Art or Advertising? The Contradictions of “You/We Belong Here” Neon Signage at Barclays Center (from The Indypendent)

I have an essay in The Indypendent headlined Art or Advertising? The Contradictions of “You/We Belong Here” Neon Signage at Barclays Center, with the subheading "Is it celebrating social justice protest? Or co-opting it?" (Answer: both.)

From the lead:

Approaching the Barclays Center from Downtown Brooklyn, a large neon sign looms above the turf-carpeted entrance to the plaza’s transit hub. In graceful cursive, it proclaims, “You belong here.”

In the background: the blue Barclays Center logo, affixed to the building’s oval oculus, and a series of LED signs, such as for ticketing partner SeatGeek, over the arena’s entrance doors.

It sure seems “You belong here” is encouraging people to buy tickets for the borough’s biggest venue.

No, say the sign’s sponsors; it’s art.

Photo by Norman Oder

The signage — paired with “We belong here” on other side of the transit structure—is said to salute the #BlackLivesMatters protests that coalesced around the shuttered arena after the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020, creating what I called “Brooklyn’s accidental new town square.”

More:

It’s the work of Tavares Strachan, a Bahamian-born artist who’s produced several earlier versions of “Belong,” albeit in much less commercial circumstances....

Then again, to quote a central lesson of Matt Sullivan’s recent book on the 2019-20 Nets, Can’t Knock the Hustle, there’s no progress without profit.

The rest of the essay is here.

More images

But let me add two images referenced in the essay. First, a gif contrasting a photo I took, which captures the arena's commercial milieu, with a rendering provided to CityLab by artist Strachan that lacked any background branding. 

Photo by Norman Oder; rendering by Tavares Strachan provided to CityLab

Also, as I wrote, even the promotional photo on the Social Justice Fund’s website could serve as an arena advertisement. Below is a screenshot from that website.

Screenshot from Social Justice Fund web site