Kathryn Brackett Luchs and Michael Luchs

New Work by School of Art & Design lecturer Kathryn Brackett Luchs and Michael Luchs. Both were part of the group of artists and writers living in the 1960s and ’70s in the Cass Corridor in Detroit. The exhibit, co-sponsored by the School of Art & Design, is presented at the College of Creative Studies in Detroit through December 20, 2008.

“Moths, bark, birds, rabbits, squirrels, fishing lures: these are not images routinely associated with the often rough and tumble Detroit aesthetic. But Kathryn Brakett Luchs and Michael Luchs are inherently Detroit – their art, their practice, their legacy. Though they have not lived and worked in Detroit for many years, they remain straight-up examples of what it means to live and make art in Detroit: furiously dedicated and quietly unabashed. Kathryn (a CCS alumna) and Michael (MFA from Wayne) both traversed the waters of the Cass Corridor artistic scene back in the 1960s and 70s, contributing great substance to that culturally rich moment in our history. Kathryn, a noted printmaker and filmmaker, directed the quintessential documentary on Detroit art from that era, entitled “Images from Detroit’s Cass Corridor.” Michael was the first to show at the famed Willis Gallery and, early on, was one of the few local artists to bring the scrappy, expressionistic Detroit aesthetic to national view in New York. “

Kathryn Brackett Luchs, Blue Copper, mixed media on carved birch playwood and glassine, 2008

“Though they live in Lewiston, Michigan now, 200 miles from Detroit, they remain true to their work and investigations. Married, divorced, and married again, “For Better or For Worse” celebrates not only their life together, but their marked perseverance to their artistic practice. We all know how hard it is to make a living as an artist in Michigan, and like so many, they have stuck it out, thrown caution (and financial security) to the wind, and made art that transcends miles and memory.” – Michelle Perron

Michael Luchs, Untitled, mixed media on paper, 2008

“While Michael’s art does not look like Kathryn’s, nor hers like his, their art and this show is a testament to the sustaining complexities of an interwoven life, in the course of which they have lived together and apart, as individuals and as companions, over some forty years. Occasionally they collaborate on printmaking, a recent example of which was titled Moth Buckle, a title that links both their interests, her organic world and his fondness for devices like reels, light bulbs, and buckles. Although the favored creatures of their respective natural kingdoms vary, whether six-legged, four-legged, winged or finned, fauna predominate. Formally, his lacerated surfaces are no less harsh than the plywood boards she pummels, gouges, and stains, while her scaled up wings find a corollary in his outsize hands. Moreover, her expressionist drawings on glassine are as visceral as the interlocked hands and feet of his gnarly pink drawings. What the art of Kathryn Brackett Luchs and Michael Luchs also has in common is a grab-you-by-the-lapels immediacy coupled with a lingering and lasting resonance.” – Dennis Alan Nawrocki

Photographs of artwork by Robert Hensleigh copyright 2008
Photograph of artists by Warren Hecht copyright 2008

Gilda Snowden provides YouTube audiences with insightful digital video tours of Detroit area Galleries. Gilda is a curator, an art critic, and an art teacher. She has been teaching since 1979 and is currently Professor of Fine Art and Interim Chair of the Fine Arts department at the Center for Creative Studies, College of Art and Design in Detroit, Michigan. She also functions as the curator of the Detroit Repertory Theatre Gallery, where solo shows are given to Detroit-area artists in conjunction with the stage performances.

Part one

Part two