Tag: Detroit art

New DIA exhibit showcases Islamic food culture through art

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A new exhibit at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) will explore the connections between art and cuisine from ancient times to the present.

On Sunday, Sept. 22, the DIA will open The Art of Dining: Food Culture in the Islamic World, featuring over 200 works from the Middle East, Asia, and beyond.

The exhibit combines a multi-sensory experience with a range of historical objects related to food preparation, serving, and dining. The show is organized into themes such as communal dining, coffee culture, and eating for health.

As metro Detroit is home to a large concentration of Arab Americans and other communities from the Middle East and Asia, this exhibition is especially relevant in Michigan, celebrating the history of food cultures from these regions.

Originally organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the exhibition includes works from 30 public and private collections across the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East. Sixteen of the works on view are from the DIA’s collection.

“With objects representing artistic and cultural traditions across a broad geographical expanse and more than 1,500 years of history, The Art of Dining reflects the diversity of the Islamic world,” Katherine Kasdorf, DIA Associate Curator of Arts of Asia and the Islamic World, said in a press release. “We can all relate to the practices of eating, drinking, and sharing a meal with friends and family, and this exhibition invites visitors to reflect upon the personal and cultural connections we make through food.”

Additionally, the exhibit includes tableware for eating and drinking, paintings depicting scenes of feasting and food preparation, historical cookbooks with recipes still used today, musical instruments played for entertainment during meals, garments worn for special occasions such as banquets, and scent boxes filled with the aromas of rosewater, orange blossom, coffee, and cardamom.

A section focused on the sufra — a cloth or low table on which food is served — explores the dining experience, with an interactive sufra offering visitors a digitally presented six-course meal based on historical recipes from the Islamic world. The recipes, adapted by chef Najmieh Batmanglij, will be available via QR code.

Complementing the historical items is a contemporary multimedia installation by Iraqi-born artist Sadik Kwaish Alfraji titled A Thread of Light Between My Mother’s Fingers and Heaven. Rooted in the artist’s memories of his mother, her homemade bread, and family meals in Baghdad, the work includes large-scale animation, drawings, and photographs.

“We are excited to break bread with everyone and experience the fascinating and delicious food culture of the Islamic world—an opportunity to relish the cultural wealth of our diverse communities which enrich our region every day,” DIA director Salvador Salort-Pons said. “Through this exceptional presentation, the DIA celebrates the art of dining and its power to bring people together.”

The exhibition, on view through Jan. 5, 2025, will kick off with a live conversation between Alfraji and Arab American National Museum Director Diana Abouali on Sunday, Sept. 22, at 2 p.m.

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Layla McMurtrie

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August 27, 2024
Detroit Historical Museum opens new Detroit Lions exhibit

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The football season is just around the corner, and this upcoming art exhibit at the Detroit Historical Museum promises to get Detroit Lions fans even more excited.

On Saturday, Aug. 24, the same day as the first Lions home game of the 2024-25 season, the museum will debut Detroit Lions: Gridiron Heroes, an exhibit celebrating the Lions’ championship seasons of the 1930s and 1950s, as well as memorable moments from recent years.

“We couldn’t be prouder than to have the Lions’ team history highlighted at the Detroit Historical Museum as we launch the 2024-2025 season,” Emily Griffin, Senior Vice President, Marketing & Brand for the Detroit Lions, said in a press release. “There’s something remarkable to uncover in every era and it was a lot of fun to pour through our archives looking for artifacts to share. We hope the fans will have just as much fun discovering them as we did.”

The museum’s new permanent exhibition space, the City of Champions Gallery, will be filled with Lions memorabilia, thanks to a partnership between the Detroit Historical Society, the Detroit Lions, and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Among the artifacts on display are trophies from the 1930s and 1950s, historic uniforms, a showcase of every Lions Hall of Fame player, and rare items from the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the Lions’ archives.

The exhibit also features the Lions’ 2024-2025 Game Day Uniforms.

In Legends Plaza, visitors can measure their hands against the handprints of Lions greats Barry Sanders and Lomas Brown. Plus, a special pop-up display highlights the 2024 NFL Draft held in Detroit, with artifacts including a large “DET” sign signed by thousands of locals and visitors from the record-breaking crowd.

This part of the exhibit was made possible through the Gilbert Family Foundation and Visit Detroit.

“The Draft was a moment of pride for the whole city of Detroit,” Chris Moyer, Senior Director, Communications and Public Affairs for Visit Detroit, said. “Visit Detroit was pleased to play a part in bringing it back to life in a small way at the Detroit Historical Museum.”

The public opening of the exhibit on Aug. 24 will feature family-friendly activities including NFL Draft coloring pages, a selection of unique vintage Detroit Lions merchandise, and more.

More information is available at detroithistorical.org.

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Layla McMurtrie

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August 16, 2024
How Passenger Recovery normalizes sobriety through music and art

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When Christopher Tait first entered recovery for drugs and alcohol, creating and experiencing music and art made the journey feel like a reward rather than a punishment.

For him, creativity became an essential avenue for growth and enrichment.

When the local musician and Electric Six band member was first getting sober in 2011, he says finding help in the Midwest was extra difficult. For touring artists especially, the drives are long, the free time is minimal, and finding places for support is few and far between.

So, in 2016, he founded Passenger Recovery, a nonprofit organization with the mission of helping touring artists in recovery stay sober.

“There was a point in 2013 where I was on tour… There was nowhere to go for coffee. There weren’t any support groups. I didn’t have service at the time. My two options were to sit in the bar or I could sit in a freezing cold van in the middle of winter, so the inception came from that,” Tait says. “We just started telling local promoters that we would take people to meetings, or take them to coffee or to go do laundry or anything if they were trying to stay sober.”

Since then, the initial vision for Passenger has significantly expanded.

The organization created an online meeting-finder for touring musicians called Passenger Compass, which includes over 30,000 support groups in the United States and United Kingdom.

In 2022, the nonprofit was accredited by Faces and Voices of Recovery as a Recovery Community Organization (RCO), serving as a community anchor for people seeking recovery or transitioning from treatment.

“We were originally running this out of our house,” Tait says. “We would have people come stay on the futons or hang out in the backyard if they just needed to get out of the bar venue atmosphere, and then when we started doing advocacy events which transitioned into what we have now.”

With support from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Passenger opened a physical space in Hamtramck in early 2024.

The location, situated between music venues in Detroit and Ferndale, is a full-circle moment for Tait, who played his first show in Hamtramck with his high school band in the mid-’90s.

Hamtramck, once thought to have the most bars per capita than any other U.S. city, used to be limited in recovery support. Now, Passenger offers eight weekly support groups, as well as music and art advocacy events, recovery coaching, translation services, and more.

“We just have a lot more freedom to do different types of more exciting programming, and beyond doing advocacy events in the community, we actually have a place now where we can provide enrichment,” Tait says. “If people are interested in recovery but they don’t want to go to a specific type of group, we can point them in a different direction or we can give them information or they can hang out there.”

He adds, “It’s really an attempt to normalize recovery in people’s everyday life. Instead of you going to treatment or you go to a support group and then you’re back out in everyday life, what if everyday life is something that’s motivational and positive overall and there’s someplace that you can go where you can feel safe to do that, to just exist as somebody who’s interested in making a change?”

At Passenger’s space, one half is dedicated to recovery resources, while the other focuses on the arts, featuring rock biographies, instruments, and board games. Visitors can attend a 12-step meeting one day and an open mic or yoga class the next — in a space covered in local and global art, much of which is made by recovering artists. Passenger also collaborates with organizations like MusiCares and the Phoenix to extend its reach into the broader metro Detroit community.

“If I’m in recovery, I can’t assume that the world is going to shape itself around my changes, and so I think it’s really important to still have books about the struggles and the demons and the reality of being somebody in the music industry, so that we can learn from it,” Tait says. “Our goal was to try and make it as well rounded as possible, and I really feel like people have felt comfortable. We’ve gotten a great reaction from it.”

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Courtesy photo

Passenger Recovery recently hosted a Ukrainian music event. Director Christopher Tait is pictured on the far right.

Cultural representation is also important to Passenger, especially in Hamtramck, sometimes called “the world in two square miles.”

“If we’re looking to assist people with well-being beyond just recovery from drugs and alcohol, we have to listen to the community,” Tait says.

Recently, Passenger hosted a Ukrainian music event and a hip-hop mental health panel. Plus, the organization met with Hamtramck’s new Chief of Police, Jamiel Altaheri, to discuss SUD (Substance Use Disorder) support for the Muslim community.

Passenger also does outreach in local food banks and schools, partnering with the Detroit Friendship House and connecting with the Hamtramck Drug Free Community Coalition to introduce SUD education through music programs in schools. The nonprofit also runs a virtual youth series called “If You Can See It, You Can Be It,” where music professionals discuss recovery and health in the entertainment industry, helping underserved youth who envision creative careers make positive decisions.

“When I was first in recovery, I knew I needed to make changes,” Tait says. “Music has been such a positive force in my life, and I know it’s beneficial for people to find ways to express themselves.”

He adds, “I can’t imagine life without music and the arts. They’ve made everything in my life more vibrant.”

More information on Passenger Recovery’s team and upcoming events is available online at passengerrecovery.com and on Instagram @passengerrecovery.

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Layla McMurtrie

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August 14, 2024
Sabrina Nelson brings the spirit of James Baldwin to Detroit

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Detroit artist Sabrina Nelson says that during a trip to Paris in 2016, she met the spirit of James Baldwin.

Since then, she has become deeply acquainted with the iconic writer and activist, and has drawn him over 100 times. She often does it from memory, and at this point, she says she could easily do it with her eyes closed.

Currently, dozens of unique pieces — sketchbook drawings, detailed works on canvas, projected videos, collaborations with poets, and augmented reality experiences — are on display at Detroit’s Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.

The show, titled Frontline Prophet: James Baldwin, is curated by long-time creative collaborators of Nelson, Ashara Ekundayo, and Omo Misha.

Since debuting in Baldwin’s birthplace of Harlem, New York in August 2023, the collection has traveled to New Orleans, Oakland, and Chicago before arriving in Nelson’s hometown of Detroit on Baldwin’s 100th birthday — August 2, 2024.

The journey to get here, however, has been a long one.

Around eight years ago, Nelson was invited by Detroit’s poet laureate jessica Care moore to create drawings of Baldwin at the International James Baldwin Conference in Paris.

She had no idea how big of an impact the trip would have.

“I learned so much, and spiritually, I feel like [Baldwin] tapped me on the shoulder,” Nelson says. “When I started drawing his image, I felt something physically and spiritually that I had never felt before, and I just kind of left it there in Paris.”

Back in Detroit, when #Inktober came around in October — challenging artists to draw the same subject for 31 days — Nelson decided to join in on the fun with her students. She chose Baldwin as her muse, and instead of drawing him for just a month, she went on for 91 days.

“I could draw from reference in the beginning, but now if I sit down and just do a quick gesture of Baldwin, I know the essence of his eyes, his mouth, the gap in his tooth, the hair, the coiliness of the kinky hair, and I think about his brilliance and how to draw that,” Nelson says. “I know a lot of people can draw his likeness in the reality of realism, but to be able to have the essence of him in all of his colors and all of his layers, I think I got that.”

The artist describes Baldwin’s “essence” as layered, intellectual, sharp, loving, family-oriented, and overall “super fly.” She also calls the writer, in an effort to describe him to young people, “the Kendrick Lamar of his time.”

“He’s not limited to one dimension,” Nelson says. “He was a man who grappled with his identity, who grappled with what it is to be an American, who grappled with what it is to be a Black American in this country, what it is to be a gay Black man, what it is to be a writer, a son of this country who didn’t treat him well. I just think many of us are like that, and we can identify with what he went through.”

She adds, “This work is really talking about remixing him, if you will, bringing him back. I am just doing the work as the messenger.”

At the local exhibit, viewers are able to bring Baldwin to life through the Black Terminus AR app. Holding a phone camera over art pieces on the wall prompts Baldwin’s voice and moving pictures for a modern multi-sensory experience.

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Courtesy photo

Sabrina Nelson has drawn James Baldwin over 100 times.

The title of the show, Frontline Prophet, was thought up by Ekundayo, a Detroit- and Oakland-based curator who founded the international platform Artist as First Responder.

To Nelson, the name is fitting.

“Thinking about the Civil Rights Movement where you had to use your platform for people to pay attention to things that were happening, James Baldwin was a first responder, and he was an active, active activist,” Nelson says. “He wasn’t writing behind the scenes. He was there. He did his own research. He asked, went on the streets, and asked people what was happening and what could we do about it, so it wasn’t just somebody who saw what was happening, but someone who came up with a plan to address it. He was a doer. He was definitely a maverick and definitely a prophet.”

Describing herself and the show’s curators as “Detroit daughters,” Nelson is very proud, emotional, and ecstatic that the collection of work is finally being displayed in her hometown.

“It was worth the journey of the five cities before I got here,” Nelson says. “It’s just been a long journey coming, but to celebrate his 100th birthday is such a beautiful thing here in Detroit. He came here. He had a lover here. He had a place that he called his home here, and so we have a small piece of Baldwin in our community, and it’s nice to just bring that small piece back home.”

Over the coming months, events surrounding the exhibit will happen at The Wright and other spaces throughout the city. In conjunction with the show, tiny libraries will be place in multiple Detroit neighborhoods, sponsored by City of Detroit ACE. Nelson also plans to host events at local coffee shops and high schools, and hold a reading at Liquor Basket Gratiot — the art gallery inside a liquor store on the city’s east side.

The artist wants her work to be accessible to everyone. “Planting seeds” in those that come after her, through teaching and inspiring, is as important to Nelson as displaying her work.

“In my practice of art, I’m not just thinking about the physical pieces, the journey that I am on, I am taking folks with me. I am lifting folks up,” Nelson says. “I am celebrating those who are around me and who also influence and teach me. I think I’m very layered, very much like James Baldwin.”

For more information on Nelson and the exhibit, plus updates about events surrounding the show, visit thewright.org.

Location Details

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Layla McMurtrie

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August 5, 2024
Someday merges culinary and visual arts in Detroit’s North End

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Walking into Someday, a new art gallery and bakehouse in Detroit’s North End, you’ll be embraced like a close friend.

The space merges culinary and visual arts, all seamlessly blended with an essence of “inner child energy.” In March, Someday opened at 2857 E. Grand Blvd., connected to the comic book store Vault of Midnight. MilkyWay, a model and DJ, and Trotter, a photographer and visual artist, launched Someday with a shared vision of introducing local communities to unique creative programming that nourishes all the senses.

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Courtesy of Someday

Someday’s storefront.

The founders began their journeys together at Detroit’s Cass Tech High School and have since worked together and separately in fine art, editorial, and commercial spaces.

After living in New York City for a short period and Los Angeles for around seven years, collaborating with clients such as Nike, Telfar, Rolling Stone, and Google, the couple returned home to Detroit in 2022 with ambitions of strengthening the city’s creative community and cultivating a safe space for “young melanated folk.”

During the same year, Someday received a Motor City Match grant of $40,000, which supported the realization of its brick-and-mortar.

“We honestly hit the ground running,” Trotter says. “We came back to Detroit with the mission, so I want to say within the first few months of us being here, we were looking at different areas, different neighborhoods for Someday to land.”

Initially, they looked at spots on the west side near Rosedale Park close to where Trotter grew up, but ultimately settled on the current space closer to the east side where MilkyWay was raised. The pair’s childhood, time in high school, and surely their time since, all helped to shape the current endeavor.

“I can just pay homage to our past journeys,” Trotter says. “We spent a lot of time in different spaces, not necessarily working or hands-on, but just always observing, and always appreciating the moment and that has helped us quite a bit.”

Someday’s inaugural exhibit is titled Capitalist Society, featuring three Detroit artists, four artists from other U.S. cities, and one artist from Haifa, Palestine. The show demonstrates “the experience of trying to survive in a for-profit regime” through “harrowing and uncomfortable anecdotes.”

The owners believe this show effectively represents Someday’s mission to create an accessible art experience. Plus, the theme of capitalism, even in the art community itself, is not an uncommon one.

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Courtesy of Someday

Trotter and MilkyWay, the founders of Someday.

“I feel like it’s a conversation that is relatable, but it’s also kind of heavy hitting to what Detroit is experiencing as well,” MilkyWay says. “I feel like a lot of people can relate to just that thumb of oppression in different ways.”

Trotter adds, “We’ve had struggles in our own careers matriculating in a number of spaces and so we’re walking forward in trying to create our own… The state of the world, it has a price tag, and that price tag is omitting a lot of individuals.”

Aside from creating impactful art you can see and hear, MilkyWay and Trotter have always had a love for cooking and baking, as well as cultivating community. And, they realized the importance of good food in spaces where creative work is flourishing.

“If you’re making magic you should be putting magic in your belly,” Trotter says. “We had a lot of crazy experiences going on adventures and following our dreams and eventually we came up with this idea, this concept of merging visual and culinary arts to craft a unique form of hospitality.”

The idea for Someday truly ignited in 2020 when the couple was commissioned by Rolling Stone to create a commemorative “moment” following George Floyd’s death.

“We brought the community out to Leimert Park in Los Angeles, which is a really historic Black community there and we talked about police brutality, and we talked about the experience of America and then we also served them homemade donuts, and that kind of burst the experience on collaborating culinary and art,” MilkyWay shares.

Following that, the owners made a root-inspired dinner for a friend in New York’s art exhibit, titled “raíces,” which means “roots” in Spanish, again cohesively connecting the culinary and visual arts.

Now, at Someday, to tie in all aspects of the space, bakery items connect with the visual art on the walls, and the food will continue to change as the art does.

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Courtesy of Someday

“313” cookies, the “twerk,” and the spinach and mushroom quiche.

Someday’s signature sweet treat is called the “twerk,” rebranding the popular dance as a sweet-brioche bun filled with stewed fruit and topped with glaze and pie crumbles. Other menu offerings include a spinach and mushroom quiche, “313” cookies, and more.

“When we started dating, her family was hosting dinner and movies, and in my household, it was a huge theme, at least growing up, that we always heard our house can cook the best and make the best pies,” Trotter says. “I feel like that is a common trend with individuals who come from backgrounds like ours, but there is a barrier in the concept of actually matriculating it and developing that. We feel really blessed… It all stems from childhood.”

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Courtesy of Someday

The interior of Someday.

“We are in touch with our inner child,” MilkyWay adds.

You can see and feel such in the space, which exudes a childlike energy, especially in its design aspects. The bakery counter features toy-like shapes, the table in the center of the room is whimsically carved, and the big rug on the floor is colorful and uniquely textured.

Someday is inviting… and it’s intentional.

“As we make space for ourselves, Someday is very much about making space for others and propelling experience,” Trotter says.

Looking forward, the owners plan to host more events in the space, expand Someday’s team, and ultimately transition into a full restaurant. Additionally, they plan to lean more into being a creative studio.

“We want to get more into creating campaigns and editorials in Detroit,” MilkyWay says. “We haven’t had that experience yet because we’ve been separated [from Detroit], so we really want to rub shoulders with the creative community here and make storytelling moments of both fashion and jewelry. Those are my dreams. Also journalism and documentation.”

The name “Someday,” for both owners, represents endless possibilities for the future, an affirming idea they want to emphasize to anyone who walks through the door.

“I believe everyone has a ‘Someday’ and if you are passionate enough with your life, you will find that you have many ‘Somedays,’” Trotter says.

“I love ‘Someday’ because it lets my dreams evolve,” MilkyWay adds. “It’s just something that you can constantly look forward to, constantly be grateful for, even the present, the past, and the future. It also includes everybody, she really loves community, she’s a Pisces, Aquarius moon, she really wants people in here and I just want to go forward with that, go forward with that energy, being out with the folks, hugging the folks, embracing the community and the culture of Detroit.”

Location Details

Someday

2857 E. Grand Blvd., Detroit

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Layla McMurtrie

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May 1, 2024
Laura Quattrocchi transforms lottery tickets into thought-provoking sculptures for ‘The Loser Show’

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Tens of thousands of losing lottery tickets have been reimagined into art pieces by Detroit artist and performer Laura Quattrocchi. Dubbed The Loser Show, the exhibition is described as “comedic” and “tragic,” providing a fun, interactive way for people to contemplate luck, loss, and hope.

The unique pieces will be on display at community arts center Andy Arts, which opened in 2016 at 3000 Fenkell Ave. on the city’s west side. The show is curated in collaboration with DMJ Studios, started by Detroit artist Donna Jackson, who is the resident curator of Andy Arts. The group aims to create exhibitions, installations, and community programming centering women, people of color, urban dwellers, and global citizens.

Quattrrocchi, the artist behind The Loser Show, is originally from Italy, but now lives in the westside neighborhood and is a co-owner of Andy Arts alongside Joshua Bissett. The pair moved to Detroit after living in New York for around 20 years, feeling the need to find a more grassroots community with less gentrification. As their main form of artistic expression is dance, they purchased the 20,000-square-foot building to have an open space for practices, performances, and other arts programming. Now, constant activity happens inside, including a weekly drum circle, open mics, video shoots, gallery shows, and more.

As a visual artist, Quattrocchi focuses heavily on movement and found material, seeking to understand her environment through acts of gathering and transforming everyday objects, lost items, and trash into artworks. This curiosity is how she first began utilizing lottery tickets in her work.

While living in Jersey City, she began noticing tons of lottery tickets on the ground and decided to start collecting them. Unique to the upcoming Detroit show, which consists completely of pale orange Lotto tickets, the first collection featured brightly colored instant lottery tickets.

“I never played Lotto, but I was really curious that in this neighborhood, which was sort of like immigrant, kind of poor neighborhood, every block there was one place where you can buy [lottery tickets],” Quattrocchi says. “In the more affluent areas of Jersey City, there weren’t that many, so they really target these more poor communities.”

When she moved to Detroit, she realized a similar phenomenon, so her art became not only an avenue to explore trash and movement, but also a way to prompt thought around the lottery in general, not just in a specific city, but around the globe.

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Layla McMurtrie

Detroit artist Laura Quattrochi standing next to human figures made of Lotto tickets for “The Loser Show” at Andy Arts.

“I’m not making a comment on Detroit playing Lotto. People play all over the world,” Quattrocchi says. “What I’m interested in is very universal. We lose things in the same way, we play Lotto in the same way, and we litter in the same way, anywhere in the world.”

“I have neighbors that walk every day to the liquor store here to buy the lottery,” she adds.

One neighbor and friend in particular, Andy Jones, has been bringing her big bags of lottery tickets from frequent players in the neighborhood for the past five years. He is also who Andy Arts is named after, in part to thank him for his commitment to taking care of the area near Parkside Street and Fenkell Avenue where the space is located.

“Andy was cutting the grass on the lot that we own when I met him. He just cuts abandoned lots or abandoned homes, he cleans and makes sure that things look nice. I learned that that day,” Quattrocchi says. “When you live in a big city like New York, what happens is you don’t even say hi to your neighbors. I realized that here the reality is very different, that actually the neighbors, him and another woman, and at that time another man, who basically lived their whole life on this block, they were kind of responsible for the fact that the block looks so good because they are like guardians of the block, and they care, they care also about the houses that they don’t own. It was a great example and it gave me inspiration and energy.”

She says that Jones told her that the lottery is his last vice in life.

A piece hanging in the bathroom at Andy Arts shows the impact that this vice can have, stamped with “$872,” highlighting how much money just a small amount of tickets can cost.

“They’re not just $1, you can play $6, $8, the instant lottery is even worse, you can spend $30 on one ticket, so the amount of money that you can spend, it’s significant,” Quattrocchi says. “When you target these communities and that $1 becomes $10, it’s a huge impact because gambling is an addiction.”

While the name of the art show is The Loser Show, as each ticket represents a “loser,” one art piece uses the tickets to spell out the word “hopes,” as for many people, hope is the primary emotion that playing the lottery manifests.

“The tickets are ‘losers,’ but what makes them is their ‘hope’ to win, so these tickets aren’t just losers, they’re also hopes, it’s collective hopes,” Quattrocchi says.

For the upcoming opening of The Loser Show, the artist wants people to know that the event will be interactive and fun for all ages. Among the art installations is a half-full piggy bank sculpture, inviting visitors to participate by crumpling lottery tickets and feeding them through a chute to help fill it up themselves. Another piece is a ball of Lotto tickets that the artist wants people to hug, so they can feel the mass of “hopes” and “losers.” Additionally, there will be T-shirts, darts, and a prize wheel, plus bags of Lotto tickets hanging from the ceiling, ready to cascade down upon people who want to stand beneath them and experience a “lottery ticket shower.”

“It’s not gonna be like the usual art opening, I call it [an] ‘art happening’,” Quattrocchi says. “It’s more of an event where people can look at the artwork, meditate, and they can choose if they want to play.”

The free opening event for The Loser Show will be held on May 4 from 3-6 p.m. An artist talk will take place on May 11 at 4 p.m. Visits to view the show can be made on other days by appointment only.

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Layla McMurtrie

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April 16, 2024
Detroit’s Kresge Arts intermingles sound with visual and literary arts in first-ever online exhibition

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Sound is likely not the first thing that comes to mind when you think about visual art, but this new exhibition is challenging you to think outside of the box.

Kresge Arts in Detroit is holding its first-ever online art show, featuring the 2023 cohort of Artist Fellows and Gilda Award recipients in visual and literary arts. The online show features a mix of mediums including painting, ceramics, poetry, and more, all tied together with audio elements.

The exhibition theme is Flash Your Lights, inspired by 1970s Detroit radio DJ The Electrifying Mojo. Each night on-air, he asked listeners to imagine futures of peace and revolution united by sound and to collectively “flash their lights” to demonstrate they were listening in solidarity.

Kristen Gallerneaux, a 2019 Kresge Artist Fellow, curated this year’s exhibition and developed the theme. The local artist and sonic researcher is currently the curator of communication and information technology at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn and the editor-in-chief of Digital Curation.

“I tend to dwell a lot in worlds of sound history and media history and I’m very interested in Detroit music history, which got me to remembering The Electrifying Mojo, who has always kind of been a big hero of mine,” she says.

Looking through the work of the 2023 Fellows, Gallerneaux noticed a recurring theme of solidarity and community, much like The Electrifying Mojo, so she challenged the visual and literary artists to submit new or re-imagined pieces examining how sound surfaces in their art practice.

Along with monetary awards, part of being a Kresge Fellow includes access to professional development programs, and this was one project where artists were able to learn new ways to present their work. Gallerneaux says she held open hours for artists to discuss with her unique directions they could take their pieces for the exhibit.

“When I talk about sound, I’m thinking about it both literally and somewhat metaphorically, so for say a painter, there might be a sort of element in their work or a theme that can be teased out around the ideas of listening or silence or resonances,” Gallerneaux says. “We also invited artists to submit a variety of sound options to kind of amplify work that already existed. So say you had a painting, would that painting theoretically have a soundtrack? We allowed people to submit original compositions and found sound or sometimes it was even just references to memories of sound. There’s one artist in particular who had a lot of memories of sound from the community in which she lived, so we’re able to stitch together some sound to create the soundtrack for her ceramics work.”

With her own interest in sound art and presenting historical content in digital spaces, Gallerneaux says this exhibit was “incredibly rewarding” to curate. She feels that the format complements the work nicely, not overdoing it with too much noise and offering moments of silence for contemplation of the art.

“It does not replicate a white cube gallery space. It’s more like individual artist pages that people can kind of scroll through and there’s text woven through,” the curator describes. “The web designer who worked on this did a really beautiful job of creating a really nicely immersive way to navigate this work. It has a side-scrolling mechanism that works really nicely and there are options to turn the sound on [or off]. There’s a lot of interdisciplinary work.”

Gallerneaux adds, “For me, what I really want to bring to the table is to broaden people’s idea of what sound in everyday practices and in artistic practices can be, that can mean literal sound, but it can also reference things like reverberation, sonic memories, even quiet as its own sort of form of silence, willful or implied. Also, just connecting people to this really broad pool of talent that we have here in metro Detroit and maybe exploring artists’ work through this additive lens and also honoring the legacy of The Electrifying Mojo… The exhibit is not about him, but it’s sort of expanding legacies of creative communities of listening that we have in the city.”

Flash Your Lights will be available to view online at kresgeartsindetroit.org for free from April 8-June 14. After June 14, only a shortened, modified version of the exhibition will be available.

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Layla McMurtrie

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April 5, 2024
City Walls unveils ‘DCleated’ art project ahead of NFL Draft

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Randiah Camille Green

The oversized cleats will be displayed near Detroit arenas, hotels, and airports for the month of April.

People headed to downtown Detroit for the NFL Draft this April will notice oversized cleats painted with flowers, football players, and vibrant nature scenes dotting the downtown area.

These are part of the City Walls “DCleated” art initiative in anticipation of the NFL Draft. Twenty artists were selected to paint the huge cleats fabricated by Prop Art Studios and each artist chose a nonprofit organization to represent.

The cleats will be displayed at places like Ford Field, Little Caesars Arena, the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, Detroit Metro Airport, City Airport, and hotels in the downtown area for the month of April.

In May, they will be auctioned off at an event at the Godfrey Hotel with proceeds benefiting the artist’s chosen organization or charity.

Detroit artist Trae Isaac, who has done several City Walls murals, painted his cleat to mimic stained glass with cartoon kids playing football and children’s handprints at the bottom. He chose The Children’s Center as his nonprofit.

“When I was 16 and I was 18, my baby brother and my mother passed away from cancer,” he tells Metro Times. “They had the exact same type of cancer, Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 7. It’s a neurological type of cancer, and it’s generational as well. Since the age of 18, I’ve been tested for it and still they do testing for it. Prior to that, I used to box for almost a decade. So when they passed it was a huge sit down moment in my life that kind of transformed me.”

He says he wants his cleat to represent transforming “trauma into triumph.”

“For me to lose my mom and brother to go to doing what it is that I’m doing today, I’m very grateful,” he says. “I realized, I’m here to serve other people.”

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Randiah Camille Green

Trae Isaac painted his cleat in support of The Children’s Center.

The artists, nonprofits, and city officials gathered on Thursday afternoon to unveil the cleats to the media before they headed off to their respective locations.

The Children’s Center CEO Nicole Wells Stallworth thanked Isaac for his installation and for sharing his story at the press conference.

“Trae’s powerful art installation, as he pointed out, reflects his own journey overcoming trauma. It is my hope that this piece will serve as a catalyst for erasing stigma about speaking up and addressing the necessary mental health treatment that anyone may need,” she said. “The Children’s Center is truly grateful to be part of an important cause, to celebrate not only the diversity of the artists that we have in our city of Detroit but also the diversity of the children and youth in our communities.”

The smile man himself, Phil Simpson, was also one of the participating artists. He painted his signature smile man in an outdoor scene with a bright blue sky and sports gear like a football and basketball. Proceeds from the sale of his cleat will go to Project Play, an organization that promotes an active lifestyle through sports programming for children.

“As a father of a thriving, energetic young lady who plays soccer, who does gymnastics [and] is interested in flag football, it’s an honor to paint this cleat here for Project Play,” Simpson said at the press conference. “In our household, we advocate for education, sports, and reading.”

Tony Whlgn (pronounced hooligan) decorated a bright orange cleat with food items and the phrase “everybody eats” in his pop art style for Gleaners Community Food Bank. It will be placed outside Wayne County Airport.

The NFL Draft is taking place mostly around Campus Martius and Hart Plaza from April 25-27. The “NFL Draft Experience” is free to attend with registration and includes a slew of concerts, games, an interactive exhibit, chances to get autographs from current and past NFL players, and more.

DCleated is a partnership between the City Walls program, Visit Detroit, DMC, and SpaceLab Detroit.

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Randiah Camille Green

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March 22, 2024
New York-based Free Art Collective hopes to reach Detroit artists for upcoming Global Day of Art

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Rochester, New York-based arts nonprofit Free Art Collective is on a mission to make Global Day of Art a worldwide holiday, with hopes for Detroit to be a big piece of the puzzle.

“If someone can make up ‘National Donut Day,’ we can invent a holiday too!,” reads an Instagram post from Free Art Collective. “Every May 1 we will be inviting the world to make art, buy art, and plan creative pop-up events in their city! Help us bring Global Day of Art to your city!”

The grassroots organization with the mission to “make art accessible for all” and “use art to feed, house, and water everybody” distributes free art prints and art supplies, plus hosts therapy events, music shows, craft fairs, gallery exhibits, and fundraisers.

Through the Free Art Collective’s Free Print Program, Peck connects with artists all over the world who allow her to print their art and give it away to people for free with their information on the back, giving artists recognition while upping public art access.

Since launching in 2020, the Free Art Collective has connected with over 300 artists, many of whom are from Detroit, which is only a six-hour drive from Rochester, New York.

The two cities are more similar than some may realize, which has led the group’s founder Gabrielle Peck to want to start a Free Art Collective branch in Detroit.

“I fucking love Detroit, I’ve been twice and I’m obsessed. I started doing outreach in Detroit a couple of years ago and we’ve been building our branch there slowly by just meeting more artists,” Peck says. “[Rochester] has incredible artists, it’s very tight-knit, with an amazing activist mutual aid scene. It’s pretty bad, but it also is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been and has some of the most real motherfuckers and I think that’s why I’m so drawn to Detroit… Detroit and Rochester are like cults… People in Rochester are rabid about supporting it the same way people in Detroit are.”

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The Free Art Collective pop-up outside of Mom’s Spaghetti in Downtown Detroit

Peck let us in on the slightly embarrassing secret that she initially wanted to do work in Detroit because of her “obsession with Eminem.” But once she visited, she fell in love with the city in no part due to the rapper.

On one of two visits to Detroit so far, she did a pop-up outside of Mom’s Spaghetti in hopes of giving out Detroit art to tourists. Simultaneously, she realized that Eminem’s “restaurant” is a joke, and now has a dream to open a competing soup kitchen across the street called Dad’s Macaroni that gives away pasta for free, funded by the Free Art Collective.

Another of the organization’s long-term goals for Detroit is to open a community center with a gallery so artists can sell their work. Although they currently give away art for free, “the long con is to get all of our artists paid so they can quit their day job,” Peck says.

“Detroit has one of the most thriving, tight-knit underground scenes of any city in the country that I’ve done work in over the past decade, so I’ve wanted to get involved in Detroit ever since I started doing community art stuff right out of college about a decade ago,” she adds. “The more I got involved with Detroit, the more I realized how incredible the thriving art scene is.”

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The Free Art Collective gave out free prints to Detroiters during a visit to Detroit.

Peck first got connected with Detroit artists by posting about the collective’s print program in Detroit Facebook groups. Almost immediately, she connected with Julie Sailus, who owns Disco Walls in Hamtramck and curates many spaces in and around Detroit.

“She’s helped me to do a couple of Free Art Collective events there,” Peck says. “She’s been helping me build the team, build the artists, and she’s super passionate about helping artists and connecting people.”

For Global Day of Art, Detroit artists or organizations can host any type of art event they want, and Sailus can help people who need a space to host one. While all events for the holiday will be completely self-run, the Free Art Collective will help promote and market them on social media.

Some events being planned so far include a zine-making workshop, open mic nights, and artist talks. In Detroit, local artist Trae Isaac will be doing chalk art in honor of the new holiday, and local organizations will be hosting art supply drives and other art events that are still in the works.

Peck hopes to get a lot more people involved, not just in Detroit, but across the globe.

“The mission is just to get people in the world making art, buying art, enjoying art, and getting into the community and planning art,” Peck says. “One of my main goals is to take the cool punk rock underground shit and make it mainstream so we can make the art accessible for the normies… What we want to do is help bring everyone together to make it easier for everybody involved so that everyone can be a part of art.”
Detroit artists and art enthusiasts who want to host a Global Day of Art event on May 1 or who are interested in helping with other Free Art Collective programming in the city can email [email protected] and follow @freeart.collective on Instagram for more information.

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Layla McMurtrie

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March 20, 2024
Award-winning Detroit musician Audra Kubat hosts songwriting workshops and performance at the DIA

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Detroit-born musician Audra Kubat will be at the Detroit Institute of Arts this weekend, not only to perform, but also to share her songwriting knowledge with others.

On Saturday, March 16 during two sessions at noon and 1 p.m., the award-winning singer-songwriter, composer, and educator will allow guests to become contributors to her art. The workshops will be a collaboration between Kubat and guests to write a song inspired by select artworks within the DIA, mainly created by women artists.

The guided songwriting process will start with a creative discussion, developing observations into lyrics, and finally being paired with a melody that will become a cohesive, reflective lyrical piece of music. Through the collaborative activity, participants will gain some understanding of how to turn visual inspiration into a song.

The songs created during the workshops will be performed by a group led by Kubat at the concert that follows at 2 p.m. The family-friendly show will feature favorite songs from Kubat’s catalog, plus the new tracks, with the artist joined by celebrated musicians Emily Rose and Ozzie Andrews.

The workshops and the concert will take place in the DIA’s Rivera Court. Admission is free for residents of Wayne, Macomb, and Oakland counties.

Limited spaces are available for the workshops, so early registration is required. Anyone interested in participating can register now online at dia.org.

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Layla McMurtrie

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March 11, 2024