Drop-Ins

What are “poots?” The word, which is everywhere in Citygroup’s new exhibit, felt strange to say out loud. Then it clicked: the tiny Forsyth Street gallery is situated below-grade, connected to the sidewalk by a short flight of stairs. Or a reverse stoop (though perhaps inverse is more accurate).  

The Citygroup crew had publicized a Saturday “poots party,” but just a handful of guests seemed to have turned up. On the walls were proposals from the annual Poots Competition, launched in May with ambitions to take over from MoMA PS1’s erstwhile Young Architects Program in “anoint[ing] the Next Big Thing.” Only in place of a vast courtyard, Citygroup offered designers a dank interstitial wedge of space to play with. Naturally, all this was farce, and participants responded in kind; I spotted “wetscapes” and “dancescapes,” though none was as frank as a project for a “ratscape.” Some things were said about the stifling boredom of the architectural profession and the failure of institutions to deliver on their promises. But the weather outside was hot and humid, and not even cases of cold beer could persuade me to stay longer in the unconditioned space. Throughout my brief time there, Citygroupers bounced to and from a book fair organized by the Carriage Trade gallery around the block. I stopped in and found their table, which they shared with the Art Against Displacement coalition. Across them was a “tablescape” belonging to the Canal Street Research Collective and adjacently, the Anti Eviction Mapping Project, which had some really great riso-printed posters and zines on display. All these initiatives are interdisciplinary, all have a political (or at least activist) bent, and all are in Chinatown (even while maintaining a polite distance from it). Everything just clicked.