When we first started exploring Soho, I wasn’t too amazed and didn’t see much glamour. That’s probably because we weren’t in the heart of Soho. We saw A LOT of street art and graffiti-something we expected to see after doing research. Every street had at least one building with graffiti. We captured this art and randomly walked, looking for something interesting. We saw an art gallery and decided to walk in and interview one of the girls working there. She felt that she couldn’t be of much help because she didn’t know Soho very well but was kind enough to direct us to another art gallery that was around the corner.
While looking for the art gallery, we came upon the coolest thing ever. We found ourselves in a perfume lab. Even though it had nothing to do with art in the neighborhood, we felt a need to go into the store. Right when you enter the store, you smell a million different perfumes. One guy who worked there introduced us to the store, which is actually a lab, and a lot of the new scents. He told us they have seven new, different scents, each representing seven different cities. He sprayed me with Paris, and it smelled sooo good. It was really cool because I never knew something like a perfume lab actually existed. I knew they have labs where perfumes are made but I’ve never seen one as a store before.
After leaving Le Labo, the coolest store ever, we found what we were looking for. The art gallery in Soho that had been there forever. We met Phyllis, who was pretty much in charge of the gallery. She told us a lot about the artist, Robert Kobayashi and his style of art. When he first decided to open up an art gallery, he chose Soho. This neighborhood had no art at the time and was a drug haven. According to Phyllis, the neighborhood gradually changed and became more glamorous in the past 10-15 years. She believed that the graffiti may have something to do with the fact that a lot of the buildings are vacant, since the rent is so high. She mentioned how she always sees a street artist by the name of De La Vega, who leaves inspirational quotes everywhere he goes, from all of Brooklyn to the Upper East Side to Soho. I googled him when I got home and he’s actually a really famous and popular artist. But that’s besides the point. What we learned from interviewing her was the effect that gentrification had on this neighborhood. It used to be a drug haven but slowly turned into an affluent neighborhood that attracted the wealthy and is now all about the fashionable clothing but where graffiti is still a trademark.
The artwork we chose to focus on is this one right here:
This piece of artwork clearly epitomizes what artwork is in Soho. Graffiti and street art is so popular in Soho; it’s everywhere you go. It can be found on every street in Soho, on random buildings, on the street. You can’t escape graffiti in Soho. We chose this as our piece of artwork because it defines Soho. Throughout the years, Soho has become a place full of graffiti. We were unable to figure out why graffiti is so prominent in Soho, but it may have to do with the fact that Soho used to be a drug haven. The graffiti may be from that time and it became more popular and appealing to the more affluent. They don’t see it as vandalism, but as legit art. This artwork amazes me because there are so many images in this one large piece.
We kind of got lost and made our way to the Light District but after asking for directions, using Google Maps and following Natasha’s intuition, we made our way back to Soho. We captured a lot of art and now our focus was conducting two more interviews. We saw a lady just sitting around and thought she would be the perfect target. Even though she didn’t live in the neighborhood, she knew a lot about the art in it. She told us that graffiti has become more popular throughout the years and the people of Soho actually appreciate it, as an artwork and it doesn’t have a negative connotation to it.
The other really cool thing was interviewing a family visiting from Germany. It was interesting because the father’s point of view was so different that what we had expected. When asked about artwork, he constantly mentioned the buildings. He said that you would never find buildings similar to the ones in Soho in Germany. Here’s exactly what he said:
After we were done, I felt as if the interview was not enough and didn’t help us much because he focused on architecture. But Reinard pointed out that that is okay because to him, artwork is architecture. Everybody has a different point of view when it comes to artwork, and I realized that he’s right and that architecture is a form of art. I really enjoyed doing this neighborhood blog because I learned about a part of NYC that I had never visited but always knew existed. I felt like a tourist going to Soho and looking around, but I learned how to appreciate the neighborhood and that there’s always something more than just the stores.
