Financializing the Development of Urban Neighborhoods: thoughts on the relationship between art and gentrification
<p>Over recent decades, the fields of art and real estate have both been granted the dubious honor of being afflicted by speculation. One keyword that may help us grasp ongoing speculative tendencies is “financialization” (Aalbers 2016). In reaction to the social effects of said speculation patterns, the question of how contemporary art practices contribute to gentrification has emerged within the art field. Whether artists act as “pioneers” of gentrification processes, or whether nonconformist art projects risk being co-opted for neoliberal purposes, has already been intensively discussed, and will not be pursued further in this contribution. That said, revisiting some aspects of the financialization debate does seem fruitful to me, so as to open up new perspectives on the relationship between art and uneven development within cities…</p>
Authors: Laura Calbet Elias
Curator: Tirdad Zolghadr
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Sommerakademie Paul Klee
Part of: REALTY