On January 11th, Christie’s Education Art, Law and Business MA students were treated to a visiting lecture by Gary Wasserman — art collector, art dealer, philanthropist, cultural producer and now Founder of Wasserman Projects, an interdisciplinary art center that opened in September 2016 in a former firehouse in Detroit’s Eastern Market neighborhood.
Wasserman came to speak at Christie’s Education in New York as a guest lecturer for one of the core courses of the new Art, Law and Business MA program, Non Profit Arts Management. In his talk, Wasserman emphasized the interrelated nature between entrepreneurship and art and how in his worldview each can act as a powerful influence on the other, “It is the original function and mission of the artist to comment on his surroundings in an attempt to move an entire community forward. Detroit right now offers artists and entrepreneurs a special opportunity to work towards fulfilling that mission and to be able to actually make a living while achieving a creative life.” As a third generation native of Detroit, the city’s economic and social collapse was something of a personal matter to Wasserman and he is passionate about working toward the city’s rebirth through his own artistic and entrepreneurial efforts.
“Detroit is not the first city to fail, it is simply the largest city to fail,” Wasserman pointed out and as such, “it is a place where we can creatively and meaningfully experiment with how we attempt to revitalize communities where the economic underpinnings have simply evaporated.”
The Wasserman Projects 9,000-square-foot art space will include exhibitions of work by local and international artists, as well as concerts, performances, a residency program, and a permanent installation of Belgian artist Koen Vanmechelen’s Cosmopolitan Chicken Project.
