Student blog of the Stanford University Urban Studies Department
Since I’ve been back at school for two weeks, I thought this would finally be an appropriate time to finish up some final thoughts regarding my internship at Storefront for Art and Architecture.
I wrote a small paper about social issues in the city and how small-non-profit arts organizations tackle these issues in comparison to larger institutions. If you’re curious in reading this paper, I encourage you read earlier blog posts from my summer in New York for more context.
As I continue my Urban Studies and art education at Stanford, the questions I pose in this essay have not left my mind. In fact, I think about them every day and continue to try and find answers.
To read my paper, please follow this link.
As always, please feel free to comment and share your thoughts.
Julia Espero
I’ve been working SOHO for the past 6 weeks; simultaneously I’ve lived in three different neighborhoods, from the Lower Eastside, to Nolita, and then the East Village.
I’ve noticed a stark contrast between these neighborhoods. Beyond their obvious geographic differences, as one walks along Houston past Broadway, the east side of Manhattan becomes progressively less scattered with Hollisters, Apple Stores, and Victoria’s Secrets, and more littered with bags of opened trash, battered storefront’s, and uneven stoops.
There’s an even starker difference in the amount of tourists and minorities represent on either side of the island.
Despite the large differences between the amounts of trendy shops, there’s an interestingly similar increase in housing costs that has been occurring since the 1980’s. Considering the historic presence of art in SOHO in LES I’ve been interested to see how art institutions have responded, reacted, and perhaps even participated in the gentrification of lower Manhattan.
The New York Times archive tells the story of gentrification and rising housing prices since the early 1980’s. A 1983 article marking the rising prices of housing rent depicts minorities and artists on the losing end, but with an interesting divide pitting non-artists against the artists seeking space to create.
This is an interesting conundrum between these two types of people, with those, creative types supposedly creating more economic opportunity for entire neighborhoods of people, yet similarly being blamed for the rise in gentrified neighborhoods and causing displacement. The Warhol Economy by Elizabeth Currid furthermore describes a phenomenon where people with creative occupations provide wonderful opportunities for the rest of society as creative change makers pursue their interests through their careers, and thus create services, jobs, and culture for other citizens to partake in and enjoy.
Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class (Revisted), dubs these types of people members of the Creative Class. Florida describes how the ethos of the Creative Class is built on discipline and focus, as creative potential does not mean the same as actually harnessing creativity and doing something with it. He suggests, this group of people is hardly homogenous.
“Creative people come in many different forms. Some are mercurial and intuitive in their work habits, others methodical. Some prefer to channel their energies into big radical ideas… some are at their best when they work in groups, others like nothing better than to be left alone.”
This says a lot about how creative people are different from one another, yet, however sunny the face value of the Creative Class is, even within this group of people there are vast inequalities. The Creative Class is described as a group that inherently favors openness and diversity, but to some degree it is a diversity of elites with membership limited to highly educated, creative people.
Take a look at these facts and statistics I’ve picked across the first three chapters of “The Creative Class.”
As I finish up my internship, continue to read The Rise of the Creative Class, and ponder the involvement of artists and creative types’ roles in inequality, these are important stats to note. What I’d like to examine and question further is whether artists and creative can really be fully blamed for these issues; in my opinion, the short answer is no. There certainly must be a way to balance out the arts so as to prevent it from being the cause of gentrification, but this to me seems more of an implementation issue behind the motives and controls of institutions that promote the arts. Are these motives a matter of enriching the community or generating more money? Is it fair to paint these values as a dichotomy?
While the arts may not be a high paying job for the artist, it seems that it still is an important gear in keeping the economy moving. At first glance, this to me seems to be an issue between objectifying the arts and allowing artists to take control of what they do best—interact with and tell the stories of a community.
I’ve been in New York for over a month now and I’m a little embarrassed to say this past weekend was the first time I set foot in an art museum. After all, I’d made several plans to visit the MoMA, Guggenheim, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, etc. before even coming to work in the city. But in reality, on the list of priorities, work came first, then seeing Nicki Minaj on Good Morning America, and the likes of The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore.
I’ve single handedly kept LYFT in business these past two months, so being the budget conscious individual that I am, I decided I’d walk to the High Line instead of taking transportation the ten or so blocks north. From there I decided to make my way down to the New Whitney Museum of American Art. I had a moment of pause where I contemplated switching directions and going to the MoMA instead. In regards to the New Whitney my friends had said, “it’s not really special,” Yelp reviews questioned, “is it really art?”—After much contemplation of whether it’d be “worth my time” to go to the Whitney, I figured I would never know how I felt unless I went and I decided for myself… and so I continued to mosey along The High Line.
I did not need Google maps to identify the Whitney when I saw it towering over Chelsea. I was impressed with the façade and it’s multiple tiers of terraces looking over the city. The High Line alone is full of innocuous stops that provide clear views down the streets of New York—views I had not typically seen from my LES apartment. Taking in this atmosphere alongside tourists and elderly, for the first time it dawned on me that in New York things like sunlight, plants, and an unabated view are privileges often only the wealthy elite of New York can afford.
The High Line is something that gives a utilitarian feel to the city—much like Central Park with its banners that read, “This is your park. We just take care of it for you.” They’re essentially designed to make you feel some sort of ownership. I imagined someone, probably from the city, trimming the trees for me, but even then—wouldn’t the park be as much the park of the people maintaining it, as it is mine? In the context of ownership, wage gaps, the value of space and property, I figured these public spaces don’t have equal value to all people—especially between those who maintain it, those who casually visit, and those who pay to have their name engraved on it.
Even public space has a hierarchy, and it makes me think a lot, because even in areas that are meant to draw people from a variety of backgrounds, sometimes the opposite effect occurs.
In thinking about this, my mind is drawn to the moment when one of my friends attempted to tell me a “joke” as we walked by a public park in East Village. A group of pre-school children in lime green shirts played in city water before rolling down slides, and it looked like they were a part of some sort of summer day camp program.
As we passed by my friend asked, “Is this where the rich kids play?”
“Sure,” I answered nonchalantly.
“It’s a joke,” he replied.
I laughed nervously as I got what he was saying.
It’s an awful joke, I guess, because there’s a cynical truth behind what it implies. Something about the way our society is built makes me laugh at the idea of a mother from the Upper Eastside bringing her child to play at this park with East Village children.
This raises a lot of questions—questions I don’t know how to ask/answer right now. So let’s talk about the Whitney.
At the entrance, I walked through glass doors, purchased a $20 ticket (kicked myself for forgetting my student ID to get the discounted price), and threw in an extra $6 for an audio tour.
I’m not the biggest fan of audio tours, but since I was alone and walked in with a bit of uncertainty, I thought the context of an audio tour would help me gain an appreciation for whatever I was about to witness.
The first floor of the Whitney had portraits of Whitney women and drawings from the studio they had frequented. As I listened through the foam pads of my headset, while a story unfolded about the progressive nature of the Whitney women in a amid ultra-conservative standards that frowned upon women participating in art and shamed the idea of posing for a portrait in pant-legged silk pajamas.
Afterward, I went up to the fifth floor.
I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed such a wide diversity of artists’ work on a single floor. The paintings and sculptures were certainly unconventional—hair and wire, projectors, sex-toys, hand made children’s toys, etc. Although the mediums were diverse, among a majority of the pieces I felt a very pronounced tone of sadness, guilt, pain, and an attempt to reconcile these emotions in a society that had denied these artists the ability to do so in their every day life.
One portrait featured a woman’s back with a stick figure drawing of two women holding hands in front of a square house. The drawing was etched into her skin with a scalpel.
I cringed at the thought of trusting someone to wield a scalpel and carve a crude drawing into my back. I thought of the level of vulnerability, trust, and ultimately, the artist’s pain while confronting her desire for a “normal” relationship with her partner in a society that inherently treated her as “other.”
Many of the pieces at the Whitney are what many people would call straight up ugly. The Whitney confronts its ugliness, or rather defends it, with the selectivity of the work its white walls feature. Sure, some our artwork isn’t what most people like, but we put a lot of thought into selecting it. There’s this weird confrontation of ugliness throughout the entirety of the Whitney that is addressed through the architecture of the building, that some critics of architecture even claim that it begs to be called ugly.
Despite what’s inside the New Whitney, the numerous amounts of windows and terraces beckon you to look outside. It’s as if someone is imploring you to not look at the art and look outward and consequently, inward at yourself, your place in the city, and maybe even question, “what does this stuff all means?”
While I personally had a contemplative experience, I couldn’t help but wonder what other people were thinking and if they were sharing any of my thoughts. What I’d call a five star experience, others would say:
My intention is not to shame the authors of these Yelp reviews in highlighting their differing opinions. Sure, a lot of modern art is pretty ridiculous and different, but I have to question the validity of not feeling anything given the context that this art rises from.
Sometimes I wonder if people have a tendency to call art they don’t understand “modern.” I try not question negative opinions if they critic the substance of the art, but it seems that the usage of the phrase “modern art” is often a euphemism for “ugly art.” Modern art, after all, is really any art created from 1860-1970. The phrase “I don’t like/understand modern art” is such an absurd and encapsulating statement to me, I feel that same person might as well also say,
“You know, I just really don’t get all the history from colonial to revolutionary America. It makes no sense to me.”
If something is confusing or unsettling, it should be an invitation for further exploration. No one will/can force contemplation. That’s up to you as the viewer—and I certainly hope you make an attempt to dive deeper before you take the time to write a Yelp review about it.
I felt a lot of things while inside the New Whitney—many of those feelings were not warm and fuzzy, but they still made me think.
There was one sculpture that caught my attention: Fred Wilson’s Guarded View (1961). In this sculpture, four headless black mannequins stand on top of a white display, all who wear uniforms of major museums in New York: MoMA, the Jewish Museum, the Met, and the Whitney. In the audio guide, Wilson discusses the ubiquity of the mannequin, the faceless figure, their security guard uniform, and how often, he—other than the security guards and help staff of museums—was the only people of color to ever come and go within museum walls. Wilson has personally been employed as a museum security guard, and during that time, he felt this weird tension of being on display with the art, yet forced to be silent and invisible to visitors. This sense of anonymity and invisibleness is a sentiment many museum guards apparently shared. Wilson notes how one guard confided that his coworkers failed to acknowledge him with a hello, even after working together for thirty years.
As the recording of the audio finished, I looked around at the people near me: pale skinned women who took selfies in front of a neon white AMERICA sign with backwards letters; confused passersby quickly glancing at the uniformed mannequins before walking away; and in the corner of the hall, a black-skinned man with arms crossed at his back, wearing a uniform pinned with a gold Whitney pin: the emblem of the museum guard. He stood silently, among the white walls, and no one seemed to notice. He, of course, was not the only uniformed minority that many people walked pass and failed to acknowledge.
54 years after the creation of Guarded View, I feel saddened that social inequality still exists at stark levels. It makes me wonder, whose view is guarded? And with what are they guarding their view?
Could it be wealth? Status? Institutions?
How about the art of the lesser-known artists? Is it enough to display diverse art in prominent locations? Does that mean minorities’ voices are heard?
What is the role of cultural institutions, and how can we prevent them from being so prestigious, so exhibiting, that they strip the power away from the artist and simply make their work items of objectification?
Seeing as even cultural institutions that seek to promote the arts are not without fault, these are questions I wish to seek further during my limited time left in New York. I doubt I’ll find all the answers in the next two weeks, but I can certainly try.
Written on Saturday, August 15th, 2015
Huzzah, I made it through my first gallery opening on Thursday night–the weekend has never felt so deserved!
It’s a perfect Saturday morning in New York. I woke from the dead around 10:30AM, and after a shower, managed to watch three episodes of Gossip Girl while packing up my stuff and sorting through the trash I needed to take out. Gossip Girl has been an unfortunate constant in my NYC free time; it started out as a guilty pleasure, and now I’m in a hurry to finish the last season so it stops ruining my life and making me pick up bad habits like speaking in hyperboles.
I’ve been in the Lower East Side for about a month, but I’m moving out of my apartment today. I’ll be in Nolita now, which is nice, because it’s a lot closer to many of the things I enjoy about the city—including my internship.
In other news, Saturday vibes are the best thing ever; the city has a very relaxed and nap time aura this afternoon. Sunday has the tendency to feel pretty dismal because of the impending workday, but Saturday is like the prime of summer.
I’m checking out this café in LES called “el Rey” this morning. I’m munching on some salty coconut granola and downing my first green tea in over a month. I’m reflecting on this past week of work, and thankfully Friday was a pretty chill day—that is, after the madness and excitement of Thursday.
Our office has been working hard to prepare for the opening of our current exhibit, Measure, and it’s maintained a very easy-going workflow up until Thursday when everything exploded. The best way I can describe the feeling is like when you’re holding your baby nephew for the first time and he’s all smiling and gorgeous right before he poops, pees and throws up on you all at the same time. Beneath all that mess between you and the baby, there’s still an incredibly beautiful bond forming–however much of disgusting mess it is. I digress.
The day of the opening —
I came into work thirty minutes early. My supervisor gave me a list of items we needed for that night and I made some calls at local stores to see if they had what we needed in stock–A table runner to display fruit in increasing size, and 400 plastic wine cups.
After calling ten different places, I found a party store in NoHo that carried just what we needed. I walked to the gallery to pick up an associate’s credit card and headed for the party store. Amid the fifteen-minute walk, the sun was shinning, there were plenty of tourists out, and I was pretty happy to experience NYC during a time I normally would be in my office space. For the same reason, I didn’t mind when I headed in the wrong direction three times before getting on the right track.
I get to the party store, and chose a tablecloth, piled on 400 wine cups into a cart and checked out. Between my workbag and my purchase, I carried 30 pounds back to the office.
I get back to the office, I sit down, and then the phone rings.
I have to go back to the gallery and return the credit card.
I go back to Nolita, drop off the card, and go back to the office.
The phone rings again.
Apparently someone left an art piece at the office? I deliver the piece, the 400 wine cups and the table runner… but I give in and take a Lyft this last time.
Before coming back to work, I get food and coffee. I need it.
The office gets ready to go to the gallery around 4:30PM but I need to go pick up fruit for the table display, so I leave early and stop by the grocery store with an associate. Someone told our director about an app that provides a system of measuring baby development by comparing its increasing size to a different fruit. So at the third week, the baby might be the size of a blueberry, and several months later, a grapefruit, a squash, and then at last, a watermelon! Our director thought it was cute—and since our exhibit has to do with all things measurement, it was appropriate for the table where we sold books, served free drinks, and gave out bits of fruit to munch on.
By the time I got to the gallery I finished setting up the fruit display and took a hold of the camera to shoot pictures for the night. I’ve recently shot photos for A Little Fawn, an episode we were filming for one of our television productions on Storefront TV.
Although I’m good at plugging away and doing logistical things, I love shooting. It’s so much fun for me to be in a crowd of people and catch reactions like laughter, conversations, and random things like someone twirling their mustache or taking a nap on the street—yes that happened (there was free wine, after all).
The gallery went from an intimate private opening, to a crowd of 300+ people coming in and out of the gallery, sweating, laughing, and merrily sipping wine. It was crazy—but controlled. Fighting the crowd was difficult, but the greatest challenge of the night was taking photos in 6-inch loafer heels and climbing up a stepladder for photos.
I left with my supervisor at 8pm to go to the private reception, and after another long trek in heels—carrying ice and seltzer—I shot more photos and was essentially done for the day.
I decided to take a Lyft home, and at 10:45 I arrived at my apartment. I collapsed on the bed, peeled my feet away from my shoes, and melted the layers of sweat off my skin in a steaming hot shower.
Nothing makes me feel more grateful than being able to rest and take care of myself. I’ve been so appreciative of the little things lately: like not having to wear flip-flops when I take a shower, having toilet paper, sunglasses… small things a lot of people aren’t privileged to have. I’m even incredibly thankful for this internship because I’ve learned so much! It’s given me a lot of insight into the non-profit arts sector and helped me see how all the logistics and planning fit together.
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The photos I shot for Storefront for Art and Architecture’s, Measure, ft. 30 drawings from 30 architects around the world, is on display on our flickr page. You may view the photos here, but please enjoy the sampling attached to this post.
Measure is now open and will be on display until September 12th, 2015. Our gallery space is located on 97 Kenmare St. in Nolita/SoHo. Please feel free to come, take pictures, and of course talk about it on social media using the hashtag #MeasureStorefront.
Hello, Urbanter readers!
Just being myself.
I’m one of the newest contributors to the blog. My name is Julia Espero and I’m an intern for Storefront for Art in Architecture this summer in NYC. I’ve been on the job since July 14 and I’d love to catch you up with my life thus far. Since so much has happened, I feel that a proper introduction is due. Just to have a little more fun with this intro and deviate from the typical format, I’ll provide an introspective Q&A with questions I gathered from my wonderful friends and family. To make this even more exciting, please submit your own questions in regards to my life, internship, thoughts, etc. in the comments below. My goal is to make this blog as interactive as possible so I’d love to communicate with you.
Q: What made you interested in art and urban studies?
A: I’d say I’ve always been very creative and artsy. I was home-schooled for several years before high school and I worked on a lot of arts and crafts and small projects that my mom and I just did for fun. Before I even started school I remember looking through my parents closet and finding my mom’s old high school art portfolio and there was this one very large and beautiful mono-chromatic blue portrait she painted of my dad in water colors. I remember being really impressed by that and telling myself I’d get good enough in my art practice to be able to create something as sentimentally valuable.
In high school I became more interested in art history and theory so I read a lot of books in my own time and continued to draw and paint in my own time. Since coming to Stanford I’ve really learned to appreciate arts as an academic subject through the courses I’ve taken, and I see the value in using art as a tool of communication with the general population.
As for urban studies, that was an interest that grew very organically out of my interest in a variety of subject matter. I had a really hard time deciding whether I wanted to be more of a liberal arts or technical student, but Urban Studies is the right mix of all the things I love–design, social science, and politics.
Q: [As an urban studies major and an art minor], how do you think urban studies and art relate? How do you plan to connect the arts with the social discipline of Urban Studies?
I think art and urban studies have the potential to be parallel mirrors that reflect and magnify discourse.
I think the better an artist understands their environment and the world they live in, the more they can relate relevant work. I feel corporations and governments also have the potential to become more personable and relevant by utilizing design principles and valuing art.
Q: What has your internship taught you about the neighborhood you’re living in?
Through experience, I can say that New York City is such a happening and exciting place. I’ve always heard of this before, but after living in a variety of cities from San Francisco to Las Vegas, I think NYC is the best. Keep in mind that I’ve been here for only three weeks, but I still think it’s amazing how continuously engaged and inspired I feel by simply walking down the street. In just one block within the Lower East Side you can find hand-picked boutiques, local bookstores with shelves of hand made magazines, artisanal coffee shops, grocery stores teeming with different languages, etc. It can have the potential to feel overwhelming, but if you learn to swim in it, NYC is a very fun and energetic place to discover who you are and what you want to do.
Simply doing research on the artists we’re working with as a small gallery is really inspiring as well. These artists are the type of people who think of ridiculous things like covering themselves in q-tips and pouring colored dye all over themselves to look like an exotic bird–but then they actually do it and document it, and it’s really such a magical and humbling process to see. You can really see that everyone is like a little ant working towards a larger purpose.
Q: How have you been challenged by interning in a city you’ve never been to before?
I just want to explore everything; go all to the free concerts, try all the coffee shops, visit all the gallery openings–but there’s only so much time. I work from 11AM-6PM, Monday-Friday, so most days I go out and eat, hang out, and explore after work and by the time I come home it’s already 12AM. After that I work on my own personal projects for about an hour before I sleep. I wake up around an hour before my internship, and then go out and do it again. The weekends are very packed as well and it can feel really difficult to find self-reflective time which I think is really important to produce good work and find purpose in what I’m doing, so I try to make the most out of all the alone time I have.
Q: How do you envision practically applying what you’ve learned during your internship with your career goals?
I love learning everything and I’m a firm believer that careers are like clothing–you change them based upon your mood and what’s most convenient and comfortable at the time. I may be a communications and development intern at the moment, but I really enjoy the organization I’m working with because it’s so tight-knit and flexible, which then let’s me learn and discuss different topics and skills with a variety of people that come from different backgrounds. I think at this point in my life this internship will help me learn a lot about managing a non-profit organization and give me insight into the non-profit sector and the NYC art world. If anything, so far I’ve learned that I’d love to live in New York after college… but I’m definitely learning more each day–will update you as progress is made.
Want to know more? Ask your questions in the comments! I’ll be answering questions every Wednesday from now on–so ask away!
Julia Espero
Social Media
Instagram: @juliaiespero
Youtube: @Snazzlet
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