day.
If the image were in color, you'd see that the pink spray paint is a challenge to the intentions of the
artist. I happened to go to high school with Shepard and know very well that he isn't trying to change
much aside from the way people allow themselves to think. Anyone familiar with his work, which can
be found everywhere but the moon knows that he has already radically changed the earth's urban
landscape. Those who make the streets what they are today and will be tomorrow sing very loud songs
at times and are not afraid to change their tune tomorrow. The resulting radical transformation of
urban space brought about through street level art is a cross cultural project with ends in flux. Because
it is impossible to limit or regulate the resources that are available, graffiti as an art form and
expressive medium is expandable, flexible, and difficult to control-just like development. The graffiti
medium constitutes an open channel for its users to manipulate and mould to suit their needs. It
represents a type of discontinuous communicative strategy through which people can engage in a visual
dialogue which does not rely on face-to-face interaction or necessary knowledge of the writers'
identities. You just can't avoid the truth of the streets!