{"id":1181,"date":"2012-04-11T18:43:48","date_gmt":"2012-04-12T00:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=1181"},"modified":"2012-05-11T07:52:51","modified_gmt":"2012-05-11T13:52:51","slug":"art-public-space-and-a-just-aesthetic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=1181","title":{"rendered":"Art, Public Space, and a “Just Aesthetic”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Alaka Wali<\/p><\/div>\n

My title, and especially the concept of a \u201cJust Aesthetic\u201d, is attributable to Alaka Wali<\/a>, \u00a0Curator of North American Anthropology and\u00a0Director\u00a0of Applied Cultural Research in the Environment, Culture and Conservation Division at\u00a0Chicago\u2019s Field Museum<\/a>.\u00a0 Yesterday <\/strong>Dr. Wali spoke at the University of Denver on the topic of\u00a0 \u201cCivic Aesthetic and Difference: The Circulation of Art in Chicago\u2019s Public Spaces.\u201d \u00a0Dr. Wali described an existing tension between the sponsors of formal, \u201curban chic\u201d art (such as found in The Loop<\/a>) and those beyond the Loop who produce gritty, grass roots, \u201cchaotically-local\u201d art.\u00a0 The former is intended to \u201cbrand\u201d Chicago as a global city. The latter is used by resident, mostly minority group citizens to mark space and assert their ethnic identity.\u00a0\u00a0 Some forms of this local, chaotic art is tolerated by city officials, while other forms are not.\u00a0 What\u2019s at stake, at the end of the day, is the city\u2019s commitment to a \u2018just aesthetic\u2019 that gives people the freedom to make urban place as they see fit; i.e., their aesthetic right to the city.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

"Globally Branded" Art: Cloud Gate<\/p><\/div>\n

The forces producing this aesthetic tension in Chicago are many, but among them is gentrification. This process has dispersed ethnic peoples across the city and suburbs creating, in Dr. Wali\u2019s words, a \u201cpatchwork of wealth and poverty.\u201d\u00a0 Rather than lessening the salience of ethnicity in everyday life (as some might expect if people are being randomly dispersed across the city), this process has only increased it.\u00a0 The result is the intensified deployment by minority groups of several strategies aimed at asserting their space in the metropolis. Dr. Wali described these strategies as:<\/p>\n

1. Aesthetic marking of difference<\/em>: The use of visual culture, like murals, to mark space, e.g., those deployed by the Puerto Rican community in Humboldt Park<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2. Art-making in public spaces<\/em>: The use of \u00a0of public spaces like parking lots, parks, vacant lots, public libraries, and church basements as venues for activities like drumming circles, dance groups, community theatre, quilting clubs, etc.<\/p>\n

3. Claiming space for informal economies<\/em>: e.g., street performers, food trucks and carts, and vendors of other goods.<\/p>\n

4. Performances of Resilience<\/em>: activities that assert local cultural identity and pride, and public protests of the conditions that affect a neighborhood\u2019s quality of life (crime, gentrification).<\/p>\n

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Humboldt Park Mural: "Unidos Para Triunfar" (Together We Overcome)<\/p><\/div>\n

All of these strategies count among the tactics (perhaps most famously described as “weapons of the weak<\/a>“) that disenfranchised, marginalized, and subaltern peoples have long used to assert power and resist majority-group domination. \u00a0What’s compelling is Dr. Wali\u2019s distinctive way of framing them. \u00a0Dr. Wali has noticed an \u00a0intensification of their use in the 15 years that she\u2019s been living in Chicago.\u00a0 Some activities (like #2) enjoy very high rates of participation that cross-cut categories of age, occupation, and gender.\u00a0 Interethnic (or, intercultural) cross-cutting is still elusive, however. As noted above, some of this informal art-making is tolerated by civic authorities while other forms are thwarted by official interventions such as the levying of licensing fees to sell street food and other goods, and the denial of parade permits. \u00a0Certainly, there is little to no official effort to\u00a0support<\/em>\u00a0local art-making in ways that would reinforce<\/em> the distinctly urban cultural character of individual neighborhoods. \u00a0My question to Dr. Wali in the Q&A session about whether there was any relationship between local artists and Occupy Chicago<\/a> activists was treated as a good one that couldn\u2019t be answered\u2014perhaps indicating yet another missed opportunity<\/a> for that movement to join with others to realize its insurgent goals.<\/p>\n

At best, the local art-makers have attracted the attention of civic authorities.\u00a0 The new 2012 Chicago Cultural Plan<\/a> (scheduled for fall release) aims to \u201cidentify opportunities for arts and cultural growth for the city.\u201d` \u00a0Input about ways to secure the cultural future of the city will be solicited from residents and stakeholders in Town Halls held in each of the city\u2019s 50 wards.\u00a0 \u00a0New art districts for mixed income areas is imagined.\u00a0 More opportunities may emerge if certain other enabling conditions can be put in place, such as greater diversity on the boards of the city\u2019s cultural institutions. Until then a \u201cjust aesthetic\u201d is likely to remain more a hope than a reality, in Chicago and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My title, and especially the concept of a \u201cJust Aesthetic\u201d, is attributable to Alaka Wali, \u00a0Curator of North American Anthropology and\u00a0Director\u00a0of Applied Cultural Research in the Environment, Culture and Conservation Division at\u00a0Chicago\u2019s Field Museum.\u00a0 Yesterday Dr. Wali spoke at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[8,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-urban-studies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1H2bI-j3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1181"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1245,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181\/revisions\/1245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}