Evicted Occupiers gather outside of Artists Space storefront at 38 Greene St in SoHo. Photo Karen Archey

“Hi stranger, my name is Catharsis,” a young man says as I walk up to the stoop of 38 Greene Street early Sunday evening. He extends a hand covered in baba ghanoush and Kettle Chip dust, and says “Oh, they’re not letting anyone in anymore. I’ve gotten kicked out of enough places to know to always take my stuff with me. That’s why I brought my things when I went to Whole Foods.” Welcome to Take Artists Space, a land where occupiers ironically are able to shop at bourgeois anti-union chain supermarkets while raging against the machine. It’s a sick, sad world here.

I was tipped off Saturday night about the occupation at Artists Space which began around 3PM that afternoon. Artists Space, a non-profit gallery in SoHo founded in 1972, is known for their progressive, European-friendly programming, mounting shows by the recently re-discovered long-deceased German Minimalist Charlotte Posenenske and AIDS-activist artist Mark Morrisroe. Their barren, sprawling space occupies the third floor of the extremely affluent intersection of Greene and Grand Streets in Soho, the neighborhood of designer fashion boutiques such as Opening Ceremony, Jil Sander, and Isabel Marant, chains such as CB2 and Nike, as well as for-profit galleries such as Team, and previously Deitch Projects. To me, Artists Space’s conceptually-infused, diverse programming serves as a reminder of the SoHo of a different era (one that I never experienced), when it was an art district in which stardom and self-branding were anything but career aspirations.

Thus it was especially confusing to hear that Artists Space was being occupied rather than the numerous neighboring for-profit spaces, or even the abundant vacant storefronts nearby Greene Street. Even more surprising was hearing that Greek performance artist Georgia Sagri was the ringleader of this occupation. Sagri is an acquaintance of mine who I last saw this summer booty dancing at the Frieze party on a private island in Venice. Sagri, in my mind, had proved herself a positive force in the New York art world, founding the well-respected sound-only magazine Forté and performing often around the city, from Lower East Side gallery On Stellar Rays to P.S.1. She also knows what it feels like to be on the ass-end of a media spectacle, having been sicked by performance art nightmare Ann Liv Young’s physically confrontational and emotionally abusive “character” Sherry during a live performance last year, resulting in Klaus Biesenbach shutting off the lights on subsequent performers that evening. Young’s middle school antics were rewarded by a generally-favorable profile in ARTFORUM by their web editor David Velasco, while Sagri continually has been referred to in the media not for her artistic merits, but as “the female artist who was attacked by Ann Liv Young.” You’d think that Sagri would shy away from the sharper side of the double-edged sword of the media.

I arrived to Artists Space Saturday night at around 2AM, expecting the occupiers to either have disbanded or passed out. Walking into the space I found Sagri surrounded by a diverse group of young men and women who either came to the gallery from Occupy Wall Street or because they were notified about the occupation online. I was invited to sit down and listen to the discussion, and soon asked why the occupiers chose to “take” Artists Space specifically. “We’ll tell you tomorrow,” they said, “we’re having a general assembly at noon.” I immediately recognized that no one, perhaps even Sagri herself, understood why they were occupying the gallery, or even knew the mission or history of the space. “I don’t understand why you’re here though,” I repeated, “why don’t you occupy galleries with a more direct relationship to big money and taste-making, like Pace, Gagosian, or David Zwirner?” Sagri replied that, obviously, they would be immediately kicked out if they inhabited a for-profit institution. “It’s called ‘Artists Space’! It’s a space for artists! That’s why we’re here!” cried Sagri. Apparently, what they immediately needed was space–not only to be able to sleep and shit indoors, but in order to organize a more monumental occupation. The calculating, manipulative decision to target a non-profit because they’re more sympathetic to your politics seems not only Tea-Party illogical but reeks of gross opportunism. “TAKE ARTISTS SPACE,” their mission statement announces. “TAKE WHAT IS ALREADY YOURS.” With such unsubstantiated, aggressive rhetoric, Take Artists Space seemed well on their way to epitomizing the easily hateable, Right-wing manifestation of kooky artist leftists with a bad case of the gimme-gimmes. And later that night, when a friend brought up to an occupier that the “take what you want” mantra strikes an eerily similar chord to that of American foreign policy, she was rebuked for attempting to confuse and pick on a drunk person.

Even at this point I still want to support Sagri’s mission, and consider aiding future, better-planned occupation efforts in some way. But, soon our conversation experienced another left turn. I noted to the group that the staff of Artists Space seemed to be on board with the idea of expressing frustration with art world norms, as well as with the idea of occupation, and seemed willing to help organize and host regular meetings for occupiers in order to realize a more large-scale occupation. Sagri and her crew responded by claiming they have no desire to be willingly hosted by Artists Space, because without any controversy, they conjectured, no one would show up to occupy. Apparently, Take Artists Space knew they had to fabricate their own monsters, and in true Groucho Marx fashion, they didn’t want to be part of any club that would have them as a member–except, maybe, their own.

After touching base with Artists Space staff, who had thus far stayed in the gallery for the entire occupation, I realized that there were a slew of extremely serious issues at stake. Although the staff had initially made several agreements with the occupiers in order to prevent calling the police, such as not hanging banners from the windows or destroying gallery property, many of them had been ignored. A large banner saying “VACANCY” had been strung from the window of the gallery, which is a direct violation of Artists Space’s lease, which dates back at least 20 years. I’d learned that their landlord, like many in SoHo, had been eager to evict Artists Space in order to redevelop the property and charge a new tenant significantly more rent. It’s rumored that the gallery was even offered a huge sum of money (in the neighborhood of hundreds of thousands of dollars) to relocate, which they refused because they found their location to be a vital historical connection to their mission as an exhibition space.

When I brought up the fact to the protestors that they may be doing more harm than good, potentially leading to the eviction of a progressive non-profit in the face of an increasingly fucked up, capital-driven art world, I was scoffed at and written off as conservative by much of the group. One female occupier asserted that she didn’t want to cause meaningless destruction, as in the case of the recent London riots, and was also scoffed at by a young male occupier who said that he thought that destruction was a useful way to communicate their frustration. The prevailing attitude between the most recalcitrant members of the occupation was not only misogynistic (someone yelled “I don’t like this girl!” when I was speaking at the assembly), but also resistant toward the consideration of the very serious issues brought up at the gallery during the occupation with any compassion, gravity, or insight. Amidst the occupiers, if you were to utter the wrong term–for example, if one were to say “target” Artists Space, rather than “take”–you are to be laughed at and ignored. Attempting to communicate with the occupiers felt akin to talking to my ex-Marine middle school Social Studies teacher about my decision to become vegetarian. Not only did they not want hear what I had to say, but they made a jock-ish attempt to make “outsiders” feel like foolish, ignorant human beings.

The occupiers were evicted Sunday, October 23 around 7 or 8PM without much altercation after an occupier broke into Artist Space’s store closet and stole a laptop computer. With mixed sentiments, the Artists Space board decided to evict the group after continued breaches of agreements set up between the space and the occupiers.

I’m not going to delineate everything foolish that Take Artists Space did in order to elucidate that they exercised poor judgment. We all know that they did. Many of us understood almost immediately that the occupiers came wielding alterier or misguided motivations in taking Artists Space. But what seems to be crucial here is that it was only until an occupier stole very expensive property that the occupiers were evicted, and that previously Artists Space staff displayed compassion for and curiosity toward the motivations of the occupiers. This points to a solidarity between occupiers and gallery workers which, to me symbolizes a great, if diffused, frustration with the art world. We currently stand at a crossroads where we, as cultural workers and artists, must decide whether we will take a divisive or unifying path in the revolution that appears to be upon us. It is my opinion that, in the face of overwhelming unemployment, underpaid labor, and 60+ hour work weeks, in non and for-profit worlds alike, banding together in attempt to foster productive discussion is a desperately worthy cause. Projects, art works, or even conversations calling for change through an honest consideration of our collectively shared life experiences will hopefully spark moments of political awareness and change. Although I’m not going to congratulate Take Artists Space for initiating this discussion since the entire occupation not only threatened the welfare of an overwhelmingly special space but also their staff, I will take this occasion to assert that there is widespread dissatisfaction with the art world we currently experience, even among the most successful of artists and thinkers. This may be the catalyzing moment we’ve been waiting for–perhaps we may able to subsume the ever-widening gap between the contemporary art world and political sphere, one that seems incalculably wide today.