Arts Gowanus chief Johnny Thornton: 'I'm always fighting for more'

In a wide-ranging interview, the artist, organizer and activist discusses the rezoning of Gowanus and fighting for artists

By Brian Braiker

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Johnny Thornton took on the leadership role at Arts Gowanus at an inauspicious moment. It was early 2020, there was maybe $4,000 in the bank, the neighborhood was in the midst of a long and contentious transition period … and a global pandemic had just touched down.

“It was a fun time to take over an organization,” he says.

Now in its 26th year, Arts Gowanus is a nonprofit organization that supports and advocates for artists in the Gowanus area—there are currently around 400 member artists, Thornton says. The group is known for their hugely popular annual Gowanus Open Studios, which invites the public into galleries and studios for a weekend of browsing, shopping, schmoozing and entertainment.

As executive director, it is Thornton’s job to agitate for affordable working conditions, diversity, robust public arts programming and sustainability in the neighborhood’s arts scene. “Artists have been getting priced out of Gowanus for as long as I’ve been working there,” says Thornton, who is this week’s guest on “Brooklyn Magazine: The Podcast.”

“This happens over and over again: Artists are the first ones in and the first ones out,” he says. “Artists are developers are kind of natural enemies because when the developers move in, it means the artists are moving out very quickly.”

So when the developers came for Gowanus with an eye towards an historic reshaping of the area around the canal, Thornton made sure the artists had a seat at the table. Working with community leaders and local officials like Brad Lander (then a city councilor, now the city comptroller), Thornton lead the charge in negotiating a community benefits agreement that will provide 30,000 square feet of highly subsidized studio spaces for artists as well as a community arts center in the new Gowanus.

“It’s locked in,” he says. “As a small arts organization we’ve been lucky enough to have really great lawyers who are working pro bono for us. With any sort of deal and as these buildings are getting built, it’s just a lot of oversight.”

In addition to that win, Thornton—an artist and newly-minted gallery co-owner in his own right—is perpetually on the lookout for ways to expand the Arts Gowanus footprint and impact. When the pandemic forced Gowanus Open Studios to skip a year, Thornton organized a Covid-friendly mile-and-a-half long art walk along Atlantic Avenue. Ten thousand stir crazy art lovers came out in the middle of a pandemic to take in some art.

He’s currently working on reprising that at a bigger scale this year. And later this month the group is co-presenting “Brooklyn Utopias: Along the Canal” which explores what a “utopia” in Gowanus would look like. “I see art as this place that grows community and gets people from all walks of life having a conversation,” he says.

Which is not to say Thornton expects the area around the canal to turn into some kind of Shangri-La overnight.

“I think I’m never happy,” he says. “[In] New York City and Brooklyn it’s very difficult to be an artist. It’s very difficult to find affordable work space. I’m always fighting for more. That’s kind of my motto. More.”

Thornton, who grew up in apartheid South Africa before moving to the States, credits his drive to an illness that left him practically bedridden for a decade. “I don’t like being bored,” he says.