Will "You Belong Here"/"We Belong Here" neon art (or marketing?) installation outside Barclays Center be extended past 2024? I wouldn't bet against it.

So, the "You Belong Here"/"We Belong Here" neon art installation over the Barclays Center transit hub was unveiled Oct. 23, 2021 for at least three years, as I reported.

Will Tavares Strachan's artwork, part of "Belong/Brooklyn," an initiative of the the Joe & Clara Tsai Foundation's Social Justice Fund (SJF), stay longer?

Well, it's permitted through the end of the year, not 36 months, as I'd supposed.

And while state officials told me no renewal request has been received and the SJF didn't respond to my query, I wouldn't bet against it.

Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the larger project, told me that, if/when a request for extension is received, approval is an internal matter, not subject to public comment. That suggests an easy process.

Upon the installation, the SJF stated, it "will be on long-term view at the entrance of Barclays Center, atop the Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center Station complex, and will serve as an affirmation of belonging as well as a call to unity in the heart of Brooklyn."

What does it mean?

Maybe it serves to affirm belonging and unity, but as I wrote Dec. 6, 2021 for The Indypendent, it's hard to dissociate the art from advertising, given that the signage is surrounded by promotions--ads, sponsors--for the Barclays Center.

As I wrote a year later, transposing a framing from the New Yorker's Alice Gregory regarding a project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo:

But in mounting a social justice/art project that also masquerades as arena advertising and reputation enhancement—or is it arena advertising and reputation enhancement that masquerades as a social justice/art project?—the billionaire Tsais both compel criticism and inoculate themselves against it.

Indeed, does a free concert series on Ticketmaster Plaza, which began Saturday, serve as social justice/art or arena advertising/reputation enhancement? Surely both.

My queries to ESD

Q. Who makes the decision to extend, and under what criteria?

A. ESD must consent to a request for extension.

Q. Is there any public notice? Public input?

A. ESD’s consent for a request under the authorizing document for extension does not require public notice. Any processes to extend the installation should continue to adhere to the terms of the MGPP [Modified General Project Plan], Arena Lease, including all legal requirements and guidelines, Design Guidelines, and building permit requirements.

I asked for that authorizing document, but was told to file a Freedom of Information Law request. That takes a while.

Q. What's the timetable for them to request an extension, for ESD to consider it/grant it, and for any public notice/public input?

A. There is no required timeline for the request for extension and ESD’s review and consent.

I also queried Gregg Bishop, executive director of the Social Justice Fund, as well as a spokesperson for BSE Global, Tsai's holding company for the Brooklyn Nets, the arena operating company and more, but didn't hear back.