Editor's Message
Time For Action
These are Dickensian times in the arts world. Across the boroughs, grand new art centers are being planned, opened, and expanded, but meanwhile, here in Williamsburg at least, artists are being evicted at an alarming rate. Although there is no direct link between these two processes, together they lead in a frightening direction: New York City might become an arts capital without artists.
Such a scenario cannot be wished away, without means that the vulnerable parties here, as elsewhere, have only one recourse: to organize. This idea may run contrary to the artist’s individualist temperament, but consider the alternative. A place to live and work is indeed worth whatever personal “sacrifice” such a struggle might entail. Any alliances in defense of artists’ spaces need not, or make that definitely should not, result in a wave of self-pitying depictions of the “homeless artist.” That’s been done, and nobody we know longs for its return.
A call to join together around a collective interest is another way of saying that it is not inevitable for artists to serve as the advance guard, then victims of gentrification. This is the process witnessed in SoHo, then the Lower East Side, and now in several parts of Brooklyn. Quite obviously, artists are not t he only, nor in any way the most dispossessed victims of gentrification, and it is true that they will more than likely land on their feet. Yet the relatively privileged status of artists vis-à-vis poorer city residents is hardly a reason to sneer at a campaign in defense of commercial living spaces. If Williamsburg and other parts of Brooklyn want to sustain their reputations as places where the arts genuinely thrive, something provocative needs to be done for change. One need only to visit other interchangeably gentrified terrain across the city to know that such is not the legacy that artists want to leave behind.
Some possible directions for action crop up forthwith. Check ‘em out, and get back to us with your solutions. Surviving creatively, whether as an artist, writer, filmmaker, or cultural worker of any sort, is increasingly difficult in this era of ludicrous rent. No matter how uniquely individualist our visions may be, the recession-proof, ever-expanding bottom line on the rent check should hopefully unite us all-a Capraesque ending, to be sure.
With this issue, the print Rail ventures into the worlds of books, theater, and film, of which we promise more in future issues. In the meantime, we invite you to a reading of The Tempest, produced by our pal John Merchant, at Ocularis on Tuesday, January 23rd, at 8:00 p.m.
And, oh, before I forget, Happy Holidays!
-T.H.
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES
Artists Space
By Nancy PrincenthalJUL-AUG 2020 | ArTonic
Shocking but true: Artists Space, essential model for a generation of feisty, funky, youth-driven nonprofits, is nearly half a century old. More surprising still, initially it depended entirely on government support, at a time when both the governor of New York (Nelson Rockefeller) and the US president (Richard Nixon, newly re-elected) were Republicans. Promising to make up for a dearth of opportunity for young artists, Artists Space’s founders rounded some up and offered them the chance to call the shots, all on the state’s dime.
Within Global Isolation: Asian Artists in America
By Sahar KhraibaniJUL-AUG 2020 | ArtSeen
Within Global Isolation: Asian Artists in America is a virtual exhibition, organized by curators Han Hongzheng and Chandler Allen, and fueled by a spike in anti-Asian sentiments, xenophobia, and discrimination as a result of COVID-19.
Indicators: Artists on Climate Change
By Patrick JaojocoJUL-AUG 2018 | ArtSeen
Since the institution’s founding, Storm King Art Center’s mission to elaborate on art in the natural landscape has sought to evolve with the times. As sea levels and global temperatures rise, Storm King has followed contemporary artists into the conceptual fray of what constitutes “nature” in this day and age.
The Mirror Displaced: Artists Writing on Art
By Tom McGlynnJUNE 2020 | Editor's Message
Not all artists consider themselves writers too, let alone critics. The poet Alice Notley, in reviewing a new collection of poems by Edwin Denby in the St. Mark’s Poetry Project newsletter of 1976, prefaced her review (not quite a disclaimer nor a benediction) by stating, “Poets can’t write criticism because what they understand about a poet they adore is what they themselves do or would, it is visceral—death to analyze? critics can’t write criticism because they never are knowing.”
