The Citi Never Sleeps, But Your Neighborhood May Be Put To Rest (1979) – Gregory Sholette (2024)

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The Citi Never Sleeps, But Your Neighborhood May Be Put To Restwas created in 1979 using bank’s own slogan at the time “The Citi Never Sleeps” (Citibank was the first to install or at least really promote the 24 hour electronic bank machine in NYC). The original piece was a three-dimensional vacuum-formed book. The Citibank piece also specifically focused its critique on the bank’s investments in Apartheid South Africa – a practice that was in disregard of the international ban on support of that racist regime in the late 1970s. In addition, it makes reference to a 1974 Ralph Nader Study revealing the way Citibank and other commercial banks drew red lines around poor neighborhoods in New York City to indicate where they will not lend out capital. These were then primarily African American and Latino neighborhoods in Bedford Stuyvesant, East Harlem, and the South Bronx. According to Nader’s report these same areas ironically contributed a considerable amount of small deposits to these same commercial banks, including Citibank. A photocopy version of the book was also created in 1979, while the plastic version appeared in Martha Rosler’s exhibition IF YOU LIVED HERE at the Dia Art Foundation in SoHo in 1989, visible high up on the wall to the right in this photograph.