{"id":299822,"date":"2021-09-05T15:59:36","date_gmt":"2021-09-05T15:59:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/radiofree.asia\/?guid=738383ddccf60d56cbeb9d50e446c897"},"modified":"2021-09-05T15:59:36","modified_gmt":"2021-09-05T15:59:36","slug":"art-museums-touted-as-community-investments-are-actually-fueling-gentrification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/09\/05\/art-museums-touted-as-community-investments-are-actually-fueling-gentrification\/","title":{"rendered":"Art Museums Touted as Community Investments Are Actually Fueling Gentrification"},"content":{"rendered":"\"This<\/a>

In 1997, the new Spanish branch<\/a> of the Guggenheim Museum opened in the autonomous Basque Country, replacing the remains of a once-thriving harbor. Los Angeles-based architect Frank Gehry designed the building to resemble a large, abstracted fish in a not-so-subtle nod to the maritime-industrial capital. Before the Guggenheim Bilbao even opened, the wind and salt from the Bay of Biscay had already corroded the metallic airplane parts that comprised its facade, leading late art critic Allan Sekula to compare<\/a> it to \u201cthe wreck of an old bomber, stained with the greasy residue of burnt kerosene fuel.\u201d Corporate media has been much kinder to the museum in celebrating<\/a> the \u201cBilbao effect,\u201d wherein a flashy building \u201crestores\u201d a waterfront city predominantly through tourism and global brand recognition.<\/p>\n

Just a few years later, however, the construction of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi would poke holes in this narrative. Located on Saadiyat Island (or, \u201cisland of happiness\u201d) in the United Arab Emirates, the museum and its collaborators drew ire worldwide after a Human Rights Watch<\/em> report<\/a> detailed how South Asian construction workers were underpaid, forcibly indebted, and otherwise pressured into labor. All this was in service to wealthy New York capitalists helping the UAE government turn an island into a tourist destination. It was a landmark moment in the art world, pointing to how closely tied high-profile institutions and luxury real estate had become.<\/p>\n

In 2002, historian Andrew Friedman coined<\/a> the term \u201cGuggenomics\u201d to refer to the museum’s widespread real estate endeavors. Today, Guggenomics continues in the United States as part of the popular narrative that art restores urban communities. Today\u2019s target destinations for new museum projects are often cities heavily impacted by neoliberal austerity, many of which are inhabited by working-class families and local business owners in reasonably priced housing. Communities of color routinely get pushed out<\/a> of these urban centers \u2014 where they historically migrated<\/a> during the era of suburban white flight \u2014 to make way for new waves of gentrification. Commercial art is entangled in this process, primarily through local elites and celebrated institutions.<\/p>\n

This was the case with the Bronx in 2015, when real estate developers and art moguls worked together to brand<\/a> the borough, which is flanked by both Hudson and East rivers. In Queens, the Museum of Modern Art planted its PS1 satellite location in an abandoned public school near the Long Island City waterfront. Today, MoMA PS1 stands surrounded by an excess<\/a> of new luxury condos. Perhaps most glaringly, the construction of Manhattan\u2019s Hudson Yards \u2014 a 28-acre real estate development that opened in 2019 \u2014 turned much of western Midtown into a zone of corporate desolation, exacerbated<\/a> by COVID-19. Labor controversies<\/a> at multidisciplinary cultural center The Shed and a series<\/a> of suicides at the climbable Vessel<\/em> sculpture have escalated this decline and made the future of the riverside complex somewhat unclear.<\/p>\n

Now, a new museum planned for Jersey City, New Jersey, begs the question of whether the same moneyed interests can effectively install a big-name arts outpost without harming working-class people living in the surrounding neighborhoods. In June, Mayor Steven Fulop announced<\/a> that the Centre Pompidou<\/a>, a Paris-based modern art museum, would open its first-ever satellite location in the industrial Pathside Building. The administration claims<\/a> that the Pompidou, along with the Loew\u2019s Jersey Theatre (which hosts concerts and performances), would expand Jersey City\u2019s arts resurgence, encouraging Manhattanites and other tourists to make the trip.<\/p>\n

Located near a main transportation hub connecting New Jersey and Manhattan, the Pathside Building was originally acquired<\/a> by the city in 2018. Its plans were unclear for years, although Fulop had long promised a new museum and community center committed to local arts and culture. (The city currently lacks one since the Jersey City Museum closed<\/a> in 2010.) With easy access to public transit, the Pompidou is Fulop\u2019s bet that a more commercial entertainment nexus will bridge the divide between the newly developed downtown area and historic Journal Square.<\/p>\n