The subprime meltdown and the art world may seem like universes apart, but don’t tell that to Damon Rich and the Center for Urban Pedagogy.
Starting on Sept. 9, Rich and his organization will launch an exhibit at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Museum’s Compton Gallery which aims at an unlikely synthesis: visual art and American real estate practices.
Rich emphasizes the exhibit – which charts the evolution of the real estate industry starting from the Great Depression to the recent subprime mortgage debacle – is not anti-corporate in its message, though parts of the exhibit include commonly recited invectives against the housing business.
The show is really an attempt to provoke dialogue about the cloudy and complex issues surrounding home loan practices, the foreclosure crisis, the anti-redlining movement of the ‘70s, and their impact on individuals’ lives, he explained.
“This is not some Marxist rant,” he said, during a phone interview last week. “It’s important to understand that it’s not propaganda for one side or the other. It’s really about drawing connections between architecture and the decision-making that gives it form.”
Selling Art
The exhibit, titled Red Lines, Death Vows, Foreclosures, Risk Structures: Architectures of Finance from the Great Depression to the Subprime Meltdown, uses a variety of mediums to drive home its point. One part of the show has a flickering neon sign, which says “buy low, sell high.” In another part of the gallery, a sculptured head of a pioneering real estate appraiser, Frederick Babcock, gazes out over a gallery of floor mounted paintings. Video interviews with anti-foreclosure counselors, financiers and government regulators are stationed throughout the exhibit, and their voices echo through the gallery, trilling hauntingly in the ears of viewers as they move through the show.
Meg Rotzel, curatorial associate for the visual arts program, said the exhibit is unlike any other the museum has hosted previously and stands apart in its content.
“It doesn’t fall within the form that fits within the discipline,” she said. “The content can be dry because it’s about finance. It’s kind of a new form.”
Rich began designing the exhibit in 2006 during his year-long residency at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Arts, a year before news of the subprime mortgage crisis came into focus. He was surprised when ideas connected to the exhibit became front-page news in 2007, and the mortgage crisis ballooned its way into a national debate.
“Initially, the topic of how buildings are financed was the question I wanted to take a broad look into,” said Rich. “Little did I know that obscure question would become headlines.” n
