Artists and their art are powerful in transforming a neighbourhood, yet the art is often prioritised over the artists themselves. They are often (mis)used simply for functional or aesthetic purposes. Not only does their job already put them in an often precarious socioeconomic position of atypical employment, but the cultural importance of their labour is also underplayed. Artists have a problematic relation with the capitalist nature and motives of gentrification and urban transformation. Art has been glorified as a ‘rapid solution’, while the artists are not compensated enough and also villainized for representing the surface change in the neighbourhoods. Long-term residents see their art as ‘outsider’ and likening artists to squatters with negative perceptions. Meanwhile, their own socioeconomic positions are also being worsened through the gentrification itself.

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Max Somojiono, studying ethnographic studies, calls this the paradox of capitalism, where glamour, culture, and power of creativity is put into a normative, precarious setting. The juxtaposition of commercial and non-commercial creation has created a new socioeconomic class of creatives, who seem desirable for finance investors, city planners, and policy makers. The problems ‘solved’ by art in post-industrialist cities are only symbolically reconciled. Their main purpose is to attract tourists, investment, and increasing neighbourhood value and appearance. The real institutionalised, structural problems of the neighbourhood before its transformation are not solved by the art alone. City planners commonly use artists as a ‘cheap and easy way’ to transform neighbourhoods, promising affordable housing while the creatives do all the real transforming. Here, the artist plays a vital role in pioneering the process of redevelopment and gentrification, though often unknowingly. Often, they are part of the lower-middle class who receives the negative effects of gentrification themselves, being driven out of popularised areas they can no longer afford. They are forced to invest their money and labour into a neighbourhood, only to be asked to leave. This is unsustainable for the neighbourhood community and properties, and artists are often left feeling ‘exploited’ by capitalist motives.

 

It is not the fault or the problem of the artist when a city has failed to take care of its citizens. Perhaps it is instead time to critically question the effectivity of the neoliberal capitalist structures that manage to problematize something as culturally valuable as art and the artist.