Decolonize This Place stands in solidarity with our comrades at Chinatown Art Brigade in their actions against Omer Fast’s recent installation, "August," at the James Cohan Gallery in Chinatown. This video also features the newly formed DTP Drum Fleet!
On Saturday, October 28, 2017 we gathered for a Closing Party to not only protest this racist exhibition, but to stand with the Chinatown community to send a strong message to the artist and the 100+ galleries that have opened in Chinatown in recent years. Racist art has no business in our neighborhoods. Protest is not censorship and we refuse to let James Cohan have the last word!
On October 15, 2017 Chinatown Art Brigade protested Omer Fast's racist exhibition at James Cohan Gallery. Dozens of community residents, activists, artists and organizations joined forces in a community-led occupation and protest. We are deeply offended by the artist’s depiction of Chinatown as a neighborhood of blighted, unclean and derelict spaces. After the action, Artist Omer Fast compares protesters to Alt-Right, and Chinatown Art Brigade responds.
IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM CHINATOWN ART BRIGADE:
We must expose gentrifiers like the James Cohan Gallery who are using ‘racism disguised as art’ to demean the neighborhood and justify their presence in the Chinatown community. Omer Fast’s August exhibition reinforces racist narratives of uncleanliness, otherness and blight that have historically been projected onto Chinatown. This show is a racist aggression towards the community of Chinatown that James Cohan Gallery is currently gentrifying and demonstrates yet another example of how gentrifying institutions appropriate histories of violent oppression to garner clout. This is a hostile act towards communities on the front lines fighting gentrification, tenant harassment, displacement and cultural erasure.
James Cohan Gallery symbolizes the gentrifying force that has spread throughout Chinatown. Omer Fast’s exhibition only further cements the blatant disrespect and disregard that commercial galleries have shown for our community. This gallery and its apologizers would have us believe that we are engaging in censorship - but we know this is a cheap attempt to shift the discussion away from these urgent issues.
Galleries and luxury condos have a direct hand in raising rents and displacing low income rent-subsidized tenants. More than 130 galleries have opened in Chinatown in the last ten years, replacing small businesses and organizations that have served the Chinatown community for generations. These days, real estate developers and landlords are likely to keep storefronts unoccupied for months on end, waiting to rent to the next gallery, hipster bar or high-end restaurant that comes along. Some landlords will now only rent exclusively to galleries. These spaces are often the Trojan horses needed to raise the value of property and neighborhood.
We know this is not unique to Chinatown and it’s happening all over New York City - in Bushwick, Harlem, and the South Bronx to name a few. We know this is a national and global fight.
Galleries must be held accountable for their complicit role in gentrifying Chinatown! Join us!
For more information, please visit:
[ Ссылка ]
Hyperallergic Articles:
[ Ссылка ]
[ Ссылка ]
[ Ссылка ]
[ Ссылка ]
#DecolonizeThisPlace #ChinatownNot4Sale #NYCNot4Sale
#JamesCohanGallery #RacistGallery #OmerFast #Artwashing
