Filling in the gaps: community
art to the rescue?
Analysing the potency and problems of community art in Detroit
Student: Jens van den Berg Student number: 6125409
E-‐mail: jensvandenberg@gmail.com 1st Supervisor: Hans Abbing
2nd Supervisor: Mandy de Wilde
University: University of Amsterdam Department: Sociology
Study: Master Sociology Date: July 2015
Table of contents
Foreword ________________________________________________________________________________________ 3 Introduction _____________________________________________________________________________________ 4 Research question and sub questions _________________________________________________________ 7 Theoretical overview ___________________________________________________________________________ 8 Socio-‐demographic situation of Detroit ____________________________________________________ 8 Neo-‐liberalism and Detroit ________________________________________________________________ 11 Hit by a slow-‐motion disaster _____________________________________________________________ 12 The purpose of art __________________________________________________________________________ 14 Critiquing the arts-‐based renewal ________________________________________________________ 16 The Heidelberg Project ____________________________________________________________________ 18 Community art by artists __________________________________________________________________ 19 Community art by nonprofit organizations ______________________________________________ 21 Methodology __________________________________________________________________________________ 23 Selecting cases and accessing the field ___________________________________________________ 23 Research technique ________________________________________________________________________ 25 Operationalization of key concepts _______________________________________________________ 26 Limitations __________________________________________________________________________________ 28 Analysis ________________________________________________________________________________________ 29 Serving what community? _________________________________________________________________ 30 Interrelation characteristics ____________________________________________________________ 30 Serving ‘the community’? _______________________________________________________________ 32 Understanding community in abstract _________________________________________________ 33 The communal element _________________________________________________________________ 34
Community art to who? _________________________________________________________________ 35 Community art as a rhetorical tool _______________________________________________________ 38 Claiming community art to get funding ________________________________________________ 38 Avoiding the community art claim _____________________________________________________ 39 The necessity of involving the community _____________________________________________ 40 Raising ones profile ______________________________________________________________________ 40 More equal opportunities in a renewed Detroit? ________________________________________ 42 Opportunities for the under-‐resourced ________________________________________________ 42 The potential of empowerment _____________________________________________________ 43 The importance of arts education ___________________________________________________ 44 Opportunities for the artists ____________________________________________________________ 46 Benefitting those in need? ___________________________________________________________ 46 Real-‐estate interests _____________________________________________________________________ 48 Who really benefits? _______________________________________________________________________ 51 Nonprofit workers benefit ______________________________________________________________ 52 Grants benefit communities in need? __________________________________________________ 53 Resource provision by outsiders _______________________________________________________ 54 Alternatives for municipal government __________________________________________________ 55 The problem of doing patch-‐work ______________________________________________________ 56 Reinforcing the dependency structure _________________________________________________ 57 Conclusion _____________________________________________________________________________________ 58 Discussion _____________________________________________________________________________________ 60 Bibliography __________________________________________________________________________________ 61
Foreword
Why Detroit? In the summer of 2012 I read a blogpost about the revitalization of this city. The author, Meagan Elliot (PhD candidate Sociology, University of Michigan), started her article1 by quoting her landlord: “beware of the blank-‐slaters”. What her
landlord meant was to beware of a new generation of noticeably white, young and extremely vocal people that perceive Detroit as a blank-‐slate. These blank-‐slaters try out alternative approaches, like community art projects, to ‘save’ the city. At first, I did not fully understand what the landlord meant, as these blank-‐slaters are just trying to help. A deeply distressed city like Detroit surely could need a little help, right? I began to develop a better understanding of the accompanying problems with blank-‐slaters. Though their intentions are most likely genuine, I question whether the ways they envision ‘saving’ Detroit can answer the structural problems facing the city, like the large number of vacant buildings or underachieving public schools.
When I contacted Meagan about the article, she conveniently was staying in Germany as part of her PhD work and was already planning to visit Amsterdam, so I offered her a place to stay. I do not only owe Meagan a great deal for feeding my
sociological interest in Detroit, but also for helping me in advance with actual fieldwork, and encouraging me to stick with my plans to go to Detroit.
Going to Detroit meant deviating from the regular master’s program. The time and freedom I granted myself by writing my thesis independently contributed to a lack of deadlines and self-‐discipline. The frustrating moments that accompanied this
independence were more than worth it though.
Next to thanking Meagan, I would also like to thank my family and friends for their support, my interviewees for their time, and all the people who I met and spent time with. But most of all, I would like to thank the wonderful couple who hosted me: Aragorn and Hannah. I could not have wished for a better place to stay.
The photographs in this thesis are made in Detroit during the fieldwork period.
Introduction
This thesis analyses how facilitators of community art in Detroit envision serving the community and how this in turn relates to the renewal of the City. The word facilitator was chosen because it not only includes (professional) artists engaged with the actual process of producing art, but also includes non-‐artists who work at nonprofit
organizations that facilitate resources to make community art happen. In a way, this distinction reflects the two-‐fold nature of community art: it is about community and art. This section continues with a short introduction on Detroit, after which the potency and problems of serving the community with art in the city are explored.
Decades of suburbanization has resulted in a demographic situation in the metropolitan area characterized by economic and racial segregation. The City of Detroit is inhabited by predominantly low-‐income black residents, whereas its suburbs are inhabited by a majority of comparatively well-‐off, middle-‐class white residents. As a consequence of its disappearing tax base, Detroit has faced rising costs per household for services like road maintenance and public schools. One way to deal with costs was to reduce these basic services, but the lack of investment and maintenance led to a
disinvested city – a city where the roads have holes and public schools have to cut art classes to remain open. This ultimately led to the approval by the governor of Michigan to file for municipal bankruptcy for the City of Detroit.
This leaves Detroit as a distressed city where municipal government has insufficient means to provide basic services. and the market has little financial incentive to take care of those in need. Does this mean that citizens in Detroit have to provide these services themselves? Herbert (2005: 850) argues that the notion of community is “often invoked as a potential recipient of heightened obligations, in part because of widespread and warm associations with the term”. It is a misconception to view self-‐provisioning by the community as a better alternative to the state and the market, as the community only does so given the current social reality of Detroit (Gallagher, 2010; 2013). Community art projects are not inherently superior to public and private services, they are last-‐resort measures reflecting stark social need.
Moreover, perceiving ‘the community’ as a recipient for the municipal government does not critically reflect upon its possible problems. For example, what communities will be better in taking care of themselves and in what ways? If communities ought to look after their own wellbeing, then it is crucial to critically explore whether the citizens of Detroit are able to self-‐organize in a way that compensates for governmental neglect. The government as well as the market have already proven they can fail in looking after the wellbeing of citizens, and so too can self-‐organizing initiatives like community art projects (Uitermark, 2014).
The city’s disinvestment has prompted different problem-‐solving approaches. Art-‐based approaches have gained favor, yet they come in many forms. For example, one of the art-‐based approaches is carried out by the Kresge Arts fellowship program. They endow artists with money on the premise that having a generally vibrant arts scene makes Detroit a more attractive city to live in and will thus enrich the tax-‐base. However, this only benefits under-‐resourced communities indirectly. One example of an approach that uses art to directly serve under-‐resourced residents is provided by
nonprofit organizations facilitating art classes in Detroit’s public schools. As these schools often do not provide art classes themselves, the benefit is straightforward. The goal of these nonprofit organizations is to ensure that youth in Detroit’s public schools do not suffer the consequences of a relative absence in art education and therefore try to limit an unequal distribution of opportunities.
However, these initiatives reinforce a system wherein nonprofit organizations take over governmental tasks, such as providing art classes. This structure is
problematic as nonprofit organizations can only provide patch-‐work due to the inability to receive long-‐term funding. Their financial resources generally come from donations and grants that are tax-‐deductible. In other words: the money that nonprofit
organizations spent on filling in the gaps created by governmental disinvestment is public money. Serving under-‐resourced communities rely heavily on nonprofit
This thesis also focuses on the role of art in community art. The delicate concept of art can be described in two equally tense binaries. The first is described by De Bruyne & Gielen (2011): individual artistic interest is hard to reconcile with a commitment to serve the community, for example a preference of aesthetic. An artistic choice can benefit the artist, but can limit the betterment of a community. The second tension is described by Bourdieu (1993); he describes the so-‐called economy of the art, i.e. how artists have a financial interest in appearing financially disinterested. Therefore, the financial motive of artists is rendered vague, as they ought to serve the community instead of exploiting it for personal financial gain.
A well-‐known community art project in Detroit is the Heidelberg Project that started in 1986. Tyree Guyton has been transforming Heidelberg Street into one giant piece of art. The project marks his “attempt to fight back against the abandonment that scarred his boyhood street” (Gallagher, 2010: 108). The 2013-‐2014 annual report2 of
the Heidelberg Project states it is the third-‐most visited cultural destination in Detroit; having a 3.4 million dollar impact in Greater Detroit. The Heidelberg Project started as a small-‐scale community art project, but has grown to an approximate $500.000
nonprofit organization. This example illustrates not only how an individual artistic career can benefit from doing community art, but also the financial implications of this career.
In short, community art in Detroit is embedded in an unfair distribution of resources. Therefore, it is an illusion to perceive community as a potential recipient of
heightened obligations due to disinvestment by municipal government.
2 The Heidelberg project 2013/2014 Annual Report
Research question and sub questions
This thesis primarily explores how facilitators of community art projects in Detroit envision helping their target community and how this relates to the renewal of Detroit. As community art is carried out by a variety of people, I have chosen the word
facilitators to refer to those who provide resources for making community art happen.
The two main distinctions drawn between facilitators are the degree to which they make a living from their art and whether they are affiliated with a community art nonprofit organization. A more detailed overview will be provided to explain certain differences, for example their motives and dependency on grants. This in turn relates to the way facilitators envision serving the community and how this serving relates to the renewal of Detroit. The research question is as follows:
• How do facilitators of community art envision serving the community and how do
they relate this to the renewal of Detroit?
A number of sub-‐questions can be derived from the research question. These are presented below with an explanation of how they relate to the main research question.
§ How do the facilitators of community art differ?
§ How do the facilitators of community art define community and community art?
§ How do the facilitators envision the role of art having a potentially positive effect on the community?
§ What motivates facilitators to do community art?
§ Which organizations are financing the arts-‐based renewal in Detroit? § How do the facilitators relate to the financial aspects of their community
art?
§ How do the facilitators reflect on their community art as potentially compensating for municipal shortcomings?
Theoretical overview
Before focusing on community art in Detroit and the concepts used to understand it, it is important to understand the socio-‐demographic situation of Detroit. After this, the concept of slow-‐motion disaster (Draus, 2009) will be introduced to provide insight into how practices on a micro level, like community art, can be perceived as a resilient act to cope with consequences of macro processes, like neo-‐liberalism, that are partly
responsible for Detroit’s current situation. The concept of slow-‐motion disaster will also be used as an initial framework to introduce the concept social capital. This thesis elaborates on this concept in the way Bourdieu understands it, i.e. how capital presents itself in three interrelated guises: economic, cultural and social. Secondly, the role of art in the future of Detroit is explored. To finish the theoretical overview, the thesis
elaborates on the practice of community art facilitated by artists and nonprofit organizations.
Socio-‐demographic situation of Detroit
The greater Detroit area consists of the City of Detroit and numerous suburbs like Grosse Pointe and Birmingham. These are different political entities which rely to a degree on their own tax-‐base. This is reflected in the segregation between the city and its suburbs, as the greater Detroit area has the biggest economic and racial segregation in the United States. Furthermore, chances of upward mobility are relatively low. Detroit ranks number 46 out of the 50 biggest commuting zones3 in the United States
(Chetty et al. 2014: 1615).
The concentration of relatively poor black people in the City of Detroit is partly due to the rise and fall of the automobile industry in Detroit. In the beginning of the 20th
century, African-‐Americans from the Southern States migrated to Detroit as the automobile industry had relatively high wages (Boyle & Mohamed, 2007: 280). When the automobile-‐industry shifted from Detroit to locations with lower manufacturing
3 Commuting zones are similar to the greater area of a city. In this thesis these concepts are
interchangeable, as they both refer to the existence between different political entities, like the city and its suburbs.
costs, the former employees of the industry were stuck without a job, which rendered them vulnerable for poverty (Steinmetz, 2009). Moreover, the War on Poverty
programs in Detroit in turn did not respond “adequately to deindustrialization and discrimination” (Sugrue, 2005: 642).
Post-‐war Detroit is characterised by rising figures in economic and racial
segregation. Whereas the median household income in the suburbs was only 3 per cent higher than the city in 1950 ($28.140 against $28.890), the percentage has risen to 94 percent fifty years later ($36.810 against $71.350)4. What is even more striking is how
this economic segregation relates to the percentage of residents that live below the poverty line. In 1950, 18 per cent of the residents in the city lived below the poverty line against 19 per cent of the suburbanites. Although the percentage dropped at the end of the prosperous 1960s (15 per cent in the city against 5 per cent in the suburbs), the gap increased by the end of the 1990s (26 per cent in the city against 7 per cent in the suburbs). After ten years of rising unemployment figures, the percentage of people living below the poverty line has risen to the highest of the country: 36 percent (against 11 percent in the suburbs) (Sugrue, 2005).
Table 1: Economic segregation 1950 and 2000 in greater Detroit
Economic segregation City Suburbs
1950 $28.140 $28.890
2000 $36.810 $71.350
Next to the economic segregation, the racial segregation grew to similar extremes. In 1950, 58 per cent of white people from the greater Detroit lived in the city against 84 per cent of African-‐Americans. By 2009, only 4 percent of white people of the greater Detroit area still lived within the city borders. Even though the percentage of black people also dropped, 68 per cent of the black population from greater Detroit still lives within the city borders. This makes up a greater Detroit area where the city is poor and black, whereas the suburbs are wealthy and white (Sugrue, 2005).
Table 2: Racial segregation 1950 and 2009 in greater Detroit
Racial segregation Percentage whites in city against suburbs
Percentage blacks in city against suburbs
1950 58% 84%
2009 4% 68%
The 1967 race riots in Detroit are often pinpointed as cause of the ‘white flight’.
According to Sugrue (2005: 265), this process has been going on before the race riots, as mobile black people transgressed the city’s precarious racial boundaries throughout the mid-‐1960s. As the invisible racial boundaries faded. white people continued to move to the suburbs, where they brought “the politics of local defensiveness with them […] and found protection behind the visible and governmentally defended municipal boundaries of suburbia. […] It was far more difficult for African Americans to cross suburban lines than it was for them to move into white urban neighborhoods” (Sugrue, 2005: 266).
The growing marginalization of Detroit in local, state and national politics has been the most enduring legacy of the racial struggles in the city (Sugrue, 2005: 268). Facing a declining tax base and increasing costs on social, economic and infrastructural programs were not the only problems of post-‐war Detroit. “Elected officials in Lansing and Washington5, beholden to a vocal, well-‐organized, and defensive white suburban
constituency, have reduced funding for urban education, antipoverty, and development programs” (Sugrue, 2005: 268). Especially the reduced funding for education is
problematic, as Chetty et al. (2014) found a positive correlation between public school expenditures and upward mobility. The poor funding of public schools in Detroit thus reinforces the existing opportunity structures and inequalities.
The fight for Detroit’s resurrection is a passionate one, but it is often met with problems, as efforts to revitalize the city “have foundered on the shoals of inadequate finances: industrial and population flight have drained the city of resources necessary to maintain infrastructure, and the federal government, especially since the Reagan
administration has drastically cut urban spending” (Sugrue, 2005: 270). Moreover, a
potential revitalization of Detroit will not necessarily provide a future where everybody will benefit equally.
Nahas also points out this problem in relation to arts revitalization strategies. Detroit is “currently experiencing a resurgence of small-‐scale art-‐based revitalization” (2013: 48), and her suggestion to cope with potential problems of exclusion is a
“community-‐based approach with significant buy-‐in from residents”, as this is “often the most successful means of government and organizations employing an arts
revitalization strategy“ (2013: 55).
Neo-‐liberalism and Detroit
The redistribution of opportunity has been a profound effect of neoliberal reform: “[w]hen markets are made more open or competitive, the opportunity structures changes and some people gain, but others lose. In general, those with the resources and skills to prosper on competitive markets do well, but those lacking in such resources are disadvantaged even if they had the right skill sets for a previous era. This redistribution of opportunity has been reflected in rising levels of income inequality” (Hall & Lamont, 2013: 7). As has been shown, the income inequality between the City of Detroit and its suburbs has risen from 3 percent in 1950 to 94 percent in 2000. This redistribution of opportunity has posed challenges on people who have little capacity to respond.
The extent to which these marginalized groups can respond to maintain their well-‐being is described as social resilience (Hall & Lamont, 2013). States have always been the source for public goods the market would not supply. “Therefore, states should have been important sources of social resilience during the neoliberal era, and our findings confirm that they often were (Hall & Lamont, 2013: 15). This is been described as ‘roll-‐out neoliberalism’ by Peck & Tickel (2002). It counterbalances the negative consequences of ‘roll-‐back neoliberalism’, where the state was reducing its obligations to provide social welfare (Herbert, 2005: 851). However, as the tax-‐base in Detroit shrunk, the financial resources of the municipality of Detroit shrunk too, and with it its capacity to support those in need. Moreover, “those suffering most from rising levels of inequality are most prone to distrust government and to doubt their capacities to
influence it. A self-‐perpetuating cycle is then set in motion as declining levels of civic engagement among these groups reduce electoral pressure on governments to redistribute resources” (Hall & Lamont, 2013: 9). The notion of “[c]ommunity figures most significantly in neoliberal practices because the term carries connotations of mutual assistance among its members; it can thereby plausible stand as a recipient of heightened obligations” (Herbert, 2005: 851).
Some communities provide these services themselves as a way to cope with the posing challenges of neo-‐liberalism. Functioning beyond the market and the state, this third way of sustaining a level of wellbeing has been an important component of urban processes (Kinder, 2014). Self-‐provisioning by ‘the community’ has been perceived as a potential alternative for the state’s obligations to look after the wellbeing of its
population, but according to Herbert (2005), this has to be perceived as a trapdoor. Residents that perform self-‐providing tasks do not do so because they can do it better, but merely because they are the only ones doing it (Herbert, 2005: 851).
According to Sugrue, the hope that remains in Detroit comes from its residents that continue to resist the “debilitating effects of poverty, racial tension, and industrial decline” (Sugrue, 2005: 271). The rehabilitation of Detroit needs more than the efforts of its residents to cope with the structural problems mentioned above however.
Hit by a slow-‐motion disaster
Draus (2009) states that Detroit has been hit by a ‘slow-‐motion disaster’. This model “highlights the embedded connections between structural factors, such as racial segregation and systematic unemployment, and multiple destructive outcomes, including health and crime disparities, as well as problem substance abuse” (Draus, 2009: 360). Using this model, Draus understands problematic drug abuse and dealing crack-‐cocaine as a “response to disastrous conditions of unemployment and economic restructuring” (Draus, 2090: 370). The model Draus uses provides an initial framework in which we can elaborate how community art can be understood as a resilient activity; a response to, for example, the urban decay in the city. After all, the necessity to beautify a blighted area with, for instance a mural, is higher than in an area that is well
maintained. In other words: community art projects cannot be understood as an isolated phenomenon that simply wants to better the community. They are embedded in the history of Detroit.
The degree to which a community can respond to a slow-‐motion disaster is defined as community resilience by Draus (2009). In its use, resilience has been heavily individualized by social sciences (Hall & Lamont, 2013) and Draus argues it has much more to do with one’s communal resources and social networks. Hall & Lamont refer to this as social resilience: “the capacity of groups of people bound together […] to sustain and advance their well-‐being in the face of challenges to it. […] Our approach to social resilience can be contrasted with influential perspectives that emphasize the
psychological qualities needed to cope with various types of shocks.” (Hall & Lamont, 2013: 2). Even though both Hall & Lamont and Draus emphasize the social aspect of resilience and their concepts are fairly interchangeable, they have a different
understanding of how social capital can be used as a relative isolated concept. This difference is made clear by DeFilippis his critique on a particularly use of the concept social capital. In Draus his understanding it “becomes divorced from capital (in the literal, economic sense), stripped of power relations, and imbued with the assumption that social networks are win-‐win relationships” (2001: 800). Hall & Lamont (2013) acknowledge that social resilience has not only to do with social capital, but is also related to other resources like cultural capital and economic capital.
In short, the three interrelated capital forms can be defined as following: economic capital is a financial asset, cultural capital is a non-‐financial social asset and social capital has to do with social networks. Bourdieu neatly described the relation between the different forms of capital as follows:
“[d]epending on the field in which it functions, and at the cost of the more or less expensive transformations which are the precondition for its efficacy in the field in question, capital can present itself in three fundamental guises: as economic
capital, which is immediately and directly convertible into money […]; as cultural capital, which is convertible, on certain conditions, into economic capital […];
and as social capital, made up of social obligations (‘connections’), which is convertible, in certain condition, into economic capital” (Bourdieu, 1986: 242).
DeFilippis argues we should engage with the concept of social capital in the way Bourdieu uses it. As DeFilippis (2001) explains it, Bourdieu (1986) tries to understand the (re-‐)production of class by using the concept of social capital. However, social capital can only be understood in relation to economic capital (DeFilippis, 2001: 783). The necessary focus on the relationship between different types of capital (social, economic and cultural) has also been underlined by Tacq (2003). Social capital is relatively useless if there is little economic or cultural capital to be shared.
As for the (re-‐)production of class, DeFilipps simply puts it as saying that “certain networks are in greater positions of power than others, and they can therefore yield much more substantial returns to their members when those networks are engaged in social or political conflict. Given that people in low-‐income areas are marginalized in the American political economy, this is a substantial omission -‐and limiting factor-‐ in the potential uses of Putnam’s social capital framework in community organizing and development” (2001, 791). He continues by stating that the “problem of inner cities, therefore, is not that there is a lack of trust-‐based social networks and mutual support, but rather that these networks and support are unable to generate capital” (2001, 797). The poor inner city communities are stuck in a loophole, as they do not possess the necessary capital to generate more capital. Therefore, the concept of social capital should not be isolated from economic and cultural capital.
The purpose of art
Tacq (2003) states that La Distinction, Bourdieu’s magnum opus, must be interpreted as a critique of Kant’s “Kritik der Urteilskraft”. In La Distinction, Bourdieu takes an
opposite stand regarding the judgment of taste. For Kant, the judgment of taste serves no purpose, whereas for Bourdieu, the judgment of taste merely is a product of history that has been reproduced by society (Tacq, 2003: 14). Therefore, there is no such thing as autonomous art that serves no purpose. According to Bourdieu, the unconscious purpose of the judgment of taste is to increase ones cultural capital and with it increases ones position in the artistic field (Tacq, 2003: 18). The judgment of taste can therefore contain a hidden agenda. The purpose of community art is not only related to the art world, but is also related to a supposedly altruistic motive to better a community. In
practice, the judgment of community art has a two-‐fold nature: not only does one make a judgement about the aesthetics of the art, but one judges the supposedly altruistic deed of community serving as well. This is where it gets problematic, as it is hard to argue what not to like about the supposedly altruistic motive of community art that tries to make the world a better place.
To understand community art in Detroit with the set of analytical concepts Bourdieu provides, we first must understand how Bourdieu envisions the artistic field, as well as the social and cultural space. A field is a relative autonomous network in which social and cultural practices are taking place, for example the artistic field. Bourdieu states that “the artistic field is not reducible to a population, i.e. a sum of individual agents, linked by simple relations of interaction – although the agents and the
volume of the population of producers must obviously be taken into account (e.g. an
increase in the number of agents engaged in the field has specific effects)” (Bourdieu, 1993: 35). The artistic field “is so ordered that those who enter it have an interest in disinterestedness […] this does not mean that there is not an economic logic to this charismatic economy based on the social miracle of an act devoid of any determination other than the specifically aesthetic intention. There are economic conditions for the indifference to economy” (Bourdieu, 1993: 40). Exactly these economic conditions are important in Detroit. In order to enter its artistic field, one must be relatively
indifferent to its potential financial gains. If people grow up below the poverty line, what is the likelihood they are financially and morally supported to pursue a financially uncertain artistic career instead of getting a job?
The social space is built up by the sum of socio-‐economic and socio-‐cultural positions, and is organized by volume and composition of capital. More importantly, it is defined by the relations between the different compositions and positions. The cultural space refers to the space that is built up by all cultural practices. The cultural space can be envisioned as a layer that is put on top of the social space. Cultural practices
correspond with social positions, but are not deterministic, i.e. a social position does not inherently lead to a cultural practice (Tacq, 2003: 42-‐43). Social and cultural practices derive their meaning from the position they have in the network of actual and possible positions the field; they are never autonomous. The appreciation and practice of
community art therefore derives a particular meaning in the social space of Detroit. In a city where the need for serving under-‐resourced communities is high, doing seemingly altruistic community art puts artists in a particular position.
Furthermore, differences between the artist and the targeted community might lead to a conflicting appreciation of aesthetics. The aesthetic of the artist, who produces a mural for the community for example, may be in conflict with the aesthetic of the community. The motive of the artist to produce a mural may be two-‐fold, as it may serve the artistic career, but also serves the community. As will be depicted later on, these motives can be in conflict with each other.
Therefore, a social scientist should never naively accept an explanation of an interviewee as being true. The given explanation may be genuine, but this does not mean the self-‐explained social and cultural practices unconsciously serve another purpose: getting a better position in the field (Tacq, 2003: 42). The motive to be
engaged in community art may therefore differ from the given explanation. So an artist can say he wants to beautify a neighbourhood by painting a mural, but this may not be the only motive, as painting a mural also gives the artist exposure and therefore serves the artistic career.
Critiquing the arts-‐based renewal
The relationship between art and urban renewal has been explored in depth by Grodach (2010), Grodach & Loukaitou-‐Sideris (2007), Schuetz (2014), Cameron & Coaffee
(2005) and Lloyd (2002). Yet little has been written about the way facilitators of
community art envision bettering their targeted community and how this relates to the renewal of Detroit. The concept of urban renewal must be critically examined, as ‘the’ renewal of Detroit is not inherently a win-‐win situation. For example, the revitalization of a community can lead to the rise of real-‐estate value, which in turn can displace long-‐ term residents. This kind of revitalization is therefore in contrast with a type of
community revitalization that aims for social inclusion and life-‐change provision (Ponzini & Rossi, 2010).
A critical view of Detroit’s renewal through the arts is provided by Gregory (2012). In analysing the metaphors in journalistic discourse of art and entrepreneurship in
Detroit, Gregory states the City of Detroit is “often presented as cheap, up for grabs, and, depending on the economic standpoint from which you are viewing, a place where you can set up shop with minimal investment and for minimal risk” (Gregory, 2012: 218). In this way, the City of Detroit is depicted as a blank-‐slate; a canvas where everything is possible and anything goes. This conception devalues the existing people, structures and artefacts by embracing the new. Moreover, groups without capital or
entrepreneurial motivations might be marginalized and looked over by the media, rendering them invisible in the metaphoric construction of the “renewed” Detroit (Gregory, 2012: 233). In order to ensure a sustainable, equitable, and historically
renewal of Detroit, one must critically assess the idea of a “new” Detroit: a Detroit that is appealing to young creatives that feel out-‐priced in other cities.
The “renewed” Detroit is depicted nicely in a neighbourhood East of Downtown Detroit. Art has assisted regenerating Corktown, as it “has new art galleries, restaurants, bars, music venues, and lofts” (Che, 2014: 36). Corktown is a good example of the
problematic process of regeneration. On the one hand, the municipality of Detroit is in great need of a richer tax-‐base in order to look after the well-‐being of residents that need to be looked after the most. On the other hand, the rising rents in Corktown have physically displaced established residents. It is not only displacement that is a negative effect of regeneration, as established residents are “folded into a construction of the city that is romanticized (and then commercialized) in terms of broken infrastructure and the proclamation of cheapness.” (Gregory, 2012: 226). This construction is a
fetishization of poverty by artists in order to claim exclusivity and status. However, to maintain this exclusivity and status, a certain level of poverty has to exist in order for it to be fetishized.
The Heidelberg Project
The Heidelberg Project claims to be the third-‐most visited cultural destination6 and is
probably the most well-‐known example of community art in Detroit. Tyree Guyton, the artist responsible for it, attempts to deal with the abandonment in his street by turning it into one giant piece of art. In doing so, he also fetishizes the abandonment of his street.
The Heidelberg Project is examined by Che (2014) as a case study that depicts art as stimulating urban revitalization. The Heidelberg Project
revitalized the Heidelberg Street by utilizing art, as “no serious crimes have been reported since its inception” (Che, 2014: 40). Nevertheless, the revitalization of the Heidelberg Project is not accepted by every member of the community. Che (2014: 46-‐47) writes about one neighbour who said it would be justice for the community and the neighbourhood if the Heidelberg Project were torn down. Although she does not elaborate on the story of the neighbour, it illustrates that seemingly revitalizing projects like the Heidelberg Project are not necessarily a win-‐win situation for the whole community.
Another crucial aspect of the Heidelberg Project is highlighted by Che (2014) as well: the relation between cultural and economic capital. “Guyton’s art has been
featured in exhibitions, televisions, films, and books across the U.S. and the world. […] He [Tyree Guyton] has also had national and international impact through teaching engagements and art residencies at universities such as Universidade Federal Da Bahia (Brazil), University of San Fransisco (Ecuador), Harvard University, University of Michigan, Syracuse University, Ohio State University, and the New School” (Che, 2014: 43). Even though the initial set-‐up of the Heidelberg Project was to revitalize the
community, Guyton has gained recognition as a successful artist. This project illustrates how Guyton has been able to exploit the success of the Heidelberg Project for his own individual artistic gain.
6 The Heidelberg project 2013/2014 Annual Report
www.heidlberg.org/research_resources/financials.html (visited 5th of February 2015)
During its almost thirty year lifespan, the Heidelberg Project transformed into an approximate $500.000 nonprofit organization. The Heidelberg Project not only
exemplifies the individual artistic gain of Tyree Guyton, but also shows that community art is not only carried out by artists. In the next two paragraphs, I will elaborate on the differences between community art facilitated by artists and nonprofit organizations.
Community art by artists
In defining community art, De Bruyne & Gielen state that “the bottom line is that it actively involves people in the artistic process or in the production of a work of art” (2011: 20). This definition does not hold water, as painting a mural for the community without their involvement is also considered community art by my interviewees.
Moreover, De Bruyne & Gielen provide an example of community art that does not abide by their own definition. Providing this definition is useful nevertheless, as it can be put in contrast to the definition of the interviewees.
De Bruyne & Gielen elaborate on the tenacious relationship between individual artistic interest and the aim of revitalizing the community by stating that the “demand for singularity on the part of the artist is hard to reconcile with social consciousness and the commitment to a community” (2011: 6). Therefore, the notion of community art, the individualized concept of art and the artist are a contradictory in terms. They describe this tension as balancing between auto-‐ and allo-‐relational aesthetics: “[t]he first is that community art mostly abides by the rules of professional art; the second is that it merely serves social interaction” (De Bruyne & Gielen, 2011: 11). It is important to understand the degree to which an artist wants to realize an artistic project or aims for social interaction. In case of the latter, two more directions are added to the map. The first pole is digestive art that aims at social integration without being obstructive. The opposite pole is art that aims at questioning dominant values, norms or habits and thus is being subversive. “Artistic trajectories may also transmute or change directions” (De Bruyne & Gielen, 2011: 23) however. The Heidelberg Project may have gone from a subversive allo-‐relational piece of art towards a digestive auto-‐relational one.
put them in a position where they might want to lie about their motives. This is why a social scientist should never accept an explanation of an interviewee as true.
Figure 1: matrix community art
Next to providing an analytic framework for understanding the practice of community art, De Bruyne & Gielen also reflect on the social context in which the practice of community art is embedded. They state “it is striking that (often digestive) community art frequently services in countries with pronounced neoliberal regime […]. An attempt seems to be made to compensate for the absence or imminent breakdown of a strong social infrastructure, typical of the welfare state, through artistic operations. Perhaps that is the very reason why community art is currently experiencing a comeback” (De Bruyne & Gielen, 2011: 29). It is unlikely that the compensating efforts of community art can be effective in tackling serious issues, such as social deprivation, because
community art is often offered on project base. The neglect of social services, like public schools, ask for more structural investments than temporary community art projects (De Bruyne & Gielen, 2011: 30).
Although De Bruyne & Gielen are critical on the potential effects of community art, they acknowledge its potency: “[w]ithin a neoliberal world, in which individuality, personal gain, competition and speculation have become the prevailing strategies of the day, exerting their influence over the social fabric, the community gives rise to
associations which may sound naïve but which are no less revolutionary within the current hegemony” (De Bruyne & Gielen, 2011: 32). Yet they remain aware of the
Diges've Allo-‐ rela'onal Auto-‐ rela'onal Subversive
