On the corner of 24th Street and Minnesota Street lies an old concrete warehouse that saved San Francisco’s art world. Given the unassuming exterior, it would not be evident to most passersby that the Minnesota Street Project has quickly become the center of San Francisco’s emerging arts district. Newly coined as the DoReMi District, this 10-block medley of San Francisco’s Dogpatch, Potrero Hill and Mission Bay neighborhoods is home to 62 arts venues.
Complete with floor to ceiling industrial-style windows and exposed steel pipes lining the ceiling, it takes on a unique design style from other galleries in San Francisco. One side reads 1275 MINNESOTA in big, inky white letters against a black exterior, a sign next to its warehouse garage-style doors spells out MINNESOTA STREET PROJECT.
As San Francisco’s real estate prices continue to climb, it has become increasingly difficult for artists to stay in the city and focus on their work. The Minnesota Street Project was created in 2016 by Andy and Deborah Rappaport in hopes of providing economically sustainable gallery and studio spaces for local San Franciscan artists.
“On the East Coast, we all wondered if the economic boom in the Bay Area would ever translate to its growth and development as a contemporary arts hub,” Carey Maxon said. Maxon is a contemporary artist who has shown her work in galleries at the Minnesota Street Project, but currently lives between Italy and Brookyln. “Comparing the number of galleries in New York to the number in San Francisco, it seems strangely hopeless. Maybe it’s because collecting is just not a preferred passtime.” Maxon believes that the majority of San Francisco’s struggles in the art world can be attributed to a lack of art collectors and competition for pieces.
Rodney Ewing, another artist with a gallery space in the Minnesota Street Project, explained that sometimes it is not even up to the artists whether they can maintain their rent in their space or not. “With the incoming tech companies in the Bay Area, a lot of landlords raise their rents and compress a lot of galleries out,” he said. This phenomenon of a dying San Francisco art world has left many local artists in a difficult position. Will they stay in this city with its reputation of creativity, or will they leave for more affordable cities? Will San Francisco’s art world survive?
However, creating the perfect arts district such as the Minnesota Street Project needs to take many perspectives into account. “There wasn’t a whole lot of thought given to diversity at the Project. When the Project started filling studio spaces, I know that they were well intentioned, but I just don’t think they put enough scrutiny. They created this space for artists to get to be someplace and have studios for below market rate. But they should have taken one more step to look within the artist community and think about who was going to be represented here,” Ewing said.
Many of the Minnesota Street Project’s artists would argue that the project saved San Francisco’s artistic scene. However, the motives behind the heroic act of creating this artistic space with no guarantee of profit — or even that it would be able to support itself financially — are debated by artists city-wide. However, it is left undebated that this enclave of San Francisco’s contemporary artists draws an interested audience, helping to sustain the city’s art community.
“When these collective galleries are created, it’s more about real estate. It has less to do with the arts, unfortunately,” Ewing said. “When art moves into neighborhoods, we’re the canary in the coal mine. I don’t think it has much bearing on arts, culture or production.” If the Minnesota Street Project were to dissolve, Ewing suggests that San Francisco’s art world could quickly follow suit.
While the Minnesota Street Project primarily served to create financial stability for these artists, it has also created a community. “There weren’t a whole lot of things happening over there before the Minnesota Street Project. I don’t even think the Museum of Art and Craft was in this district yet. So the SF art world had culminated around the SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,) but even then, there was not this sense of community,” Ewing said.
Between the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco (ICA), 1240 Minnesota, 1275 Minnesota (the original Minnesota Street Project Building), 1150 25th Street — a complex of larger spaces designed for private collectors — and the McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco’s arts community has grown and flourished like never before in recent years.
“As far as the art scene in San Francisco, I kind of feel like it ebbs and flows. I tend to feel that the community amongst artists is the strongest part of art programs in San Francisco. It holds SF’s art world together,” Ewing said. Since the Minnesota Street Project was started, this community has been united through a central physical space.
Imperfections aside, the Minnesota Street Project has not only allowed San Francisco’s artistic community to survive and get by, but it has given it necessary space to flourish. The simplistic walls and floors have seen thousands of collectors, artists and observers alike. The creation of this space birthed a new SF arts district; this is just the beginning of San Francisco’s next art renaissance.
