Alternative Art-Production Networks in Lower Manhattan in the 1960s-1970s: An Organizational Account of the Soho's Gentrification

This paper deals with an early period of an artists-led gentrification in SoHo in New York City in the 1960s and 1970s, from the standpoint of alternative arts-production-networks in Lower Manhattan then. A couple of studies have already dealt with the gentrification in SoHo (Simpson 1981; Zukin 1982). Given roles of the artists in the SoHo’s gentrification, previous studies have shown that there are two issues: a creation of living spaces and a construction of symbolical and institutional boundaries of art districts. These former studies contributed to examined that the artists’ spaces and their aesthetical images, fortunately or unfortunately, contributed to the subsequent creation of a commercial and consumption district there. Although these findings are valid and quite important, this paper argues that there was another fundamental issue in the SoHo’s gentrification; alternative arts-production-networks in downtown also critically contributed to construct physical and symbolical bases there.

In order to explore this issue, I will focus on artists’ activities and their networks from the standpoint of organizational sociology and production-of-arts theories (Becker 1982, DiMaggio and Hirsch 1976; Peterson and Anand 2004; White and White 1965). Some artists pursued alternative production and distribution systems against the backdrop of a flourish of art museums and commercial galleries in uptown. These anti-uptown ideologies consisted of organizational fields of art productions in downtown. Analyzing the arts-productions-networks in downtown in the 1960s and 1970s, this paper focuses on especially cooperative galleries and alternative spaces.　These alternative arts venues were critical aesthetical bases in SoHo.