Gallery Project
Lemberg Gallery

In our continuing effort to connect and create cross traffic between places and venues that might not otherwise receive such overlap, whether at significant distance or even as close as around the corner, we present this two-in-one review.

Both Lemberg Gallery in Ferndale and Ann Arbor’s Gallery Project offer looks at landscape, as old a tradition in artmaking as they come. Both exhibitions are contemporary, but that’s where the similarities end.

At Lemberg, we find many lovely, breathtaking moments, all achieved through paint on canvas. These are very much in keeping in the traditional vein of landscape painting – these are all about the look, and through that, the feel of a place. They of course reflect the modern environment – urban cityscapes, and achieve this through contemporary sensibilities in terms of their use of light, color, reference to photography, and in general through their expressive paint handling. They speak to today, but in a language of art recognizable to those of times past.

So what do we see? David Kapp captures the light of day and people active in the city, almost impressionistic in quality. A dance of light and color congeals into crowds, streets, and shadows. Working somewhat similarly in terms of loose handling of paint, Ben Aronson’s works are carefully crafted compositions – these could function in the abstract – yet are simultaneously photorealistic. George Nick puts paint down in more solid fashion, but his buildings curve and sway somewhat, revealing the expressive hand of the painter, infusing human character into these constructions of brick, wood, and glass.

As these and the other painters offer their perspective on the real, the exhibition also has room for the look of the imagined. James Stephens’ works are surreal, a juxtaposition of imagery, from the industrial to the rural, these are forgotten places in the world where the railroad tracks cut through and lone flowers struggle to bloom – beauty in abandonment. And there are also glimpses of the future, in the form of glass-domed cities, home to artificial environments, dreamed into life by Trygve Faste. Are these visions of a space-age utopia or warnings of where we are headed? And thus landscape painting also becomes commentary, which brings us to the other exhibition.

As the name suggests, Gallery Project’s show, curated by Greg Tom, is much less about the look of the landscape, but the mark it leaves on its inhabitants and the mark that they leave on it. This show is diverse to say the least, and it could be argued that this is truly a number of shows, more a survey of the possibilities for investigating landscape through contemporary means, and it could in fact spawn several separate exhibitions delving into each of the areas represented here.

Maps offer an alternative means of seeing a place, learning about it in a way other than the look of its landscape. Toby Millman offers up maps of areas of Palestine, drawn with cuts into long scrolls of white paper. Political boundaries become elegant forms, become abstractions, but in holding our gaze, prompt the viewer to ask more. Forgoing such real boundaries, Brent Fogt achieves a related visual with obsessive ink drawings that could be topographic views of landmasses or a colony of cells, multiplying on a slide or foam on a beach, swirling and bubbling gracefully.

There are true maps, including Stephen Mankouche’s depicting all the cul-de-sacs in the five county Metro Detroit area. Mapping for such a particular element of the landscape brings to light quite striking differences in our neighborhoods, without ever showing a house or a lawn. Here, we see few such features in urban Detroit, while the surrounding suburbs are filled with them. This work and those by Adrian Blackwell and Juan Rios, offer the sort of investigatory approach as is found in the Shrinking Cities project.

By overlaying the plans for subdivisions on large leaf prints, Susan Goethel-Campbell relates two seemingly unrelated forms to great effect. The overview of the land is at times exchanged for the particular – Frank English shares a series of photographs of isolated elements in the landscape, together painting a broad picture of the place. Jacque Liu’s compositions, achieved with creased or precisely cut paper, speak to a very specific place in the built landscape, and reduce it to its barest of forms. The inclusion of prints by the “Object Orange” collective of derelict houses that they’ve painted orange in Detroit shows how landscape painting need not be restricted to the gallery. People can truly paint the landscape, which touches on the realm of non-permissive artworks, ala graffiti that is certainly contemporary landscape painting.

One final piece to discuss (and there are many others deserving mention), Christina P. Day applies decals of ethereal photographs of landscapes onto personal items like a hand mirror, lighter, and compact (all found objects). The work suggests quite directly that the place truly leaves its mark on the things and the people that inhabit it. As our environment shapes us, we in turn shape it. We’re inseparable, and perhaps a view of a place becomes a portrait of ourselves. While our tools to explore and express this link continue to expand, our fascination with landscape remains unwavering. Connect the dots between these two parts of our cultural landscape, and get a vastly different look at how we interpret this space we all inhabit. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Mayor Karen Majewski and the Hamtramck Festival Committee announce a logo design contest for the 2007 Hamtramck Labor Day Festival. This year’s theme is “Our Hamtramck Home”. Designs should be based on the theme of the festival. The contest is open to all persons interested, and there is no limit on the number of entries. The winning entry will be used on the primary promotional poster for the festival as well as merchandise sold by the committee.


RULES


1. All designs must be titled but unsigned; nothing in the art work shall suggest who designed the submission. The submission must be accompanied by an index card stating the entry title, the artist’s name, address, phone number and email address. One index card must accompany every entry.
2. Appointed and elected officials of the City of Hamtramck, members of the Hamtramck Festival Committee, and their immediate family members are not eligible for entry in the design contest.

3. All designs must conform to the following guidelines;
i) Maximum print area is 12 x 14 inches

ii) Submissions must not exceed three colors.
iii) Submissions via Adobe Illustrator must be in AL., PDF, or EPS with all fonts converted to outlines. Individual spot colors should reside in separate layers.

iv) Submissions via Adobe Photoshop must be in TIFF pc byte order or JPG in RGB mode 300 ppi resolution at actual print size. Transparent background with a separate layer simulating the color of the print item.
v) Ink on paper submissions will be accepted.

vi) Designs not conforming to these specifications will not be considered
4. Designs will not be returned to the artist.

5. Submissions are due by U.S. Mail, postmarked no later than April 7, 2007 and mailed to: The Office of the Mayor, Hamtramck City Hall, 3401 Evaline, Hamtramck MI 48212. Submissions presented in any other manner will not be accepted.
6. The Design Committee reserves the right to reject all submissions. All decisions of the design committee are final

7. Designs other than winning design may be used by the Committee, and by entering the contest, all artists grant the Committee the right to use the design with out further compensation of any form.
8. The winner of the design contest will be notified by mail on or after May 1, 2007.

9. The winner of the design contest will receive, in September 2007, a royalty of $1 per shirt sold by the Festival Committee, as well a 5 shirts.
10. All entries must be accompanied by a check or money order for $20 per submission payable to the City of Hamtramck.

11. Entries will not be returned.
12. Entry fee is non-refundable.

13. No telephone or personal inquiries please.

-Lumens-
Lumens is a two night juried exhibition to be held at the West Hancock Gallery on the campus of Wayne State University on Friday, March 30th from 5-9pm and the Detroit Artists Market on Saturday, March 31st from 5-9pm. This show seeks to redefine the traditional canvas; therefore, work will be displayed on twenty 24" iMac computers. All media is welcome, although the unique way in which it will be presented should be taken into consideration.

-Eligibility-
The Lumens call for entries is open to Wayne State University and College for Creative Studies students and faculty and members of the Detroit area arts community. Each artist may submit up to three (3) pieces. Artists must be able to provide a high resolution image of their artwork (1920 x 1200px min) to be displayed at the show. Work must either be horizontal or square format. No vertical work will be accepted. No physical artwork will be accepted.

-Submissions-
Submissions must be received by Friday, March 2nd. Please include name, email address, phone number and an image list that clearly indicates the title of each piece and any other pertinent information. Full size, show ready images may be submitted by email to Lumens@mac.com as .tiff or .jpg no larger than 10mb. Artists will be notified of the jury results on Friday, March 9th. Best in show will receive a copy of Apple Aperture.

-Jury-
Lumens will be juried by two distinguished leaders in the Detroit arts community. Tony Crowley is an internationally exhibiting artist, lecturer, professor and chair of the Department of Art and Art History at Wayne State University. Angela Topacio is a nationally exhibiting artist, member of the Detroit Artists Market Board of Directors and the owner of Gyro in Detroit, a brand agency specializing in brand strategy, graphic design and interactive design and development.

Please direct questions to Lumens@mac.com or visit http://web.mac.com/lumens

Detroit Artists Market

email: info@detroitartistsmarket.org
phone: 313.832.8540
web: http://www.detroitartistsmarket.org

Two graduate students at Wayne State University in the Masters of Fine Arts Program are looking for volunteers in the Detroit/Windsor area to
participate in an on-going art project.

We are asking volunteers to keep a personal journal for the day of Friday, March 2nd 2007. There are no restrictions, entries can range from a sentence to a page or more and can be handwritten or typed. Spelling and grammar are not a concern.

We are asking that participants be open, honest and creative. Entries should reflect on and record daily routines and interactions. Participants should feel free to include drawings with their journals.

The project is intended to provide a glimpse into the lives of the people
living in our city, while illuminating the cultural differences that shape and define our communities.

The journals from the first journaling day (October 2, 2006) are currently on display at the Elaine L. Jacobs Gallery in the Shrinking Cities [?] Wayne State Responses Exhibition until the end of March.

Participation is open to all ages; we encourage volunteers to ask friends
and family members to participate. Participants can choose to remain
anonymous.

Mail or Drop off entries to:

Detroit Windsor Journal Project
Department of Art and Art History
150 Community Arts Building
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI 48202

Participants are invited to leave their entries in the blue suitcase in the Detroit-Windsor Journal Project installation at the Elaine L. Jacobs
Gallery. The gallery is located at 480 Hanock St. in Old Main. The gallery is open Tuesday - Thursday 10 - 6pm and Fridays 10 - 7pm.

For more information, please contact:

Alana Bartol @ aw7345@wayne.edu

Elaine L. Jacob Gallery
Through April 13, 2006

While the majority of attention has been paid to the official Shrinking Cities exhibition split between MOCAD and Cranbrook Art Museum, Wayne State University has quietly staged its own, related exhibition. This is an insider’s view, a look at life in Detroit through the creative filter of the arts. The show’s strength is in bringing out the voice of the people and environment that it addresses – not as subjects of a research project, but as individuals struggling to persevere, to make sense of life, in a place that often doesn’t make much sense.

The most prominent piece in the exhibition is immediately alluring upon entering the gallery. Lining the entire long back wall of the space, are a series of photographic portraits, printed in blue on large sheets of heavy fiber paper. The project by Pam DeLaura, JenClare Gawaran, Evan Larson, and Bob Sickles, consists of photos of young women, all African-American, who attend the Catherine Ferguson Academy – an alternative Detroit public high school for pregnant teens and teenage mothers. The school doubles as an urban farm that the students work together to care for, in the process building confidence and strength to thrive in what is often an overwhelming burden on their young lives. Behind each portrait are further pages upon which are printed text from the individual girls about their experiences, images of the farm, and of their child. The combination of imagery and words makes for a multi-layered and moving, educational experience. The initial portraits are compelling, and ask the viewer to look deeper, to turn these pages, and look at these young moms with new eyes – not as kids who made a mistake and should be written off, but as real, vibrant people, with a lot to contribute to our society.

Upstairs, plastered on two walls, there is a somewhat similar look at individuals in the Detroit-Windsor region by Alana Bartol and Ben Good. They cast a wide net for these “day in the life” journal entries (all from October 2, 2006 specifically) and did quite well at painting a broad picture of the community. While it is definitely interesting to see all the different ways people go about recording their day and the various experiences that they share, the piece suffers somewhat in format. I wholeheartedly and steadfastly believe that everyone does have something to say that we can all learn from, but I’d also contend that we need help at times in saying it – and that presentation matters greatly in understanding. Again, the visual of the various words, drawings, etc., is great, but to really take something from the different tales, some consistency in format would really help. There is discussion of adding to this with a video component, documenting the journalers, which would really help add to an already rich conceptual project.

Stephen William Schudlich’s “Urban Village” is a game of constructing an urban environment. He’s designed 60 wooden blocks, each signifying some element that makes up an urban place, including blocks representing such things as, Police, Casino, Gas Station, Church, House, Prostitute, Vacant Lot, and Community Garden. The iconography and words are nicely stamped into the attractive wood pieces, and the instructions ask the viewer to take these various pieces and construct our own village. The rules allow leaving out a small number of blocks, though certain ones specifically marked are required to make it into the completed village. It’s very clever, and does what the best of games do – that is take a situation that is overwhelmingly complex and simplify it to something manageable. The work is interactive and highly engaging, and offers a quite different perspective at understanding the difficulties of the urban environment.

There are a few works in the show that work fine on their own, but don’t hold the weight of the subject in this context. For instance, Kristen Gallerneaux’s nicely composed piece of Detroit detritus makes sense in a show of this nature, but feels overwhelmed and stands as an isolated object, which perhaps would not happen if it were an entire installation of such things.

The house theme is picked up by Emily Linn, who hung a series of quilt-like pieces upon each is a printed photo of a Detroit house. This “Memory Mapping” depicts homes (and occasionally vacant lots) that are all places where her family has lived at some point over the seven generations (!) that they’ve resided in Detroit. It’s a deeply personal investigation, yet displayed as to truly address the history of this city, which she gives shape to through quite creative aesthetic concerns – the images hang their weightless and ethereal, it’s a bit haunting, as one passes through them. Furthermore, she’s created a meta-level of content, with stitching in blue on each of the quilt pieces that were it all put together, would locate her own Detroit residence today – the most recent link on this chain of familial lineage. Like the journals or the stories of teen moms, this brings the story of a city down to a very human level. Linn has synthesized multiple levels of information, from the personal to the universal, to create something which transcends being an illustration of a phenomenon and truly becomes an experience unto itself that lingers, leaving the viewer to distill in his or her own way over time.

Overall the exhibition is a quite satisfying visual and educational experience. One note, however, I find the question mark in the exhibition title a bit disingenuous. Detroit shrank. Period. This show really asks for a different title reflecting the vibrant, up close and personal look we are given of the power of hope, of change, of common experience, and the role that the arts play in addressing such things. This is an important show. No question about it. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Cranbrook
February 3, 2007-April 1, 2007
Shrinking Cities

This series is devoted to an ongoing dialogue wrestling with the questions of why folks make art and its significance to the individual and our culture. We welcome feedback, discussion, and outside contributions – email comments to ws@thedetroiter.com

Part One: The Big Yellow Taxi Theory or Mr. Cope Goes to Turkmenistan
Part Two: New Eyes or How many times must a man look up Before he can see the sky?
Part Three: Paint the Town Orange
Part Four: Dances with Dirt
Part Five: Walk a mile in someone's shoes - or Gimme Shelter
Part 6: Automation or Love a Luddite

(For our preview of Shrinking Cities by David Bartone, please click here.)

By opening our eyes to new perspectives, new ways of seeing and thinking, art can, to be sure, be an educational experience. At times it’s an implicit aspect of the work, subtle, while with other works the educational component is quite direct and purposeful. Such is the case with the “Shrinking Cities: International Research Exhibition” currently on view at Cranbrook Art Museum.

While it has been exhibited elsewhere, it’s nice to see it finally realized at one of its points of origin. In the city itself, MOCAD is hosting “Shrinking Cities: Interventions” the other half of the exhibition, but that’s the subject for another day. Nearly the entire Cranbrook Art Museum is given over to this exhibition (one room hosts a separate solo exhibition of Gord Peteran’s fascinating furniture/sculptural pieces, which deserve a separate visit or two to the museum), and visitors are given an indepth look at conditions of shrinkage in the project’s four focal cities. Each city is more or less contained within its own separate section of the museum, allowing visitors to not only get a sense of the place in a distinct way, but also the way in which each culture investigates itself – of which there are definite differences. Some tended towards more data representation, while others presented a lot of artifacts of the place, with the highest proportion of what most would consider “art works” found in the Detroit section. This may be a bit biased on my part and also may reflect a difference in what various cultures view as art, a whole other topic in itself.

All in all, Shrinking Cities is exactly what it claims to be – a research project undertaken in a visual fashion. We may not stand and marvel at the beauty of what’s on display, but the works make the viewer think, have a strong impact, and are accessible in their presentation to a large body of people in the way a giant tome we’d have to pull of the shelf could never be.

There is a lot of data about the causes and effects of shrinkage to digest. While it’s doubtful any one visitor will take all of it in, one can’t help but be affected by the images and data, which have enough of a balance between them to engage viewers and draw them deeper into the exhibition. In witnessing all four regions, a pattern definitely begins to emerge concerning living conditions, periods of struggle and unrest, and survival tactics in each of the cities. The depth of the investigation reveals that four places that couldn’t be more different, are in fact strikingly similar. This is made painfully clear with an installation of multiple videos all shot from a car driving through each of the cities. It’s only through a few clues in writing and car models that there is any clear distinction between the cities.

So what’s to see? We’ll limit our focus to the Detroit section, recognizing that there is much overlap between the sorts of things found in each. It’s a rich experience in statistics, paint, maps, posters, video, and more. The denizens of a shrinking city often have to go to extreme lengths for survival, and this is captured well with Scott Hocking’s extensive documentation of the “Scrapper” culture, in photos and artifacts including two shopping carts filled respectively with copper wire and bags of caramel corn. Chris Turner and Ben Hernandez present “Slim’s Bike” and a video documenting what’s known of the life of this odd, distinctly Detroit character, who rode around town in his modified and highly decorated bike. The evolution of Tyree Guyton’s Heidelberg Project is presented in great detail, allowing visitors to see the transformation of the street and the gradual shift in the city’s official stance on the project.

The caskets containing the dead are the least haunting thing about a video documenting graves being dug up in Detroit, and the coffins being moved to new resting places in the suburbs. Kyong Park paints perhaps the harshest critical view of how these conditions came to pass. His experimental video portrays conditions around Detroit, accompanied by narration which states that shrinkage was a conspiracy to free up land for cheap – a subtle way of taking over the city without arms. The story is a bit of a stretch, yes, but the shift in the perspective that this piece provides, makes the viewer question just how did this happen? How could things get this bad? It’s in provoking such questions that the show becomes an education, and prompts viewers to take a look for themselves.

The show is engaging on many levels, there’s data to absorb, imagery to take in, and comparisons to make. It’s something to spend a lot of time with, and even more time contemplating afterwards. Shrinking Cities offers many lessons, now it just remains to be seen if we can learn them. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Shrinking Cities Site

Friday, February 16, 9 pm
Music at MOCAD
Frank Pahl and Dan DeMaggio
Artist, object maker and modern composer, Pahl will perform a monologue and some solo musical compositions. A Detroit-area writer and performer, DeMaggio integrates his wry observational writings with musical accompaniment.

Saturday, February 17, 1:30 pm
Gallery Talk at Cranbrook
Ideas & Process: Cranbrook Academy of Art graduate students will talk about Shrinking Cities and offer studio tours of their departments.

Saturday, February 17, 7 pm
Films at MOCAD
Detroit Park, 2005, Julie Murray, 8 min.
Detroit Block, 2006, Julie Murray, 7 min.
Invisible City, Jack Cronin, 11 min.
Vacancy, Brandon Walley, 6 min.
I Pity the Fool, Brent Coughenhour, 90 min.

Sunday, February 18, 1:30 pm
Artists Talk at Cranbrook
Christopher McNamara and John Ganis
Shrinking Cities artists Christopher McNamara and John Ganis will discuss their work.

Motor City Brewing Works
4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night, 7-11 pm
(February 14, 2007)

This week it’s Gwen Joy in the one night spotlight.

Week in and week out, Wednesday nights have proven to be educational and a valuable experience. For artists this has meant a chance to try out work in mini-shows and given up and comers a shot to be seen. Perhaps just as importantly the atmosphere has been such as to provoke conversations on art and more that have gone on long past closing time. So come check it out, sample (in moderation!) what the owner John Linardos and the good folks at Motor City brew up each day (an undeniable artistry in its own right) and enjoy yourselves. We’ll see you there. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

UPCOMING

February 21: Rod Kammer
February 28: Julia Cohl

APPLICATION

Frank and Carol Hennessey Artist-in-Residence Grant 2007
Supported by the Grosse Pointe Artists Association

Grant Description

This grant is intended to help support the residency of an artist at the Grosse Pointe Art Center. It is sponsored by the Frank and Carol Hennessey Artist-in-Residence G rant with additional support from the Grosse Pointe Artists Association.

Aim

The aim of the Grosse Pointe Artists Association is to have the 2007 resident develop a program or programs that will foster a creative collaboration between the artist resident, the members of the Grosse Pointe Artists Association, and the greater metropolitan community by enhancing the quality of cultural events at the Grosse Pointe Art Center. We encourage our Artist-in-residence to create a new literary activity.
Eligible Applicants
Michigan Artists who are eighteen years or older working in any media are eligible.
Duration
Residency will be for 12 months, beginning in April 2007, and ending in April 2008, based on the grantee being present one day/evening per month at the Grosse Pointe Art Center.
Eligible Costs
There is a $1,000 stipend for the resident artist. Costs associated with resident’s activities will require prior approval by the GPAA Board who will also take responsibility for all administrative aspects of the residency.
Application Procedure
The application should be made in the form of a letter to:
Grosse Pointe Art Center
Grosse Pointe Artists Association
1005 Maryland, Grosse Pointe Park,
Michigan, 48230
Attention: Artist-in-residence Application
Included in that letter should be a description of a proposed program for the residency, the timing of the collaboration, details of the proposed outcomes (e.g. exhibitions, websites or publications), and the anticipated benefits of the residency for both parties.
A resume should be attached. Those who qualify will be invited to present their proposal to the Artist-in-Residence Committee. The closing date for “2007 Application” letter is February 28, 2007.
Contact
Susan Macdonald, Grosse Pointe Art Center Director,
313-821-1848 or GPAA1@sbcglobal.net

Art installation by Mark Arminski, Katie Ares, Scott Berels, Tim Burke, Lindsay Jewell
Detroit Industrial Projects
Through March 3, 2007

After a strong and engaging installation exhibition for their inaugural show, Detroit Industrial Projects is back in a new space, (still within the hulking Russell Industrial Complex) with a new group of artists. Despite the changes, it’s good to note that the energy and presence that made that first show such a treat, has been maintained in this very different sort of exhibition.

The space is divvied up between the five artists, each working on a designated area, with some bleed in the area between. Director Jeanette Strezinski has brought together a mix of established Detroit artists along with new kids on the block. It works. There’s definitely a common aesthetic that binds them together, and they each offer a shared sensibility that resonates as being very Detroit. This is urban landscape as interior – adorned with graffiti and pieces made from found objects.

Stepping from the massive, nondescript corridor through the entrance into the space is a bit like crash landing in Oz from black and white Kansas. It’s an almost overwhelming explosion of color and imagery. Letting one’s eyes acclimate, we can proceed and take in what the individual artists have brought to the space.

Katie Ares’ installation is up first, immediately to the right of the entranceway, and sets a strong tone for the entire show. She’s left no part of the wall surface untouched, spraying it with bright red, orange, and yellow, and leaving the discarded spray cans arranged on the floor to become part of the composition. Her personal tag “Riku” is painted big and bold, as we would see (and no doubt can see somewhere) on a chunk of abandoned building or concrete support and the color and paint handling add to this, appearing to weather as if exposed to the elements. In addition to the design elements in paint, she’s incorporated plastic trash to give the wall texture, and build up deeper layers of meaning. It’s pretty cool to see something like this indoors – not as photo – but able to spend time and truly digest all the different elements Ares brings to her composition.

On the same wall as Ares, Lindsay Jewell also works in spray paint, stencil, and found objects, upon a wall coated entirely in newspaper, and does a nice job incorporating the painted imagery with the refuse and found objects attached to the wall. This is quite illustrational, as Jewell’s created a dreamscape of sorts. Appropriately then, there’s an image resembling comics’ Sandman and a flock of geese in silhouette flying through the composition, which also includes diaristic scrawling. There’s a story or at least a moment preserved here.

To the left of the entrance, Scott Berels creates an installation flowing around the entranceway from Ares’. This is almost diorama at actual size, as he builds what could be an existing corner of the landscape quite completely. Design elements including repeated rectangles and circles, and one giant arrow, provide movement through the composition. These bits move the eye out of the work, and then we’re drawn back in through what is the centerpiece of the work – the remains of perhaps a small conveyor belt works, leaning up against the corner, keeping the flow going. On the exterior edge, he’s erected wood to stand in for a telephone pole on the wall with wires emanating from it to stretch to the interior column of the room, complete with shoes strung over them. It’s a very whole landscape as Berels works the floor into it, and even the lighting comes from a circular bubble behind the conveyor belt, which works well with the circular motif running through the design.

On the wall opposite the entrance, celebrated rock poster artist Mark Arminski brings his unique style to the mix. Arminski always makes great use of juxtaposing diverse iconography along with text, and this entire wall, in spray paint and stencil is no exception. It’s the Spirit of Detroit, holding in not the family unit, but a skull – a statement about the city and a nod to Shakespeare’s “Alas poor Yorick.” Repeated text reads, “and death in the city,” and further images of crosses at multiple scales, skulls, and stars make up the composition. Arminski pays great attention to detail, always maintaining clean lines on this dense but never busy composition.

In the somewhat offset second space of the room are the works of sculptor Tim Burke, resident of Heidelberg Street – his own house being an ongoing installation project and a part of the vitality of that street. His website offers this statement, “Things never die… old things always contain the seeds of the new.” And no truer words could be said about his work – often cartoony figurative pieces made from found objects, like ones made from trumpets and other instruments as seen here. In doing so, he preserves some of the meaning of the original object, while giving it new life within the context of the new form. The history of Detroit lives in his work – one abstract piece has twisted metal from the Hudson’s building along with sections of the marble cladding that was removed from the Detroit Institute of Arts as part of their renovation project. One piece is more overtly political, a skinny figure made from found objects, with rather prominent, umm, “manhood” made from a rather phallic object used to fix holes in tanks, which was brought to him by a friend who was in Iraq. While this is a departure from the installation feel of the rest of the show, it works in concert with the others, and Burke too, gets in the spirit of installation with the creation of an altar piece on one wall.

Director Strezinski pulled together a truly diverse group into a coherent experience. Furthermore, it should be noted that beyond just bringing them together, the artists were given a space to create, to explore within, and they made great use of the opportunity. As with the previous D.I.P. show, in letting the artists play with the space – lively discoveries have been allowed to emerge. This is a nice addition to the Detroit cultural landscape and I look forward to what will be shown here next. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Jacob Montelongo Martinez
AKA Monte / Collaborating Artist
Eric Martinez
Zeitgeist Gallery
Through February 24, 2007

A work of art can serve as a transportative experience – carrying the viewer into a realm created by the artist and the viewer’s engagement. 555’s Monte accomplishes this almost literally with his installation show that completely transforms the Zeitgeist gallery space. Just the experience of walking into somewhere you’ve been before, and having it take on this new identity would be interesting, but Monte has filled this with imagery and curiosities that demand great exploration.

Upon entering the main gallery, we find the gallery’s brick walls concealed by large sheets of painted cardboard, mounted flat in some areas and painted white, but primarily black and curved on wooden ribbing supports concealed behind them. The wall to the left of the entrance gently cascades extending into the space and rolling back to the original wall collapsing the room a bit.

From this entrance onward, space is warped and reconfigured, and Monte has filled it with subtle and complex passages. It’s clear that he’s a collector of stuff, and much that he’s gathered over the years has been packed into this. In a way, we might think of this as entering the labyrinth of the artist’s mind, an appropriate metaphor which is reinforced strongly towards the finale of the experience.

In this first space, below the curving black walls is a skeleton with leering, lyrical grin, riding atop a wagon complete with unfurled sail, perhaps a stand-in for Charon, the ferryman on the River Styx, which separates the real world from the underworld. This makeshift ferry boat of sorts contains a box of trinkets, payment for safe passage. Not only do the walls curve and close in to suggest a cavernous underground passage, but Monte has added shaped sections of carpeting to the floor to reinforce the imagery of a river winding through the space.

The walls not only become space but subtle image in places. The flat white cardboard wall to the right becomes a vertically oriented silhouette of a city and moon, which interlocks with the continuation of the wall in wood scraps and packing crate sides.

Below this is another mode of transport, a girl’s bicycle (it’s pink), with a pair of adult shoes where the rider would put his/her feet on the ground. The shoes reinforce the absence of the rider and evoke a certain sadness. On the floor, Monte’s traced the contour of the shadow of the bike with colored bits of tape, a delightfully complex image, made more so with additional wandering paths, perhaps a mapping of meandering ride on this bicycle. On closer inspection the tape bits are all labels for various antipsychotic drugs, building deeper layers of meaning into an already deeply laden image.

The tape path climbs up the curved wall, which is itself adorned with newspaper clippings, sketches, cartoons, maps, and more – it’s not quite random, as through the reading of this imagery the social perspective of the artist begins to emerge. And here the space squeezes tight, as both side walls curve far outward, the passage between is a bit claustrophobic. This recalls the garbage compactor in the original Star Wars or perhaps a Richard Serra installation, where the viewer cautiously treads between two seemingly off balance curved steel walls.

Emerging through this area we come across a mummy in burlap, displayed hanging from the ceiling within a cage of curved wood. Hundreds of keys hang from its form – perhaps to open doors in this underworld? To unlock a room closed off in our mind? The figure’s face is uncovered, a striking visage, and altogether this makes for a haunting and quite beautiful sight.

The back wall of the gallery has a few cartoonish raw paintings of young street toughs, and while interesting enough on their own, they seem to take away from the overall lyrical, mythological quality of the installation. It’s a brief moment, as Monte has filled the inner wall with opened black pouches, their interior bottoms laid with Astroturf. Three suitcases sit on the floor, while four mannequin feet are put within a pouch each, appearing to ascend these makeshift steps. The suitcases and feet reinforce the notion of the traveler, this journey steadily being constructed.

We roll around the corner and inward to an alcove lit only with black light. We can make out a bull – with glow in the dark markings upon it to make it visible. Hanging precariously above it, poised to drop on its neck, is a pointed object suspended by a string, which crisscrosses through the space terminating on a wall with a playful rocketship drawn in glow in the dark ink. Yet another means of travel. There is a good deal more crammed within this space – much of it hard to make out (while illuminating it with the camera flash makes it visible, it also removes most of what makes it so engaging.) On the ceiling are two prints of labyrinths and resting on the floor two paintings of butterflies. It’s doubtful that any of these items are placed coincidentally and all have mythological connotations (there’s even a golden fleece). For the term labyrinth comes from the Minoan word for “double axe”, which also has come to signify butterfly. In that most famous of labyrinths, that half-bull creature the Minotaur was trapped. Some see the labyrinth as a symbol for our rational mind constructed to contain our more animalistic aspect. Even the string plays a vital role in mythology, a tool of reason and a literal tool given to Theseus by Ariadne with which to find his way out of the maze after slaying the beast.

Having traveled through the bowels of mythology our journey is nearly finished and now takes us to outer space. The glow in the dark rocketship points outward towards and is echoed in appearance by a curved cylindrical form running from floor to ceiling. The floor painted bright at its base to suggest blast off. Inside its soft clear plastic windows hangs a globe, dark and half covered in black, and a single bullet resting on this encasement’s bottom all lit sparsely and cleverly from within. It’s a powerful, somber finale, speaking to our potential as travelers and that which stops us short.

There is much more that could be mentioned. Each area is marked off with some type of literature hung on the wall nearby. This includes a stunningly imaginative and complexly drawn pamphlet discussing the effects of the United States interests in Colombia with an analogy of leaf cutter ants. Fascinating stuff. (www.beehivecollective.org.) Some are poetry, one espouses the benefits of graffiti, and one warns of the dangers of storing nuclear waste. Again, Monte is compounding the layers of meaning in each region and throughout the whole.

There is one additional area – a mural created by his collaborator and cousin Eric Martinez. It’s wildly complex imagery of richly detailed dragon (a symbol of chaos) and cityscape all curving together with a bridge that literally comes off of the walls. A woman’s portrait could be an up-to-date version of lady liberty. Mounted on that wall is a document carried by US soldiers in Operation Desert Storm asking for safe passage in a number of languages of the region. All of these elements too, speak to a journey.

Monte’s created a truly engaging overall experience – one that the viewer can get lost in as if in a labyrinth and in exploring, continually coming upon new information and discoveries with each pass. It’s quite an achievement and definitely not one to be missed. (If you need added encouragement to get there, there will be a closing party Saturday, February 24th from 7 to Midnight. I recommend checking it out on your own as well, to truly spend time absorbed with this work.) – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Cranbrook Museum of Art & MOCAD; February 3 – April 1, 2007
Shrinking Cities - Detroit

By David Bartone

Welcome To Confusion

White flight. Dying industry. Bleak landscapes. Symptoms of Detroit’s blighted past just won’t go away.

“Shrinking Cities,” an international touring exhibition on global urban decay, is out to make you listen, to get you talking.

It’s bewildering to think about what the city has become over the past 50 years. From 1950 to 2003, Detroit’s population has been cut by more than half, while it has more than doubled in the suburbs. The Big Three have been failing in an already one-dimensional economy. The list of demolition permits has been 50 times longer than building permits.

Detroit offers a host of questions that seem to have no sound answers: how can our de-industrialized cityscape cope with the cultural shock of neglect and abandonment? How did we let it get so bad? What in god’s name can we do about it? Welcome to confusion.

The German Federal Cultural Foundation has served up an unexplored avenue. From 2000-2004, they sent over 200 artists of all media, architects, urban planners, and research teams to four international focus cities that (for better or worse) glorify these dilemmas – Leipzig/Halle, Germany; Manchester/Liverpool, England; Ivanovo, Russia; and, of course, Detroit.

The result? The world’s largest and most innovative public-action arts exhibition, addressing the urban by-products of globalization in the 21st century. Can it get us talking about our city in context of a world that ends up being not so different after all?

In the Detroit leg of the tour, the exhibition will run on two main stages in the first ever collaboration between Cranbrook Museum of Art and MOCAD.

Intelligent Disease

Cranbrook Museum of Art will host the first part of the exhibition, “Shrinking Cities: International Research.” This site focuses on the four studied regions, and largely hosts the problem statement for shrinkage. Many of the exhibits you will see there do not push a specific agenda, rather they stand to illustrate the mechanics and effects of grossly underrepresented urban problems.

“Archive of Local Initiatives” is a simple presentation of the scores upon scores of original documents that celebrate the vast diversity of cultural projects and not-for-profits. It is surprising to see such discreet efforts as construction coops and early retirement associations and musical networks. This piece offers sound proof that “Think Global; Act Local” is alive and well. Still, it conveys a chilling sense that civic blight is not from indifference; it suggests some larger forces at play.

Study and analysis of these volumes would surely yield a magnificent absence – a visual one. Safe to say, if you never visited each of the four focus cities, you would never have drawn a connection between them. “Urban Scan,” a video installation by Albrect Schafer (Berlin), presents eight videos filmed from the roof of a slow-moving car through all four sites. Can you tell them apart?

Some pieces are less conversant in intent, but nonetheless deliver a wide array of civic reclamation. Take “Slim’s Bike,” video and C-print by Benjamin Miguel Hernandez and Chris Turner (Detroit). This local favorite portrays staple street celebrity, James Thompson (“Slim”), along Cass Corridor with his mobile bike sculpture of found objects. “The Devil’s Night Poster Series,” by Jeff Karolski (Detroit), presents five fictitious and often humorous ad posters that draw on the wildly overstated arson accounts during Halloween.

Cranbrook Museum of Art’s portion of the exhibition, “Shrinking Cities: International Research,” offers to properly prepare you for intelligent dialogue.

Stop Me, Stop Me, Stop Me Before I Get Creative

MOCAD serves up the second part of the exhibition, “Shrinking Cities: Interventions,” a catalog of works that document or recommend creative projects from around the world. This is the active part of the dialogue; this is where the artists go head to head with the persisting demise of shrinkage on urban areas. It will be divided into five themes: Negotiating Inequality, Self-Governance, Creating Images, Organizing Retreat, and Occupying Space.

“However Unspectacular: The New Suburbanism/Detroit Do Your Thing” delivers a literal plan for redevelopment. The Center for Urban Pedagogy and Interboro, New York compiled this extensive collection of photographs, planning materials, and teaching materials to raise awareness. They propose various and thorough initiatives for suburbanizing the abandoned neighborhoods of downtown Detroit, and other global regions of similar affliction.

A photo series by Ingo Vetter and Annett Weisser (Berlin), “Detroit Industries – Urban Agriculture,” documents the emerging trend of self-organized efforts to use neglected city plots for growing basic crops.

The works, while mostly contemporary, do sometimes reach into the past. Cedric Price’s “Potteries Thinkbelt” from the 1960s, an autonomous educational facility that was to be built on mobile railcars throughout England, will be represented.

These are just a thin slice of the art and projects on display at “Shrinking Cities.” Come out and join the conversation.

David Bartone is a published historian, poet, and short fiction
writer. He lives in Pontiac with his cat, Hey Molly.

Past Shrinking Cities stories from our (old format) archives:

Shrinking Cities Overview
Shrinking Cities Profile: Scott Hocking

Images:

Project Office Philipp Oswalt, Berlin/Researcher Tim Rieniets, Tanja Wesse (graphics), Berlin
Title: "World Map of Shrinking Cities 1950 - 2000"
Graphics, 2006
(c) Project Office Philipp Oswalt

FLAG/Bastien Aubry, Dimitri Broquard, Zurich
No Title
Graphics, 2005
(c) FLAG