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April 12, 2007
GIMME SHELTER
The city continues to kick its citizens to the curb, but Mary Mattingly has created her own wearable solution.
NY Press
By Jackie Delmatre
A local artist blames Bruce Ratner for secondary displacement, though she entertains a perverse interest in seeing the project get built:
Ever since the Forest City Ratner deal went through to build the Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn, Mary Mattingly’s apartment hallway on Eastern Parkway has been the width of a backyard creek. At least 40 boxes are piled up and crammed together with artwork salvaged from the art studio that she had to abandon to the ripple effects of the 8 million square feet, $4 billion real estate development.
...The building that housed her studio was actually purchased by the Department of Education on November 1, 2006, “at the very last minute,” she claims, because the DOE sought a space with proximity to the Ratner development.
...
“There’s nothing we can do about it,” she says, referring to Ratner, when I visit her in her cramped living space to discuss her latest work, “Going to town meetings won’t do anything.”
...
However, in a subsequent conversation, Mattingly corrects her own pessimism. It’s not that nothing can be done, she admits; it’s just so frustrating and “it doesn’t feel like there is much time to be frustrated when there are so many worse things going on in the world.” And besides, she’s become perversely interested in seeing the result. The development’s “going to be gross, but there’s something appealing about that grossness.”
Posted by lumi at April 12, 2007 7:22 AM