Fight for your Neighborhood
2009
Chris Treggiari & Billy Mitchell
Neighborhood: Tenderloin
Photo: Matthew Millman, courtesy San Francisco Arts Commission

San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood and nearby Central Market Street are known as the purview of the impoverished, the homeless, the addicts, the less fortunate. It's a section of the city many avoid or move through quickly. A tough economy has hit hard here, leaving many businesses vacant, creating greater unsightliness in an already run-down landscape. Recently, however, things have begun to look a little different. A large-scale mural featuring deer and raccoons--animals that roamed the area before urbanization--covers a boarded-up shop on Market; a window down the street features billowing ghost-like figures created out of white paper hovering over a cloud-like paper ground. A walk down Taylor Street in the Tenderloin passes a three-dimensional installation of a boxing gym filling one empty storefront, while works around the theme of homelessness, created by the nonprofit arts organization The Central City Hospitality House, cover another.

These artworks are the result of the Art in Storefronts project, which places original art by San FranciscoÐbased artists in vacant storefronts. The program was initiated by Mayor Gavin Newsom in partnership with the Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD), the San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC), local economic development organizations, and the hiply contemporary Mission-based Triple Base Gallery, which provided curatorial oversight. The aim is to help reinvigorate areas experiencing particularly high store vacancies. "This is a team effort," says Luis R. Cancel, director of Cultural Affairs for SFAC. "It demonstrates the ability of government agencies, private property owners, and local artists and art organizations to come together."

Simple, straightforward, the project is remarkably effective. "This turns a negative into a positive," Cancel succinctly states. Similar programs have found success in other cities as well, including New York, San Jose, Los Angeles, and London. The project focused on four neighborhoods: the Tenderloin, Central Market Street, the Mission and Bayview. Installations were launched successively starting in late October; the final launch took place in the Mission at the end of November. All will be up until at least through January 2010. Project growth or continuation will be determined by response, accessibility of storefronts, and funding. "We hope this can continue next year," notes Cancel.

The selection process began with a public call for submissions; over two hundred artists applied. Dina Pugh, co-director with Joyce Grimm of Triple Base, notes that this open policy brought in proposals from a huge variety of sources, from established artists, such as Abner Nolan--whose installation, A New Museum, is an upscale display space featuring objects collected from the surrounding neighborhood--to lesser known talents like Elisheva Biernoff, to set designers and graphic designers. The range of chosen projects was similarly diverse, from a video installation by the SF Film Museum and Archive to large murals, such as Leanne C. Miller and Helen Bayly's flora and fauna piece and Chor Boogie's spray-painted work, The Color Therapy of Perception (also on Market); from a piece using intertwining yarn by Rachel Beth Egenhoefer, to Paul Hayes' ghostly installation and Chris Treggiari and Billy Mitchell's Tenderloin boxing gym. The key to the selection process was site specificity. "We wanted to see how the storefront would relate to the neighborhood," explains Cancel. Pugh adds that community representatives were invited to help select works that would gel well with their constituents. "The representatives pointed out things we wouldn't have thought about," she says.

Twenty artists and four arts organizations/collectives were selected to create the eighteen projects, which present a fine mix of being aptly placed as well as aesthetically enhancing. These works offer more than just pretty window dressing, thanks in large part to the efforts of Pugh and Grimm, who have strong ties to the local art community and years of experience in the field. (Grimm formerly worked for SFAC as the curator/gallery assistant for City Hall). "I haven't always been a big fan of public art because it can get really watered down," says Grimm, who notes that she was particularly drawn to the challenge of presenting work that is accessible as well as complex. In this respect especially, the project is a welcome success, and a testament to the extraordinary time and effort put in by the artists themselves.

Art in Storefronts is also being used to help promote other arts organizations in the participating neighborhoods. The Mission project, for instance, was promoted in conjunction with the 24th Street Promenade, a similar storefront undertaking that was founded by Triple Base in 2005; it currently features ten works. To encourage additional like projects, the SFAC plans to create a do-it-yourself toolbox on its website, to provide how-tos and answer common questions about creating a storefront installation, from setting up an artist agreement to dealing with insurance.

The only opposition for Art in Storefronts seems to have come from citizens questioning the allocation of public funds for artwork at a time when the city is facing huge economic challenges. At $500 per installation, however, it is arguably one of the most cost effective beautification projects available. And the effects go beyond transforming a disincentive into a draw; there is a noticeable increase in neighborhood pride. "When we were doing the installations," recalls Pugh, "people from the community were coming up to us thanking us for these works."


The complete list of Art in Storefront installations, along with full project descriptions, maps, and artist bios, can be found at the SFAC website, www.sfartscommission.org