Necessary Threat, 2018
Sizes Variable
Scaffolding installation - thanks to Bramwell Scaffolding for their support
According to Joseph Schumpeter (1883–1950), the “gale of creative destruction” describes the "process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionises the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one.”1This process of reconfiguration can be witnessed through the perpetual redevelopment of urban space within cities. Previouslydilapidatedneighborhoods are gentrified and repackaged by developers, homogenized to suit a new financially mobile demographic.In November this year, American painter, Laura Owens, opened a retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum, New York. Anti-gentrification group, BHAAAD (Boyle Heights Alliance Against Artwashing and Displacement) staged a protest at the opening. The group claim that Owens’ exhibition space, Mission 356 Rd, operatesas a proxy for wealthy investors to colonise Boyle Heights, apredominantly Latino working-class neighbourhood in Los Angeles.Proponents of gentrificationargue a narrative of inevitability—the ‘Greater Good’ for society. However, this offers the minority as a sacrificial lamb for the majority; their culture, history and needs ignored for the weak promises of a ‘better future
