D.U. Manhattan Bridge Overpass, Self-Portrait 1941

Art Under the Bridge Festival
September 26 - 28, 2008
Washington Street, Dumbo, Brooklyn

Two Trees Management, the benevolent shogun of Dumbo, is one of the chief sponsors of the neighborhood's 12th Annual Art Under the Bridge Festival, taking place this weekend. Two Trees has gotten significant press for their artist-as-architecture patronage program designed to maintain a healthy creative presence within the confines of their fiefdom. It used to be that artists were the urban missionaries of the ruling class, braving petty crime and longer subway rides in exchange for cheap rent and the chance to make impoverished and/or minority neighborhoods safe for bourgeois habitation. Two Trees, by virtue of its almost historically unprecedented control of an entire neighborhood - they own roughly 3 million square feet - has been able to short circuit this process by directly installing artists into their developments; thereby insuring their continued hipishness and profitability. One is left wondering if there isn't some sort of hierarchy, explicit or otherwise, as to which sort of artists are worth most Are the cheaper buildings stocked with performance artists, while luxury condos feature in-house sculptures and painters? What if the conceptualist across the hall takes a job as an accountant- can tenants call Two Trees and complain? Do the supers have MFAs in case the art stops working? In any case the Festival itself looks comprehensive enough to have something for everybody, certainly, and details can be found here. Presented by Dumbo Arts Center events start tonight at 7pm with free water taxi rides every thirty minutes from Fulton Ferry Landing.