Lofty Pursuits discussion
Lofty Pursuits discussionArtistsSpace
10 min - Feb 29, 2008
ARTISTS SPACE - Blue Room Event Saturday, February 16, 2008 As part of On Being An Exhibition, a group exhibition at Artists Space that explored the reciprocal relationship between artists and the infrastructure of the art space, The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) organized a talk-show style event in November 2007 entitled Lofty Pursuits. Taking a step back from the microcosm of the exhibition, CUP poses questions about artists' involvement in the urban ecology, implicating the exhibition and gallery as a capsule of culture that can inflect the value of a neighborhood. On Saturday February 16th, Artists Space curator Joseph del Pesco will host a follow-up conversation with CUP's Rosten Woo after a video screening of documentation from the Lofty Pursuits talk show event. With Lofty Pursuits, CUP staged a conversation between urbanist and sociologist Sharon Zukin and real estate developer Jed Walentas, vice-president of Two Trees. Zukin has published several books examining urban culture including "Loft Living: Culture and Capital in Urban Change" (1982), a landmark work on the transformation of SoHo from manufacturing space to cultural locus to residential lofts. Ostensibly taking cues from this history, Walentas and the Two Trees corporation began their own project of transformation, changing Brooklyn's post- industrial waterfront into a residential neighborhood. During their conversation Zukin and Walentas discussed culture, capital, and real estate from SoHo to DUMBO
