Is "The Book of HOV" for anyone but Jay-Z? Well, maybe a bit for arena developer Bruce Ratner (and designer SHoP), thanks to Barclays Center replica

Barclays Center, Book of Hov online

Do read Adlan Jackson's necessary essay in HellGate, Is ‘The Book of Hov’ Really for Anyone but Jay-Z?, subtitled "The Brooklyn Public Library exhibition glorifies Jay-Z and advertises his products—but we’re being told it’s for the people."

He writes:

There's just not much here for you to engage with unless you're a Jay-Z superfan, and want to look at a jacket he wore once. If that's you, that's fine, but even you might wonder why on earth it's in the middle of the fucking library.

And do read Theodore Hamm's 7/18/23 essay in Hyperallergic, Brooklyn Public Library Has 99 Problems but Jay-Z Ain’t One, subtitled "Should a struggling public library be used as a shrine to a billionaire’s glamorous life?"

Photos by Norman Oder

Who else is it for?

For now, let me add that the exhibit, at least in one way, is "for" some others beyond Jay-Z: the arena developer, Bruce Ratner, and the arena designer, SHoP, responsible for its distinct facade and oculus.

The replica of the Barclays Center (top right) from The Book of Hov web site, the companion to the Brooklyn Public Library tribute exhibit, does not do the object justice. 

The actual object, as shown in the photos above right and below, occupy a particularly prominent place in the library's grand lobby, similarly devoid of context.

As I tweeted, the reproduction of the arena, which Jay-Z opened in September 2012, ignores how the actual building is not only festooned with advertising and promotional signage but also ringed by housing mostly out of reach for those who believed the arena could bring them an affordable place to live.

That's visible in the photo at left.

At the exhibit, there's no further information about the arena, just a credit line for SHoP--the architects who revamped the Ellerbe Becket design after original architect Frank Gehry was dumped--and a very discreet QR code.

Who benefits?

What role did Jay-Z play in getting this project approved? He was a not insignificant validator, or, a "resident Brooklyn-credibility totem" (to quote David Roth), but that, of course, is not discussed.

In the last of his opening concerts in 2012, Jay-Z, in a tone of mild grievance,

uttered, "A lot of people was opposed to it for some strange reason," adding, "Look at this, what we imagined... it's done so much for the borough, the borough where I'm from."

Actually, the benefits skew far less to the borough and city than to the operator of the arena and owner of the Brooklyn Nets, of which the value has skyrocketed. And it helped get the project approved, though Ratner neither delivered on his promises nor made the profits he expected.

Ratner, as noted, is married to Brooklyn Public Library CEO Linda Johnson. It's hard to say that the softball treatment of the arena is a particular gift to Ratner, though you'd hope that credible curators would bend over backwards to be analytical.

Instead, it's of a piece with the entire exhibit, produced by Jay-Z's company Roc Nation, as a tribute, not an assessment.