Hyperallergic’s Jillian Steinhauer on the Future of Art in Brooklyn
Earlier this week, we ran our feature on the state of Brooklyn culture. Here is a more extended version of the conversation that we had with Hyperallergic Senior Editor Jillian Steinhauer about what lies ahead for our borough.
I think Brooklyn art is definitely flourishing right now—in fact, it might be flourishing too much. The stereotype of Brooklyn being filled with creative people and artists is based in truth, and despite absurdly high rents, people seem to still be continually flocking—or holding out—here to make art (not to mention music, dance, books, and every imaginable hybrid of those things). What’s especially nice about the Brooklyn art scenes—and I say scenes because I do see them as distinct; Bushwick is not Gowanus, nor is Bed-Stuy Bay Ridge—is that they mirror their home borough by being very community-oriented. The gallery neighborhoods in Manhattan—the Lower East Side, Chelsea, the Upper East Side, etc.—are great for a day of seeing art, but they feel resolutely commercial in a way that the Brooklyn scenes don’t.