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December 21, 2010
Gentrification: Inspiring Art, Regardless of Implications
A new show at the Brooklyn Artists Gym explores gentrification through art
Park Slope Patch
by Deborah Lynn Blumberg
When Brooklyn painter Geoffrey Raymond thinks about gentrification, an image pops into his head of Bruce Ratner, the real estate developer bringing the New Jersey Nets to the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn in 2012.
So Raymond created an interactive portrait of the developer entitled "The Annotated Ratner" for a new show at the Brooklyn Artists Gym that opened Saturday—"Gentrified."
The show features some 45 paintings, photographs, videos and other works from 20 local artists that address the huge transformations New York neighborhoods have undergone in recent years — the upheaval, friction and changing populations.
Ratner's "brass-knuckles use of eminent domain in clearing the way for his development of the Atlantic Yards almost defines gentrification," said Raymond, a Brooklyn resident known for painting Wall Street titans at key moments in history, such as during the Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers collapses.
Visitors to the "Gentrified" show, which runs through January 8, will be able to "annotate" their thoughts on Raymond's painting in magic marker, helping to complete the painting as scrawls start to look like small brushstrokes, and providing a snapshot of how visitors feel about the subject at a particular time in history.
Posted by eric at December 21, 2010 11:50 AM