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Curses give way to camaraderie between a Brooklyn art entrepreneur coming to Detroit and a local designer who last month called the move "offensive," "troubling" and threatening to emerging artists here.
Dylan Box created his 2010 self-portrait with laser-cut acrylic shapes and relief printing.
Dylan Box, a 2012 University of Michigan graduate, sat down recently with Galapagos Art Space founder and director Robert Elmes at the Wedge Detroit studio that Box set up near Eastern Market.
At his blog, where the original critique was posted, the Detroiter describes a discovery of common ground with Elmes that leads him to expect productive "dialog between him and residents and local artists." Two of Box's studio colleagues also participated.
Elmes reached out, Box says, after seeing our Nov. 11 coverage of the reaction to news that Galapagos was relocating its popular performance space and gallery to Highland Park after 19 years in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.
The initial contact led to the peacemaking sit-down in Wedge's space on Gratiot Avenue. "I have to give him credit," Box says of the 48-year-old New Yorker. "I didn't expect someone to be so open and easygoing after I had told him to 'fuck off' and compared him to greedy real estate moguls."
At nearly 2,100 words, the follow-up essay is 60-percent longer than the first post. Face-to-face conversation can do that.
Robert Elmes started Galapagos Art Space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 1995. (Facebook photo)
Here are excerpts:
We sat down one Sunday afternoon at my studio and ended up talking for two hours about art, development, and politics both here in Detroit and New York.
Let me start by saying this: I don't think that Robert is some dangerous or speculative real estate developer; that critique was pretty off-base and unfair. I believe that he's got his intentions straight. . . .
He has a perspective that I don't: a front-row seat to the rapid and incredibly damaging force of gentrification in Brooklyn. As much as myself and others in Detroit like to yell about gentrification, he's seen the effect over the entire history of his business, and from that he gathered a key insight: don't miss out.
In Williamsburg, Robert saw the missed opportunity of buying property early, which has resulted in himself and other artists being pushed out by real estate developers and rising rents. And in Highland Park, he see's that opportunity again, but this time he's going to be able to take his advice. . . .
I commend Robert on a big challenge ahead of him. He seems like someone who is looking to roll up his sleeves and make this happen. It sounds like he's also willing to move at a pace that will allow for these strong bonds to build. There will be plenty of opportunities for dialog between him and residents and local artists, and it will require both efforts on his part and on the community to build those relationships.
Box frames Galapagos' upcoming move in the context of Detroit's status as "the darling city" for real estate opportunities and he describes 2015 as "the big tipping point in investment in Detroit."
The second half of 2014 was full of new announcements of big real estate or commercial development. . . . It almost makes me wish I had taken more classes on 3D modeling and architectural rendering in school.
The young designer, part of the six-member Riopelle Collective, also reflects at length on "a hard nut to crack" -- increasing property ownership by local artists, entrepreneurs and other residents. As it happens, Box is a new East Village residential owner.
I was fortunate enough to get a mortgage this year, something that only 500 people in the city managed to get in Detroit last year. . .
He cites Vernor Highway's commercial strip in Southwest Detroit as "a model for both what a successful neighborhood can be in Detroit, but you don't see that neighborhood getting a sexy article in The New York Times like their neighbor to the east" -- a reference to Midtown.
If you want neighborhood stabilization, we need to make more homeowners out of renters. We need more businesses, with a stronger preference on locally-owned businesses. . . . I want every hardware store, restaurant, bar and grocery store to receive the sort of money and attention that is given to the 7.2 square miles of the "Greater Downtown Development District." There's 135 square miles of the city the deserves the tax breaks, subsidies and press, but they aren't given it.
Earlier coverage:
