No surprise: "You Belong Here/We Belong Here" neon signage ("art exhibition"? advertising?) outside Barclays Center extended another three years.
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| Photos: Norman Oder |
That tricky "You Belong Here/We Belong Here" signage outside Barclays Center was unveiled Oct. 23, 2021 for at least three years, as I reported.
It's not leaving, though the documentation apparently was a bit late, according to an explanation I got from Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project.
The explanation:
ESD, BALDC, the MTA and the NBA have consented to an extension of the "You Belong Here" art exhibition at Barclays Center through October 23, 2026. The parties are currently finalizing the necessary documentation reflecting the consent to the extension.In case you're wondering, beyond the MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) and NBA (National Basketball Association), BALDC refers to the Brooklyn Arena Local Development Corporation, the ESD alter ego that actually owns the site but then leases it to the arena operator for essentially nothing.
What it is
(Now the Koch family, whose fortune has fueled a pernicious level of right-wing politics, owns a slice of BSE Global, enriching the Tsais.)
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.
From the authorizing document:
Its unmistakable message of inclusion, diversity, equality, and unity will resonate in the Brooklyn community and beyond and serve as a visual reflection of the goal of the Brookiyn-focused $50M social justice and equality initiative announced by Clara Wu Tsai and Joe Tsai last year.
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.
After all, even arena workers didn't know what it meant--or thought it aimed to encourage ticket buyers.
As I wrote a year later, transposing a framing from the New Yorker's Alice Gregory:
As I wrote a year later, transposing a framing from the New Yorker's Alice Gregory:
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.
"Pinpricks of revulsion"
Here's one piece of criticism that I hadn't previously seen. From an 11/30/23 article, No Place to Be, in the New York Review of Architecture, about the world of documentarian John Wilson, which author Jake Romm posits as against the commodification of our shared urban space.
Writes Romm:
There is a sign next to the Barclays Center that sends pinpricks of revulsion down my spine every time I see it. You know the one: “We Belong Here,” in pink, neon cursive script. Opened in 2012, Barclays famously displaced hundreds of neighborhood residents, drove out small business owners by raising property prices, and created a permanent traffic jam on Atlantic Avenue. The arena’s arty welcome mat is, of course, a paean to the “authentic city” marketing tactic that effaces and tokenizes those who really did once belong. But read another way, the motto effects a defensive posture in the face of suspicion and recites the consumer’s prerogative: “We have our tickets, we bought our treats, we have a right to be here.”
Those criticism, of course, might merit footnotes--the displacement was more indirect than direct and the traffic not as bad as some feared.
But sure, it's hardly authentic, and it ultimately reaffirms the private nature of the space.
So, not everyone's convinced it's "an affirmation of belonging as well as a call to unity."
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