Last Week in Art: Matt Blake
Motor City Brewing Works
4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night, 7-11 pm
(December 21, 2005)

If you've been to the Motor City Brewery at all recently, you've seen a lot of Matt Blake. As drummer for the rock duo Misty, he played a set there a week ago last Saturday. He was back a few days later for the Wednesday night art spotlight. It is less surprising to learn that Blake is both a musician and an artist, but rather the departure that this body of work has taken from what he has shown in the recent past.

At a group show over the summer at Suzanne Hillberry Gallery, Blake exhibited a collection of architectural friezes he built from raw lumber and found objects. He arranged baby dolls, trophies, and miscellaneous detritus under a partial roof and uniformly sprayed them with a marbleizing paint. The effect was that of a narrative architectural artifact unearthed from a mythological Detroit temple. But not for this show. Gone were the doll heads and little league trophies – replaced by a set of paintings on saw blades and a separate series of small sculptures resembling mountain scenes. What is still present is an open-ended narrative consisting of recognizable shapes, objects, and symbols. (For words about that exhibition click here.)

In the paintings, Blake keeps many elements of the saw blade tradition – a peaceful sweeping landscape rich with clouds and trees and lush with blues and greens. But where one would expect to find such saw blade paintings on a long, rectangular and panoramic blade, Blake's work manifests itself on smaller circular blades. The lovingly rendered landscapes come to an abrupt halt as the trees, grass, and sky end in the sharp whirlwind cutting edge of the circular saw blade.

The unusual imagery Blake incorporates is even more unsettling. In the piece entitled “Don't Bet the Farm,” a serene country scene of a barn and a white fence is pierced with a precise black triangular shape in the sky. This image came forth from a personal experience Blake and his wife Hazel had over the summer. While relaxing on the front porch of their Detroit home during the All Star game, they saw a stealth bomber dart through the clouds.

In each of the 14 or so saw blade pieces on the wall, similar authoritarian disturbances can be found. In “No Hearing,” two orange surveyor's flags mark a grassy meadow. The viewer might wonder if they signify some sort of property dispute or a buried gas line or cable. The bright orange contrasts sharply against the dark lush green amplifying the idea of disturbance or perhaps even danger.

These subtle interruptions are carried over to a row of small sculptures which Blake calls “The Overlook Series.” Cotton balls on wires serve as clouds against a grayish driftwood mountain. To offset the serenity, he places delicately constructed antennae on the mountains. Our friendly neighborhood stealth bomber even makes an appearance in one of the tableaus.

"They always find some way to muck it up," says Blake referring to how the authoritarian aspects of humanity - whether governmental or corporate – always find some way to leave their mark on a landscape. His words describe a very critical stance but his treatment of these "mucking" elements – the bomber, the radio towers, the orange flags – is subversively harmonious with his chosen techniques. These symbols of unrest take up very little relative space and are so delicately created that they seem to be almost reverent. The overall scale of the work also adds to this subtle treatment by begging an intimate interaction. You must get close to the work to experience the sharp cutting images that Blake includes, adding another layer of subversion.

Regardless of the tools and materials Matt Blake decides to use – found objects, saw blades, paint brushes, drumsticks or small black shapes that look like military aircraft - he always seems to know what to do with them. By packaging his sharp criticism of the powers that be into intimate open-ended experiences, he invites the viewer to ponder the idea of authority as part of a landscape. So should you feel perfectly at ease about that radio tower that's being built in your neighborhood? How about the little orange flags at your feet that possibly signify a legal dispute or a ruptured gas line? If you get the chance, maybe you should ask the pilot of the stealth bomber that just flew over your house. - Mike Richison

Comments, email Nick Sousanis, ws@thedetroiter.com

This Week in Art: Graem Whyte
Motor City Brewing Works
4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night, 7-11 pm
(December 28, 2005)

Last week in art the Wednesday night spotlight fell on Matt Blake. Mike Richison reviews that show here.

For the final night of the year – curator and bartender Graem Whyte brings his "Transformations of Chewbacca" sculpture series, as well as some other odds and ends to the Wednesday night spotlight. Be sure to check it out and be back next week for the one year anniversary of “This Week in Art” with over 50 artists from the previous year on hand. Both nights should be good.

Wednesday nights have been an education and an interesting experiment, letting artists try out works in mini-shows and provoking conversation long past closing time. Come check it out, sample (in moderation!) what the good folks at Motor City brew up each day and enjoy yourselves. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

edited by Sumo

Space Affair and Drawing You In (Part Two)
MONA is located at 7 N. Saginaw, Pontiac
248-210-7560
www.detroitmona.com
regular hours: 12-6pm Thursday through Saturday
November 26 – December 30
Opening Saturday, December 10th, 7 to 10pm

In part one of this review we discussed the installation works and drawings of curators Narine Kchikian and Jacque Liu. We closed by stating that having the curators’ work exhibited along with the artists they are choosing to show, offers viewers a different perspective on the curator’s sensibilities. We pick up this review at that point, having left the drawings of Liu and Kchikian, and moving up the stairs to the second floor. (For part one, click here.)

While the connection between the curators’ works and those artists they’ve chosen is clear and fits well, to distinguish this upstairs show by referencing “Drawing” seems a bit oddly titled. Yes Rebecca Tufts, Japeth Mennes, and to some degee Mike Andrews and Gregory Tom’s works could be seen as having a connection to drawing, but it is definitely difficult if not altogether impossible to reconcile the works of Mikolaj Szoska and Abigail Newbold in this context – even if in the statement drawing is becoming something larger than pencil on paper. If we’re going to categorize art, then that delineation should be clear.

If, however, we view this work as an extension of “Space Affair” (which itself had drawings dealing with issues of space), the show holds together quite convincingly.

Looking at the artists individually, we encounter Tufts and her wall-mounted sculptures. These are assemblage of fragments of combs, picks, straws, and invented forms that might be found in a bathroom drawer, which she’s recreated in ceramic attached to a clear Plexiglas ground. This is a sort of drawing, using the juxtaposition of the forms themselves, along with the shadows they cast, and the sharp reflection coming off the Plexi. The alignment of objects alters as one traverses around the piece, creating different compositions from every vantage point. The viewer can thus explore work viewing the parts as parts – imbued with the meaning that they have apart and together, as pure compositional elements, and as compositions that we, as the viewer, can alter and “redraw” through our own movement.

Andrews draws in space with fibers. On the floor he’s created a sculptural object, a thick mass of hand woven yarn, full of bright colors and organic forms. Tendrils of webbing stretch out from the body across the room. On the wall he has a “painting” created through computer aided embroidery – it shares much in common with the more sculptural piece, yet begins to resemble a map – perhaps a view of a city, streets drawn in string.

Mennes picks up this thread quite literally, with a piece “drawn” in brightly colored string fixed in clear resin. This creates ultra-delicate linework, a very organic mapping. As he moves to more traditional drawing media, this case marker, Mennes’ imagery maintains this organic nature – he could be drawing cellular colonies or soap bubble aggregations, or perhaps this is a topographical map of a city. His linework is quite precise and purposeful as a mapmaker must be. In one instance he folds this into three dimensions, drawing on a box. He digs deeper in this terrain, with amazingly involved drawings that would be appreciated for their obsessive qualities alone. But they are more than that. An attempt at description: one is a field of seemingly infinite dots, made with a single marker depression, accompanied by an equally obsessive number of circles made from a thin outer line. He does the same thing with a flat marker stroke and drawn rectangles. From afar or close up, there is much to see – like looking on a sea of humanity, a culture of bacteria, or the stars in the night sky. Perhaps the most eye catching piece is a brilliant literal color wheel, of wedges of brightly painted wood. While it attracts immediate attention it may not hold it as much as his more sophisticated drawings, which become terrain to get lost in and continue to explore at great depth.

Tom deals with depth through a flip book made from a succession of progressively closer satellite images (lifted from the web) taking the viewer on a “zoom” in flight deep into a Detroit neighborhood. We travel from the general to the very specific, happening upon houses which happen to be the site of an unauthorized art project in Detroit. Thus Tom connects the art of this book to art on another scale, in another venue – something that can’t be brought into the gallery, is transported here as the viewer is transported there.

Thinking on houses brings us to Szoska’s work, a cardboard room constructed within a room. This is quite a surprise – almost laugh out loud startling – to come upon an internal false front. Everything is built from strong, smooth cardboard (back with wood supports), even a table and the TV (or at least the case for the TV) inside. The TV displays a video shown in repetition of scenes of glass buildings reflecting the sky as the camera circles around entirely around them. The voice overs are of people giving directions to some location. The combination of the surreality of this false room – it’s a bit like living in a world where those fake computers at furniture stores are actually the real thing – and the video with an ethereal electronic soundtrack, keeps one immersed in the experience. I want to equate this with Alice falling down the rabbit hole or stepping through the looking glass, where this wonderland Szozka’s created is entirely in his head and now in ours. It’s odd to have that thought, as the previous exhibition in this very space, featured a giant photograph of a woman peering through a shroud, which also prompted thoughts of giant Alice trapped in a tiny house. This makes one wonder how much the space of the gallery enforces certain decisions to be made, and that the space influences the creation and the reading of the art more than we often give it credit. Which is in many ways the approach of Liu and Kchikian in their chair installation.
http://www.thedetroiter.com/b2evoArt/blogs/index.php?blog=2&title=gang_of_5_plus_1_at_mona

The final artist is Newbold, whose work deals entirely with the idea of home. She’s created a little portable slice of a home (on wheels!) suspended on the wall. This slice is complete with a chair, hooks for hanging, a fur rug, logs for heat, and more. Within this tiny fragment, all the elements of what might make a place a home are encapsulated. She elaborates on the notion of home with an accompanying visual and written display examining the various elements – containers (drawers, shelving, and the like), heat, bedding, surface, and decorations. By bringing this into a gallery space and breaking it down in such an abstract way, Newbold provides a unique context and a truly thoughtful examination of what home means.

Leaving this final space, we can look over the ledge and see once again Liu and Kchikian’s blue chair piece. Like Tom’s flip book, these chairs are now less sculptural and now about drawing – we are looking down on a flower, a form. We’ve come full circle from space to drawing to space again. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Heinke/Austen
Berlin : Detroit
P. F. Galleries 213 E. 14 Mile rd. Clawson
Hartmut Austen and Geka Heinke
November 12th - January 7th 2005.

PF Galleries plays host to an all German exhibition featuring painters Geka Heinke, based in Berlin and currently working in New York City, and Hartmut Austen, now residing right here in Detroit. Both were schoolmates back in Berlin, and while they apparently worked quite similarly back at that time, their work has traveled down distinctly different path before coming together again here in Clawson.

Heinke’s work is immediately visually captivating. Upon entering the gallery and encountering “poles” and “race courses,” (each named quite literally) the viewer might become slightly disoriented as Heinke plays tricks with our eyes. She creates a convincing optical illusion of depth. They demand close inspection, as we try to ascertain if these possess volume or not. They are in fact completely flat, composed on thin panel, cut in the shape of the forms she creates.

The majority of her subject matter is re-creations of ordinary, domestic items – a wooden coat rack, wallpaper, a shelf, and an electric socket. Photographs of the work hardly do them justice, as the illusion that they are actually the objects they appear to be, would likely make one disregard them altogether. (The exhibition card falls victim to this pitfall.) The painting as faux furniture somewhat brings to mind Richard Artschwager’s pieces which dance on the borders of sculpture, furniture, and painting. (For words on this, click here.)

What Heinke’s done is transform the mundane and least noticed things about our homes into something extraordinary, at least visually. I think of James Joyce’s equating of an ordinary day of a man with the epic events of Homer’s Odyssey in his book “Ulysess.” This connection is a bit of a stretch to be sure – but there is no doubt Heinke has turned a coat rack and a race track into things that are fascinating to look at. In her words, “My work seeks this moment where the familiar tips over and becomes suddenly strange.” And she has accomplished that as these are visual marvels and perhaps even make us look at everyday objects in our lives a little bit differently.

Austen approaches painting from a different, but equally formal stance as well, utilizing the concept of the grid throughout his work. Often he adds emphasis to the grid through the use of architectural structures – grids of windows and supporting frameworks. Over top the grid, Austen has a jagged quality of mark making, playing multiple layers of perception over one another. This look of torn edges hints at an association to American painter Clyfford Still. While Austen’s work primarily deals with representation, his mark making and palette choices share much in common wit Still’s abstractions. As Still’s work seems to have another world behind the dominant flat surface, so too do the strongest of Austen’s works reveal multiple layers of reality, the grid, the physical architecture, and a more vivid layer beneath, revealed as if wiping away fog off a window.

Austen’s appears to paint quite loosely, but on closer inspection, they are actually worked and reworked, to achieve the illusion of raw, immediacy on the marks. The environments he depicts evoke a quality of isolation. High rises seem like vacant shells. Outside of the movies, I have little experience with East Germany except in the movies, but I have seen Detroit, and Austen captures the bleakness and desolation, without being terribly specific representationally. Even when people are an integral part of his compositions, there is still a feeling of emptiness and loneliness. In this mix of abstraction and representation might lie a testament to the inhumanity modern living has wrought. Austen’s works may not be as immediately visually compelling as his country woman, but in the exploration of his layers of marks and pictorial reality, there is much for the viewer to linger upon and return to, and a deep sense of pathos worked into the paintings.

Knowing the two artists’ shared past, it might have been nice if some images from that time were on hand to see how their paths diverged. In any case, a strong showing from Heinke and Austen, definitely worth checking out. – Nick Sousanis, ws@thedetroiter.com

This Week in Art: Matt Blake
Motor City Brewing Works
4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night, 7-11 pm
(December 21, 2005)

Last week in art the Wednesday night spotlight fell on John Hoder, who exhibited work from a series entitled, Human Limitations. Hoder worked on creating very tight, geometrical forms in paint, on a slick, shiny resin coated surface. Polished and candy-like, not typical fare for Detroit, and thus a welcome addition to provide a good balance and influx of different ideas all made possible by the Wednesday night showcase.

This week it’s Matt Blake. For his recent show at Susanne Hilberry Gallery, he created sculptures in the tradition of the Elgin Marbles and other ancient relief sculpture from found objects – toys and the like. (For words about that exhibition click here.) Expect a strong showing this week.

Look for curator Graem Whyte to exhibit on the final show of the year, December 28th.

Wednesday nights have been an education and an interesting experiment, letting artists try out works in mini-shows and provoking conversation long past closing time. Come check it out, sample (in moderation!) what the good folks at Motor City brew up each day and enjoy yourselves. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

RUTH DUCKWORTH, MODERNIST SCULPTOR
Cranbrook Art Museum
http://www.cranbrookart.edu
NOVEMBER 19, 2005 THROUGH JANUARY 15, 2006

Cranbrook Art Museum presents a retrospective exhibition of sculptor/ceramicist Ruth Duckworth’s six decade career. Such shows serve in many ways like a thumbprint uniquely identifying the whorls, turns, and complex patterns that define an artist’s career. It comes as more than a bit of a surprise to learn that at age 81, this is the first such retrospective of this long celebrated artist. That said, it makes this exhibition at Cranbrook at this time all the more significant.

Comprehensive labels throughout the gallery offer insight into her work, as well as details about her life including a brief overview of her biography: German born, Duckworth fled to England with her family to escape the Nazis as a teenager. There she stayed and began her trajectory into the art world, until in 1964 she was invited to come to Chicago to teach for a year, and has remained there ever since.

The exhibition is laid out loosely along the chronological path of Duckworth’s career. The earliest piece on display (from 1946) heavily acknowledges her roots in the Modernist tradition. One can see the influence of someone like Henry Moore resonating strongly in this female fertility figure – very formal, with arms crossed, all composed of solid geometric planes. Moving to the next piece sequentially, we find it is quite similar in its overall form, yet with the figurative component more or less dissolved. The space between what could have been arms becomes a hole in the carved alabaster object from 1948 and completes the transformation of the metaphorical vessel of the female figure into a literal vessel. Subsequent pieces all the way up through the most current, move her work further in the direction of creating vessels as she began adopting more of the methods of a ceramicist.

Much conversation on Duckworth concerns her dual role as sculptor and ceramicist. It seems she dances on the boundaries between them offering a rather complete and singular fusion of the two. The majority of her works have the quality of being vessels –considering the relationship between what is on the inside and what is on the outside as a ceramicist would. Simultaneously these are also sculptural objects, and as such are representations of the body in space. Her vessels make consistent reference to the body. Tea cup like forms, are intersecting by flat planes, elongated forms insert into openings in the vessels. Complemented with subtle flesh toned glazing at times, we find navels, nipples, and other bodily orifices. This speaks to the condition of being human – Duckworth captures our outsides and our insides – the body both as physical, sensual object and as vessel – a container of thoughts and emotions.

As much as Duckworth’s work has evolved over time, she never abandons past forms altogether. Instead she continues to cycle and recycle as she moves forward. Some of her most recent works might seem to have been created in the earliest phase of her work. Detecting the exact timeline (without the aid of labels) is not easy. She continually builds on her own set of symbols, which recur throughout the work, yet the use of them each time is never repetitious. The female fertility image is one such icon as is an early piece of powerful, graceful bull’s horns, (the bull also being an ancient symbol of fertility) – these graceful dual curves crop up throughout the work time and again. Birds are another consistent theme – hers are elongated, lithe forms. These are symbolic of flight, of freedom, and also of really seeing a broad view of the planet (as only one high up can do.) This certainly speaks to Duckworth’s own journey and also to her inclusion within her work of so many different influences from the Modernist to the African and more.

One of her newest pieces Duckworth brings an Eastern sensibility to her work. Occupying the entrance to the exhibition, stoneware “rocks,” stick up from the floor, arranged so as to appear as rocks in a stream. The delicately glazed “rocks” (and really much more should be said in this writeup about her ability to deftly manipulate her glazes throughout the work) are not isolated objects but an environment, a mood to embrace the viewer. This is further demonstration that Duckworth is a very whole thinker. The vessel that is her body of work is continually enriched by new perspectives, rather than isolating or being restricted. Picture her work a bit like mixing dough – continuously folding in new influences and creating rich surprises, but always maintaining a certain consistency to the entire mixture.

In fact, Duckworth doesn’t just exist as sculptor and ceramicist, but her very vessels unfold (or perhaps we zoom in on a section of them) and become landscapes. In doing so she also incorporates into her repertoire the vocabulary of a painter and must deal with issues of composition. She has created wall reliefs, with elements on the surface and floating just above it, all about composition to large scale murals (of which maquettes and photos are on display.) As her more vessel-like, sculptural forms find their way into her landscapes (complete with undulating and cascading areas), so to do the ideas of composition tackled while working in the plane end up informing the others. It’s a constant and vital feedback stream. The murals also show another element to Duckworth’s work, that is caretaker of the earth. This may be evident in some of the earliest pieces, vessels that are almost globes, like swollen fertile bellies with no body that have become the Earth. This becomes more literal in one piece in particular, a mural depicting and titled, the “Clouds Over Lake Michigan.” This piece offers that bird’s eye view (her bird icon coupled with the mother figure?) complete with strips strips of clouds that bear no small resemblance to the intersecting planes in some of her bowl-like works as well as earlier wall reliefs. It’s a unique perspective, and really offers a view of this planet as a whole, connected organism – an object and a vessel precious for life.

It’s of interest to note how much of the work on display is in the collection of the artist herself. These are creations she lives with, an extension of her identity that she continues to surround herself with. Cranbrook provides a glimpse of her Chicago home/studio in a photograph printed on a screen behind the faux rock installation (which gracefully and cleverly conceals a nook that would otherwise disrupt the harmony inherent in that installation). The section of the terraced room that we see, very much looks like a considered, deliberate landscape befitting this artist we have come to know through all these pieces of her work. In addition to the works on display, there is also a movie showing continually discussing Duckworth’s life and art.

By putting on this extremely comprehensive exhibition of Duckworth (especially on the heels of a similar retrospective of Bridget Riley), Cranbrook does its students and our community at large a great service and as such should be commended. This is a strong show visually, conceptually, and for the highest level of craftsmanship on display. But perhaps the highest praise for the work is just how very human it is. Whether a student of art, appreciator of art, or anyone, this is a tremendous opportunity to get to see the entire career (thus far) of an important artist that is not to be missed. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

"Photographs courtesy of Cranbrook Art Museum. All rights reserved."

“Throwing Voices” Paintings by Nelson Smith.
District Arts Gallery
December 3 – December 31, 2005.
http://www.districtarts.com/
955 S. Eton, Birmingham, MI 48009
248-258-9300

Review by Christina Hill

So perverse are Nelson Smith’s paintings at District Arts gallery, you might find yourself on the ground underneath one trying to look up its skirt (as it were). If I were a carpenter, you might say to yourself, I could figure out how he makes these things. Apart from the disjunctive imagery -- juxtapositions of upside down coffee pots, for example, to tree stumps, toothbrushes, hats, footballs, pie slices – they are simply, in how they are made, odd paintings. Smith paints them in acrylic on wood, and in a frenzy of craftsmanship, has created miniature cornices that protrude, or intricate indentations into the boards to house detritus -- the sorts of largely unrecognizable things that accumulate in our toolboxes, junk drawers and garages. That stuff we save thinking we might need it some day but never do: Smith has done something with it!

Neither Smith’s use of mysterious, poetic imagery nor of found objects is distinctive. After all, when the surrealists described their aesthetic project as “the chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella,” they were quoting the Comte de Lautréamont (a pseudonym) from 1869. And René Magritte famously explored those avenues before World War Two. Robert Rauschenberg, we know, combined a mirror, a stuffed bald eagle, a grungy pillow and a discarded piece of wood in “Canyon” in 1959. And as Rauschenberg did before him, Smith uses geometric bits of color as accents -- squares and dots, to be exact, sometimes painted, but sometimes precious little inserts. In one of Smith’s paintings, however, metal objects, vents of some sort embedded in the surface, serve endearingly as decorative circle shapes.

Smith’s use of schematic drawings, such as maps, diagrams of the central nervous system or defensive basketball maneuvers, as backgrounds for his surrealist imagery, and as counterpoints to his implanted junk is also not especially noteworthy. The contemporary artist, Julie Mehretu, has zoomed to the forefront of the art world by layering imagery on top of meticulous drawings of the plans of ancient buildings or of all the stadia, ancient and modern, in the world, to name but a few of her achievements. Likewise, Smith’s use of the divisional device of the diptych is nothing new, although it is interesting to find that these are faux divisions, achieved by a thin painted line, an electrical part, or the edge of an indentation serving to dramatize an actual plumb line insert. In Smith’s hands, the device has become a repetitive conceit integral to his work.

Nor is Smith’s use of trompe l’oeil novel, although the combination of illusionistically painted objects and the real thing is quite interesting, both theoretically and visually. Smith is simply not such a great painter that we might actually be fooled, unless by his simple yellow pencil. He can’t (or won’t?) paint the transparency of a clear glass as Velázquez could (which is asking quite a lot). And his paint is not gorgeous. That’s his choice, perhaps, and possibly another conceit, as Smith’s focus is not so much on formal issues, but rather conceptual, as he is so obviously in control of his many materials. And there are areas of scuzzles and smears and some curvaceous lines that are moderately enticing visually. While his color choices aren’t conventionally stunning or beautiful, they are sometimes singular.

The images of objects and the real stuff from everyday life Smith has put together do not actually add up to anything that “makes sense,” but there is nevertheless joy in contemplating them. Magritte firmly disputed that any certain meaning could be derived from his work. Enigma was sufficient closure for the master so why not for Smith? The reason, though, that Smith’s many floating books might be representative of the impact of this work is this: there is never the absence of opportunity to read into these paintings as much or as little as one likes, and to be both intrigued and amused by them.

There is also whimsy to balance the severity of his intellectual processes -- outlines of perky plump pigs with curlicue tails, graceful, Amish-inspired “stencils” of upside down tulips, and some fine tracery of the delicate of roots emanating from the tree trunks. And, in one case, the surprise of an actual frilly bud of a shaft of weed to contrast to all the rusty plumbing parts. (And his use, in addition, of written texts scrawled on the surfaces that has not even been mentioned here, but which only adds to the confusion or the charm, depending on your point of view.)

No, an analysis proves that none of the various material, stylistic or philosophical components Smith has used to fabricate this body of work is in and of it itself original. His unique conflation and articulation of multiple influences, though, does result in extended wonderment for the viewer. It is a mind-boggling experience, until one’s mind and one’s eyes simply must quit, overloaded.
- Chris Hill

This Week in Art: John Hoder
Motor City Brewing Works
4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night, 7-11 pm
(December 14, 2005)

Last week in art the Wednesday night spotlight fell on Lisa Grix of Beads, SRO, and her hand-crafted talismans. These dolls were made in the tradition of African fire ceremonies, which in the burning of are said to release the wishes of the owner. These are said to be quickly made with whatever is on hand, and in doing so definitely share a kinship to Detroit found object art. All in all a new twist on the Wednesday night exhibitions, and offering the regular crowd exposure to a form of art that they’d otherwise likely not encounter.

This week it’s John Hoder, who will be exhibiting work from a series entitled, Human Limitations. Hoder says: “With this body of work I openly embrace human limitations with regards to perception (esp. visual) and precise motor skills. The work utilizes colorful patterns, which serve as models for potentially infinite wholes that must be fragmented to be perceived. The process I use involves pouring layers of resin, latex and acrylic and meticulously cutting areas away with a razor to reveal the design. The end result is hard-edged, geometric and often appears symmetrical.”

Be sure to check it out.

December 21st brings sculptor Matt Blake to the center stage. And curator Graem Whyte anchors the final exhibition of the year on December 28th.

Wednesday nights have been an education and an interesting experiment, letting artists try out works in mini-shows and provoking conversation long past closing time. Come check it out, sample (in moderation!) what the good folks at Motor City brew up each day and enjoy yourselves. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Space Affair and Drawing You In
MONA
located at 7 N. Saginaw, Pontiac
248-210-7560
regular hours: 12-6pm Thursday through Saturday
November 26 – December 30
Opening Saturday, December 10th, 7 to 10pm

“Space, the final frontier.” Yes to a Detroiter, Pontiac can seem as if it’s light years away, but MONA has been consistently offering exploration into strange new worlds of art making that has made it worth the trek.

In “Space Affair,” Narine Kchikian and Jacque Liu collaborate to transform MONA’s main exhibition space into artwork itself. On the walls, which have been (and perhaps always are) painted deep blue, they’ve painted bright sky colored window shaped rectangles. These serve to accompany existing true window mostly higher up in the former theater space as well as a couple at the same orientation as the painted ones. Each of the rectangles is lit by its own individual light as a painting in a gallery might be. The adjoining rooms, which have windows looking out into the space, have been lit with intense blue light. Everything about their decisions has been carefully considered and quite purposefully done. And then there’s the centerpiece of the exhibition, blue chairs usually used for, well, sitting, arranged in a square all facing inward. With backs outwards, the mass of chairs becomes an impenetrable, unenterable, and truly untraversable labyrinth. The chairs cease to exist as individual, functional objects (and as arranged are nearly impossible to get into as it is), and become instead elements of composition. Kchikian and Liu use the chairs like marks in a drawing. In the same way the entire space has been pressed into service to the overall exploration of the perception of space. Overall it is somewhat inscrutable and might seem more than a bit ridiculous, this is a creation purely for its own sake, and in that way, it’s beautiful – it’s art.

Also on display in a room off to the side are individual drawing works by Kchikian and Liu. Kchikian’s drawings are delicate, detailed works filled with elements of architecture, faceless masses of people, Islamic patterns, and more. The work has a dreamlike quality to it created by the juxtaposition of seeming unrelated imagery couple with transparent layers. The very space she creates warps and bends into itself. Up and down have little meaning, and the viewer is adrift to explore the impossibilities of these enigmatic landscapes and arrive at one’s own understanding.

Where Kchikian’s drawings are lavish and filled with content, Liu’s drawings are minimal in the strongest sense of the word. He draws with folds, creases, and cuts in the paper (and one single drawn line on one piece). Like the blue room, these works are quite simple and subtle in their appearance, yet totally sophisticated and deliberate in their construction. Drawing is not limited to pencil on paper, but to chairs and folds in paper, every element of the landscape when used purposefully can become a tool for creation.

These drawings by Kchikian and Liu serve as a segue to the show they curated on the floor above. This makes for a different sort of curatorial statement in contrast to the typical written statement, as the viewer uncovers their sensibilities through their work, and sees it played out in who accompanies them in the show. The show upstairs builds nicely on this foundation, all of which will be covered in Part Two of this review, next week. There’s a reception for the artists this Saturday, December 10, so check it out with them, and come back and join us right here next time for words about those artists. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

One Size Fits All: Actual Size and Primary Space
2005 Actual Size Biennial, Vol. 2
Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit
Nov 5 - Dec 18, 2005
www.thecaid.org

(NOTE: This writer is the board chair of CAID, and as such has a vested interest in the success of the exhibition. That said, he’s written about actual size shows past and have obviously encountered and written about nearly all of the artists in this show in other contexts, and in addition was not involved with the selection process. Still, he’s heavily involved in the organization.)

Part two of the biennial actual size exhibition rolls out, featuring a huge sampling of Detroit based artists. What I always enjoy about this exhibition is that in the single theme of limitation of scale (this time 8.5 by 11 inches), artists have the opportunity to be creative within the confines of that restriction, and often step outside the box (or the rectangle as the case may be!) and play with the very limitation itself.

In addition, the exhibition is a chance to sort of play who’s who with Detroit art, an encyclopedia (though obviously not complete) of sorts, that offers a viewer to take in a big overview of what is Detroit art in a single viewing. This also means established artists alongside less so, and a great opportunity for various visions to mingle.

Just a briefest of brief sampling of what’s on display (by no means even trying to be comprehensive, only representative of what one can expect to see.)

Well known, high regarded painters like Mel Rosas, Gilda Snowden, Jim Nawara, Stephen Magsig, who often work at such a scale anyhow, show off some beautiful works. In this same vein are sculptural pieces from Charles McGee, Hugh Timlin, and Christine Hagedorn that fit within the show’s size restriction. Ben Kiehl may have painted traditionally, but his actual size painting depicted a slightly crumpled highly realistic piece of paper, also revealing the canvas below.

Some artists play with movement like Frank Pahl’s spinning disk and Andy Malone’s piece in which he replaced all the numbers on a pre-digital clock radio with images he created. These pictures tell his versions of the stories of urban myths in Detroit – progressing at a rate of image per minute. Clinton Snider made his piece a little beyond the scale, in “33% More” his painting on found wood, is just that, elongated a third beyond the 11 inch restriction.

A few artists worked within the 8.5x11in. restriction in the flat plane, but expanded in another direction. Rachel Timlin created a number of images of the Thinker, each on a sheet of paper clipped to individual coat hangers, all saying “I went to the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit and all I got was this stupid art.” Nearby, Christian Tedeschi works with multiple sheets of glass arranged in parallel. The front pane contains a single dialogue balloon, and each subsequent glass panel has further balloons inscribed upon it, building a cacophony of chorus viewed altogether. Matt Shlian really played with the approach with “Caterpillar Book” in which starting from an actual size paper base on the wall, his paper sculpture creatively unfolds off the wall, pop-up book style, to lay flat on the accompanying stand. Sarah Lipinski stuck to the format by painting her actual size rectangle directly on the gallery walls!

This is but a tiny sampling of the 70 or so artists on display, all together painting a really vivid picture of the Detroit art community.

Postcards from the Edge
Pr1mary Space
“Wish You Were Here”
December 3rd until January 28, 2006.

So if the CAID show is about Detroit’s identity and its range of diversity, Pr1mary Space offers up a similar exhibition with a different feel. For their show, “Wish You Were Here” they display artworks on all postcard sized (4by6in) works. On one hand, this is a broader range of artists in that they hail from all over the country, but on the other these all speak to the identity of the gallery itself. And what is that identity? It’s broad to be sure, but it stems from illustration, pop iconography, childhood fantasy, and adult sensibilities. There’s little play within the restrictions of the format, which is ok here, as works of this more illustrative nature lend themselves well to being presented at this scale.

Artists range from Kyle Stone’s unique story book characters (note, Stone is also showing at CAID) to Jeff Claasen’s pixie-ish, stylized characters to Misha Kligman’s photo real, atmospheric portraits to Lesley Reppeteaux’s heroines in pop-culture collaged environments. All of the different artists assembled offer a chance to engage in the rich tradition of illustration, and see various approaches and influences from around the country.

Like the CAID show, in a single visit, this show offers the opportunity to uncover Pr1mary Space’s identity. Like the size limitation, understanding a space’s identity in no means limits what might be there next time, but opens a window to the sensibilities that make each venue, each gathering of artists, its own place.

Check these shows out to get to know the space and the place, and see a strong assemblage of artists all under one roof. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

"Maps aren't truths."
Julie Mehretu's slide lecture at Cranbrook Tuesday, Nov 29, 2005.

Painter and winner of a 2005 McArthur Award, Ethiopian born Julie Mehretu spoke about her inspiration and background for her work at Cranbrook last week. Correspondent Mike Richison filed this review of her lecture.

In her slide lecture at Cranbrook Art Museum last Tuesday, painter Julie Mehretu made the following statement, "Maps aren't necessarily truths". It's an interesting statement considering how a western society is programmed to think of a map. Think back to elementary school. The social studies teacher pulls down a map of the world and points out the continents, countries, and capitals. Such and such city is the capital of such and such country. But according to whom? The citizens of that nation? The makers of the map? The government of the nation that colonized that nation? From an early age, we are taught to believe the map. We are taught to interpret the lines and dots that represent groups of people and their respective locations as truth. We look to the key – the little box in the corner of the map – to interpret the marks and colors in order to understand how entire cultures inhabit a physical space. Our relationship with the map and the key that began when we were children continues into adulthood as we read the atlas, newspaper, or watch the news to learn about the weather, where we're driving, or who's invading whom.

But if maps aren't truths, what are they? When we look at a map or another two dimensional display of information, what exactly are we looking at? Mehretu's large, complicated paintings add visual, physical, and conceptual layers to this discussion, adding viewpoints and possibilities to this debate.

Like any traveler pouring over a map of someplace he or she has never been, the viewer is at first overwhelmed with the sheer amount and variety of information in Mehretu's work. “Renegade Delirium” at first looks like some sort of disaster or storm. The 90" x 144" canvas is filled with what appears to be an infinite number of elements. Dark swirls comprised of handmade calligraphic hatch marks contrast with clean geometric lines and shapes underneath. Interspersed throughout are polygons and thick areas of color that range from small rectilinear forms to large swooping stripes.

Mehretu became the map key in her lecture by isolating the elements in her work – and guiding the listener/viewer through a chaotic world held together by a system of layers, groupings, and overlapping. “How do we make space?” she asked of the audience, and how do we map a political space vs. a physical space? Mehretu constructs her spaces by appropriating and layering imagery from a variety of disciplines and phenomena. The elements that begin most of her work on the bottommost layer are often some type of schematic, blueprint, or perspectival rendering of architectural elements, overhead plans of urban areas, or drawings of entire structures. In “Transcending: The New International,” she outlines the city limits of every political and cultural capital in Africa. By outlining these urban areas and linking them together, she builds a utopian mega city. She suggests that societies are begun with some sort of ideal plan or structure.

After building a base of several layers of these structures, Mehretu maps out her large swirling clouds. Much like the human population of a geographical area, these large areas of marks are comprised of individuals – individuals which are capable of social change. These clouds become tribes, nations, and entire cultures capable of growth, trade, movement, conflict or extinction.

What the viewer can appreciate about the work is that in spite of its complexity, Mehretu strives to give her viewer some sort of entry point - whether it is an architectural element or a specific color or shape. The “Stadia” series does just that. The architectural elements in the “Stadia” triptych are tracings of every stadium imaginable – from ancient amphitheaters to the most recently constructed sports arenas. Capable of housing an infinitely large audience this mega structure serves as the theater for some super spectacle. And because the stadium renderings are perspectival renderings not technical drawings, the Stadia series begins as literally a collection of viewpoints. Strung across the open fields are rows and rows of pennants, flags and abstract shapes and colors that reference elements from the flag of every nation on earth. There is something for all spectators regardless of city or country of origin. Somewhere in these rows of colors, there is an element or structure a spectator can recognize and relate to.

The processes of collection, organizing, rearranging, recontextualization and reapplication can cause confusion, and as part of her studio practice, she often studies her own paintings and collects and catalogues the individual marks and color blocks that she uses. One of the first slides Mehretu flashed during her lecture was a chart of over a hundred specific marks she used as a graduate painting student at Rhode Island School of Design. Each grouping of marks was given individual treatment isolated from its neighbors in a cell in a numbered row and column.

Where a map will tell you what is supposed to be indisputable fact, Mehretu's work asks questions and invites a dialogue. She will tell you this is a discussion that is especially important considering that the 20th century saw the decolonization of over two thirds of the world. So the next time you interact with a seemingly innocent weather map, road map, or war map, consider the missing layers and elements that were omitted. Think about the thin lines Julie Mehretu uses to lay a foundation. Think about the small individual hatch marks she uses to symbolize the individual. Think about how she would gladly pick up her pens and paint brushes and mark the hell out of your map. – Mike Richison

Send comments to Nick Sousanis, ws@thedetroiter.com

edited by Sumo

This Week in Art: Lisa Grix
Motor City Brewing Works
4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night, 7-11 pm
(November 30, 2005)

Last week in art the Wednesday night spotlight fell on Christian Tedeschi. Tedeschi added several new wrinkles to his art making approach. He’s done a number of projects coating objects with other materials so completely as to make them unrecognizable and taking on completely new presences. This time he tightly wound his pieces in countless coils of string. This obsession paid off with some interesting forms, most notably a small bicycle which was transformed into a string sculpture of graceful saddle curves.

Tedeschi also presented a video – a surreal image of hardboiled eggs bouncing around, grouping together and flying apart – all seeming to defy gravity. In fact it was the view taken in the back of his truck while traveling down Woodward – providing additional layers of meaning to this visually compelling video. Also on display was a microwave with tin-foil wrapped potatoes inside. That’s right – tin-foil. The machine would come on, spark for a bit, and shut down, and later come on again. This was engaging both out of curiosity and the element of danger or at least rule-breaking the experiment represented.

And so likely Tedeschi moves on from this, having offered a truly intriguing body of work. (For past stories here, here, and here.)

There’s a whole new roster to be found this month – tonight check out Lisa Grix, who could be the owner of Beads SRO – a popular bead store, but this could be another Lisa Grix altogether. On the 14th of December look for John Hoder and his precise, geometrical paintings. December 21st brings sculptor Matt Blake to the center stage. And curator Graem Whyte anchors the final exhibition of the year on December 28th.

Wednesday nights have been an education and an interesting experiment, letting artists try out works in mini-shows and provoking conversation long past closing time. Come check it out, sample (in moderation!) what the good folks at Motor City brew up each day and enjoy yourselves. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Susan Unterberg
A Retrospective
Elaine L. Jacob Gallery
November 11 – December 16, 2005
Wayne State University, 480 West Hancock, Detroit, MI 48202
http://www.art.wayne.edu/jacob_gallery.php

Susan Unterberg: A Retrospective recalls eleven series of works by the artist. The exhibition begins with, Mothers and Daughters (1985-1986), and ends with, Pisces (2004). In between, in procession throughout the gallery, are Sisters, Couples, Fathers and Sons, Double Takes, Technicolor Dreams, Water Dreams, Insects, Horse Eyes, and White Horses. Each body of work is essentially a straight depiction of its title. Some are a bit more metaphorical, such as Technicolor Dreams, Water Dreams, and Pisces.

To follow this retrospective is to follow an unfolding of the artist’s understanding of portraiture and abstraction. The first floor consists of the artist’s earlier work – all essentially conventional portraiture. There are four bodies of work, Mothers and Daughters, Sisters, Couples, and Fathers and Sons. Each of these series is straight portrayals of their respective titles. Each is large in scale – life size or near life size – and each is superbly rich in color and contrast. Put simply, the photography is stunning. In addition, Unterberg places each person within the frame in such a way that it accentuates not only the confrontation the subjects have with each other, but also the confrontation between photograph and viewer.

As the retrospective progresses, Unterberg moves away from the relationship as subject and towards the introspective. Throughout the second floor of the gallery space, Unterberg begins using various metaphors for self. The first images encountered, from the series Double Takes, acts as a transition between the previous works, Mothers and Daughters, Sisters, Couples, and Fathers and Sons and the second floor of the exhibition, Technicolor Dreams, Water Dreams, Insects, Horse Eyes, White Horses, and Pisces.

In Double Takes, Unterberg begins to abstract her idea of portraiture. As the only small and intimate series, these works depict various precious objects and spaces. The reduced scale draws the viewer in, promising secrets through the mundane. In depicting things rather than people, Unterberg clearly takes a step away from conventional portraiture, abstracting the idea of what defines a person.

While Double Takes uses allusion as its primary vehicle, the remainder of the exhibitions roots itself deeply in metaphor. Unterberg uses aesthetic to convey these ideas. With Insects, Horse Eyes, and White Horses, Unterberg uses the subjects as a metaphor for self. Each possesses qualities that she identifies with as an individual and artist.

In Technicolor Dreams, Water Dreams, and Pisces, Unterberg begins to abstract form in addition to idea. Her blurring of line and color give the images a painterly quality reminiscent of the Impressionist era. These works begin to extend the boundaries of photography as a medium, reflecting contemporary ideas of hybridity.

The only drawback of Unterberg’s work is its contrived nature. With the conventional portraits on the first floor, Unterberg places her subjects and directs their behavior in order to maximize how the work communicates with the viewer. Unfortunately, in doing so, she also takes away the sincerity of the image – thereby minimizing what they communicate. For example, in Fathers and Sons, Unterberg directed her subjects to not look at each other and to not smile. However, viewers already know the stereotypical relationship between fathers and sons. Unterberg has simply reinforced a cold notion, distancing the content and meaning from the warmth that her colors promise. As a result, this work becomes more about what Unterberg imagines these relationships to be rather than what they actually are.

Similarly, Unterberg’s later work also fails to expand its content beyond superficial meaning. While the images are almost always extremely pleasing to the eye, it lacks substance. Joseph Grigley wrote, “Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees.” Translation: Once the viewer can name something, they know it wholly and then the artwork ends. In this case, Unterberg identifies exactly how the public should view the work through the titles. As a result, there is nothing to hold the viewer other than aesthetic. We understand that this is a horse eye, or a blurred waterfall, or an insect, and we move on. The paradox here lies in the fact that her use of the title as the entry point ends rather than beginning the art experience.

In a statement released by the Yancey Richardson Gallery for her exhibition, Pisces, Unterberg states, “The evanescent moment of beauty, the dissolution of a realistic subject into sudden abstraction – this phenomenon fascinates me.” This is what Unterberg does best. She recognizes that moment of transformation and captures it. That is enough.

- Jacque Liu

Send comments to Nick Sousanis, ws@thedetroiter.com

This Week in Art: Christian Tedeschi
Motor City Brewing Works
4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night, 7-11 pm
(November 30, 2005)

This week in art the Wednesday night spotlight falls on Christian Tedeschi. Tedeschi has been extremely active this past year, with successful shows all around town and even way out of town (as his fellow Telegraph Arts members hit the road for Kansas City earlier this month.) See past stories here, here, and here.

Rumor has it, this might be the last time we see Tedeschi around these parts for some time, so come by to check out whatever he brings to the gallery walls, always something unexpected and thoughtful, and wish him well on his next adventure.

Wednesday nights have been an education and an interesting experiment, letting artists try out works in mini-shows and provoking conversation long past closing time. Come check it out, sample (in moderation!) what the good folks at Motor City brew up each day and enjoy yourselves. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Billy Conklin
Is London Burning
Museum of New Art, November 5 – December 30, 2005
7 N Saginaw Street, Pontiac, MI
http://www.detroitmona.com/

There are two ways to approach Billy Conklin’s exhibition at the Museum of New Art. The first is sincerely. The second is honestly.

**********************************************************

In the sincere perspective, the viewer approaches the work as they normally would – reacting to aesthetics, form and content. The exhibition consists of a series of portraits. Always frontal, each portrait is an image of a single individual, depicted from their head to their midsection. The colors are always rich, saturated to the point of a painterly quality. There usually is a stark color somewhere – blue or red, for example – that draws attention to the subject. The background is always a neutralized white, black or grey, thus isolating and accentuating the individual depicted. The images are life size but rather than being printed out on one large sheet of paper, they are printed out on numerous smaller sheets and then pieced together to make one larger image.

And the pictures were taken in London within the first 24 hours of the 7/7 subway bombings of this past year.

Given the background and context of these works, Conklin pulls at the heartstrings of viewers. The unfolding narrative Conklin presents evokes strong emotions from any viewer. A picture is truly worth a thousand words.

Portraiture, as an art form, is arguably one of the easiest forms of art for the audience to access. The entry point of human empathy is given. Rather than searching for what the artist intends, the audience simply has to find how the subject feels. The messy nature of context and history are given – me, you, emotion – and it takes a form that everyone can relate to – people.

However, unlike most portraiture, where the subject is often posed in order to induce a reaction, Conklin’s imagery correlates a singular tragic social event with individual feeling.

His artistic endeavor, however, is not about the human emotion itself but rather the act of doing it. Although the audience knows that these images were taken in London, any allusion to the city itself, save the people, is taken away. These pictures could have been taken anywhere. They could be anybody. It is only because of our contextual knowledge – that being the 7/7 subway bombings – that give these works meaning.

As a result, these works are very much about what is happening in this consequential instant, not what led to this instant. It is from this point and this point only, that empathy is evoked. The emphasis is on effect rather than cause.

**************************

On the other hand, the honest approach to this exhibition offers a COMPLETELY different understanding. In this perspective, you, the audience, knows that there is no such person as Billy Conklin. You, the audience, knows that Billy Conklin is really (gasp!)…Jef Bourgeau, director of the Museum of New Art. You also know that these images are not even Londoners, but rather Detroiters. In fact, the images weren’t even taken within the past two years. They have been sitting on file, waiting for Bourgeau to appropriate them for a project.

So what does this mean?

For one, if you didn’t know these essential facts before viewing the work, then you need to stop thinking about this body of work in whataever manner you were thinking. While your experience when you thought the work was by Billy Conklin contributes to Bourgeau’s intent, it is NOT the true nature of the artwork.

For reasons too various and detailed to list, Bourgeau’s work, for the past ten years or so, has always taken a pseudonym. In addition, it has extended into the realm of the real world, where he has fabricated staff members for his Museums. Misdirecting the viewer has become the crux of Bourgeau’s dialogue.

So, whenever you see something like this at MoNA – usually in the front room – know that intent and meaning stems from the artwork in an unconventional manner. Whatever form the work takes, it acts as a vehicle for Bourgeau’s ten year dialogue. To make things more confusing, MoNA actually does show real artists – that is, those without pseudonyms.

It may seem deceptive and, well, it is. But the points that Bourgeau raises are actually very interesting. Even if the audience is fooled, the experience is not invalid – merely misdirected. Through this chicanery, Bourgeau makes the audience think about their art experience. Specifically, Bourgeau brings into question how meaning is created.

Of course, Bourgeau has answers to all of the questions that he raises. Consequently, the conversation with Jef is actually more interesting than the artwork itself. But that means you will actually have to drive there and go see the exhibition in person…

Jacque Liu

Send comments to Nick Sousanis, ws@thedetroiter.com

Why Art? Part Two: New Eyes or How many times must a man look up Before he can see the sky?

“Why art?” is the subject of frequent conversation for those immersed in the art world, all struggling to figure out why they are compelled to do what they do or trying to find ways to make their own work more significant.

This is the second installment of an ongoing dialogue wrestling with that question from a variety of perspectives. Expect to read different views on it from this author and with any luck any number of other contributors over time. That said, this column is open to feedback, input, discussion – email comments to me here: ws@thedetroiter.com

(For Why Art? Part One: The Big Yellow Taxi Theory or Mr. Cope Goes to Turkmenistan please click here)

And so,

Why Art? Part Two: New Eyes

Artists (and within that category those involved more generally in creative thought) are often seen as “frontier scouts”, sort of the early warning system that takes notice of aspects of culture long before everyone else. In fact, in this way, the arts help pave the way for the larger body’s understanding. They help us see the world with new eyes and in seeing differently help us change who we are as a culture.

While the subject of art enabling new perspectives will no doubt be taken up more generally in later columns, this time out I’d like to limit this conversation just to how it helps us look differently at socio-political issues.

This has long been the case from Goya’s Third of May to Picasso’s Guernica to a long stable of political cartoonists. The current exhibition at Meadow Brook, “Imaging a Shattered Earth” offers a combination of straight reportage and intense beauty so as to frame environmental degradation in such a way such that the viewer can’t help but look upon it and be moved.

These are to be sure stunning photographs. While they are rich in informed commentary about the environment, there is no mistaking that these are pieces of art. And as such become much more accessible to a larger audience than a manifesto might be. But these have all the content of such manifestos and perhaps possess an even larger impact, as people can look through the artists’ eyes or lens and reach a conclusion that they can claim as their own.

Certainly this won’t change the environmental debate overnight, but it’s a strong step towards changing our vision as a people. Can we predict how long this will take to radiate outward and being accepted by more people? Probably not. We can only hope that the rest of the world catches on to this perspective before it’s too late. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

This Week in Art: Rico Africa
Motor City Brewing Works
4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night, 7-11 pm
(November 23, 2005)

Last week in art saw the non-sculptural works of Chris Turner. Turner produced some edgy, stencil, spray paintings, combining portraiture, symbolism, and language to make social and political statements. His silhouetted soldiers marching, phalluses erect, guns in hand were pretty powerful, simple moments.

This week in art, look for Rico Africa and his variety of mixed media work, as well as DJing, and overall celebratory atmosphere on this day before thanksgiving.

And next week, Christian Tedeschi closes out the month on the 30th with…. Well, we’ll just have to wait and see!

Wednesday nights have been an education and an interesting experiment, letting artists try out works in mini-shows and provoking conversation long past closing time. Come check it out, sample (in moderation!) what the good folks at Motor City brew up each day and enjoy yourselves. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

This Week in Art: Chris Turner
Motor City Brewing Works
4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night, 7-11 pm
(November 16, 2005)

This Week in art, check out the sculpture of Chris Turner.

Look for Rico Africa and his variety of mixed media work on the 23rd of November, and Christian Tedeschi closes out the month on the 30th with…. Well, we’ll just have to wait and see!

Wednesday nights have been an education and an interesting experiment, letting artists try out works in mini-shows and provoking conversation long past closing time. Come check it out, sample (in moderation!) what the good folks at Motor City brew up each day and enjoy yourselves. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Imaging A Shattering Earth:
Contemporary Photography and the Environmental Debate
October 29 - December 18, 2005
This exhibition in partnership with CONTACT 2006
Traveling to the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, May 2006
Meadowbrook Art Gallery
Shattered Earth Website: http://www2.oakland.edu/shatteringearth/

Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
- Bob Dylan

We can try to pretend that human activity has not come without a terrific cost for our planet. We can turn our heads and not notice a landscape consumed to make way for our sprawling lifestyles and gouged through by roads, and an environment heavily polluted. But the land, the sky, and the water tell the truth. The exhibition “Imaging a Shattered Earth,” curated by Oakland Art and Art History Professor Claude Baillargeon, captures in photographs the ecological devastation wrought by the human species’ in such a forceful way that even those neck deep in denial can’t help but pay attention.

John Pfahl’s series of smoke stacks set the tone for the exhibition. Billowing masses of acrid, dense smoke emanate from concrete towers, not unlike the blasts surrounding the wizard’s visage in the Wizard of Oz film. The color and forms are quite beautiful in a way, like a cloudscape at sunset, but also ominous and terrifying, as we know whatever is in this cloud is now free to be spread by the winds. Peter Goin’s photos are actually encountered before Pfahl’s, lining the entranceway to the exhibition – while they are less eye-catching from a distance, they are no less disturbing. In tremendous depth of detail he depicts gravel pits and subdivisions carved right out of the landscape creating tremendous scars in the earth. Goin illuminates this human imprint on a scale close enough to really appreciate our place within it, yet but from a great enough distance so as to witness just what an impact the human developments have.

Proceeding into the smaller gallery space in Meadow Brook, we first come upon Mark Rumedal’s photos of what appears to be a tranquil trip down a river. River, bank, and distant background are carefully composed. In fact, the desolate landscape has been made uninhabitable by radiation in the water from nuclear reactors along its banks. Here the impact may seem invisible, but the absence of life is haunting and heartbreaking. David McMillan captures similar desolation in human created spaces in the Ukraine, specifically the area around the 1986 nuclear reactor meltdown at Chernobyl. Evidence that it was evacuated immediately and permanently is found in all that’s left behind, as if they were in the middle of something and then just dropped everything and left. Peeling paint, overgrown buildings, and other signs of decay illustrate this abandonment, and have particular resonance with a Detroit audience, all too familiar with a landscape of decay and abandonment. McMillan also shares the mind reeling information that Chernobyl will remain contaminated and hence uninhabitable for the next 24,000 years.

David T. Hanson captures more hidden though no more livable sites in the form of chemical waste dumps, landfills, and other highly toxic sites. Each piece consists of an aerial photo of the subject complete with a geological survey map and a description of the status of the site provided by the EPA. The data coupled with the map, highlights just how close these places are to our neighborhoods. In fact, Hanson offers images from Metamora and Utica – literally our backyards, which if this imagery hadn’t already hit home, these locations must necessarily do so. No one wants to live next door to this stuff, yet until we face the seriousness of what we’ve created, we will always have to bury it in someone’s backyard.

Turning the corner, we come upon the work of locally based photographer John Ganis’ series about the consumption of the American landscape (the full series includes pictures from every state.) In a single composition, Ganis both conveys natural beauty and environmental degradation. (For past stories on Ganis click here or here.) Moving back into the main gallery, Jonathon Long’s horizontal landscape photos depict nature reclaiming once completely stripped and devastated land with a similar eye for vivid and crisp color as Ganis. Long uses a special photographic technique capturing a full 360 degree image of the landscape – that is the left side ends where the right begins (and apparently they’ve been shown connected in a loop, allowing the viewer to truly be immersed in this landscape.)

David Maisel’s large scale, square aerial photographs capture the effects of pollution in intense, unbelievable, yet real color. Maisel’s subject and composition use the natural (or rather unnatural) features of the landscape to create something more akin to an abstract painting than photography. Though like everything else on display in the show, these are very much about documenting what’s been done to the planet. Emmet Gowin, Maisel’s former teacher, makes similar use of the landscape as canvas, framing scars in the earth with a strong eye for composition and compassion. These could be black and white drawings – extremely varied and rich abstract mark making not created by the artist but by mining excavations, the tracks of off road vehicles, and a moonscape of bomb blasts.

Edward Burtynsky focuses his lens on China, now in a desperate race to catch up and overtake other industrialized nations. They are well on their way not only in terms of development, but in terms of how quickly they are laying waste to their environment. Burtynsky’s large-format prints capture both the scale of this undertaking and the cost of this explosive growth. Unlike much of the other photographs, these are more monolithic and less landscape, as the land is being converted into towers and temples, only not of imperial majesty like China’s past, but of endless mountains of coal and industrial output.

We might perhaps feel a bit of guilt for enjoying how beautiful these photos are. However, by creating images both visually compelling and rich in documentary content, these photographers are able to engage their audience in a meaningful and lasting way. These pictures are worth so much more than thousands of words all proclaiming the harm we’ve done to the earth. The truth is presented unaltered from the photographer’s lens, and it’s impossible to turn your head away.

There is a final group of photos by Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison, which provide the “oh my!” moment in the show. These are nicely concealed around a corner in the main gallery, so as not to be visible until coming around that corner. If the other work proves too heavy for one’s heart, their work offers an uplifting, surreal, cathartic, and wildly imaginative balance. The images all feature Robert in situations posed with impossible imagery, as in “Tethering the Sky” he hangs suspended from a cloud, lowering a hook to snag the sod below. It’s beautifully surreal. In “The Marks We Make” the artist hangs by his feet from the sky, spinning and drawing circular marks in the dirt with a stick, reminiscent of Gowin’s work. Each image represents a metaphorical effort to heal the environment. Artistically stunning achievements, printed monochromatic photogravure (that is the image transferred to a steel plate and then printed on paper like a lithograph) gives the already surreal imagery a timeless and unforgettable feel.

In bearing witness, we can’t walk away unchanged. Through their act of observation and compassion, these photographers have drafted a strong call to action. Meadow Brook does our community a tremendous service in bringing this exhibition here. Bring a friend, a neighbor, a classmate, or a politician. Talk about it with people and find a way to get more educated on what you can do. This is too important a subject to continue to turn our heads. These photos of what was, can’t be the legacy we leave our children, but a springboard to change our course to leave them a better world. Despite the destruction we are capable of, there is hope to be found in our compassion and ability to create beauty even out of degradation. The power to change is in our hands, our heads, and our hearts.– Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

This show comes with a comprehensive catalogue, complete with essays by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Maia Mari Sutnik. The accompanying website allows one to really go into great depth into the artists’ works, their methods, and information about the sites that they depict. Meadow Brook also is offering lectures and symposiums to support the show and continue to educate the public on these issues and what can be done. A list of the remaining events is below.

Environmental Quality Forum - Thursday, November 17, 2005 @ 7:00pm
featuring...
Bryan Norton, Georgia Institute of Technology
Mark Rigstad, Oakland University
Paul Thompson, Michigan State University
Clark Wolf, Iowa State University

Art, Rhetoric, and Environmental Discourse - Sunday, November 20, 2005 @ 2:00pm
Oakland University Honors College Student Symposium

La photographie au service de l'écologie - Wednesday, November 30, 2005 @ 10:40am
(presented in French)
Claude Baillargeon, exhibition's curator

Imaging A Shattering Earth - Thursday, December 1, 2005 @ 5:00pm
Curator's lecture: Claude Baillargeo

Environmental Quality Forum set for Nov. 17 (Longer Description) As part of the College of Arts and Sciences’ Environmental Explorations theme, OU will host the third annual Environmental Quality Forum, including three speakers who will discuss the political philosophy of the environment, on Thursday, Nov. 17, from 7 to 9 p.m. in Meadow Brook Art Gallery [which will be exhibiting "Imaging a Shattered Earth: Environmental Photography and the Environmental Debate"]

Each speaker will present a lecture on politics and the environment including support through visual aids. Bryan Norton, professor of philosophy at the Georgia Institute of Technology, will present “What Do We Owe the Future?” Clark Wolf, director of bioethics at Iowa State University, will present “Public Policy and the Perception of Incremental Environmental Change.” Paul Thompson, the W. K. Kellogg chair in food, agricultural and community ethics at Michigan State University, will present “GM Crops as Failed Case of Environmental Activism.”

After the presentations, the speakers will take comments from the audience.

For more information, contact Mark Rigstad, assistant professor of philosophy, at (248) 370-2662 or rigstad@oakland.edu.

Full Frontal
Severance Gallery
2714 Riopelle
Detroit MI
313-832-3744
CLOSING RECEPTION Saturday November 19, 2005 – from 3-8pm
http://www.aestusimaging.com/fullfrontal.html

Ever since we first put clothes on, the naked human body has become the subject of much fascination. That is, when everybody’s naked all the time, it’s not that big a deal. But once we’re clothed – what’s acceptable and where it’s acceptable, is open to debate. This is especially true from the perspective of many organized religions. Such is the case with Full Frontal, a photography exhibition by Ken Marzorati. The exhibition bills itself as being controversial, a claim which is supported by the apparent hundreds of emails the gallery received asking them to shut down the exhibit from religious minded folks. From reading the notes on the show, it came about as an exploration of censorship – in fact in the gallery and on the website, there is a pretty nice historical presentation of censorship featuring everything from the trial of Lenny Bruce and the defacing of the “elephant dung” Virgin Mary. So some part of this controversy is not only anticipated, it’s intended.

So what’s all the fuss about? The show offers a number of nude photos mostly of a single female model, some are more straightforward, while others utilize collage and superimposed imagery, and a few insert religious iconography and even the Pope into the work.

This most straightforward body of work captures the nude female figure in strong black and white, using the human form as has been done for ages to talk about beauty and sensuality. These are artistically done and well at that, making compelling use of light and shadow, to glorify the body.

Another body of work again uses similar imagery and merges it with backdrops of decaying dumpsters, burned out minivans, and cracks in the cement. The juxtaposition of the human form with this very Detroit imagery is pretty cool – it’s a nice technique to keep our attention on a few different levels. The images have elements of the surreal and the all too real.

Where the show seeks more controversy is in titling many of these in reference to the Virgin Mary or other biblical references, and merging religious iconography within. And then of course there’s a couple with full frontal male nudity – the most taboo subject of them all. And if that doesn’t draw attention enough, the images with the male phallus through superimposed imagery suggest the Catholic Church’s troubles in dealing with sexual abuse by its priests. Really none of this imagery is all that shocking nor particularly lewd. It feels like an attempt to provoke, but not really seeking to be offensive or hammer home a really strong point, so it comes across as well shot, creatively composed imagery, hinting at some more profound idea, but not quite going that far.

I guess if all these emails protesting the show are really streaming forth, those behind them should perhaps find another cause, as their protests no doubt only bring more attention to this which they’d like not displayed. And really this is not pornography, nor all that offensive – for a mere mouse-click away far more shocking imagery can be had. What Full Frontal offers is an interesting exercise in freedom of expression put into historical context with a valuable accompanying documentation of such things. Marzorati shows off solid nude photography with a strong urban feel to it (these aren’t taken in some grassy meadow somewhere!) The inclusion of religious symbolism, if nothing else, points out that making a big deal about depictions of the body is more often than not just silly – for after all, we’re all naked underneath whatever dresses, jeans, or robes were wearing. And we have been for a long time now. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Shadow Report:
Peter Gourfain, linocuts & woodcuts
Christine Monhollen, Political Box Project
Alley Culture
alley between Trumbull & Lincoln, red building south of Willis, Detroit
11.4 - 11.26.2005

Alley Culture celebrates its tenth anniversary this fall with an exhibition that stays true to its socially and politically active roots. Sherry Hendrick and Mick Vranich's converted back alley garage has been a site for the community to come together and a place to exhibit artists both local and national. For the "Shadow Report", New York City residing artist Peter Gourfain and Detroiter Christine Monhollen inhabit the gallery walls.

Just as a matter of record (as who these artists are, is intrinsic to what they create) Gourfain switched gears on a successful career as a minimalistic sculptor after the political assassinations of the 60s and began using the figure to make work in a variety of media all involving social, political, and environmental awareness. Currently on display at Alley Culture are a number of his woodcut and linocut prints. The relief print's ease of accessibility and simple reproducibility has long made it a recurring means of creating political artworks. The intensity of contrast in relief work gives it a raw, edginess also quite fitting, which Gourfain uses to great effect. Although the work could be roughly divided up into a few distinct bodies, Gourfain has created figures and the narratives in which they exist a visual vocabulary all their own.

In the strongly political realm, Gourfain depicts images of 9/11 vigils, folks in New Orleans fleeing floods. All strongly moving imagery: active both in the urgency and gravity of the compositions as well as the looseness and urgency of the marks. At times he adds greater emphasis by printing right on the newspaper pages referring to the subject matter at hand.

Much of the political work is less situation specific. People struggling together - images of resistance. His drawing style lets us know these are common folk, the everyman, everywoman, who in coming together can make their voices heard. One entire series is devoted to the impact of car culture on ourselves and our environment. Here he uses cleverness and puns - "Carmageddon" is dinosaurs with cars for heads and hands fighting, "carnage" is a deadly massive traffic pileup. Again the commonness of the imagery - the lack of pretense in his figuration and mark making - reinforces the idea of commonality between us.

This interest in word play is furthered by a fascination with the master of such play - James Joyce (to which Gourfain plays homage in a large multi-paneled narrative), and to sign language. In wildly imaginative fashion, Gourfain forms shapes, letters from his figures that also form portions of larger faces. It's a really interesting dynamic between the little figure and the portrait. They have a slight feel of being illusions, but the figures are integrated so seamlessly, it's less about trickery and more about honesty.

Throughout all the works, Gourfain displays great compassion and empathy through compelling and visually striking imagery.

Monhollen's "Political Box Project" takes up the subject of word play a little more literally. The publisher of Dispatch Detroit (an anthology of writers and artists since 1998) came up with an elegant, simple and interesting experiment influenced by last year's Alley Culture show Voice of the People in which all the artists selected and hung their own work. Here she collected four lines each from people around the country offering up political statements. From here she set out to create communal poetry that the viewer can interact with and create different permutations for him or herself.

She constructed box frames, with a atmospheric abstract painting as a backdrop and a glass front. Each box contains five rods arranged horizontally one directly on top of the other, with four of the lines imprinted per rod. A twist of the uniquely crafted handles (Monhollen took great care in making each one distinct to the particular box it was attached), allows one to rotate through each rod's four possible sayings. As they align, the juxtaposition of the five lines creates different poems. If you do the math you end up with 1024 permutations possible per box. So for the eternally patient, there's a lot to discover in each box. Even if you're not up for an afternoon rotating through all the combinations, it's still an interesting way to let the viewer in on the creation of the poetry. And more than that, despite the nonlinearity of the words and the often nonsensicalness of their relationships, there is still a stream of consciousness to be divined from the words - an undercurrent for what's going on in people's minds. At least the ones Monhollen recruited for this project.

Some unforgettable lines - "The President's Batphone to Jesus was his favorite present", "Intelligent design is neither," and "time will have the last laugh" just to name a few. Spend some time creating your own combinations of Monhollen's boxes, while enjoying and being absorbed in Gourfain's imagery. Congratulations on the first 10 years Alley Culture - looking forward to continuing to stir the pot of culture and consciousness over the next 10! - Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Tom Aprile
Exit Strategies
District Arts Gallery
955 S. Eton Street
Birmingham, MI 48009
Ph: 248-258-9300
October 22 - November 26, 2005.
http://www.districtarts.com/html/aprile.html
http://www.tomaprile.com/

Labyrinth iconography has long been an object of fascination and contemplation. The most well-known is of course that mythological one built by the engineer Daedalus (father of Icarus) to serve as a cage for the Minotaur (half-man/half-bull monster). However, this was more of a mind trap – as a person could enter and exit the labyrinth freely as long as one could figure out how to navigate it, but the creature lacked the ability to find its way out. In such a light the labyrinth might be seen metaphorically as a creation of our rational mind, used to confine our more primal, animalistic aspect. In current times, labyrinths are made us of less as puzzles or mazes but as a means of self-discovery - in finding one's way through its paths, we cut through the layers of our own mind.

The theme of labyrinths is taken up in a great number of variations in the work of Iowa Professor of Art Tom Aprile currently on exhibit at District Arts Gallery. Like the labyrinth itself, his body of work twists and turns through the different mediums that constitute the art world - from sculpture to painting to drawing.

The primary body of work is the sculptural - these are recycled furniture - mostly dresser drawers with miniature brick labyrinths inscribed inside. This world within a world, open a drawer or a door to reveal another level of reality brings to mind childhood tales of hidden doors or wardrobes leading to worlds of the imagination. Aprile reinforces such thoughts with the addition of a shaft in the center of many of the pieces - another layer to fall through. If we continue to think of the labyrinth as a metaphor for mind – this shaft is not unlike the secret door that allowed the one who entered through it to be John Malkovich. The use of restored objects with their own history taps into our memory, and Aprile has paid great attention to craft - these are handsome, elegant objects with outer forms as rich and diverse as their inner. In one piece, Aprile pares down all internal and external construction, and instead leaves just a vertical shaft made of unfinished wood. It's a nice balance with its more elaborate brethren, yet still provides the same sense of passage, of journey.

In Aprile's drawings the labyrinth is depicted brightly colored and tightly geometric. They look at once possible - architectural models for potential outdoor constructions, but also surreal - running beyond the composition to demonstrate the connection to another world as the shafts do in the drawer constructions.

A second, smaller body of sculpture heightens the compositional elements of the labyrinth over the metaphorical aspects. Aprile achieves this by dropping most of the form and reducing it to minimalistic abstraction – these are less about being objects and more about the division of space. (This brings to mind Tom Joyce's work in the recent Metalize exhibition.)

Further drawings in the exhibition take the viewer deeper down the rabbit hole into Aprile's thought process. The rigid walls begin to submerge and give way to more fluid, organic imagery. The shaft within the sculptures becomes tree trunks - what sunk down now rises up. Even the color gains in intensity. These natural forms interweave through one another - a labyrinth of the organic rather than the constructed. To follow the original metaphor set out here, it is as if we have descended deep into the mind - far beyond that outer layer, that front of rationality one wears to mask the more chaotic nature of what goes on below. We're witnessing primal imagery now. The surreal and the expressive mingle freely with memories past. Perhaps this artwork represents the work of the uncaged minotaur - a metaphorical artist no longer confined by his engineering captive.

We can enjoy Aprile's work strictly for his craftsmanship, drawing, and imagination, but we can also fall deeper into the work and think of the labyrinth as a model of a person from exterior to interior - full of twists and turns and hidden depths. Aprile takes us on an extremely satisfying journey through his different means of expressions, and offers perhaps some insight into the complexity within all of us. - Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

"Why art?" is the subject of frequent conversation for those immersed in the art world, all struggling to figure out why they are compelled to do what they do or trying to find ways to make their own work more significant.

This is the first installment of an ongoing dialogue wrestling with that question from a variety of perspectives. Expect to read different views on it from this author and with any luck any number of other contributors over time. That said, this column is open to feedback, input, discussion – email comments to me here: ws@thedetroiter.com

And so,

Why Art? Part One: The Big Yellow Taxi Theory or Mr. Cope Goes to Turkmenistan

On a recent Sunday evening, Mitch Cope gave a slide presentation at Motor City Brewing Works on his October trip to Turkmenistan. Cope traveled to the former Soviet Republic as a U.S. Cultural Envoy - the first such American to do so. Through numerous photographs and exposition, Cope provided a great deal of insight into life and culture there. While some aspects of Turkmen culture we'd just find different, there are a few that are really troubling - and perhaps serve as cautionary tales for our own country. Cope pointed out that every building, every room practically has a portrait or bust or mural of President and Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers Saparmurat Niyazov. Besides the Big Brother and flat out weirdness of seeing this man's visage everywhere, what other art is allowed is limited to such things as landscapes and paintings of giant horses (of which there are apparently none remaining in the country.)

Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you’ve got 'til it's gone

The absence of art that asks questions, also means the lack of a necessary tool to help people make sense of the undercurrents of society. Cope shared pictures of ancient ruins and fragments of the rich history of this country, yet the age old of aspect of art to bring people together to try and comprehend their surroundings - gathered around fires and the like - is nowhere to be found. Everywhere he traveled, Cope was treated with heartwarming hospitality and some a bit of awe - he showed us pictures of children staring at him while he was painting as though they'd never seen such a thing before - because they hadn't.

(Info on Cope - here and here)

Back in Detroit, I've been struck by several shows recently from Meadow Brook's "Imaging a Shattered Earth" featuring stunning photographs featuring ecological devastation (look for a review next week) to two print shows - Zeitgeist's display of Chile's "9/11" and Alley Culture's current exhibition of Peter Gourfain's socially and politically active prints. All these works serve to question, to raise issues in ways other media can’t, and in a way that we desperately need.

Last week, after waiting in line at Rosa Parks' viewing, I wrote about being moved by the sight of Charles McGee's work as being celebratory above Parks' body - this helped me make sense of it all far more than a traditional portrait of the heroic woman would have.

Cope's presentation not only pointed out the necessity of art for society, but it also demonstrated art's strength in another way - by bringing us together on a cool October evening - not in front of a fire but a video projector. And in the sharing we all had the opportunity to reach a greater level of understanding about others and ourselves. And that’s no small thing. - Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

This Week in Art: Tim Day
Motor City Brewing Works
4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night, 7-11 pm
(November 9, 2005)
This Week in art, check out the photography of Tim Day.

On November 16, look for Chris Turner's sculptural works, Rico Africa brings a variety of mixed media out on the 23rd of November, and Christian Tedeschi closes out the month on the 30th with.... Well, we'll just have to wait and see!

Wednesday nights have been an education and an interesting experiment, letting artists try out works in mini-shows and provoking conversation long past closing time. Come check it out, sample (in moderation!) what the good folks at Motor City brew up each day and enjoy yourselves. - Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

James Stephens: Ecotone
Lemberg Gallery
23241 Woodward Avenue
Ferndale, MI 48220
248-591-6623
Oct. 22- Dec 3, 2005

Man and nature exist in a continual, dynamic struggle. Despite the apparent lasting nature of all that we carefully plan and construct, eventually everything is subject to this cycle. James Stephens’ terrific series of paintings at Lemberg Gallery consider this idea in singular fashion. Strange little views of the outdoors with an aura of familiarity, the works here seem to reconsider the stability and permanence of the things we take for granted. To achieve such powerful expression from realist paintings entirely absent of the human figure might seem unexpected, but Stephens manages to say a lot about our relationship to the environment through other means.

Stephens sets his examination of the collision of nature and man in the curious byways of the Midwestern landscape. Here he finds accidental poetry in the way that different environments overlap and mingle, and form mysterious new places between them. This distinctly Midwestern character is captured in the scale of nature and things manmade pitted against each other, and the haunting emptiness of abandoned spaces. Stephens evokes a great deal through natural vistas cropped by recognizable objects and debris that fall into our immediate field of vision like assertions or accumulations of a competing intention. He packs elements together, layering levels of reality to form a somewhat compressed space, wherein it’s unclear which part is encroaching and which retreating. These Landscape/still-life hybrids delight in skewing the viewer’s vantage point, confounding certainty of where the spectator is situated, or what might lie beyond the view.

With an impressive control over the paint, Stephens sets up rich color contrasts and thoughtful compositions to intrigue the eye throughout. The dozen or so small to medium size works in the show crackle with energy and invite close inspection. There is a lush and sturdy look to the worlds he creates and an overall consistency of vision and style throughout. Each one has a satisfying dimensional depth to stare into, but with the constant sense that things are going amiss at the edges. Are these images about the end of something or the beginning? The hand of man is represented through vessels and containers, amplifiers, and shelterings (things that act as intermediaries between people and the world) but in the context of these tangles they may represent ways for communicating with nature, or things through which nature communicates. There’s something aggressive and deliberate about the palette, in the way the tints and shades of realism combine with the exaggerated and artificial hues of man. Sections are sometimes isolated with flat, almost silkscreen-like colors.

Considering Stephen’s tight adherence to his chosen range of elements, these are still remarkably dramatic and narrative compositions – the actions of the things depicted are as important as the things themselves. In Bluff the industrial vessels once utilized in industry or agriculture are now collapsed relics in the landscape. Plant material collected up to form machine-molded bushels and stacks still stand vigil (or are they neatly-trimmed bushes?). Animals wrapped like mummies stand on a shorn surface, looking off of the picture. Ideas of modern classicism in ruin are suggested. A terraced farmland still waits in the distance. A blot of cloud assertively taps the space between sky and earth. Something is always happening in the sky in these paintings, not quite a storm approaching, but a change in season or time of day. The ambiguous border between wild land and city in Campsite speaks of nature as refuge but questions where the real wilderness lies. A lonely tent and canoe are mired amid debris at the edge of a strange border at dusk, while our immediate field of vision is cramped by a disembodied support pole and an ominous green siren. Some of these scenes call to mind modern environmental problems and issues, but perhaps suggests that our will to ignore them is even stronger, even as nature goes on about its business indifferently.

Recurring symbols of transformation, collapse, ruin, and replacement suggest that these paintings are also about time, and the transitions that occur as the earth is manipulated to create places for ourselves, and the earth continually finds abandoned spaces to re-claim. Inhabitation and Decay work together, trying to intermingle, in empty lots where sparkling flowers spring up near crumbling architecture, or the obscure spaces where rows of giant, lifeless power lines range through a rocky and wooded natural area. The images question where one begins and one ends, and which is more desirable – natural order or willful order. At times these canvases do get into some surreal, slightly dark places, but it seems truthful to the feelings that these kinds of environmental processes evoke. A single mixed media construction, Parade Detail, involves industrial structures and a smokestack that emerge off the front of the painted image, complete with fat plume of smoke ingeniously fashioned, which Stephens manipulates with the same, familiar control.

All in all, these paintings impress with their mix of facility and mystery. Stephens shows a keen power of invention in re-combining the elements that inspire him. (It’s a bit amazing to learn that they were all done this year.) The changing fall weather outside only heightens the sense of recognition and beauty in these alluring works, and compliments a show that is well worth catching. – Adam Sobel

(Comments – contact Nick Sousanis, editor, ws@thedetroiter.com)

This Week in Art: Gwen and Kevin Joy
Motor City Brewing Works
4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night, 7-11 pm
(November 2, 2005)

Last week in art – the spotlight fell on Scott Hocking. Hocking brought out a bit of his salon style found and framed pieces. Bringing out such beauty in decay and abandonment is something, and by framing rusted and rotting material, it’s about transformation and also is a jumping off point towards looking at our surroundings with a new eye. (I can tell you how many times I’ve driven under a rusted overpass and thought how beautiful it was. Without exposure to Hocking’s perspective this would not happen.) There will be those who say this is just finding junk – but they’re missing out. This is about empathy, about really understanding a place and a point in time, and creating an object to encapsulate that understanding.

So not only did viewers get a little taste of Hocking’s work, but the artist sold it off at “blue light special” rates and may have actually sold everything by the end of the night. The great part about it was that it gave his friends, fellow artists, and peers a chance to own a work by someone whom they respect a great deal but have perhaps never had the funds to be able to do so.

(For past words on this work and related, see here and here.)

This Week in art it’s Gwen Joy and brother Kevin Joy.

Next week in art (November 9) check out the photography of Tim Day. On November 16, it’s Chris Turner’s sculptural works, Rico Africa brings a variety of mixed media out on the 23rd of November, and Christian Tedeschi closes out the month on the 30th with…. Well, we’ll just have to wait and see!

Wednesday nights have been an education and an interesting experiment, letting artists try out works in mini-shows and provoking conversation long past closing time. Come check it out, sample (in moderation!) what the good folks at Motor City brew up each day and enjoy yourselves. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Jasmine Murrell
“MoDERN iCoNS”
J Rainey Gallery
1440 Gratiot (between Russell and Riopelle)
Detroit, MI 48207
313-259-2257
jraineygallery@sbcglobal.net
September 23 through November 1
Saturday 11am – 6pm, Monday-Friday by Appointment.

Former Detroiter Jasmine Murrell set out to document how different people define Home by staying with 50 different families throughout several South American countries over the course of a year. Through photography, sculpture, painting, and wearable art, she brings both a documentary, but perhaps more impressionistic perspective of what life is like in those parts. It seems that in the process of looking at how other people live, this also becomes a comment on who we are and how we live right here. It was surprising at how Detroit the work looked (both in materials and subject matter), or rather how surprising it was for the uninitiated to learn that these weren’t created here.

Murrell has a number of photo “boxes” in which the imagery is mounted on two boxes of sorts – making for a split image, and allowing her to adorn the non-imaged face with other imagery or physical elements that tie into the image – like pop can tabs. These also lead to full out sculptural objects whose outer layers have photography but definitely possess a three-dimensional interactivity. In moving away from the straight forward documentation and turning the work into objects, she empowers and is able to give greater voice to her subjects.

Murrell depicts two recurring characters in the “box photograph” series. One is of the artist Gerinimo, an artist and activist wearing clothing and jewelry all made by himself. She not only offers an intense portrait of the man – he comes off as both compassionate, strong, and possessing of a deep calm – but the sculptural qualities refer to a bit of his world and his own making – another level of portraiture. The second subject is known only as St. Sebastion – we see this man entirely disguised by armor complete with spikes protruding from his helmet and his arm guards. At first this appears like an image from Mardi Gras, but we learn that this man has not allowed his face to be seen in public for the past 10 years and he has served as a community activist, leading protest and championing causes including women’s rights and others. It’s a surreal image by itself, and then there’s the story. Wow. One can’t help but think of Zorro, of Batman, and that this man is for real. He’s a compelling subject to say the least and one can imagine an entire exhibition and more devoted to what he’s all about.

In some works, Murrell weaves together pieces of houses (doors, windowframes) with her photography, which again captures more about the subject than the image alone would do. The found objects contextualize the image, ground it, and let us feel a bit more about what the world of the subject is like. Two straight sculptural pieces are blocks of concrete with exposed metal which held it together, evidence of a decaying infrastructure and all too reminiscent of the town these are being exhibited in. In an altar-like piece, “Eat Your Heart Out” she’s enshrined an object of silverware held together by a hardened clay heart within a steepled wooden form. On its roof are pasted images of a boy praying on a church stairs. Again, the form and image come together to reinforce one another.

In the straight photos, we see life on the streets from the police to chickens to children. In one compelling pair of images we see a boy smiling just this perfect, carefree grin. In the second image he’s pointing a finger at the camera as if a gun. Again this points to our own culture, as a child unaware of guns in his own life, when encountering an American relates as he can with what he’s learned about us on television. The boy’s moment to moment switch from innocence to violence is quite disturbing.

In addition, Murrell has created her own clothing – printing upon jackets and t-shirts high contrast images of women with guns. These are not done in the Niagara bad girlz sense, (well maybe a little) but as symbols of protection and empowerment in cultures where women have little defense. The color and imagery are quite striking, as are the symbols of violence in a culture where “Scarface” is cool.

Murrell offers a rich and full body of work that holds together throughout the various media she utilizes to capture these foreign lands. And in doing so, we see that they aren’t so foreign at all and perhaps take a longer look at our own home. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

A.C.,T. Gallery “On, In, Up, Of” – Four Installations
35 E. Grand River
Detroit, MI 48226
(Upstairs from Biegas Gallery)
September 30 through November 12, 2005
313-961-4346
Friday and Saturday 12-5pm or by Appointment

The artist run cooperative A.C., T., presents the installation work of four members Jeanne Bieri, Mark Esse, Dan Gumina, and Gordon Price. The gallery is a tricky one to work with, odd shaped rooms and nooks and crannies, but each artist creates a distinct environment within the entire space.

Coming up the stairs and into the space one encounters the work of Gordon Price first. Emerging from dowel rods set in wood bases, Price has attached numerous cardboard panels to each rod for which to paint upon. They are a bit like a gathering of sign posts or a wave of tall grass. In fact from their initial point at the stairs they are arranged in a gentle curve through space. The panels are rectangular and triangular, some with circles cut from them. On their surfaces he has painted in black and white circles, bands, and more freeform zigzags. The various patterns perhaps reference tribal markings and remind one of Charles McGee’s myriad of tracks, signs that fill up his paintings. The multiple shapes and adorning forms create a steady rhythm to keep one’s eye moving. Price got a difficult space to work with and it would be nice to see the surrounding walls drafted into the artwork, or at least to serve as a backdrop for these to pop forth.

Price’s curving path flows directly into Jeanne Bieri’s pattern oriented work. Like Price, Bieri’s installation begins with vertical pieces, a series of two by fours leaning against the wall. The wood and the wall are all covered in quilt-like sewn on square (and rectangular) tiles in black and white (and occasionally blue). To say that the sheer diversity of patterns all hand-stitched is obsessive is a bit of an understatement. Bieri’s devotion to exploring pattern-making puts her in the company of Escher and the Islamic architecture that influenced him, and Gaudi’s non-patterned tilings. Each square is its own image, as the relationships between the tiles becomes another image, as the entire wall becomes a mural image. It’s quite successful and the transition from the beams falling into the backdrop works well as a movement of the sculptural to the two dimensional and back again.

Dan Gumina got a tiny little hallway/closet space to make his work. On one wall he installed old computer parts, circuit boards and the like in a geometrical abstract arrangement. From the other side of the space he projected in a low tech sort of way (an overhead projector) transparency schematics of circuit boards. In this way the shadow grids played off of the physical grids to add greater complexity to the composition. Gumina went one step further by allowing the viewer to interact and modify the artwork. There are numerous transparencies on hand with which to experiment with composition, with movement, and with overlay of multiply transparencies. The post-modern approach of using found art (refuse of the technological age) to explore issues of composition from the past modern era, and then to let the viewer play to – the postmodern – all combine to give this piece a lot to offer and with which to remain engaged.

In the largest room we come to the final artist and Mark Esse’s own work with found objects, in this case old fences reconstructed into a sculptural object an almost reverse-fence of sorts, as in something to walk into not kept out of. Esse has combined posts and planks into interlocking V-forms, both as seen from walking around it and the imagined view from above, as it is actually composed of separate segments set within one another. For me, the works of Eric Sloane who wrote books on Barns and early American life immediately come to mind. Esse captures a feeling for something old yet presented as something quite new.

In fact, the wood does not come from past rural farm sites but suburban neighborhoods. This leads to another observation – work with found objects is at times thought to be easy – just slap it together. However, Esse’s work points out the opposite, as this involved a good deal of cutting and recomposing of course, but that breakdown exposed unweathered wood. To handle this, Esse carefully matched the weathered color to make it look as if it had truly just been found as is. It’s an engaging set of forms, with new compositions emerging from each vantage point. The materials add to the layers of meaning providing for an all around compelling piece.

A.C.,T. is very little about splash and marketing, but instead about a commitment to craft and ideas and seeing one’s vision to fruition. If we could ask of something more here, (and likely the space does not allow for it) it is to let the ideas and imagery run wild as Bieri did in her corner – enveloping and transforming the entire environment to call it their own. Lots to see and definitely worth checking out. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Cover from Diary of an early American Boy
http://www.ericsloane.com/

This Week in Art: Scott Hocking
Motor City Brewing Works
4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night, 7-11 pm
(October 26, 2005)

Last week in art – the spotlight fell on CCS grad John Hicks. Hicks brought a sterile, medical theme to his mixed media work right down to the doctor’s garb he wore that evening. Conceptually there seemed to be the kernel of an idea forming, but there was something lacking in the visual – in terms of creating engagement. Though that said, perhaps the performance aspect of the work (which I did not partake in which was by no means the fault of the artist) offered a hidden entrance to the work which otherwise went unnoticed. And again, much of the value of the Wednesday night one night stand is to try new approaches – not all of which work as planned – and each week test people’s ideas and perceptions of art.

This week Scott Hocking steps up to the plate. And for once this is an artist we have a lot of experience viewing. He’s been reviewed many times in these pages and you can check out some words from the past here and here among other places. While we might think we know what to expect, Hocking is constantly bringing new elements into his growing body of work and this is a highly anticipated viewing experience.

Wednesday nights have been an education and an interesting experiment, letting artists try out works in mini-shows and provoking conversation long past closing time. Come check it out, sample (in moderation!) what the good folks at Motor City brew up each day and enjoy yourselves. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Relief: Wood & Lino Prints by Eric Skoglund and Brett Colley
Zeitgeist Gallery
2661 Michigan Avenue, Detroit
(One mile west of the old Tiger Stadium)
www.zeitgeistdetroit.org
313-965-9192
September 17 through October 30

Zeitgeist presents a show of two print makers creating distinct political bodies of work. The print’s reproductive capabilities coupled with the ease of access in creating a relief print (whether in wood or linoleum) has long made this a common tool for politically active artists.

Eric Skoglund offers “Chile’s 9/11” a series of large format woodcuts printed by hand (I’m told using a wooden spoon) in black on white paper. The title of the series refers to September 11, 197 3, the day that the democratically elected government of Chilean president Salvador Allende was overthrown in a bloody military coup backed by the US government and the subsequent execution of thousands of people.

Skoglund’s body of work is a compelling and disturbing portrait of the people and sites connected to that day. Each print is accompanied by educational text explaining the image and making for a really moving informational and visual experience. Skoglund depicts such figures as the fallen Allende, Augusto Pinochet the architect of the massacre and dictator of Chile, and Henry Kissinger whose accompanying explanatory text offers this quote from the former Secretary of State, “The issues are much to important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.” He also shows us the Imperial Palace, La Esmeralda – Chile’s great sailing vessel used as a site for torture at that time, and the National Stadium – a site on which 3,000 were executed.

The stark contrast of solid black on white works to great effect perhaps particularly so in the stadium, shown from overhead and possessing tremendous depth both physical and on an emotional level, as its emptiness is deafening. Skoglund’s mark making works perfectly with the subjects depicting, raw and textural, with different intensities of rub marks created by the printing spoon, increase the emotional quality of the imagery. In “Roberto” the tremendous variety of his marks is in force from the curving, wispy strokes that make up the man’s cigarette smoke to the angular lines slicing through the face and white more painterly areas that highlight the forehead and bring the portrait out of the deep blackness of the background. There’s a real emotional quality to this work extending from the subject matter to the very rendering of the depicted.

This feels like a museum quality exhibition, that should continue to travel (part of it was last seen at UD Mercy last year) and might be well preserved in a book with the text. What it would lose in scale should be more than made up for in serving as a lasting and moving testament to this travesty.

On the other side of the gallery, Brett Colley’s cleaner, wood and linoleum cut work speak to the current US administration and its own abuse of power. This slicker, more commercial looking images fit well with the corporate nature of President Bush and co. One series offers a number of portraits of figures like Bush, Cheney, or Rice, collaged together with other symbols of wealth, excess, and greed. Cheney and Rice as T-Rexes is funny and scarily accurate. But while the imagery is pulled off well and quite clever, one might like to see these reach for something deeper. If not already on the same page as Colley, it’s doubtful the work will do much to effect one’s viewpoint. And perhaps these are such polarizing figures and times, more than that is not possible.

The larger body of work here is “Apocalyptic Apparitions” which consists of vertically oriented imagery comprised of repeated use of individual blocks hand-printed in different configurations and colors on each print. Essentially he’s created for himself a large alphabet of symbols (he states from seven to eight hundred such) from which to compose complex and ever different visual passages. The relationship between the symbols and the overall composition thus created allow for different meaning to emerge in each despite the duplication of imagery. The separate parts flow together nicely and each image offers new imagery to discover and meaning to interpret. This is a rich means to create, taking advantage of the print medium to its fullest and providing a wide landscape for Colley to continue to explore.

Two printmakers, talking of travesties past and present, offer more than enough reasons to make sure you catch this show. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Please click here for single page version of this article, for the purposes of printing.

A year and a half ago I was asked to join the board of the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit (CAID). More recently I became chair of this nonprofit arts organization founded by Charles McGee in 1979.

As the editor and chief arts writer of thedetroiter.com I’ve worked to bring community together by reporting on all that I’m able and offering a literate voice (I hope) while doing so.

Being a part of the CAID is another outlet towards being involved in the art community. This offers a chance to enact ideas, to be more proactive than in the role of the writer. This also means a lot of work. (I’ll say that much and leave it at that.) It also means I can’t write about the organization in the way I could’ve before – but I don’t feel compromised in sharing what’s going on.

And there’s a lot. Last fall we took over the former detroit contemporary space – the nomadic CAID found a home and staged several, in my view, successful exhibitions. This included Metamorphosis – which honored our past, a critique of auto culture, the annual Cranbrook chair show, and one devoted to Graffiti and the four cornerstones of hiphop. This fall we’re back with the biennial “actual size” shows parts 1 and 2.

Of course, having a building is no picnic, as our time and effort is sometimes swallowed up by all that goes into keeping it open, and this can mean little left to actual putting on the programming that excites us.

But we’re getting there.

This proactive role of being a part of CAID means I get to plan a show and be on the other side of the fence. And so I’m happy to tell you about Game Show Detroit: “gaming as a catalyst for appreciating art and building community.” This exhibition scheduled for next June has come about through a collaboration with University of Michigan Professor of Education Emeritus and celebrated game designer Fred Goodman and fellow board member (and vice chair) Andy Malone. We’ve been putting this together for a while now and we think it should be an exciting show at CAID – something to bring in a diverse audience including kids and generate a lot of enthusiasm and sense of play in the art community. In addition we see this as a chance to connect to other institutions, and have the concept of Game Show Detroit being played out in a myriad of distinct variations at venues throughout the region. Already the Hands on Museum in Ann Arbor are on board with the project and that’s just the beginning.

This weekend, we offer the first event in conjunction with the June exhibition – a game making workshop put on by curator Goodman and held at CAID (this Sunday, October 23rd from noon to 4pm – details below.) Check out what we’re up to at www.gameshowdetroit.com and I’d love to see you out there or drop us a line if you have thoughts to share.
Thanks,
Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

“Come Play With Us”
Game Making Workshop
@
CAID
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Noon – 4pm

In June 2006, the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit (CAID) will be hosting “The Game Show” as part of Game Show Detroit (GSD): gaming as a catalyst for appreciating art and building community. To get people warmed up and ready for to play, CAID is holding a game making workshop with curator Fred Goodman (celebrated game designer and University of Michigan professor emeritus) from noon to 4pm Sunday, October 23 at CAID.

Throughout the afternoon, Goodman will share his experience with a wide variety and kinds of games, and engage in discussions with individual artists/designers on concepts for their own games. Expect to learn about the basic anatomy of games (from the educational to the playful to the purely aesthetically joyful) through such conversations with Goodman and impromptu lectures stemming from participants’ questions.

Also at this event, we will officially announce the general call for submissions for the Game Show (which will be due by February 28, 2006.)

This is truly a unique opportunity to interact one on one with Goodman and benefit from his expertise and intimate knowledge of all things games. While you need not be present to submit an entry for consideration in the Game Show exhibition, this will be a tremendous learning experience and chance to brainstorm with fellow artists and Goodman.

This event is free and open to the public. We encourage artists, designers, game enthusiasts, and anyone with a curious mind to join in this activity. Come for the whole session or drop in when you can.

Look forward to seeing you there.

Game Show Detroit coordinators,
Fred Goodman, Andy Malone, Nick Sousanis

The Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit is celebrating its 26th year as a community based non-profit organization. CAID fosters and promotes the essential link between contemporary arts and contemporary society through its exhibitions, performances, critical and public discourse and the funding of contemporary arts and art related activities.

Details and updates at http://www.gameshowdetroit.com

CAID is a 501c (3) certified non-profit organization.

For further details, contact the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit:
5141 Rosa Parks Boulevard
Detroit, Michigan 48208
313.899.CAID
info@caidonline.org
Gallery Hours: Saturday, 12-6pm or by appointment.
www.caidonline.org

Pewabic Pottery
Polemical Clay!
http://www.pewabic.com/
10125 E. Jefferson Ave.
Detroit, MI 48214
Phone: (313) 822-0954
Regular Hours Monday – Saturday 10:00am to 6:00pm
September 16 thru November 4

Most often when we think of the ceramic arts, we think of the functional and the decorative, or some combination of the two. This is especially true at Pewabic Pottery – the grand old home filled with lovely tile work and distinctive dinnerware. None of this is particularly provocative, confrontational, or sexual, and political? – never. Credit curator (CCS art history professor) Dennis Nawrocki and Pewabic exhibition director Stephanie Cimini for providing a definite edge to the 100 some year old institution’s gallery space. By bringing these 10 artists together, they show that ceramic’s potential is as rich and vast as any other artistic medium.

A tour through the artwork might begin with the most subtle – the works of Charles Krafft. On first glance these appear as vases – ornate, with blue flower motifs adorning them. They are in fact quite accurate grenade sculptures. Their deceptive beauty makes the reveal that much more powerful. Also on display by Krafft is “Forgiveness Beauty Bar” – a piece in the form of a bar of soap with a Nazi symbol and the word forgiveness on it. This is a strong enough piece if we think of the (now refuted) rumor of Holocaust victims being used to make soap and the metaphorical washing clean the past, but Krafft has formed this from a china of his own devising – SPONE – with human bone added to it. All the elements combine to make this a graceful, simple, and powerful statement and object.

Katy Rush’s female figurines are somewhat less subtle – these are playful, finely detailed, super cute Anime sex kittens. They look like toys to be played with but at the same time these are strong women, quite in charge, and playing with the various phallic accessories that come with each figurine. Sana Musamama’s works depict the female genitalia as both receptive vessel, yet fiercely guarded with thorns and the like. This idea of protection is clear, and in reading about her work we learn it refers to female genital mutilation, the age old practice of female circumcision still occurring in many cultures. By turning this harmful practice into objects of beauty, Musamama creates something we can linger upon, perchance to be educated, and in that help bring awareness and perhaps action.

The male genitalia appears quite overtly in Joe Bova’s work where we see it as a symbol of war and aggression. This means fashioning a bomber plane as a phallus and the arm of a prosthetic death soldier as well. The curators have also included some works from the late Howard Kottler, in this case works relating more to the decorative, if you’re idea of such is a two and a half foot high black ceramic shaft with two accompanying brightly colored spheres. Kottler’s other contribution to this show is from his ceramic plate series, (much of which is currently on display at Cranbrook’s Network Gallery: http://www.cranbrookart.edu/ ) which consists of a decal of the capital with blank flag flying above it. And thus we’ve turned to the political.

Russel Biles’ “Raw Recruit (Basic Training)” is a china doll baby bursting through his army fatigues holding a toy soldier in each hand. In the wonderfully weird, exotic, and emotionally powerful “Injuns (Western Conquest)” he creates a cartoonish, grotesque cowboy figure (complete with bomb decorated cowboy boots!) with impossibly large mouth open to engulf two Native Americans and dispose of them through the pipe emerging from his rear end. It’s really a terrific visual, which makes it all the more disturbing. The most overtly political pieces come from Chinese artist Xiaoping Luo, and show the head of President Bush accompanied by such figures as Saddam Hussein.

Clay, like the people who work with it, is malleable and can be and speak to anything we need or desire to express. “Polemical Clay!” shows off this range, and offers a lot of strong pieces to challenge and provoke the viewer to keep thinking. Not a bad accomplishment.

Also on display in the Stratton Gallery are the works of Hawaiian born, Missouri residing artist Jeri Au. Her various vessels offer insights into her own life and diverse cultural history – weaving in such elements as food and shelter in each piece. Like people and the places they come from, these objects are not contiguous, but a mixture of backgrounds, ideas, and approaches, a tapestry from which to unravel at least a part of one’s story. Autobiographical and yet accessible as aesthetically interesting forms. As with the cast comprising the main exhibition, Au’s work too displays another aspect of what is possible with the medium. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

To view just this article (and thus be able to PRINT just this page), please click here.

This Week in Art: John Hicks
Motor City Brewing Works
4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night, 7-11 pm
(October 19, 2005)

Last week in art – the spotlight fell on CCS student Dylan Spaysky. The conversation of the evening (at least the one I was involved in) demonstrated the importance of such gatherings. Spaysky’s work (which I’ll get to in a second) prompted a discussion of art and aesthetics, which over the course of the evening definitely made me appreciate a side of the work I might not have otherwise. Which is the whole point of bringing people together to look at art on a Wednesday night over beer and such – we can talk, congregate, and learn a bit more about art and life from one another.

On the particulars of Spaysky’s exhibition, it is, at least in my view a challenging aesthetic. In a variety of mediums he presents crudely rendered unicorns and something he calls a “hipp-scotumus” – I believe (part hippo, but instead of a head, well, you get the idea.) These two creatures are captured in sculptural relief, a quite clever vertical zoetrope of sorts (in which they morph into one another) and finally a stone carved hippo…., and plastic handmade inflatable (deflated) unicorn. (There were also four drawings of various disturbingly odd people and creatures in bright colors on paper torn from a ruled notebook.) Through this Spaysky really shows off a consistency of vision – this is a whole body of work. He’s created a world that is uniquely his – torn from little girl’s puffy sticker books and the like – and appropriated this imagery to make his own, thoroughly detailed statement. It works.

This week it’s John Hicks, and again I don’t know anything about him. And while it would be nice to have something to preview – in an age where information is available at a fingertip – it’s kind of nice to not have any advance spoilers. So come out with an open mind and receptive eyes.

Wednesday nights have been an education and an interesting experiment, letting artists try out works in mini-shows and provoking conversation long past closing time. Come check it out, sample (in moderation!) what the good folks at Motor City brew up each day and enjoy yourselves. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

BRIDGET RILEY: PAINTINGS AND WORKS ON PAPER, 1963-2005
Cranbrook Art Museum
SEPTEMBER 3 THROUGH OCTOBER 30, 2005

Cranbrook offers an important retrospective of Op Artist Bridget Riley’s last forty years of works. The chronological arrangement offers great insight into the artist’s evolution, but it offers the viewer something more, a visual voyage really.

Her early works black and white and primarily primary colored while certainly abstract patterns/forms are all about the optical experience created along the boundaries between bands of different colors. From “Blaze 3” a spiral vortex in black and white to straight linear works to more curvilinear pieces, these are all dizzying experiences, the paintings are vibrating intensely. Like looking over the edge of a tall building, we can’t turn away, nor can we stop looking – it’s visual vertigo. As we walk through the gallery and thus through Riley’s timeline, the work takes on greater complexity, the curving lines weave through one another, suggesting the possibility of representation – tall grass, water in a stream, but the optical effects still run strong. The paintings appear to shimmer, to move but as we can recognize something within them, we can stay with them longer.

Arriving in the final room, we come to Riley’s newest work. Here the paintings slow down immensely. She’s been building to this, with interlocking forms, manifesting almost a tapestry or reflections on ripples in the water. Two large paintings feature curving ribbons of pastel greens and blues – reminiscent of the ocean. These are strongly observational but done so with the same tools and language that she has mastered to great effect over her career. They are not dizzying in the least, though they still curve softly and vibrate as the surface of water might, but we can look at them like we might a landscape (or really a seascape) painting or a landscape itself. The gentle curve invites and envelops the viewer in a comforting embrace.

I happened to trek through the gallery at the same time as WSU professor Jeffrey Abt’s painting seminar and listened in on a bit of the dialogue. Abt asked this question to the class, “One of the aims of good painting is to hold our attention. Do these do so better than the earlier op art?” My answer is, yes, we’ve come to a calmer place, perhaps less challenging for the eye, but more satisfying for the self. The earlier works are about energy and setting the world on edge – perhaps a world of youth and short attention spans. These are followed by refining that vocabulary and building up complexity and sophistication – these are quite smart and “mature” works. The current work is not all that different and certainly there’d be no mistaking that it came from the hand and mind of the same artist. But at the same time, it’s an artist who’s changed and not been afraid to explore new terrain. Her life experience, even in works so seemingly abstract and removed from the autobiographical, comes through on the canvas.

Going back through time through the gallery, (as we must do) we might perhaps look longer at the more optically active works and armed with this new perspective begin to uncover the observational in them as well. A fascinating journey into an amazing career. A great service by Cranbrook and Director Greg Witkopp to offer to the Detroit art community that should not be missed. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Detroit Art Riot (Week 2)
4731 Gallery
(313)894-4731
12:30pm-4:30 pm Monday-Saturday
Harlan Lovestone, curator: Detroitartriot@hotmail.com

The Detroit Art Riot rolled on with a second straight week of performances including music by Siddhartha. The intensity turned up, as the performance by Superiorbelly cut through the audience, with yelling, explosions, Gallagher-esque fruit eating and smashing, this was truly a riot in many senses of the word. Words to describe it include disturbing, scary, and possibly fun – I know, it doesn’t seem to fit, but the roles these folks had to take on could be nothing but a blast.

The story, and it’s really only after watching it, that a story emerges, opens with madmen, possible on death row, explosions from poppers going off. The DJ as gavel slamming judge, and an electric high chair. The wail of prison sirens, more characters emerge, eventually the chaos grows dizzying, as the actors gorged themselves on fruit, and then blissful peace. We can see this as sociological commentary – the opening state sees us confined, restricted by modern living. To quote Alan Moore, “We’re all in prison. We just can’t see the bars.” With the attempt to breakout everything falls apart, and from the semblance of the ruins, a new state, a new perspective emerges.

If nothing else, this worked to provoke the audience and it showed boldness and immense planning on the part of the performers. Yes it looked like madmen running around, but all of this worked in synch with the video track – which was an excellent complement, and despite how mad everything got, they never lost their focus and will to get the overall point across.

One night of the riot to go, and a tough act to follow. Saturday October 15, 8pm-12pm featuring The Amazing Eugene Clark, Thor, and Ziam. Hors Devours and libations will be served on performance nights. A minimum donation of at least $3 is requested for the attendance of these Saturday evening events to support victims of Hurricane Katrina and other worthwhile charities. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

This Week in Art: Dylan Spaysky
Motor City Brewing Works4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night, 7-11 pm
(September 28, 2005)

Last week in art – the spotlight fell on CCS professor of sculpture Chido Johnson. Johnson displayed (among other things) several cast concrete slabs (meant to be walked on) composed entirely of tiny human figures. From a distance the figures are not immediately obvious – we see texture, perhaps that of hamburger meat and then on closer inspection, they are there. This sea of humanity, crammed together, and ready to be stepped on was quite powerful, empathic without being maudlin or in your face. In essence it’s art.

The work reminded me of British artist Michael Landy’s 1995 installation “Scrapheap Services” which I saw in London, to which I include the following snippet of an essay on a trip there (which may move up on the queue at some point and see publication here!)

Landy’s installation consists of, to quote the Tate’s website: “a fictitious cleaning company, dedicated to disposing of ‘people who no longer play a useful role in life’. The floor of the gallery is covered with thousands of tiny human figures, each cut out of discarded materials such as aluminum cans, cigarette boxes and fast-food wrappers. Uniformed mannequins are in the process of sweeping up the figures, gathering them into bins, and consigning them to a shredding machine called The Vulture.”

I don’t seem to be able to think about this exhibit without wanting to cry.

Returning to this Wednesday, come on out to check out the work of Dylan Spaysky. I’d tell you more about it, but I don’t have any information, so I’ll be eager to find out what he’s up to tonight.

Wednesday nights have proven to not only be a good chance to get an in process look at a what a working artist is up to, but as it invites similar folk, a nice chance to make connections, and of course sample a bit (in moderation!) of what the good folks at Motor City brew up each day! – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Gang of Five + One (Sweet Talk and Art Toaster’s Toast)
Museum of New Art (MONA)

regular hours: 12-6pm Thursday through Saturday
MONA is located at 7 N. Saginaw, Pontiac
248-210-7560
September 17 - October 29

First off, if you’ve been avoiding MONA because it’s “way out there,” I don’t blame you. The effects of sprawl definitely have an adverse effect on the ease of our cultural explorations. However, in this case at least the trip is more than worth it as I hope to convey in the following.

The Gang of Five, plus One, that is the works of five Korean born artists curated by another (also showing, hence the plus One) offer an aesthetically exciting, creatively challenging, and overall invigorating and refreshing show. While the work is quite diverse, there is a definite shared sensibility that runs throughout. Adjectives out of the way, let’s take them up individually.

First up, curator Hyun Jung Kim – clearly the “headliner” here if such a word works with the art world. Her work inhabits the old 7th House performance space with adjoining rooms all used to highlight and keep separate the unbridled display of creativity in terms of her range of ideas and invented mediums. The majority of the work was created by drawing with a glue gun – creating forms both solid and almost invisible at the same time. (A sliver of this work was last seen at the Cranbrook degree show (where Kim and several of the Gang of Five have been students.) She uses this technique to form delicate flower drawings and large graceful fish, scales and all, using magazine collage as a backing – giving the object color and a secondary contextual meaning. She takes a different tack with the glue in a side room, with glue drawings which are superimposed over the images of the label on common products – creating a conversation between what’s printed and what’s suggested by the shadow form. On the sculptural side of things – in one room are hung dozens of identical figures – “space bunnies” – which look a bit like space-suited rabbits, and also like little sumo-dolls, complete with rabbit tails and ears, and a visor (like a TV screen) which reads “Be a Playboy Club Bunny.” The writing adds another layer of meaning and demand that these cute figurines be looked at from a different perspective. Other works include TV’s which look like the bunnies’ helmets and a rose with petals of cast human toes. Kim offers a lot to take in visually and leaves the viewer with plenty of questions and a “wow!” feeling – like “I would never have thought of that in a million years but I like it!”

Moving upstairs, brings the viewer into contact with another fount of creativity in the work of Ji Yeon Lee (another recent Cranbrook grad.) Suction-cupped onto the room’s window are a large assortment of individually crafted paper mailboxes (not unlike tiny bird houses) complete with flags and doors (open or closed.) Images adorn inside and outside, indicating another world within. Lee’s next body of work features homes of another sort now worn on a creature’s back – these are drawings of Snails (snail mail, perhaps?) Loosely drawn in solid black ink on heavy paper disks, where the snails’ shells would be is cut out to reveal another image. This world within a world – features a similarly drawn snail trekking through various animated landscapes. (The cutout form indicates that perhaps more images could be found if we rotated these disks – ala Volvelles – that is disks laid upon one another with slits on the outer layer to reveal different information on the other(s). Whether Lee’s snails actually rotate or not, they do suggest the possibility of the rotation as would the spirals of a snailshell itself and the multiple worlds that might be found within each turn.) Lee follows up these delightful drawings with a sculptural installation – taking up the home metaphor to another level altogether. These are chains of islands, crayfish mud homes, colonies of microorganisms mounted on the wall. Up close we see palm trees and more meticulously crafted, and in the hole within the island (a crater, a portal, a doorway) a view into yet another fanciful world, dropping down the rabbit hole once again into this land of wonder that Lee builds in various complex yet quite accessible forms. Everything here is about the joy of discovery and Lee is one such find.

The idea of colonies gets picked up with So Yeon Yang’s obsessive, detailed, brightly colored intimate drawings. These are quite playful and show a touch of the naïve in terms of drawing quality. They are observational though on an almost microscopic scale. Whether looking closely at blades of grass, a pile of stones, or a colony of bacteria, as the drawings zoom in on their subjects, what started out as representational begins to be more about color and pattern and ultimately almost textile-like abstractions. That evolution or back and forth created by the two connects these contemporary style drawings to a greater history of art making especially in the East.

This Eastern sense of color combined with calligraphic markmaking, constitute Hee Kyung Chun’s collaged and painted works. The backgrounds are sensuous bright skies on which Chun has overlaid marks, patterns, and specific representative imagery. The forms escape the boundaries of the frame, just as the frames themselves often take on the form. Floral paisley motifs provide a dreamlike backdrop for the surrealist elements that inhabit these spaces.

Collage as sculpture is Kyoon Hee Shin’s modus operandi. Purses and lamps become animated figures and dresses – clever and whimsical, with a hint of social discourse. Her person sized and shaped cloth stuffed sculptures take up the political context in a much stronger way. One such is a figure clad entirely in black, with knees drawn up the chest held together by the arms – an upright fetal position. The figure as is has no hands (the arms in front of the knees are tied together), but over where its featureless head would have ears are placed a pair of cloth flesh-covered hands. We think of political prisoners, faceless, nameless, with no mouth to speak and the only escape is within. It’s surreal, disturbing, and powerful all at once.

The sixth and final artist we come to (though I’ve not arranged these spatially but thematically) is Hyun Seon Kang and a single photograph. It is giant, printed on fabric and stretch around three walls of the room it is displayed in. The image is of a woman (I’m assuming the artist) peering through a slit-like opening in blue fabric one eye visible and weary and fingers holding the fabric apart. It’s a look of paranoia, fear, we might imagine this is someone looking through a veil. But possible interpretations don’t stop there, as perhaps it’s suggestive of a newborn taking its first look at the world. Or perhaps, and this may be a stretch, it’s the artist looking through the blue cloth (walls painted to match that color) as in Alice in Wonderland, long since dropped down the rabbit hole, and done shrinking so as to see blades of grass and pebbles as landscapes, and is now a giant peering into her a world that is like her dollhouse, and the viewers, us, are simply her creations. We’ve entered her house, her installation, and she wants to check in on us. In any case, it’s aesthetically and conceptually quite striking and it’s scale and imagery linger.

This may no longer be the Seventh House, but Jef Borgeau has managed to transform the space into quite a house of play and wonder. In addition to the main exhibition, there is the MONA regular space featuring artists’ interview videos, digital works, a clever twist on “centerfolds,” and numerous different works by various artists that may or may not be Borgeau himself. All of it is varied and interesting, and in a region in which many are clamoring for a contemporary art museum, Borgeau seems determined to do it all by himself. And in this case at least, he succeeds quite admirably. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Charles McGee/Al Hinton:
Paths, Still Searching
The Scarab Club
217 Farnsworth St
Detroit, MI 48202
313-831-1250
September 14th-October 15th

The first thing one sees upon entering through the doorway of the two-person exhibition of Charles McGee and Al Hinton across the room is three square same-sized paintings in solid primary colors by McGee. This is a bit of a surprise to say the least as McGee is known for being about movement, energy, and change. Upon moving closer, as their bright colors do draw us forward like moths to a flame, it’s a bit more of a surprise as they seem to have a surface of perhaps thick brushstrokes. Again, not in fitting with previous knowledge of the artist. And then, when we are next to the paintings, what’s happening becomes clear, and the layers of complexity unfold. These are the dynamic forms McGee is known for, embossed upon the painting’s surface and then covered in red, yellow, or blue respectively. With the intense color to act as a lure, they remain satisfying in that way, but when all is seen they are fascinating as a dance of movement and rests for the eye to enjoy. This is evidence that McGee continues to challenge and test the boundaries of his art. It seems McGee never sits still, but the patience to create the complexity within must mean in making his art he is able to focus that energy and be still for countless hours at a time.

A more detailed description of the trio: in the red, the movement of forms, quite grid-like on the boundaries, spirals and breakdowns as we move inwards. The yellow and blue are more landscape, or perhaps seascape, as the top and bottom remain empty to draw attention to the horizontal band of activity. All three contain straight, zigzagged, and curved forms, often with holes and bands punctuated throughout the individual forms. These could be footprints, tire treads, all tracks of some kind moving across the earth, or on a microscopic level life in a protozoan soup, and from above a snapshot of modern life, whizzing about, and represented with almost tribal-like markings.

Throughout, McGee is distinctly McGee, yet also reinventing, always probing. In “Asian Rhapsody” a collaged piece, has much in common with his mark making in other works, yet it takes on a flavor all its own as it relates to the Asian culture the piece speaks to. A similar piece, “Opus to Israel” offers a map, a plan, McGee’s voyage through another culture and their symbols and symbolism.

“Black Echo” is classic McGee, vertical marks seemingly made from a continuous path, they are people dancing together or a single person, expressive, in constant motion. The more you look at this, the more it comes alive, and the more that spirit and relish for life and creation gets in you. Stare long enough and I think you’ll start dancing on the spot.

McGee brings such movement to three dimensions in “Lineage”, a sculpture extruded in shoulder high brushed aluminum to the same effect. Similarly, a second smaller sculpture, “Microcosm” might display the evolution of life or of form, or perhaps of alphabets. Each sculpture has an overall graceful curve, as the forms cut from it provide internal rhythm and motion.

In “Time Modules I and II”, both collage pieces, we might ask if a painting can encompass a life? As elongated forms represent a time line both straight and winding, circular forms represent returns to earlier moments/ideas, and the images below offer glimpses into autobiography. Any one of these pieces offers enough content for a body of work, and the Scarab Club is displaying over a dozen. Plan to spend some time there.

Hinton shares much with McGee in terms of movement through the work, line work being the image rather than making the image, and the dance between the positive and negative spaces creating a lot of energy. In his “Target Series” wood is cut to make lines of silhouettes, solid bird forms, and motion, ever returning back towards a center. Like McGee, Hinton offers varied movement, but enough resting places so as to not get dizzy. The presence of birds in each work, speaks perhaps to the way of working, furious abstract energy balanced by cool patient design. (Think of birds gliding, then flapping madly, at rest, and then chattering away, squawking at one another.)

These work in the tradition of painting, but certainly as sculptural as well. Different perspectives give witness to things unseen and relationships between internal forms that shift with the viewer’s position. The wood is quite common, scrap no doubt, and thus its significance is this about ideas more than about finish and polish – though they are to be sure the work of a craftsman, as to create drawings out of wood and pull it off effortlessly is no easy task.

In “Target Series: Rio” a collage of mixed completely painted, Hinton offers the sense of narrative as in McGee’s Time Modules. The figures and the elements about them offer us a tale not in the illustrative way, but in the abstract that allows the viewer to bring his or her own reading to the work. In “Carnival Series: Birdman” the background is atmospheric and painterly rendered. Collaged faces peer out through the haze, and in the foreground woodcut birds congregate on a silhouetted figure’s arm. The figure itself is painted black, with grid and concentric circles burnished into it, and then furious (and again quite painterly) marks almost torn across the surface, shattering the grid. The anonymous nature of the figure and the faces in the background allude to a question of identity and purpose, all something for the viewer to stay with and discover more as new elements emerge.

McGee and Hinton work well together, and the back and forth between the artists keeps a nice beat going. As the title indicates, while these are well, well established artists, they are still both on that quest to learn more, grow more, and continually improve. Overall this is a really strong and inspirational show that is not to be missed. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

For more on McGee including his historic signing of the Scarab Club beams click here, and for an extensive interview click here from our archives.

Proximity, The Sensory, and Displacement
Elaine L. Jacobs Gallery
September 23 through October 28, 2005
480 W. Hancock, between Cass and Second, on the campus of Wayne State University
Tuesday to Thursday 10 a.m. - 6p.m. Friday 10 a.m.-7p.m.
313-993-7813

Jewelry may mean greatly different things to different people, but no matter what person or culture, overall it’s all about presentation, presentation, presentation. The engagement diamond may be on the finger because of convenience, but clearly it’s there because of its high visibility. From the body to the jewelry case, presentation is where it’s at (pun unintended.) This is made quite evident in “Proximity, the Sensory, and Displacement,” an exhibition at Wayne State’s Elaine L. Jacobs Gallery curated by Assistant Professor of Metalsmithing, Evan Larson and featuring 12 international jewelry artists. For this exhibition Larson designed and built the most stunningly elegant and fanciful cases one can imagine. Indeed one could envision an exhibition just of the cases sans jewelry.

Some description: the most basic case consists of a white circular base on which the jewelry rests encased in a Plexiglas bubble. The entire pedestal reaches out from the wall, attached through a metal armature. The most prevalent cases in the exhibition have this circular base which has been split down its spine and folded into a 90 degree angle with the jewelry supported within this crease. The resulting form from straight above is a bit like an apple whose core is the jewelry, but from a distance it becomes a heart (and perhaps a reference to a low-cut neck line.) This carefully considered and engineered imagery reinforces the fact that the items within are worn close to the heart metaphorically and often literally. Individually the cases have the appearance of consoles on a “2001” influenced space ship or perhaps pods for alien life form. Each piece has its own case, as such there are many of these extending from the walls and even from the gallery’s columns – encircling them to become almost meta-jewelry for the space if you will.

All that said about the cases, what’s on display within them offers an expanded perspective on what jewelry means and what it can be as its own distinct and boundless art form. There is the fanciful, like Felieke van der Leest’s creations. These are narratives to be worn from “Orca Supper” a ring with a whale tail protruding from a dish or a bracelet with a rabbit racing after the carrot links. Sarah Burgess engages in play of a different sort. By slicing up parts of cups with their handles, she transforms the discarded into objects (wearable rings) possessing their own aesthetic. The transformation into art object aside, these are also an exploration of the fit of things, not usually worn but grasped repeatedly, daily. We may take for granted the relationship of our fingers to a cup handle, but Burgess offers a new vantage point to examine that relationship.

Ela Bauer’s dyed rubber and thread necklaces are almost organic in appearance, and would seem to cling around one’s neck rather than hang from it. Kaire Rannik’s necklaces are similarly unexpected as far as necklaces go. With segments of cow horn, hollowed forms with mica windows and more, all strung together, her work brings an almost archaeological quality to jewelry while being quite new to the medium as well.

Some of the artists work from a more technological bent. Sigurd Bronger’s “Air Bag” pieces are inflatable – a metal pump acts to alter the shape of the attached rubber bag. William Austin layers delicately cut amorphous silver forms over one another emoting land, sea, and sky and a two-dimensional world found in Eastern painting traditions. Simon Cottrell creates in steel what we could imagine to be large sculptural objects, yet handled here so as to be wearable and thus presentable on an intimate scale. Helena Lehtinen’s wearable sculptures seem as if they are less about adorning the body, and more about using the body as landscape and context for their own meaning.

Like Bronger above, Katja Prins’ work consists of metal plumb-work like connectors holding vessel forms together. As much as these reference machines, they also reference our own internal organs and become perhaps surrogate forms for the wearer. Eija Mustonen picks up the theme of vessel in her own way, and moves from the body to the landscape in works of felt, thread, and silver.

If any of these could be said to be more traditional we might look to Iwata Hiroki’s floral inspired brooches, shimmering and graceful. Combining gold floral, almost paisley patterns with plaid, Mary Preston’s necklaces (along with Hiroki’s brooches) may be the most wearable of the bunch, but are no less singular art objects all on their own, and perhaps the most purely aesthetically beautiful.

With twelve artists in the show and many of their works on display, there is to say the least, a lot to see. Each one brings their own take on what jewelry means today and aspects of the culture they come from, but much shared as far as thinking about the wearer and always the presentation. In terms of overall presentation curator Larson has added one more delightful gem – an exhibition catalogue very hiply and cleverly designed, with sharp words from himself and an essay by fellow metals professor at the University of Wisconsin Lisa Gralnick. To top it off, the book comes in a smoked, resealable ziplock slipcase. As with all the other elements of this exhibition, presentation is everything. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

(Don't forget to check out Larson's own work in Metalize at DAM.)

Detroit Art Riot/Mass Transition
4731 Gallery
www.4731.com
(313)894-4731
12:30pm-4:30 pm Monday-Saturday
Harlan Lovestone, curator
detroitartriot@hotmail.com

The word “riot” comes with some unfortunate connotations - especially in Detroit. However, with the “ Detroit Art Riot” curator Harlan Lovestone has tried to harness that same liveliness and energy that make a riot a living expressions of a people’s will into something positive. The works in the show are a reaction to current events from the Iraq war to Genocide, but make their point through artistic expression rather than violence.

The show succeeds on a number of levels. First off Lovestone is to be commended for the sheer diversity of the artists exhibiting – this is an all too rare occurrence. Outside of benefit shows, auctions, what have you, we never get to see a Clinton Snider showing alongside Diana Alva. It works. Add Nivek Monet’s mural-sized “Casulaties”, Janice Polzin’s “Riot?” painting, and Curt Winega’s detailed figurative sculpture “Of War & Peace” to the mix and you have a really broad spectrum of the art community (in background and style), and thus a gathering which truly represents the voice of the people. While this may be the cause for some unevenness in the work, it stands strong as a whole, and an important coming together of viewpoints, ideas, and ultimately, people.

To pick a few highlights from many, Alva’s painting “Cowboys and Indians” certainly must be included – a head-cropped female figure of collage and paint with toy cowboys and Indians battling it out on the top edge of the canvas. The rawness of the figure coupled with its composition let the passion and compassion of the painter shine through. Mike Bizon’s four photo portraits of the same man with above the lip, below the nose facial hair in various degrees of length from nonexistent to the “Fu” to the full goatee speaks to profiling and sizing up our identity by something as meaningless (though most common means of disguise) as a mustache. Jeseca Dawson captures the portraits and thoughts of the mentally disabled and thus seldom photographed. Brian Cronin’s “Whore Bomb” is a bitterly, expressive abstraction in a shattered yellow grid, while Betzi Pipis’ fluid abstraction “Laughter Makes the Hunger Go Away” is lovely and sad all at once. There’s much more to see, of course.

And all together they create a good energy as do the performances that accompany the exhibition. This speaks to another success of the exhibition. On the opening night Phaedra Robinson (whose works (many of which were seen in her recent solo show at Meadow Brook are prevalent in the gallery) put on a performance in a cubby hole of sorts up in the ceiling of the gallery. She called the space a “Tree Fort” with large painted letters, and proceeded silently to dance, to try on different masks and hats, and to paint and write on the walls that enclosed her on one side. Her actions were accompanied by a collaborative music set by Colin Zyskowski. This was a strong reminder that art is play, art is exploration, art is about ideas, about self-expression. Art is about being bold and putting yourself and your thoughts on the line. Whether you understand what it’s all about on one level or not, it’s impossible not to understand as the sum of such things. Also that night, the gallery played host to a much louder performance put on by “The American Scientists” – a troupe of Mickey Mouse ear wearing folks doing, what I can best explain as, ummm, well maybe I can’t articulate the weirdness of the performance. But I can describe it a bit, they stood behind a temporary wall which had famous people’s faces pasted upon it and mouth holes cut in them. The Scientists then stuck their tongues through the various holes as “We are the World” was played. As much as it may well have been political, but it was definitely a riot in a whole different sense of the word!

The final achievement of the “ Detroit Art Riot” is a marketing one – the ability to bring people in the doors and perhaps keep them coming back. This show has a short run, two weeks, but each weekend features performance similar (in that they will be performances in an art gallery, beyond that all bets are off!) to this first night’s. This means that beyond getting the art together and letting it stand there – the show is being supported by finding more ways to get people to see it and be part of the experience. In Theatre, a play has many nights to catch it. Often in art, sadly if one misses the opening night, that’s it. This is a larger problem that can’t be solved with this exhibition or this column, but by building multiple reasons to attend the exhibition, Lovestone and crew have not only made this show something to come to even after the first day, but something to come back to and experience all over again.

That same weekend also saw another marketing success brought upon by four young artists who call themselves Mass Transition. They did a fantastic job getting the word out through multiple channels for their opening at the Bankle Building last Friday night. In addition to that, once they got people in, they offered buttons with their logo, and all of this ties in to their website and individual websites where people could see more of each artist’s work. The show was full of fresh, illustrative work – perhaps a little thin in terms of the total body of work on display, but offering plenty of promise with what was there. Attendees witnessed Alison Beal’s fashionable illustrations, Mark Sarmel’s hip, clean ink drawings, Rachel Cortner’s clever, anonymous male figures all taking on traditional female roles, and finally, Sam Conant’s collage pieces, each illustrating an element from the periodic table with images from ads, writing, and more – like the Morton Salt Girl on the piece about Sodium. Pretty cool, and it will be nice to see the entire periodic table when he’s completed it.

Getting people to see art, appreciate it, and buy it, is not an easy task. And to not try to find new ways of doing so, is to remain unheard and unseen. The Detroit Art Riot and Mass Transition have found different, but successful ways to approach these issues while still staying true to the spirit of creation behind their work. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Note, the other performances of the Detroit Art Riot will happen Saturday October 8 8pm-11pm featuring Siddhartha (formerly Velvet Audio), and Superiorbelly; and Saturday October 15, 8pm-12pm featuring The Amazing Eugene Clark, Thor, and Ziam. Hors Devours and libations will be served on performance nights. A minimum donation of at least $3 is requested for the attendance of these Saturday evening events to support victims of Hurricane Katrina and other worthwhile charities. (Note although omitted from the original version of this review, Odie Rynell Cash did perform opening night, which this reviewer missed on opening night. We apologize for the oversight, and note for the record that Cash performed "Pistol Toting" - a performance in real time, in which he attended the gallery as anyone might with a pistol drawn on the skin between his index finger and thumb, which will remain there for the length of the exhibition. For more information please click here.)

Steel the show
Giorgio Gikas and Detroit Artists Market come up with a good one
By Rebecca Mazzei and Nick Sousanis
10/5/2005

(This collaboration between critics is as it appeared in Metro Times October 5-11. You can see it in print(!) and on their website as it originally appeared.)

Metalworking has made us who we are today, moving humanity out of the Stone Age, setting Western civilization on a path toward the agricultural and industrial revolutions, and bringing us to where we are now — whether we like it or not.

It’s clear that the 16 artists in Detroit Artists Market’s exhibit Metalize respect the medium and admire the history of metalworking. Because of that, nostalgia and angst are replaced by reverence and reverie. Curated by Giorgio Gikas and DAM Chair Dan Graschuck, this exhibit showcases a sampling of the different methods for using metal, from the historical to the contemporary, and the possibilities of all that it can be.

Whether literal or metaphorical, in this show, metal is a tool for human development. The curators chose artists from around the city and across the country, abiding the gallery’s mission to support Detroit’s artistic community by showing quality artists who live outside Michigan. It’s one of the strongest exhibitions in the city right now, and definitely the best Detroit Artists Market has had in a long while.

Recently, Nick Sousanis, editor of thedetroiter.com, and Rebecca Mazzei, Metro Times arts editor, visited the gallery for a conversation.

Nick Sousanis: Charles McGee always insists it doesn’t matter what’s in a show — the artist’s age or style — as long as there is an overall insistence upon quality. I won’t speak for Charles, but this show has it.

Rebecca Mazzei: That’s definitely true. For such a diverse medium, you’d imagine it would be difficult to get a consistency across the board, but most people who work with metal appreciate the tradition of good craftsmanship.

Sousanis: Curator Gikas is a sculpture conservator. Who better than a man with an intimate knowledge of the ins and outs of metalworking — from materials to processes — to curate this show? There’s a tremendously diverse range of work. There’s also a statement about Detroit being a town that makes things out of metal.

Mazzei: Yes, but is this what you’d expect to see? Not at all. I’d expect car parts and rusted found objects.

Sousanis: You’re right. There’s little Detroit aesthetic here. But there’s a Giorgio Gikas aesthetic. He’s a huge motorcycle collector, and those by Ron Finch and the Detroit Brothers show his particular love for functional metalwork.

Let’s look first at Evan Larson’s work. Larson is an assistant professor of metalsmithing at Wayne State University, and I find it hard to believe that, outside of the university, people in Detroit don’t really know his work. This guy’s imagination and craftsmanship are boundless.

Mazzei: All three of his pieces seem philosophical, but they also refer to science through metaphors to biology or anatomy. This is great for a medium that seems so inhuman. There’s the fishtail motif in his pieces, and the wall piece with flower-like forms shooting out into the gallery space, pistils protruding, exaggerating the reproductive organ. Then there’s also the literal reference to physics — working with material in its simplest but most challenging form, as he does, using one sheet.

Craftsmanship is great in Nicole Jacquard’s work too, especially the aluminum “Leaf Vase,” or ornately decorated half-vase. She treats something as heavy and formidable as metal to make it look lightweight and fragile. But Jacquard’s art is interesting not just because it’s beautiful. From head-on, it looks like a completely round piece, but the vase is actually one-sided, like a three-dimensional sketch of a vase. It’s a riddle. The same thing goes for her other work, a sculptural landscape called “Magic Month.” The white trees are smooth and naked, with branches cleanly chopped where leaves might sprout. They look like hands reaching for the sky.

Sousanis: That links to the idea of the material as a representation of the human — strong and malleable yet brittle. Metal can be shaped into something pretty, or used as weaponry, like Scott Lankton’s Bronze Age dagger. Sometimes objects are just about being objects, and others are about understanding an idea bigger than their form.

Mazzei: The full-bodied geometric forms by blacksmith Tom Joyce, a MacArthur Fellow, are an example of that. His work seems to be more about formal artistic concerns. They change shape as you walk around them; they’re puzzles of perspective. These sculptures don’t seem to be about the medium. Couldn’t he just as easily make them out of stone? I like that not all the works in this show are about “being metal.”

Sousanis: I like that Joyce’s works are impossible to capture adequately in a photograph. Again, like some of the other works, it reminds me of the metaphor of metal as human — as they appear different from every angle. They possess hidden depths that are rough and raw within an exterior that’s smooth and impenetrable. But you’re right — you take his work in like you might take in an abstract color field. They are contemplative, about a mood or a feeling, and very little about the object itself.

Mazzei: Symbolism is really strong in this show. Take Lin Stanionis’ “X.” In the center of this large disc of cold, hard and heavy metal, a colorful metal flower protrudes from what looks like a waxen birth canal. It’s a beautiful poetic expression that metal has a soul. Life is waiting within, ready to be exposed by the artist.

Sousanis: Ron Finch’s motorcycle is more playful, but also a representation of life. It looks like one of H.R. Giger’s creatures.

Mazzei: Yes, a skinless mechanical creature. Notice the eyeball painted near the seat, staring at the rider. I also like that Finch juxtaposes gothic flourishes with contemporary hot-rod details. It pays homage to the old and the new.

Sousanis: On the other hand, “Weldy’s Revenge” (a motorcycle by Detroit Brothers James and Dave Kwiatkowski) is a different sort of art form; it’s all about muscle and function.

Mazzei: Yes — and America. The bike is branded on the tires, the hubcaps and the seat. The piece is very Detroit; their orange logo looks like the old English script of the Tigers logo.

Sousanis: It also has this Detroit-style “loner on the road” spirit. Our cars are equated with freedom and fierce individualism; they take us where we want to go, when we want to go there. This definitely isn’t a two-seater.

The machine contrasts well with, for instance, the sculptural vessels by James Visti or Darlys Ewoldt. Even a motorcycle could be considered a vessel, but Visti’s vessels reference the agricultural age, which was facilitated by steel or iron plows. He’s going back in history to the practical reasons why people made iron in the first place — to use as weapons and tools.

Mazzei: On the other hand, Brad Nichols’ pieces, “The Rat Really Knows How to Smoke” and “Prehistoric Queen,” mock pop culture fads. They are outlandish narrative scenes that remind me of East Coast and West Coast trends. There’s the hip-hop street rat hanging out in the sewer pipes smoking a fat cigar or doobie and the haughty yet trampy flamingo floozie in her cheap high heels under the coconut trees.

From artistically expressive works to the highly functional, (like Rico Eastman’s surprisingly comfortable “Ascension Chair,” created from a single sheet of metal folded like an origami swan) there’s an overall theme in Metalize of transforming the medium into something people can relate to. Whether focusing on style, form or content, they express their fondness for the material, succeeding admirably because they know it so intimately. Metal is so difficult to work with, they have no choice but to know it intimately. What makes it meaningful for the rest of us is that they share their secrets.

Runs through Oct. 23, at Detroit Artists Market, 4719 Woodward Ave.; 313-832-8540.

ws@thedetroiter.com

This Week in Art: Chido Johnson
Motor City Brewing Works
4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night, 7-11 pm
(October 5, 2005)

Last Wednesday night the spotlight fell on self-portraits made by every one who was invited to curator Graem Whyte’s and Faina Lehrman’s wedding. Each invitation came with a postcard upon which the respondent had to draw his or her own image. It was really a tremendous show – from some fantastically involved pieces (Clint Snider, Scott Hocking) to the iconic (Joe Ferraro) to the simply sweet (people whose names I don’t know.) With any luck we’ll be able to share a slideshow of this some time.

In the meantime, come out again, as CCS professor of sculpture, Chido Johnson gives us some work in progress. A great chance to catch up with Johnson’s work.

Wednesday nights have proven to not only be a good chance to get an in process look at a what a working artist is up to, but as it invites similar folk, a nice chance to make connections, and of course sample a bit (in moderation!) of what the good folks at Motor City brew up each day! – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

This Week in Art: Self-Portraits
Motor City Brewing Works
4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night, 7-11 pm
(September 28, 2005)
This time out the Wednesday night spotlight falls on self-portraits made by every one who was invited to curator Graem Whyte’s and Faina Lehrman’s wedding this past weekend. Each invitation came with a postcard upon which the respondent had to draw his or her own image. It’s a lovely idea, and a nice way to celebrate this couple’s newlywed status. Come by to give them a hug, ring your beer mug, and enjoy the art of a lot of people who like Graem and Faina!

Wednesday nights have proven to not only be a good chance to get an in process look at a what a working artist is up to, but as it invites similar folk, a nice chance to make connections, and of course sample a bit (in moderation!) of what the good folks at Motor City brew up each day! – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Cristin Richard/Mary Rousseaux
District Arts Gallery
955 S. Eton,
Birmingham, MI 48009
248-258-9300
September 17 – October 15, 2005

Delicate, beautiful dresses made out of pig intestines and brightly colored, non-representational paintings might not sound like they belong side by side. However, once again District Arts’ Christine Schefman has put together an inspired pairing, with Mary Rousseaux’s almost atmospheric ‘scapes serving as a ground for the figures of Cristin Richard’s sculptural forms. It works. The two artists’ quite different works complement one another nicely.

Similarities abound as the translucent outer layer of Richard’s dresses reveals intense color hidden below to radiate through which is matched by Rouseeaux’s vivid encaustics barely contained by the layer of clear resin coating them.

Rousseaux’s abstractions are very Detroit in many ways. The inner surfaces appear worn, battered, as if weathered landscape or rusted metal. They are organic not in a flowery way, but in the way that nature reclaims even the most seemingly permanent man-made structures (as Scott Hocking has continually demonstrated through his reclaimed rust pieces.) Rousseaux’s colors are of a living planet, a chaotic landscape – bright reds and oranges of exposed earth and volcanic fields or swirling storms on Jupiter; and deep blues, of the bottom of the ocean or the methane atmosphere of Neptune. In the natural world, the closer we look the more is revealed (grain of sand and all that... ). Rousseaux’s paintings have that quality as well, displaying ever greater depth stemming from a combination of the intentional and incidental. As much as these are Detroit in their gloriously decayed inner surface (and exposed, unframed edges), they are Detroit in their outer surface’s polished, cherry finish. The smooth resin applied to the more discongruous encaustic paint has the shine of a waxed, buffed car in a town that takes its cars all too seriously. The mix of raw and polished, organic and refined, comes together to make these attractive and engaging.

Richard’s works are Detroit in the way of taking something not intended to be viewed as remotely aesthetically appealing (pig intestine) and transformed it into something quite beautiful, if still a bit disturbing. (Think of it this way, she uses something intended to wrap meat to wrap a woman’s form – a play on the term “meat market.” ) (For a past review, please click here.) This time out Richard still brings the delicate and accomplished craftsmanship to her dressmaking that has been seen before, but the pieces have become more fully figurative forms and thus rather than suspending them from the ceiling for display, these all stand up from the floor. By expanding in this direction, Richard has created for herself a broader vehicle for expression, which she utilizes to put forth both humor and more direct approach towards social questions.

Take for instance, “Easy Entry” which consists of 3 pairs of female legs soles skyward, emerging up from the floor with dresses down around their waists. It’s funny, sure, but the joke is just the beginning, as it says much about the roles of women who wore such dresses, and whether we’ve come far from that point or not. At the same time, these are inverted flowers of sorts – legs as upward stems and the folded dress material creating delicate petals (their translucent material allowing a glimpse of red underneath to filter through).

Richard’s work has always been about identity (obviously of women in particular) as manifested by our clothing. With the figure starting to take shape within the clothes she reinforces that theme. In “Instigator” a business-suited figure (I’m told the first of a series) stands confidently, a symbol of strength yet dressed to exhibit the allure of her sex. With this new body of work, Richard is moving past creating strictly solitary objects and moving towards the world of installation as is suggested by a set of three ball gown dresses in District Arts front lobby. Arranged as such (like the trio of legs described earlier) the pieces can start to have a conversation between one another and enrich the dialogue that a single form creates. One can envision an entire ballroom inhabited with these figures.

Rousseaux and Richard offer beauty and depth, lots to see and thoughts that will linger. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Robert Schefman
Meadowbrook Art Gallery

A retrospective show is an educational experience and a show of support to an artist whose work has meant a lot to the community. Meadow Brook Art Gallery has been put on such shows yearly and continues to do so with Robert Schefman and his career of wildly surreal yet extremely realistic, narrative, figurative paintings.

Describing an entire career of work like this is no easy task. Schefman’s themes shift subtly over time, and the show is divided into series to reflect that: myths, dreams, censorship, and the artist’s apprentice. But the divisions are not impermeable as there is far more overlap in content than not. Throughout all the different thematic approaches what remains steadfastly consistent is Schefman’s personality: it’s deep and it’s silly. It’s laughter in the face of darkness so as not to cry.

This humor, is captured in exaggerated form in a self-portrait from the Dream series titled, “Robert’s Nightmare,” in which we see the painter hard at work planing wood in a carpenter’s role, while wearing a false nose, mustache, and glasses. He’s gazing directly at the viewer, breaking that fourth wall (or equivalent term for painting). We can appreciate both the gravity and ludicrousness of his situation.

In another self-portrait Schefman is at his easel, mouth covered with duct tape, with the beginnings of a nude sketched on his canvas. He can’t speak but he can still make images. And he does. This is part of an entire series that deals with censorship, though always on Schefman’s terms, and always with a sly, warm wink towards the viewer. In “X” a man holds two sheets of paper strategically covering a woman, though at the same time he is completely naked (full frontal male nudity being the more taboo of the two.) In a sister painting, “Y” a naked woman with her back to us holds up a black cloth with outstretched arms to cover a picture of a naked man. In fact, subsequently, his own work has fallen victim to censors. Not on display but in the catalogue (due to size constraints not censorship), the mural-sized “Antigone” is an overhead perspective of students in a play acting out a scene where Antigone comes upon her dead brother. She stares upwards as if confronting the gods who caused this to happen. The work was commissioned for Detroit Country Day School but shortly after being hung was removed as the Columbine shootings had just occurred and some objected to its reference to youth violence. But this never stopped Schefman from continuing to confront the viewer with his particular perspective.

More recent works have brought the mythological elements that have been prevalent throughout all of his career, and connected them to the history of painting itself, providing a really rich environment for Schefman to delve into. The surreal and the humorous still infuse the work, but through more direct appropriation of imagery there is a greater link between the works and the old masters. We can then glimpse their works in a new context and gain a greater appreciation for the tradition within which Schefman fits. (For a recent review of this particular body of work, please go here.)

In all this talk of myths, dreams, surrealism, and humor, not enough has been said about just how strong these are as paintings first, figurative paintings second, and thus how accessible the work is to a broad audience. Not accessible in the “I get it” sort of way, but in that these are strong figure paintings always. And while the situations and back stories may be difficult to unravel they invite everyone to look, to enjoy the figures, the environment, and then try to make sense of it all, or maybe not. Perhaps like the dreams and nightmares he puts down in paint, there are no final answers, just glimmers of thoughts masked in myths and a knowing look to let us know we’re not alone as we navigate the best path we can.

It’s great that Meadow Brook is continuing its commitment to showcasing Detroit treasures like Robert Schefman in full. Also, they’ve once again created a comprehensive catalogue, thereby documenting and preserving the artist’s influence in a lasting and meaningful way. Opportunities to see all this work together happen very rarely in one’s lifetime. Check it out. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

-Nick
ws@thedetroiter.com

101up Gallery "The Sixth Show," a media-specific Drawing Exhibition.
August 27 - September 23, 2005.
4470 Second Ave. in Detroit's Midtown
(313) 415-6364

First off, some much deserved kudos to the 101up folks. It’s a great looking space, and in its brief existence has shown a diverse and quite able-bodied group of artists, earning its growing reputation. The spirit of constant invention that fueled co-director Mark Sengbusch’s 101 paintings in 20 weeks is alive and going strong here. Sengbusch and partner Greg Frederick have kept the place hopping with each exhibition experimenting with format, style, and more. This time out the opening was accentuated by Rob Young on the violin and mandolin. A nice touch.

If timing isn’t quite everything, well maybe then context is everything else. Witness then 101up’s “Sixth Show”, as stated, six Detroit artists present a varied interpretation of "drawing." Some may argue that the environment doesn’t matter, that the work stands as the statement of each individual. But take Carl Oxley’s work for instance: fun, clean work capable of creating an upbeat show. Squeeze this in the space between Erin Somerville, whose spare drawings of household furnishings speak to our memory and run towards the conceptual side of things, and Kylie Lockwood, whose delicate renderings of animals are hauntingly beautiful, if more than a little bit disturbing. Over at Commonwealth Gallery a few months back Somerville and Lockwood’s works spoke well together. Here their subtlety is almost too hidden as Oxley’s sense of play is muted.

We also see Elizabeth Isaacson’s near photo-realistic pastel cityscapes standout – very Detroit. But what do they mean alongside Ryan Csaszar expressive fantasy illustrations. Rachelle Guenther’s sketched on ceramics are quite quiet, and thus are obscured in the shuffle.

Does this suggest that these six can’t be seen together? Perhaps. Or perhaps it takes a lot of work in thinking about how to give them each their due – by whatever means that needs to take place. By interspersing them we are meant to draw connections between the work – but besides the fact that they are drawn, this isn’t easy. But maybe it can be done.

This is the 6th show, not 6 artists side by side. Coordinating a group show as this one is tricky business. The goal is to get each artist’s work to feed off the other, and have each be informed by the others. This happened quite well at a previous photo show, where despite the quite different styles on display, there was enough information in each to build upon in the others.

All in all there’s a lot of great energy going on at 101up, plenty of strong and up and coming artists to see and who are getting a chance to be seen. The spirit of invention is persistent here and we only hope they continue to explore and grow as Show 7 and beyond come along. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

This Week in Art: Laith Karmo
Motor City Brewing Works
4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night, 7-11 pm
(September 21, 2005)

This week’s Wednesday night spotlight at the Motor City Brewing Works falls on Laith Karmo. Since first making a splash on the scene as part of DetroitNow!, CCS grad turned Cranbrook student Karmo has been investigating form in two and three dimensions. He speaks of his work simply, "my art is labor.” Last week saw Mike Smith, whose dual running videos created an uncomfortable and desired tension in his audience as we watched him quickly stab a knife between all his fingers and filmed an 8 year old girl wearing a sweatshirt over her head while sitting alone in a field for 20 minutes. If the art was intentionally unsettling, the atmosphere at Motor City was anything but, as conversations about what it means to live in Detroit and fears of speaking in public kept attendees there until late in the evening. (When curator Whyte kicked us all out!)
Wednesday nights have proven to not only be a good chance to get an in process look at a what a working artist is up to, but as it invites similar folk, a nice chance to make connections, and of course sample a bit (in moderation!) of what the good folks at Motor City brew up each day! – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

This Week in Art: Mike Smith
Motor City Brewing Works
4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night, 7-11 pm
(September 14, 2005)

This week’s Wednesday night spotlight at the Motor City Brewing Works falls on Mike Smith. We saw Smith’s work back in 5 Shows 5 Days at DAM and expect to see a completely different body of work this time out. Wednesday nights have been pretty special thus far, so expect the same this time out.

This has proven to not only be a good chance to get an in process look at a what a working artist is up to, but as it invites similar folk, a nice chance to make connections, and of course sample a bit (in moderation!) of what the good folks at Motor City brew up each day! – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Cheers
Revolution Gallery
23257 Woodward
Ferndale, MI 48220
248-541-3444
Tues-Sat 11-6
http://www.revolutn.com
September 10 through October 1

I want to tell you about Brenda Goodman's intimate, exquisite self-portraits. Goodman depicts the human figure in all its ghastliness of biology and psychology. Yet it the same time she puts such care and richness of expression into the paint handling (thereby creating a delicious surface) as to truly put forth the beautiful contradiction of being human.

I want to tell you about Christian Tedeschi's continuing exploration of forms - as he uses thick resin to transform everyday objects into enigmatic forms. This time it's a ceiling fan with spidery tendrils of resin gracefully streaming off the fan blades. The work walks the edge between order and chaos, his careful preparation balanced by allowing the materials to do what they want to do.

I want to tell you about Howard Kottler's portrait of a vase, in which Edgar Rubin's familiar face/vase illusion is made from Kottler's distinctive profile in contact paper. The illusion is subtle but it works.

I want to tell you about Heather McGill's delicate cuts in black paper, and the graceful image she achieves with such simplicity.

I want to tell you about all these things and more.

But I won't.

I can't.

Not gonna do it.

I don't want to tell you about the fact that this is the last exhibition at this place. That after 12 years of investigating contemporary art, Revolution is closing its doors. I don't want to, but you likely already knew that - it's been announced in the papers for a while now and the pall has fallen over the community. (Sometimes having an online magazine doesn't make us the first to report such things.)

Revolution: to change, but also to come full circle. The gallery has always featured contemporary artists, but more so new looks at age old mediums. Take Scott Richter's juicy paint palettes - perhaps sculpture, but a new approach to painting and a deep investigation of paint itself. The galley regularly featured pottery, in a time when new media is the darling of the moment, yet it more than held its own against such things. Clay vessels are as old as human civilization, yet here in hipster-ville such works have remained fresh and filled with potential.

I will miss the people behind this place: from day one, director Paul Kotula and assistant director Sandra Schemske made this kid from an unknown online art web-magazine feel welcome from his first timid entrance to the space three years ago. They never questioned this, when no one knew that thedetroiter.com even existed, they were only helpful. I'll miss them here - but know that their commitment to this community will persist in some new manifestation when the gallery closes its doors for the last time.

I'll miss the space, of course. But I understand that places come, and after a while, places go. Things change. The idea behind Revolution teaches us that. If anything what I mourn most is that I live in a culture that has turned its back on the exploration of ideas and individual expression.

But the Walmart-ing of America will change too.

I didn't want to write about these things, but I'm happy to have written of the efforts, the ideas, and the artists behind Revolution for these last three years. What Revolution stood for in the Detroit art community will not soon be forgotten.

Things change. And everything old is new again. Know that this place has touched many folks in its history. The spirit of Revolution may have left the building but it lives on and will be carried forward by others.

Vive la Revolution!

-Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

This Week in Art: Martha Moszczynski
Motor City Brewing Works
4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night, 7-11 pm
(September 7, 2005)

This week’s Wednesday night spotlight at the Motor City Brewing Works falls on Martha Moszczynski. Don’t know a lot about Moszczynski but Wednesday nights have been pretty special thus far, so expect the same this time out. Last week Joshua Smith (one of the Three Musketeers that made Commonwealth Gallery such a treat for its all too brief existence) showed off three large print photographs. Each piece offered a glimpse of the everyday yet in a way as to suggest something quite of the ordinary. The effect was to create a story, one supplied by the viewer, and one never quite the same twice.

This has proven to not only be a good chance to get an in process look at a what a working artist is up to, but as it invites similar folk, a nice chance to make connections, and of course sample a bit (in moderation!) of what the good folks at Motor City brew up each day! – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

This Week in Art: Joshua Smith
Motor City Brewing Works
4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night, 7-11 pm
(August 31, 2005)

This week’s Wednesday night spotlight at the Motor City Brewing Works falls on Joshua Smith. Smith was one member of the Three Musketeers that made Commonwealth Gallery such a treat for its all too brief existence. Last week was the first no show on record at the Motor City Brewing Works, but the ever reliable Smith will no doubt make up for that in spades.
This has proven to not only be a good chance to get an in process look at a what a working artist is up to, but as it invites similar folk, a nice chance to make connections, and of course sample a bit (in moderation!) of what the good folks at Motor City brew up each day! – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Zeitgeist Gallery
Visual Jam Sessions IV
2261 Michigan Ave.
Detroit, MI 48216
313-965-9192
http://www.zeitgeistdetroit.org/

Zeitgeist puts on its annual collaboration show, Visual Jam Sessions. If art is often a solitary pursuit, the collaboration show is a great way to break down barriers between artists and let them really learn from another in an intense, intimate fashion. It is one thing to look at another’s work, but sharing a single canvas reveals something else altogether about process, the nature of ideas, and aesthetic pursuits.

Each artist has their own disparate ways of working and creates singular environments – the challenge is to keep them from colliding and find a peaceful merger. Illustrative of this is Bryant Tilmann’s abstract jazz-inspired landscapes creating a perfect habitat for DMC’s menagerie of imagined creatures. Working side by side the artists pick up ideas, inform the other, this dialogue seems represented nicely in a collaboration in which Thom Humes’ realistically rendered figure reaches out in an attempt to commune with DMC’s otherworldly looking seraphim. These pieces are less a patchwork of artists’ ideas and a fusion of their separate process into a singular meeting of minds. As such it seems no surprise that so many of the works are heads, each artist contributing a bit of their own personality to the new visage that emerges.

As valuable as the collaborative process is for the artists, it ends up being just as beneficial for the viewer. On one level, there is a certain amount of fun to be had in simply picking out who’s who in each piece. It can become a game to try to identify an artist from a few marks merged with another’s. And the finished works here are quite delightful, as in many cases, perhaps it’s not accurate to say that two heads are better than one, but they are altogether something new. It’s as if a whole stable of slightly familiar, but altogether brand new artists has cropped up and made themselves known. From the point of view of pure collecting, what better chance to pick up not one, but two (and sometimes even three or four) artists all on a single canvas?

Visual Jams is always an interesting experiment, and from the results it is easy to witness the joy these folks had working together. This melding of vision and ideas deserves a look. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

This Week in Art: Josh Owen
Motor City Brewing Works
4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night, 7-11 pm
(August 17, 2005)

This week’s Wednesday night spotlight at the Motor City Brewing Works falls on Josh Owen. Ummmm, we don’t have a lot of advance intel on Mr. Owen. The only rumor has something to do with nudes…. That said, last week’s show featuring Michael Bizon was quite a hit and a great turnout (and a lot of nice (and ridiculously affordable) work on display), so we expect to have more of the same this time around.
Next week it’s Commonwealth’s Joshua Smith on the 31st.
This has proven to not only be a good chance to get an in process look at a what a working artist is up to, but as it invites similar folk, a nice chance to make connections, and of course sample a bit (in moderation!) of what the good folks at Motor City brew up each day! – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Summer Pack 2
Matthew Blake, Mitch Cope, Shannon Goff, and Mona Shahid
Susanne Hilberry Gallery
http://www.susannehilberrygallery.com/
700 Livernois
Ferndale, MI 48220
248-541-4700
Tues-Sat. 10-6 pm.
June 24 through July 23, 2005.

Summer Pack 2 is here - offering up another fresh show at the Hilberry Gallery. By working with young curators to plan these exhibitions in the otherwise slow summer months, Susanne Hilberry has enlivened the gallery for the summer months and continues to reach out to a younger audience as she maintains her connections to a more established art going crowd. In short - it works.

One very cool thing about the gallery, (which I unfortunately missed the deadline to discuss in conjunction with John Corbin's illuminated sculptures; these were beautifully visible at night from the street), is how the road side picture windows allow art to be an almost driveby experience. As Corbin's were great nightlights, it seems doubtful that any passerby will fail to notice an actual sized helicopter, made completely out of cardboard. Thus we are introduced to the work of Shannon Goff. (Whose work (an interior car dashboard image) is also similarly alluring currently at the Ferndale Billboard Project on Woodward at 9 and a half mile.)

The 'copter is fully realized from turning rotors and complex tail assembly right down to a cardboard instrument panel. It's impressive on scale and sheer ambition alone, yet this is less a blueprint of an aircraft fabricated together, and more a three-dimensional drawing of what a helicopter looks like to the artist. Goff's ability to weave both accuracy and almost anthropomorphic personality into her work is on view here and in her smaller works on display, two quirky, playful clay sculptures of dial telephones. The end result is something recognizable as being what it is, yet belonging to a world all Goff's own. And that seems to be a bit of what she's doing, building up familiar objects to inhabit a realm of her own making. If there's a danger to such work, it might be in continually having to top herself, leading to a time when her only next move left is to have to create an entire community with an art gallery inside with her own artwork inside entirely?! However from all that went into this project, it seems possible that she more than likely would be up to even that challenge!

Matthew Blake offers an unprecedented opportunity to reference the fabled Elgin Marbles (on view in the British Museum) for the second time in as many months. Last time it was with Snider and Hocking's Relics, which I referred to as the Elgin Marbles of our time. Here, Blake has purposefully created works out of our detritus, rummage sale refuse, and by careful conglomeration has elevated the status of such junk into essential elements of modern temple statuary. Instead of grey eyed Athena and ferocious centaurs, we have grey painted Incredible Hulk, Transformers, army men and more. As past cultures had their heroes, their mythology, Blake depicts these toys and icons from our youth, our past in that same light. To a culture that forgets its own history almost immediately, where history flip flops with the turn of public opinion, these are modern shrines to our not so distant past. He's created meaningful altars (note, the various elements are juxtaposed thematically and with great intent) as was done in antiquity to hold up our past in a quite beautiful and serious, if playful, sort of way.

Mona Shahid's paintings may not capture our past so much as they work to preserve a bit of our present, via portraiture. Through the sensitive use of encaustic (a method of oil painting mixed into wax offering great depth and luminosity to the work) she creates realistic depictions of her subjects, but while they certainly deal with accurate representation they are more so about the subject's inner states or perhaps the inner state of the artist. Some elements of the figure come into sharp focus while others drift off into the dense atmospheric backgrounds. In a dual self-portrait Shahid is peering into (or outwards) a fogged mirror trying perhaps to discern a kind of understanding. It's a moment we can all relate to, that probing at the mirror, looking for answers from that figure at once so familiar, and yet still never fully understood. Shahid dances that edge between vagueness and sharpness, letting us know her characters up to a point, but still feeling the same uncertainty about them that we feel coming from them.

Mitch Cope's graphite drawings of Detroit and Hamtramck scenes are on one hand almost naively rendered, yet done so so as to create and capture a quite mature perspective of their subject matter. By utilizing this drawing style, minimal, simplistic without being simple, single images are able to speak volumes about the city. From the curatorial reigns of Tangent Gallery to Shrinking Cities, Cope has gained an informed perspective on Detroit. His commentary - a mix of humor and frustration shines through in each drawing. Some examples: a tiny drawing of the Mayor giving the state of the city address from a podium to no one in front of the mammoth abandoned hulk of the Train Depot. He emphasizes the state of abandonment by compressing the entire drawing and leaving enormous empty boundaries around the central image. Cope throws in a bit of red in a few of the images to emphasize the various barriers between people erected in this city from the 8 mile wall to the former cement fortification in front of the Ren Cen. It's depressingly funny to look at a little picture of a lone man on a bicycle, in front of a corner of a home concealed by lightly drawn foliage, all packaged with a title "Woodward Dream Cruise, Detroit." Sad and funny, hopeful and depressing, all moments familiar to Detroiters that Cope depicts richly in this work.

Four different perspectives on who we are and the world we inhabit, from four artists we're sure to see a lot from for a long time. Check it out. - Nick Sousanis

This Week in Art: Michael Bizon – drawings/sculpture
Motor City Brewing Works4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night, 7-11 pm
(August 17, 2005)

This week’s Wednesday night spotlight at the Motor City Brewing Works falls on Michael Bizon. Bizon, a WSU alum, has for some time now been assisting in the curating of the two WSU galleries, and here we get to see a chance to see a show all his own.

In addition to a show consisting of every piece costing only 20 bucks!, attendees will be treated to the musical stylings of Cotton Museum and Mike Bogdan – performing after 10pm. (So if you like a quiet, cultured art conversation, get there early!)

Last week’s show featured 8 years of Mark Sengbusch’s work. It was a nice chance to catch up on where he’s been and where he’s headed. That particular show offered a solid window into his process and the artist’s process in general. Look for Josh Owen on the 24th, and Commonwealth’s Joshua Smith on the 31st.
This has proven to not only be a good chance to get an in process look at a what a working artist is up to, but as it invites similar folk, a nice chance to make connections, and of course sample a bit (in moderation!) of what the good folks at Motor City brew up each day! – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Sculp Someth’n
G.R. N’Namdi
http://www.grnnamdi.com/
July 22-August 27, 2005
66 East Forest Avenue
Detroit, Michigan 48201
313.831.8700

For its summer group show, N’Namdi Gallery brings together an eclectic mix of sculptors – held together by a strong aesthetic sensibility and deep philosophical component.

In a group show of such small scale, I seldom single out a single artist, let along a single piece. However, Christine Hagedorn’s piece, “Impossible Books” commands such a great deal of attention, that it’s difficult to let it out of one’s thoughts. Hagedorn is known for her sculptural vessels, works referencing boats, often adorned with text, and connected to ideas of ritual. “Impossible Books” deals with a different sort of vessel – that of our knowledge, of our thoughts – these vessels are books. Books have long held great power as the repositories of a culture’s knowledge. In the time before significant literacy, the book no doubt held an almost mystical power – as those that could read them held power over those who could not. Even in this age of new media (including something call the Internet) when the means of communication change by the minute and the majority of books pay tribute to celebrity culture, there is still something sacred about a physical, tangible book. Cover closed, it is an object. Cover open, it is a world unto itself.

The group title is quite right, as these are by no means ordinary books. Their sewn together (bound) spherical (or hemispherical) form, reinforces that idea that a book is at once an object within the world in which it resides, yet simultaneously its own self-contained universe. The reader can in some ways, leave this world and become immersed in the world on its pages. Hagedorn’s construction here is timeless, the paper is aged in appearance, yet we know these are her creations. The elements work together to acknowledge these as the product of intense thought and craftsmanship.

Such works might make one think of the Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Library of Babel” a story in which a library filled with an infinite number of books (each containing a random string of letters and punctuation (think “infinite monkeys/typewriters” scenario) serves as a model for the universe. More recent fictional text references of note, include Neil Gaiman’s Sandman mythology, in which the “Library of Dreams” contains every book everyone dreamed of writing. In Hagedorn’s objects we see this allusion to the infinite depth within the text. What is gleaned of her specific imagery (and indeed, one might need to study this at length to discern all that is within) ranges from the seasons to the celestial signs. If only we could read these, we might understand so many things. These are thoughtful objects, important treasures.

Adia Millett constructs vessels of an entirely different sort. Hers are miniature houses, fairly non-descript on the outside, but with windows to allow the viewer to enter the room, the world inside and become a part of that place. She lights these uninhabited residences with ornate fixtures, illuminating a home that seems in transition. The owners have left or have yet to come. These are quite involved beyond simply doll house furnishings, from the condition of the paint on the interior walls to the miniature cardboard boxes – evidence of the impending move. Millet is creating a real environment, an analogue for a place in someone’s life.

Chakaia Booker’s medium is used tires – vessels for air turned inside out. Which on the surface sounds a bit limited, yet this is truly the high water mark of found object art, as she transforms this stiff donut of rubber, into something alive. Rubber twists and winds through each piece, knotting upon itself in dynamic fashion. In a country that invented “planned obsolescence” and landfills everything that’s been used for a time, Booker works in the way of traditional peoples, whom not only ate certain parts of the animals they killed, but found a way to make use of every single bit of it. That these not only bring back to life something disposed of, but make engaging compositions in simple black rubber, is a strong testament to Booker’s eye and craft.

While working in wood to which a rich palette has been applied, Kathleen Spicer, shares a bit of similarity with Booker in the types of forms she creates. Those familiar with Al Loving (a mainstay at N’Namdi) could see some similarities with his spiraling paper compositions, though Spicer offers a much greater dimensionality and representational quality to her work. The lively forms weave in and out of one another in all dimensions and perhaps a narrative can be made. In “Flow” vessels seem to pour, spiraling fluid holds the composition together. In “Softly” ear forms face opposite each other, while a hint of a treble cleft divides the piece. These can be enjoyed as delicate, beauties, almost flower-like in form, or as representations of a moment or an idea, never quite illustrations, but perhaps poetic.

Tyrone Mitchell offers an entire shelf full of curious sculptures. Almost figurative, they are pieced together with such objects as drawing maquettes among other things to build a piece that reflects the identity of its components, in much the same way that a DJ’s appropriation of samples is integrated into the whole. His one larger piece on display, “Hiroshima” sits massively on the floor. Three large metal balls (stuck together like a snowman body or more so like a blossoming mushroom cloud) rest on a solid metal base upon which shattered glass is all about. Glass might be a stand-in for the height of civilization – we can not only build shelter, but construct means to view the world outside that shelter, to observe while remaining safely inside. When the bomb dropped, such notions of shelter were similarly shattered, as an ancient civilization changed in an instant. I happened to view this on the sixtieth anniversary of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and it struck me as powerful and haunting.

Heloisa Pomfret rounds out the exhibition with paintings, not sculpture, yet the sort of paintings that have a strong sculptural component to them. Pomfret constructs a thick surface through paint, and then compulsively scrapes away with a sharp tool (as if fingernails) to create her compositions. Underneath the dark outer surface is revealed vibrant color, and in some places Pomfret scrapes all the way down to the white of the canvas. Some works are mostly atmospheric, the different depths of the marks creating great visual depth as well. In other works, she takes on a more narrative quality, with forms that suggest figures or heads wrapped in binding cords. The combination of this visual ambiguity (we know there’s something there, but not quite sure what) combined with the rich mark making and color work to make these intriguing works to sustain our gaze time and again.

Lots to see and think about at G.R. N’Namdi. Check it out. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Detroit Fashion Week
4731 Gallery
4731 Grand River Ave. at 14th St. Detroit, MI
Phone/fax: 313.894.4731
www.4731.com
12PM – 5PM Mon – Sat.

It is indeed a hot time in the city but Detroit Fashion Week was very cool.

The ambitious folks at the 4731 Gallery presented three nights of fashion August 11th, 12th, and 13th, 2005. Each night featured its own distinct event; Thursday’s runway show began the series with an almost exclusively Wayne State University fashion-student show.

First out was Torya Richardson; her minimalist works featured colorful slip details peeking out from beneath the skirts. Chantel Cozart (from MSU) mixed in some attractive coarse woven fabric mini skirts and tops detailed with buttons and lace. Crystal Hall emphasized the female form with bikini bottoms and loose fitting asymmetrical tops in bright colors. Heather Hobbs created asymmetrical pieces some with rectilinear cutouts and others with feathered edges, sort of a Bauhaus/gypsy mix. Kelly Kaminski presented a summer dress collection with many form fit off the shoulder tops and long skirts. Her works are nicely proportioned and exude a positive vibe from a youthful fairyland. Rosemarie Tedesco shows us a slice of the street with a creative collection of lace and glitter adorned jeans, as well as jackets and skirts crafted of fine fabrics. Tracy Hill-Faulkner works with highly patterned fabrics and uses some outstanding colors. The focal point of half of the collection of traditional designs was definitely the fabric; some playful, and some with a wink. The other half of the collection featured jeans jackets, skirts, and pants sporting a large white sequined skull and crossbones logo with cute little red hearts for eyes. Leeana Laliberte started with a beautiful blue and turquoise form fit jumpsuit. For both men and women she offered something in a modern biker-ware. From my perspective her men’s ware hit the mark; a pajama top and bottom made from a lightweight off white fabric was perfectly appealing and had a crisp demeanor. Her women’s beach ware is nicely balanced and should charm all.

On evening two the fourth floor at 4731 was full once again. Without fans to cool the patrons we made do by fanning ourselves with the promotional materials. Friday’s event brought together eight of Detroit’s own independent designers.

Detroit Remedy presented a complete hip-hop line of tees, and sweats. The models were having fun with these pieces and their choreographed entrance added to the start of the show. Together with various graphics including their own version of the Detroit “fist” and a tiger head, Remedy adds any and all of Detroit’s iconic sports color schemes, this stuff is pure “troit.”

Detsitti also coops the undeniable power of Detroit sports color but combines it with a highly refined 3d logo. They produce all of the standards you might need to stay cool, but the standout piece was a pair of the jeans with red details, very nice.

Diamond Dancer brought out beaded jewelry in an African/gypsy theme. Personally the presentation was a bit distracting, taking away from experiencing the artist’s work.

The crowd came alive with Michael Delon’s collection; fine fabrics with refined tailoring. Clean chic design is his Michael’s hallmark. A horizontally striped minimalist body skirt was very sexy as was his blue-green form fitting skirt suit, both had everyone’s approval. A classic, elegant, black evening gown really drew attention.

Eugenia Paul wowed the crowd with a 40’s inspired series of glamorous fashion. Pieces included impeccably tailored traditional forms made of beautiful fabric some with lace accents. The color used in this series was perfect; without failing each color choice was matched to models skin tone.

House of Cedi presented another facet of 40’s fashion and then seamlessly took us up to the global village with some very “African Modern” works made with incredible patterned earth tone fabrics. Stunning evening gowns were presented too. For the men there were blue jeans adorned with leather and fabric elements.

Dana Keaton first brought out the “Kiss my Pocket” line; I was transfixed, fun stuff, like watching a fire. Also elegant evening gowns, swim ware, and then came the 70’s! Nice pieces in every form; colorful pants, swirl patterned halter-tops, a very sweet and subtle polka dot tube dress, and swim ware too. Many of the halter-tops included asymmetrical back straps that for me became a real focal point. A sexy skirt and halter made of a deep orange dyed leather was alluring do to its minimalism. Dana exhibits an extreme sensitivity to color.

So far what we are witnessing is the emergence of a Detroit fashion scene. Yes it will happen; designers in Metro Detroit will stay in Michigan and make it their world headquarters. It is exactly this type of localized nurturing that will attract, and keep, a new industry for us all to be proud of.

On day three of DFW the crowd was warmed up with two of our top independents from Friday night Michael Delon and Dana Keaton.

Studio Couture of Southfield kicked things off for the Saturday “Grand Slam” runway show. This is really modern stuff, things that inspire and read very cool. With both men and women represented equally we saw lots of sequins, jeans and jackets for this fall. Destroyed jeans were on every other model and were juxtaposed with a complete hi/low range of tops. With this formula picking any point on the dress up, dress down scale is easy.

Shapes of Royal Oak came out with a bang, lots of jeans and gypsy. Street Style bleached jeans, destroyed jeans, and perfect jeans; you must have all of the above and take special care of them too. I found the best of all the jeans to have details combined in their destruction; bits of diamond bracelets peeked out of the worn pockets, captivating! Dresses come in all lengths and the fairy princess asymmetrical or ragged trim of the skirt was predominant.

Luxe of Bham and Betsy Johnson presented all of the current and past standards.

For dressing up Fairy-Tale Couture is in and for out and about it’s Street Style jeans. - Tom Carbone

Tom Carbone began as a ceramics major at CCS and graduated from the Crafts Interdisciplinary department as a furniture designer. Recently he has begun a second collection of shoes for an upcoming show. He looks at fashion as a craft and understands what it takes to be a “designer–maker.” “Craft is a mixture of art and utility, design is how these two halves are intellectualized.” (Tom also manages our arts calendar .

This Week in Art: Mark Sengbusch - Drawings (1997-2005)
Motor City Brewing Works
4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night, 7-11 pm
(August 10, 2005)

It’s Wednesday night again, and that means a one night art exhibition at the Motor City Brewing Works. This week the spotlight falls on Mark Sengbusch, founder of the 101up Gallery.

Sengbusch has picked up quite a following for his paintings done on wooden disks. These were all part of a project he started after graduating from CCS, wherein he made 101 paintings (hence the name of the gallery) every week for 20 weeks! These works always featured clean and iconic imagery which ranged from the abstract to the slightly illustrational to the whimsical. Attendees of the “This Week in Art Show” get to see a different side of Sengbusch’s work. In presenting the last eight years of his drawings, those familiar with his work are offered new insight and for those less so, this should serve as a comprehensive introduction.

Last week’s show featured Sarah Hughes and her paintings, prints and video installations - including one in which a hanging mobile served as the projection screen. The schedule for the rest of the month includes Wayne State University’s Michael Bizon on the 17th, Josh Owen on the 24th, and Commonwealth’s Joshua Smith on the 31st.

Come for the art, sample a bit of what the good folks at Motor City brew up each day, catch up with old friends from the art community, and make a few new ones. - Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

This Week in Art: Sarah Hughes – multimedia works
Motor City Brewing Works
4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night, 7-11 pm

For the last few months, Wednesday night at Motor City Brewing Works has meant solo shows by Detroit area artists. We first caught up with what sculptor and curator Graem Whyte was up to with Clinton Snider’s exhibition a month or so ago, and liked what we saw.

This is certainly a nice way for Motor City to bring in a lot more folks on an otherwise likely slow night, but more than that it offers a chance for lesser known artists to get a shot at some exposure and for those with a larger following to try things out, that might be prohibitive at a full-fledged exhibition.

It works. We like it. So much so that we’ve offered to sponsor the event. What that means exactly, we’re still trying to figure out. But for now what it means is that you can watch this space for a preview of what’s to come this week in art, and each of the coming weeks.

This week the spotlight falls on Sarah Hughes as she exhibits multimedia artworks including paintings, digital prints, and video installations. In the coming weeks look for 101up’s Mark Sengbusch on the 10th of August, Wayne State University’s Michael Bizon on the 17th, Josh Owen on the 24th, and Commonwealth’s Joshua Smith on the 31st.

This is a great time to check out some art, enjoy the company of other artists and art enthusiasts, and enjoy what the good people at Motor City brew up every day, an art all in itself. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Commonwealth: contemporary art gallery
“The Last Show” featuring Everyone
Saturday, August 6, 2005, 7 - 10pm
Commonwealth is located in the Woodbridge neighborhood of Detroit.
5052 Commonwealth
Detroit Mi 48208
For any questions please e-mail CommonwealthGallery@yahoo.com

In but six short months the three young men behind Commonwealth Gallery have greatly endeared themselves to the Detroit art community. Hosting monthly one night exhibitions in their rented home (in fact the removal and packing of all their belongings in a single room in the house for each opening is a performance piece in itself) Brian Clifton, Joshua Smith, and Jeffrey Tranchell have over that brief time created a consistent aesthetic vision. When asked to describe their theme, Smith offered something to the effect that it’s art that knows it’s art. This self-awareness present in the art is equally present in the curators. Without sounding condescending, I’m tempted to describe them as precocious, as their eye for work and consistent level of quality exceeds expectations given their youth.

Witness their most recent show, “Mothers of Invention.” Sara Blakeman headed up the cast with her delightful drawings and intimate sculptural pieces. These are fresh delicacies – things desirable out of nostalgia and for things sweet. Using the colors and forms of childhood she created sculptural petit fours and candy and glittery balloon drawings. Drawings and sculptures played off one another, and share a distinct personality, one filled with the exuberance of youth yet the awareness of an adult.

Lauren Casteel’s cupcake sculptures share an interesting synergy with Blakeman’s work. They offer a similar palette and subject matter, yet possess a much edgier, almost disturbing tone. If Blakeman’s puffy sticker-esque pieces make us long for simpler days, Casteel’s might make us think we can’t quite go back there again.

Michael Caran revisits childhood as well, utilizing an etch-a-sketch to provide a “wow!” moment in the show. Out of the single line created by turning the device’s two knobs, he’s done some fabulous, somewhat naïve yet compulsively patient drawings. The piece “Living Room” is visible from outside the gallery, and prompted visitors to want to touch it, turn the knobs, and no doubt start working on their own masterpiece. The drawing is really something, going so far as to reference the etch-a-sketch itself and a living room perhaps like the one it’s hanging in at the moment, only one who’s furniture is still in place.

Working with an altogether different pixilated screen, David Rocamora utilizes (and perhaps created though this was not clear) a computer algorithm which scrambles a collection of artist’s statements from New American Painters into different configurations. The output is printed word after word on a laptop screen. Once finished, the screen clears to begin again and generates an entirely different passage. The results are strangely coherent and at times eerily sensible. Sure, there are moments when the sentences don’t quite make sense or end completely abruptly, but it’s hard to discern such things (at least without realizing what’s going on with the program) from artistic and poetic license artists might use to define yet retain some mystery when discussing their own work.

The sad news in all this, is that the bearded trio (and it’s hard to believe I’ve yet to make a Three Musketeers reference) are headed off to parts elsewhere, which means Commonwealth comes to a close. “Mothers” was their last curated show. They do follow it up this week, with a gathering of everyone who’s shown in their brief history for a send-off. We don’t really wish to say goodbye to Clifton, Smith, and Tranchell, but to thank them for their efforts, and wish them well on their next adventures. And while we’re at it, perhaps one more wish (we should get three wishes after all): that more people take a cue from Commonwealth and carve out their own unique spaces, however briefly. All the best fellas. You’ll be missed. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Plexus
Gallery 4731 - 4th floor
4731 Grand River Ave. at 14th St. Detroit, MI
Phone/fax: 313.894.4731
www.4731.com
12PM - 5PM Mon - Sat.
For more information: 734.355.2975 or 810.287.7974
opening Friday July 29, 6-10pm
closing Saturday Aug 6, 6-10pm

The cavernous fourth floor of 4731 plays host to a group of artists working in sculptural abstraction, in effect they’ve turned the entire space into a series of installations. Their approach to installation is quite spare, a tribute to Minimalist artists past. It does feel a bit empty, but is quite full of different approaches to altering the architectural landscape.

Think of the entire installation as a self-contained land, replete with distinct zones created by the different artists. If one looks to such story book lands as Oz and the sort, we might imagine these as different lands with their own unique inhabitants adapting to the specific living conditions within. Every artist gets a space to their own (in some cases a few) and has not so much put an art object in the space, as transformed their corner into an environment. As no land of fantasy is complete without a map detailing its nooks and crannies, the artists have smartly provided such a diagram, serving as an offbeat show catalogue.

The first thing one encounters upon entering the space is a “Great Wall” of toast by Beili Liu. As evidence of the obsession needed to create such a thing we note that the wall is about forty slices of toast tall, and spans a good 20 feet. Liu has also filled an entire alcove with similarly stacked toast. It is, to say the least, a significant undertaking, supplemented by the fact that an American born Chinese person is referencing the Great Wall out of very American white bread. As it stretches so far through the room, like the Great Wall itself, it both divides and links this space and serves as its main feature.

Audra Wolowiec contributes a number of pieces to the landscape. Of ping pong balls and fishing line, she creates a disconnected cloud form, like large droplets suspended in the air. One could imagine this as ping pong ball after ping pong ball hung like Liu stacked toast, but there is a poetic quality to the more limited configuration that is satisfying. Additionally, in walking around the work different alignment of the ping pong balls arise as well as varying interactions with the collective shadow. A second piece of Wolowiec’s also deals with the viewer’s perspective. She’s cut pieces of rubber tubing (of differing heights and diameters) and arranged the cylindrical sections on the floor in a loose snowflake shape. Depending upon one’s orientation to the work the conglomeration can appear to shift from being dark in appearance to quite bright.

With clear plastic sheeting and blowers, Seth Weiner creates several instances of a shimmering illusion of water. The strongest instance of this occurs in a separate room off from the main one, as the walls of that room conceal the mechanics of his work, and it benefits from that uncertainty far greater than out in the open room when it is all on display. Gerhard Schultz works with recorded sounds captured in other areas of the building and also uses loops of audio tape to create hanging sculptural pieces, perhaps most interestingly, stretched and tied in a cat’s cradle of sorts in one corner of the space. Kendall Babl’s “Rafter” is a wooden plank sticking out vertically from a support column suspended only by the tension of a rope pressed stretched between two distant columns.

There are several contributions towards altering the space, including that of Seth Lower who encases an entire support column in the bark of a tree. Lower’s piece works, but it points out where this show could be even stronger. As interesting as the individual pieces are, one starts to imagine what would happen if everything were taken further. What if the obsessiveness that fueled Liu’s toast wall infected the rest? Sure, it might be overcrowded, it might be too much to handle, but it might make the entire room truly sing. Babl’s suspension piece is almost magical in its gravity defying positioning, but we can’t help but wonder about more such works throughout the space. None of this is said to belittle the efforts that went into the show, only that it is such a welcome approach, that it feels like it is on the threshold of great potential. Furthermore, the title “Plexus” refers to a network or combination of parts within a system. This could refer to the artists working together or the space itself. In the outset I spoke of this as an environment, and it seems there’s a chance to intertwine the various artists’ creations into a seamless landscape while preserving their distinctive integrity. The connective tissue between the works is something that can truly distinguish such an exhibition from the typical gallery show where a viewer walks from piece to piece – here even the empty spaces could be inhabited and vital.

All in all this is a conceptually strong effort that raises a lot of questions about sculptural space, architecture, and more. There are plenty of standout pieces within and the promise of further explorations in this vein. And hey, what better place than a city full of empty buildings to continue to explore such terrain? Check it out at the closing, Saturday, August 6. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Meditations on Movement
MONA
7 North Saginaw
Pontiac, MI (The Arts Building)
http://www.detroitmona.com
248-210-7560
Thurs – Sat, 12-6pm
July 15 through August 13, 2005

The purposeful juxtaposition of two ordinary materials to create the extraordinary from the ordinary is one of art’s creative strengths and most difficult challenges. Whether this concerns a touch of color applied to a previously blank surface, as has been done for ages, or some combination of new materials, a creative act so simple, can yet be one capable of great expression. “Meditations on Movement,” at the Museum of New Art, offers several excellent instances of this transformative power.

Andrew Simsak’s untitled “sleeping bag” construction stands out as a compelling testament to the creation of something extraordinary out of the ordinary – in this case a quick trip to the hardware store for materials. Even the form itself is ordinary – yet its effect on viewers is far more than the sum of the parts would imply. Simsak created the sleeping bag form by a continuous coiling of clear flexible plastic tubing (ala basket weaving) held together with small zip ties. To this he attached a water source which circulates through the length of the tubing. And so it appears as something liquid, yet the plastic tubing and extruding zip tie ends create a hard external appearance – not unlike a living organism – which could be said to be a(n extremely) sophisticated water vessel.

The form elicits numerous and varied responses: to some it resembles prickly sea life (an impression made so by the zip tie ends providing for this quilled appearance and the inspired lighting, which gives it an almost internal glow common in such undersea critters), a cellular organism, a sensory deprivation tank, a cocoon. This final interpretation offers further dialogue as it was built large enough for the artist to fit (and on opening night this reviewer was fortunate enough to get a turn to squeeze into it as well.) Being inside produces an odd sensation, at once cramped within the piece itself and within the room filled with people, at the same time it feels as if the gallery has been left behind completely, and that the light and noise filtering through were somehow much farther away than they actually were. Emerging, struggling to pull one’s body out of the narrow opening (obviously one might also think of this as a womb), becomes an act of birth (or rebirth into a new stage of life.) The metamorphosis of the cocoon is a metaphor for the metamorphical power of art. Simsak describes his work as being, “born from this yearning to transform.” And here, he’s created such a transformation of raw materials into something much more and simultaneously a vessel to aid in one’s own transformation.

From equally simple materials – cloth, string, and pulleys – Amanda Hatch has made building puppets. Even without seeing them animated, one could imagine their delightful dance. But their titles, “ghost buildings” and “population shift,” reveal that Hatch has much more going on than anthropomorphic architecture. By making such seemingly permanent structures as buildings out of cloth and subject to being raised and collapsing once again, Hatch offers commentary about the fragile nature of the urban environment-subject to the ebb and flow of its human inhabitants. This is of particular poignancy on display in Pontiac and Detroit – where buildings stand deserted and demolition is a televised spectacle, and the questions of how to keep a city healthy need better solutions.

Jeffrey Schweitzer, who served as curator for this exhibition and brought together a terrific body of artists, offers up commentary of a different sort concerning our own personal image. The tools he uses are simple (by today’s technological standards) – a combination of drawn imagery, written text, voiceover, the insertion of his own image, and popular old songs all spun together in video to absurdly humorous but serious effect. Like Hatch’s buildings, Schweitzer’s videos seek to point out the fluid nature of our own identities.

Lest we forget, the show is titled “Meditations on Movement,” and while the previously mentioned pieces each possess an element of motion, Matt Monroe’s, “Swaying Straws” is all about movement. The piece consists of a wooden seat amidst a sea of plastic straws sticking up like reeds in a lake. A switch sets the straws in motion, all moving in unison. The combination of the moving straws and the sound they make while swaying back and for creates a nice illusion of motion, perhaps a bit unsettling for those prone to seasickness. The feeling of movement while sitting still – perhaps it’s more than a leap to equate this with the relativity of all our motion. But regardless this work brings out the unexpected and makes us look just a bit differently at everyday things around us.

And this lies at the heart of what art can be – a way to look at the familiar with new eyes. To quote Alan Moore from the Watchmen, “we gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from another’s vantage point, as if new, it may still take the breath away.”

One final piece of work speaks directly to Moore’s observation. Cynthia Randolph’s “Bed Lines,” are photographic stills from a video in which every morning for nine months she photographed the state of her bed linens. To be sure, as everyday occurrences go, this is about as commonplace as one can get. We get up, get out of bed (“drag a comb across our head” ) and we go about our day. Randolph’s work illuminates something beautiful in that routine of a day in our lives that for the most part likely escapes our notice (not to mention the beauty in the black and white photographs just as straight images). This is, in her words, an attempt, “to transcend the habits of our daily lives. I believe that when we slow down and really see, we lengthen and deepen the experience of our lives….”

Randolph’s work shares much with James Joyce’s novel “Ulysses,” an account of a single, rather ordinary day of a man detailed in epic proportion. Joyce devotes an entire (extremely dense) page of text to the turning on of a water faucet. Everything is related from the network of pipes bringing the water from the spring to the folks who originally tapped that water source. From this perspective, we can see the complexity involved in even the most mundane. And thus we’ve come full circle – the artist’s eye and mind turn the ordinary into the extraordinary and through their eyes we can be awakened to a new perspective on our world. These artists (along with several other artists in the show who didn’t get mentioned in this write-up) offer many wonders to look at and a way to look at our world with renewed wonder. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Clinton Snider/Scott Hocking
“RELICS & Other Works”
ArtCite
109 University Ave W, Windsor, ON, N9A 5P4
01.519.977.6564, for more information
June 25 - August 13, 2005
Wed- Sat: 12:005:00pm

Even from the street, casual passersby in front of Artcite Gallery can’t help but notice the remains of a boat hull sweeping an arc through the middle of the space. This appears not unlike the fabled Ark of Noah come to its supposed rest on Mount Ararat. This partially intact hull is both representative of the larger body of work by Scott Hocking and Clinton Snider that comprises “Relics” and an excellent metaphor for their particular take on art and the environment that is Detroit. As the Ark served to preserve fragments of civilization destroyed by the deluge, this boat seems to have brought with it the remains of a once thriving city, not lost in a flood, but victim of the end of the industrial age and gradual abandonment by over half of its population. The original version of “Relics” was shown at the Detroit Institute of Arts several years ago and Hocking and Snider have become well known for their solo work since that time. The pair have crossed the river (no doubt by different means than this particular vessel) bringing this significant body of work with them.

For those who haven’t spent much time in Detroit, it can seem like the land of the Planet of the Apes - ruins of a past age sticking up in the midst of a living city. Hocking and Snider are in some ways archaeologists, sifting through the urban ruins to create their work. They are finders and keepers of this past, always guided with an eye for the beauty that is in decay.

Like the DIA show, Hocking and Snider present the objects discovered in abandoned buildings now mounted inside individual wooden boxes, stacked together floor to ceiling creating cubby holes of sorts (not unlike one in which we might have stored our boots and mittens in elementary school.) This method of presentation harkens back to past ages of cabinets of wonders and card catalogues. And within each of these? As the title of the show implies, these are relics - a sign, some rope, a globe, toys, and the kitchen sink - everyday items once of some value, long since disregarded and allowed to decay.

The arrangement of the individual boxes seems happened upon yet not haphazard. There is an overall composition - we can view the individual boxes or the entire whole. Complementary forms balance out across the wall: a spiral of a hose resonates with a stove top grill, loose whorled wire, and spinning fan vents. While some boxes reinforce the grid within the grid (a crate of pop bottles, a segment of tile floor), others abandon this need for structure and lean to the chaotic - a smattering of gears, an explosion of clock assembly, a mess of bones. Besides form there is color, brilliant alongside decay, in one instance aged yellow paint, cracked and flaking on an electrical outlet - appearing as if a carpet of fallen fall leaves. The relics tend to stay within their containers near the bottom of the grid, but further up the whole - ladders, boat segments, stovepipes - extrude beyond the box walls. The piece grows, comes to life, shows that it can not be contained within simple walls.

We might get the feel of looking at the strata of the geological record. Though not one which unfolds chronologically as might happen at a field museum of such relics, but more happenstance, enabling us to draw our own ideas and make connections with the work emanating from our own experiences and the way in which we encounter each box. Rather than viewing the grid methodically (say top to bottom, left to right) it is likely the viewer will hop around - making a “knight’s tour” of the various boxes. (This term refers to the unusual way the knight moves on a chess board.) In this way, there is a constant sense of discovery - even though it seems we’ve visited a certain spot, we are constantly finding something not seen on a previous viewing.

There is a lot to take in, and perhaps an argument could be made that these are the “Elgin Marbles” of our day. Sure the ancient Greeks had trained artisans and much of “Relics” is the product of industrial mass manufacturing - but in the end everything falls apart and what survives tells a story about the people whose lives consisted of this stuff.

Despite not being part of the Relics wall, the boat is integral to the exhibition beyond its siren song to bring visitors into the space. Found with a tree growing through its disintegrated hull, the ark has been installed in the gallery making use of a column standing in for that tree. Appearing to emanate from a solitary wooden box mounted on the gallery’s back wall, the boat makes a graceful curve through the space neatly dividing (or perhaps connecting) the “Relics” proper work from the newer, solo works of Hocking and Snider. On the “Relics” side, is what survived high and dry on this metaphorical ship, while on the solo side, both artists’ works appear to have been affected by taking a dip in some liquid or another.

Snider has become well known for his Detroit landscape painting in which he captures the visage and feeling for the city’s forgotten places. In this body of solo work he goes back to the idea of relics, but rather than displaying the objects in their decaying beauty, he dips these discarded, rusted household objects in pastel latex paint. Such objects (a roll of toilet paper, vegetables, flowers, a fork, a lock, masking tape, a ball of string, to name a few) he coats in a palette more at home on Martha Stewart Living than a Detroit artist’s grungy studio. They’ve been given a makeover into that “good thing"- something that might be palatable at Kmart, and displayed as such - hung together on a wall, a colorful wallpaper (one might compare to the day-glo “pill” pieces of Cranbrook resident painter Beverly Fishman.) Despite the rather drastic difference in external appearance, Snider’s aim here is as it always is to bring new life and beauty to the discarded and abandoned. (A recent show of this work by Snider was reviewed in a previous column, from which much of the above was derived.)

Hocking’s solo work also spins off of Relics - these are a series of photographs digitally reprinted from slides found in abandoned buildings. The slides suffered water damage (survived the flood?) and the effect is that rather mundane shots have become something entirely different, something organic, in their decay. These are quite in tune with his rust pieces and bearing little resemblance to the source material. Perhaps the most stunning set of these works are shots of the interior of a church. Up close, one can uncover evidence that this is indeed a church. Yet from a distance they could be aerial photographs of the landscape, a galaxy, something recognizable but not quite. As in Relics and Hocking’s other found object work, the action of entropy creates the aesthetic - there is beauty in the falling down.

These relics on display aren’t headless, limbless statues, but their connection to times past is no less important. With this exhibition, Snider and Hocking offer more than just another chance to see Relics and bring the work to a new audience (which they do and this is important.) They also build upon that initial work and show that their source material is as fertile and relevant as ever. It’s funny; the view of Detroit from Windsor is perhaps the most spectacular as a cityscape. Yet perhaps this perspective on Detroit (now in Windsor) is the most telling. - Nick Sousanis

Summer Pack 1
Jon Rajkovich, Ivin Ballen, Fabio Fernandez
Susanne Hilberry Gallery700 Livernois
Ferndale, MI 48220
248-541-4700
Tues-Sat. 10-6 pm.
June 24 through July 23, 2005.

For the summer season, Susanne Hilberry Gallery offers up a series of short, fresh shows, featuring young artists, who may not have had much time in the sun (such as it is) brought together by young curators. This combined with a number of special events coinciding with the exhibition, have made for an active time in the gallery in what is often the doldrums of summer.

Jon Rajkovich, Ivin Ballen, and Fabio Fernandez, offer up disparate yet related works that could be described as having a Detroit sensibility, though with a decidedly non-Detroit aesthetic. Each artist is working with recycled materials (in some fashion) to create something wholly new – though it would be hard to describe any of this as found object art. Also, nothing is quite what it seems at first glance. This particular theme perhaps most accurately applies to Ivin Ballen’s work. What we see are cardboard boxes, adorned with different colored packing tapes. The composition of the tape over the flat, yet three-dimensional form offers the visual movement of non-representational abstraction. Despite the fact that these look like boxes tossed off from someone’s move, the tape is applied quite purposefully – in fact they take on representational qualities – appearing to be city maps or other aerial landscapes. Ballen expands upon this by painting in actual features of the landscape in some of the works. These works could hold up as cardboard and vivid tape swatches, but of course they aren’t just that. As many of the titles imply, “Fake box with…”, these are actually fiberglass casts of such boxes. (Stunned silence.) The illusion is to say the least convincing. Ballen has thus created a great deal to take in from the three-dimensional form to the planar composition elements to the representational to the reversal of materials.

Jon Rajkovich’s sculptures sit on the floor, elongated forms stretched, rippled, and colored as to appear like giant sticks of laffy taffy, at either end of which a surreal realistic sculpture has been formed out of the pliable stuff. These are exotic forms to say the least, graceful and inscrutable. The color brings to mind Clinton Snider’s recent “House” works (abandoned household objects dipped in pastel latex paint) and yet another chance to mention Martha Stewart in these pages(!) The color is summer, the merry go round horse heads attached to the ends are a flotation device in the pool. They seem to be cast or sculpted whole of concrete, fiberglass, something smooth and malleable. They are not. These are fashioned from a skeleton of two by fours (think ribs of a boat hull) upon which plywood has been very carefully bent into impossible smooth curves (think of a skate board half-pipe.) The sculptural forms have been carefully grafted onto the wooden structure and the paint coating has sealed the entire object into one contiguous form. In some ways it’s the reverse of Ballen’s – these are a collage of objects that look like they’re not. The craftsmanship needed to pull this off as gracefully as Rajkovich has is impressive; though that statement should not undermine the aesthetic beauty and oddity by whatever means it’s been achieved.

What Ballen and Rajkovich achieve with bright color and scale, Fabio Fernandez creates with the simplicity of a Shaker furniture maker. His work consists of small (fit in a breadbox) wooden pieces – beautiful objects in the form of houses, barns, and the like. These could be jewel boxes, many pieces of wood carefully joined together to make the whole piece. They are in fact made from discarded wood – that of Clementine crates specifically. This is wood that even when used for its originally purpose was never intended for viewing but solely for its functionality. Fernandez has transformed their rough, unfinished exterior into smooth, polished surfaces.

His woodwork combines hard edges and smooth curves. The faces of the pieces reveal the triangular ends of the crate corner posts (sometimes whole while other pieces are precisely cut to create an edge. In looking at these objects from their front, we might think of a game of Tangoes – in which a set of variously shaped pieces is to be made to resemble a distinct prescribed form. Fernandez faced that similar challenge of creating the pieces to fit the form, as well as make it all work on a three-dimensional object. No easy feat.) Here Fernandez allows the richness of the wood grain to speak for itself, each distinct end giving the overall a variegated, yet balanced composition.

And this is largely the point, that there is beauty to be found if one has the eye (and the patience) to seek it out. The entire series of objects is titled “Contemporary Tramp Series,” a reference to the folk art of Tramps (or Hobos) who Fernandez describes as having made quite beautiful works from similarly discarded wood of fruit crates or cigar boxes. These were often quite ornate boxes created in exchange for a warm meal or other things they needed to survive. Fernandez’ reference to this artistic tradition and the very wood he makes the work from speak to the linking element of this show: to recycle what’s available, what’s been discarded and to breathe new life into it and make it desirable. He’s done this and more, as these are beautiful in form and spirit.

Each artist displays a tremendous level of craftsmanship and thought which they have put to use to forge their own quite distinct territory of object making. Take a second look or three at each of these artist’s works. One more thing of note, the people behind the decision to print the announcement for the exhibition on sugar packets, should be applauded. A lovely idea, and like the exhibition, just the right touch of sweet to add to your cold drink to get through the sweltering summer.

Look for Summer Pack 2 to open July 29. (Featuring Matthew Blake, Mitch Cope, Shannon Goff, and Mona Shahid, with an opening night performance by Fruit Boy.) – Nick Sousanis

Christian Tedeschi: Liberation
Public Art Project/Billboard
SW corner Woodward & Maplehurst
Ferndale (around 9 ½ mile)
248-591-6623

After nearly a year long hiatus*, the Detroit Public Art Project – more commonly and affectionately known as “the billboard” – is officially back in action and ready to resume its role as a prominent showcase for Detroit area artists as it’s been for the previous decade. Sculptor Christian Tedeschi, who’s been showing everywhere around town this past year, gets the nod to inaugurate its return. Most recently, Tedeschi has been exhibiting everyday objects coated in a semi-elastic resin, appearing at times like spun cotton candy or molasses oozed onto the item. Here he splashes a deep red resin onto the white surface of the billboard and lets it run and drip. Amber-like, the resin solidifies to capture the look of being liquid, after which it was then hung upside down making the drips appear to violate gravity and also reach high above the borders of the billboard surface.

Despite its three-dimensionality, the piece owes as much allegiance to painting as it does to sculpture. The pattern of drips (purposeful yet playful) cascading like hills fits nicely into the rich tradition of abstract painting. The exotic nature of the materials and the seemingly upward flowing liquid speak perhaps to the title: “Liberation.” That is, paint, liberated from the flatness of the canvas and in fact liberated from the crushing weight (in truth, weight inducing force) of gravity.

But the title suggests the artwork’s deeper, political nature – a commentary on wars for “freedom” and their tragic human cost. The choice of this burgundy resin is not happenstance – the color of blood and moreso a perfect stand-in for oil, both in color and apparent viscosity. This draws the connection between blood for oil in a world that, like the installation, seems more turned upside down everyday. In this light, the pattern of the drips take on a new meaning beyond the aesthetic – they could be any number of wartime statistics – that is incidents of insurgency, US soldier deaths, Iraqi civilian deaths – any of the above. Charts turn human lives into statistics, data to be measured. By representing it as an arresting visual, Tedeschi flips the focus back on the human element that makes up the statistics. (On a tangential note, earlier this year, Tedeschi created a piece for a Cranbrook exhibition (the Literary Print), graphing via lie detector his responses to 8 questions about becoming a godfather. )

While some claim to “think about Iraq every single day,” Tedeschi has created an important reminder of the very real cost of war. More than that, he’s done so without sacrificing the aesthetic sensibilities that he has developed for himself. It’s a terrific accomplishment, something both beautiful and sorrowful to behold and engaging enough to think about long after you’ve zoomed past in your automobile. – Nick Sousanis, ws@thedetroiter.com

For additional information, or to submit a billboard proposal, please contact (248)591-6623, or watch this space for more details. (Please note, more of Tedeschi's work is on display right now around the corner at Revolution Gallery.)

*(in fact this writer created its last official installation in spring of 2004)

Inherent: Susan Goethel Campbell, Barbara Cooper, Dustin Yellin
Lemberg Gallery
23241 Woodward Ave
Ferndale, MI 48220-1361
248-591-6623
www.lemberggallery.com
Tues-Sat 11-5
Jun 4 - Jul 9, 2005

Lemberg Gallery assembles a nice body of artists under one theme for their summer showing. The title “Inherent” implies that there is a focus on the essential character of a thing. While each artist works quite differently, there is something, ummm, inherent to each of them with which to draw a connection of sorts.

Dustin Yellin’s works at first appear to be fairly straightforward, blocks of resin with plants captured inside, amber-like. They are in fact not, but instead three-dimensional ink drawings accomplished through the buildup of layers of resin. It’s a creative method with elegant execution. These are lovely forms – organic both by design and by the process itself. The drawing has enough playfulness balanced by representational quality to offer a truly satisfying visual experience. (And they’re just plain cool!)

http://dustinyellin.com/

Like Yellin, Barbara Cooper builds organic structures in layers; she pieces together slices of wood laminate to form flower and tree-like forms. These are built from the inside out. As rings on a tree move away from the center, here too Cooper attaches new layers to the existing. The underlying form then affects the development of the outer. This is growth at her hands. And while we get to see the final form, even when she has given the piece an outer structure, Cooper always retains a cutaway view through that layer to reveal all that went in to the sculpture’s growth. Both Cooper and Yellin have achieved an elegance mimicking nature yet showing the artist’s hand at the same time.

Susan Goethel Campbell displays photographic compositions for this show. In many ways this is a significant departure from her drawn/inked work, but like her drawings they are done in black and white and while the drawings focus on water in vapor form (clouds), these focus on it as a liquid, specifically gushing geyser-like on the lawns of suburbia. In addition to the juxtaposition of water spouts on suburban backdrop, she has also added to some of the pieces a red line – giving the piece a title of “Water/line.” If we look to the overall theme of the show, we might ask what is the “essential character” of the places depicted? For what are the suburbs but artificial landscapes kept unnaturally green (though here in the grey of black and white) by water pumped in from parts far away. Environmental themes permeate Campbell’s work, and these seem no exception. Perhaps too, these not only talk about the artificiality of manufactured landscape, but about what it means to drain water sources to create green lawns and provide living space at the expense of the burning of an increasing amount of fossil fuels which in turn adds to global warming and thus the eventual rising of the oceans and perhaps such places falling below the new water line. If they are somewhat less visually arresting than her drawings, the surreal nature of these tremendous spouts of water does take one aback long enough to be engaged in the questions Campbell raises. As many of us water our lawns in the short but hot summer, perhaps these images might cause one to stop and think about all that keeps the grass green, if just for a moment.

Growth, form, and landscape. It’s summertime, which means we spent a lot more time outdoors. Lemberg offers up a few reasons to think a little more about the outdoors. Check it out. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Mark(s) zine
http://www.markszine.com/
Bruce Andrews/Jack Collom/Dick Goody/Grace Graupe Pillard/A. Ibn Pori Pitts

Not only can you gain access to one of the strongest Detroit cultural venues without leaving your chair, but it happens to be the only way to get there. The Detroit-based web-magazine Mark(s) is the creation of editors Deb King and Ted Pearson. Since 2000, this quarterly publication has been “committed to promoting substantive dialogue between Detroit-based artists and the world.” The site has been focused on examining contemporary culture in this very contemporary format for a while, and it shows. With a clean layout and easy navigation, the site allows the focus to be on the artists, and not on the mechanics of the web. In this way King and Pearson have managed to utilize all the advantages found in print media, as well as taken advantage of the multimedia options and accessibility that the web provides.

Their most recent edition, June 2005, (Edition 6.01) is representative of the publication’s strength – contemporary work by a balance of Detroit and non-local artists. Of the five creators featured this issue, two are Detroiters, three are visual artists and two are poets. While their works are seemingly disparate, there is a strong connective thread of critiquing contemporary culture found in all of them.

This social commentary is most direct in the work of New Jersey multimedia artist Grace Graupe Pillard. Pillard’s work also takes the greatest advantage of the web, as her piece, “Interventions” is a slide show of photos of everyday city streets upon which she has juxtaposed images of soldiers, people in hazmat suits, digital explosions, and more, all accompanied by a soundtrack of explosions, gunfire, and sirens. (At first this piece can cause quite a start – as perusing this quiet, static literary publication, all of a sudden we are confronted with a flash of light and a loud bang – definitely a wakeup call!) This gives a visual to our post 9/11 fears of further attacks and color-coded alerts. It’s a nightmare vision, which is perhaps all too real for folks living in many parts of the world. The fear of such a situation occurring here is used to justify our actions around the world today. Pillard makes an extremely effective use of the medium to create powerful, incisive commentary.

On display in Mark(s) virtual gallery are the paintings of Meadow Brook Gallery Director Dick Goody. Goody’s vibrantly painted works reference the art world and culture at large. On one hand, these stem from the academic landscape, but on the other hand are very much a critique of those same institutions. He walks the line between taking on formal issues, yet creating figures and environments so raw and bold as to make an Outsider artist envious. In this way, Goody lets his viewer connect to the paintings through the use of color, composition, simple figuration, but then through humor, clever titles, and surreal settings takes the viewer on a deeper intellectual journey. He seems able to point out how ridiculous we can be as a culture, while acknowledging how vital that culture is. This is both funny and deadly serious at the same time – just like the man himself.

Two poets offer up their works on Mark(s) this quarter. New Yorker Bruce Andrews presents “C-3” a suite of 17 (of course) of his tightly structured poems. Each one might be read as a list of song titles on an album. The words feel almost randomly situated, though one can’t help but draw definitive associations between them – which is of course what Andrews is after. One is able to get a feeling, almost an image, for what is going on, even if it remains difficult to put one’s finger on it. An example: “Manmade Sex Change/
pretty boy crossover”. There’s a nice sense of play at work here, that is shared by Coloradoan Jack Collom. Collom brings an extraordinary sense of word play to his rhyming work. An example: “Mimesis snaked its way home, contrary to/Your herpetological mirror-rhythms./ For whatever reason. I speak and you turn blue/ Although your hidden vixen hiss sings with ‘em:” While the words flow of the tongue quickly, and indeed reading is a snap, this simplicity conceals their complexity. Each line of the eight poems offers so much to unpack and decipher, that they demand further and closer readings. Each one perhaps allowing for an “aha!” moment.

A. Ibn Pori Pitts paintings are in a way a form of visual poetry. While they do present compelling visuals, Pitts neither sets up a particular world to draw the viewer in nor a specific optical experience, but assembles words, images, ideas, and symbols together to address racial issues merging the African American with the African. Ancestry and modern urban life collide on his canvas to create a very real experience. We read these like the poems and our lives themselves, from the fragments that is our past and current existence we stitch together a story that makes sense.

There’s a lot to take in this quarter in Mark(s). As an added bonus, ALL the past editions are archived – and neatly at that. This might mean you never leave the house again. - Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

This Week in Art: Clinton Snider “House”
Motor City Brewing Works4701 W. Canfield, Detroit
(Between Cass and 2nd)
313-832-2700
Every Wednesday Night

It’s Wednesday night and the artists have taken over the Bar! That is, for the last few months, sculptor Graem Whyte has been tending bar and bringing in artists to exhibit for one night a week at Motor City Brewing Works. Whyte has been long involved with the weeklong exhibition Five Artists in Five Days at the Detroit Artist Market, and like that event, these weekly “one night stands” in effect act as both an opening (where 95% of exhibition traffic comes through anyway) and a way to get people in the bar on an otherwise slow night.

It’s a wise mix of art and social gathering, and if this week’s turnout is any indication, it’s a solid success. The nature of a one night (art) stand, allows the artist to take some risks and try some things he or she might otherwise avoid at a standard art exhibition.

Case in point, this week’s exhibition: Clinton Snider is known for his Detroit landscape painting in which he captures the visage and feeling for the city’s forgotten places, as well as for his found objects – everyday items unearthed in Detroit’s abandoned buildings and exhibited most famously as a part of “Relics” with collaborator Scott Hocking. While Relics is about to see new life (at ArtCite Gallery in Windsor starting June 25, 2005 - for info click here.), Snider’s work for this one night only show borrows from it, and then proceeds in its own direction altogether. He’s taken household items long discarded, rusted, and in a state of decay and coated them (and in some cases made castings of them) with latex paint.

If a primary element of Relics and Snider’s paintings is to bring new life and find beauty in the discarded and abandoned, this approach does that as well, if by quite different means. For this collection of household items (a roll of toilet paper and a roll of paper towel, vegetables, flowers, a fork, a lock, masking tape, and a ball of string, to name a few) are transformed into something beautiful in their own way. They appear as 3-dimensional silhouettes decked out in pastel shades, that by Snider’s admission would do Martha Stewart proud. (Can you imagine the domestic decorator herself, shooting an episode of her show on location in Detroit? Picture her scouring abandoned buildings to find her materials with which to dip and perhaps offering the perfect way to ward off wild dogs with a cinnamon stick and a hint of lemon!)

Any comparison to Stewart’s palette aside, Snider accomplishes his aim – these objects have been rescued from abandonment and given new life. Viewers can appreciate them for their new properties, while simultaneously trying to unravel how they appeared in their original, uncovered form. There’s a sense of play and mystery, and once again Snider has shared his empathy for the forgotten with his viewers and made them look at things from an entirely new perspective.

One night stands like this offer more chances to show in the city, to thereby test out new ideas, and also the chance to catch up with friends and make new ones at the same time. It’s a nice time and quite beneficial for the community. (Rumor has it that a similar such event occurs weekly at Oslo and other places as well. Stay tuned.) Next week Adam Sobel brings his work to Motor City followed by Tonia Williams on the 22nd of June. Kudos to Whyte for putting this in motion, we hope it enjoys great longevity. Drop in to check it out, as Martha Stewart would say, “It’s a good thing.” – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Photos by Yuen Hom. (Thanks for the follow through Yuen!)

Julie Heffernan
Robert Kidd Gallery
107 Townsend Street
Birmingham, Mi 48009
248-642-3909
11-6 Tuesday- Saturday
http://www.robertkiddgallery.com/
May 5 through June 25, 2005

Robert Kidd Gallery serves up a delicious feast of paintings by Julie Heffernan with content enough to be digested over multiple sittings and promises to be engaging at every viewing. Each canvas encompasses a broad range of all that is the western tradition of image making. She blends portraiture, landscape, still life, all achieved with Renaissance paint handling in a surreal setting that is completely of today in its subject matter and sensibility.

Heffernan has titled each piece “self portrait” typically “as” something else including everything from a “wreck” to a “tumor” to a “mound of roses.” Her compositions consist of a nude, deftly painted Renaissance self-portrait, whose gaze directly confronts the viewer. At times the figure has completely disappeared, subsumed by the flowers, jewels, and fruit that are but some of the trappings of these wild yet quite orderly environments which also include fish, fowl, fairy folk, and tiny mouse (or ant) kingdoms. Heffernan’s illusions are as convincing as her settings are surreal. Scale, the juxtaposition of realities, etc, make sense in the way that out of place settings and characters go unquestioned in a dream. They obey their own internal rules.

There is the sense that as much as these paintings are tightly crafted from an academic background, they simultaneously come forth from something far more organic and visceral. Their creation seems to unfold much like a dream, you can imagine that this imagery starts out being one thing, perhaps a more straightforward self-portrait, but as the dream unfolds (the painting progresses) they evolved into something else altogether. We try to apply structure, meaning to it, even if it’s absent entirely. The dream analogy can extend to a further aspect of the work. Regardless of setting and other characters, a dream is a reflection of who we are, our attempt to make sense of ourselves, just as Heffernan’s paintings are self portraits whether her countenance appears or not. Heffernan can use her own image, the setting and symbols, to address her own identity and the broader cultural identity issues concerning women.

The merger of multiple imagery that works so well for invoking such dreamlike realms also hits upon the essence of postmodernism – that is using the tools, techniques, imagery of the past, and mixing, cutting up, appropriating in ways that speak to today. I often equate such postmodern practice with the methods of the DJ – mixing albums on a turntable. Yet for all the cutting and pasting in Heffernan’s work, there is an essential difference – her work not only looks like it belongs in a 17th century gallery in a museum, but she has mastered the skills of the artists of that time. In music terms, it would be like the DJ not just sampling the sounds, but learning to play all the instruments of the older tunes being played. To say the least, this is an incredible accomplishment.

If we could somehow ignore Heffernan’s content (as impossible a task as that is), the paintings hold up strictly on their compositional strengths. Everything in the landscape, no matter how seemingly random, is placed and oriented with great intentionality. While Heffernan’s scenery is essentially still, she uses the elements of the composition (such things as branches, decorative leaf patterns in the background) to create optical movement. The eye is allowed to journey outward but always directed back towards the center. The detail she creates gives us multiple opportunities to rest upon, explore at length, and then move on to the next.

Heffernan brings a lot to each canvas, yet they are never busy or overwhelming. Simply satisfying and endlessly engaging. This is not a show you can afford to miss. – Nick Sousanisws@thedetroiter.com

Secret Hideout Gallery
Bryant Tillman
Friday, June 3, 6-9:30pm, Hideout Gallery
"Painting: New Work by Bryant Tillman"
2424 W. Grand Blvd., Detroit,
Note: Enter gallery through side grey door in front of the
parking lot.

The emails had been coming for some time; painter Bryant Tillman kept extending an invitation to his “Secret Hideout.” Finally last Friday night my schedule aligned with visitation hours, and I found my way there. With a quick slip of the secret password, I was inside Tilmann’s lair, his Fortress of Solitude (truthfully more Green Hornet’s nest than Batcave.)

Comic book analogs aside, entering Tillman’s no longer quite so secret hideout (see Nolan Simon’s “outing” of him in this week’s MetroTimes.) is yet another example of what makes Detroit such an interesting place (not all unlike discovering a basketball court in a loft, see recent editorial )

Tillman’s gallery is also his studio, and he has his large abstract paintings on display on the wall, with accompanying pastels arranged near their big brothers on the floor, and looser sketches on an adjoining wall. He cleverly cordons off the art work with a tape measure (no velvet rope in the secret hideout!)

While most of the work is new, it is nice that Tillman has included a few of his earlier pieces from the Coletrane series. This is an excellent addition as it really helps the viewer understand Tillman’s progression – where he’s been and how that ties into the place he is now. (For more on his previous work, see past review.)

The Coletrane series involved linear abstractions (think musical staffs) with the hint of more representational, mechanical objects (suggestive of car grills) lying somewhere below the surface. In this new body of work, the linear rhythm and repetitive structure predominant throughout the Coletranes has all but evaporated, giving way to an all over composition. The strands of color have moved diagonal and the realistic form has emerged prominently from the background. Tillman uses this well-defined, dimensional, curved shape (appearing as futuristic machinery) to slice through his more organic brush strokes. Abstraction and representation merge with surprisingly harmonious results.

Tillman offers a description of his forms as agricultural machinery threshing through the fields. Once he puts it that way, it is not hard to see these as close-up, uniquely cropped (pun unintended) views of a literal thresher in the field, particularly so in his pastel works. Yet the other worldly reality Tillman has constructed (futuristic machinery, an almost organic palette) is far less important than the movement and the overall optical experience. The composition of colored bands or plant stalks send us moving ever upward and to the right, with the threshing form, much like a real thresher, continually funneling our gaze back inward. It’s a nice balance of movement with plenty of moments to rest upon and enjoy (his handling of the representational is as impressively tight as the abstraction is loose – the machines have the curving elegance of an automotive designer’s handiwork.) There is a certain joyfulness achieved through the combination of color and upward movement in the composition.

The sketches on hand are also of note – in one particular instance, Tillman paints a sailboat impressionistically, its billowing sail echoing the mechanical form cutting through his larger paintings. Whether dealing with abstraction or representation, Tillman always seems to have a solid grasp on movement. In fact, whether intentional or not, the collection of sketches collaged together (salon style) allows for a movement to happen between the various works.

Tillman’s created an air of mystery and a bit of fun with his promotion of the secret hideout. But moreso he gives up the goods to those who venture inside. It’s worth finding your way here and discovering yet another of Detroit’s hidden gems (though hopefully not for much longer!) – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Alisa Henriquez/Sergio De Giusti
District Arts Gallery
955 S. Eton
Birmingham, MI 48009
248-258-9300
http://www.districtarts.com/
Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 5pm
May 7 – June 4, 2005

Sculptor Sergio De Giusti and painter Alisa Henriquez bring their distinct works to District Arts Gallery.

De Giusti’s classically-inspired bronze sculptures and reliefs focus on the human figure and perhaps more so, the human condition. (Also on display are two maquettes for reliefs from the recently completely “Transcending,” a sculpture at Hart Plaza with which De Giusti collaborated with David Barr. (Click Here). It’s nice to see a bit of this massive monument to labor in a gallery, perhaps extending an invitation for people to go enjoy the actual piece.) Many of the pieces, (figurines and head fragments) are sculpted wrapped in bandages – a reference to mummification or funeral shrouds, or perhaps to the sculptural mold making process itself. Wrapped thus, the figure’s specific identity is concealed – an anonymous death.

In addition to the sculptures, De Giusti offers up something new, or at least seldom exhibited – his drawings. Rendered in charcoal and hints of pastel, he lets go of the figure and presents landscapes and seascapes. Both sea and land are composed of interlocking bands of sweeping charcoal strokes. De Giusti weaves together environments in much the same way as his wrapped figures. There is another similarity, as the colors gently applied to the charcoal with pastel could be the various patinas he uses throughout his three-dimensional works. (Though his use of green and red leads one to suspect the coloration has a bit do with the Italian-born sculptor’s national pride!)

The sculpturally dimensional drawings suggest places of De Giusti’s past mingled with his imagination. Except for one, a drawing entitled “Ziggurat at Ur.” The image: a barren landscape in the foreground with Ziggurat in the background. The ancient temple is aflame (a red tint adds to this imagery) and clouds of smoke billow into the sky. The reference to Ur, a site in Iraq, speaks of ancient sites destroyed and museums looted, such specific locations shelled and now used as parking places for Humvees and Helicopters. This is a cradle of civilization now robbed and desecrated by war and looting. Through an image of beauty, De Giusti subtly turns all the work into a compassionate examination of the effects of war, thus inviting another reading of his fragmented sculpture throughout.

There are several figurines titled “Kouros,” a reference to standing sculptures not of a youth, but of youth. Wrapped in bandages, we can imagine this to be a child lost to war just as much of these cultural antiquities have been forever lost.

By paying attention to the classical forms, De Giusti speaks of our future, the importance of culture and what we are in the process of losing through our actions.

Henriquez offers up something else altogether. These multi-paneled paintings are notable for her use of color, first and foremost. Some descriptions of the color: delicate yet bold, vivid, exotic, psychedelic yet subtle. Through the color, we can imagine visiting “Strawberry Fields” – adrift in an atmosphere of shimmering color where nothing is real.

But the work does not end with an exploration of color, as Henriquez draws over the top of these rather delicious abstractions. Her imagery, fragments of figures (and here a connection to De Giusti), are executed like the lanky, bulbous line drawings of Mad Magazine’s Don Martin, or perhaps creatures out of the “Yellow Submarine.” These whimsical figures reference the body and sexuality and are more than a bit surreal as they blend into the psychedelic background. In a few pieces, a pair of lips float over the landscape conjuring up Man Ray’s famous painting.

For some, these drawings may prove a distraction, obscuring a pure view of Henriquez’ lush flowing abstractions. For others, the drawings will serve as a hook, with the color existing as perfect accompaniment. The colors definitely capture intense internal state – probing the intimate in a way the drawings must achieve through more representational means.

Vibrant and joyful, Henriquez’ personally investigative works serve as a nice balance to De Giusti’s somber look at the state of humanity. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

100 Words (or so): The Clinic: Visual Stimulation Overdose
Izzy’s Raw Art
2572 Michigan Ave,
Detroit, MI 48216
http://izzysrawart.com/
May – June, 2005.

The Detroit art collective “The Clinic” takes over Izzy’s with their surreal and more surreal works. These dystopian landscapes (Dali would be proud) stem directly from (as their tagline states) “the underbelly” of Detroit. Despite featuring works by multiple artists (and at times multiple artists in conjunction, ala the exquisite corpse) it’s overall a coherent show. It can be difficult to tell which artist is responsible for which piece. That said, the work can be a tad uneven, ranging from the truly imaginative and polished to stuff a bit too raw which takes away from the imagination on display. D. Scott Bondie’s works stand out, as he offers up both a strong hand for representation and an ability to create a seamless visual fusion of the various elements. This is pretty cool, wildly imaginative stuff by all the artists. In addition, they’ve created a terrific website featuring most of their work, and see how serious they are about the surreal. Check it out. www.theclinic.ontheweb.nu
- Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

The Mack Group Furniture Show
4731 Gallery
http://www.4731.com/
May 6th – May 20th

by Tom Carbone

Gallery 4731 brings together “The Mack Group” a collection of three local Industrial Artists together with three modern painters. The gallery looks good and the furniture combined with Angela Giorgio’s beautiful and captivating abstract expressionist paintings makes for an outstanding visual space. I slowly recognized how skillfully crafted the gallery space is; the 2d and 3d works in proximity spoke a similar language like couples in conversation.

According to gallery owner Ric Geyer, 4731 (among the dozens of directions it already has) is going to make a concerted effort to promote modern furniture, to this end The Mack Group show is just a beginning.

The Mack Group has been working hard at its craft for several years now and has created its own style of Industrial Design (ID) oriented studio furniture. Some of the works are pure studio furniture; meaning that they are one of a kind art works, while others are exciting ideas, ready for production.

Artist Jeff Evarts is hooked on making chairs and has created several more of his signature pieces using curved automotive glass panels for the seat back. Vertically oriented, these pieces command attention from a distance by reflecting light, they then draw the viewer in to discover the details of structure, construction, and mechanism.

Gonzalo Rodriguez focuses his attention alternately between his family, his ID instructional duties at CCS, and the Mack Group. One piece in particular illustrates all three. A cradle occupying a central spot as one enters the gallery was designed and built for his daughter. It combines a decisive yet subordinate steel structure, a sensually formed plywood body, and fastening details that make it an intelligent and entertaining piece. Further back near the middle of the gallery space is a dining table of Rodriguez’s inspiration. During the opening I witnessed its transformation from four person to eight person seating capacity over and over. There’s nothing like interactive furniture to get everyone in the act. With its veneered top and stainless steel base, it is well balanced and uplifting.

Inspired by the processes involved in making functional sculpture, and the serenity of working in the shop many of the pieces radiate the effort-based inspiration that comes from working materials passionately.

Studio furniture is breaking new ground across the country and has a permanent home in Metro Detroit. Between CCS, Cranbrook, and other self-taught artists, there are dozens of people working this genre. For those who wish to have a signature piece of art in our home, studio furniture plays the dual role as both sculpture and furniture.

While building and planning your homescape it becomes clear that every new acquisition is a personal statement; some of these statements are loud and some are soft. When we have artwork like this in our home we get to wake up, and come home to it everyday.

Go, see, and enjoy.

Tom Carbone is a noted furniture designer himself, when not “day-lighting” as a supervisor of car design at Daimler Chrysler. Look for more from Tom in these pages.

“So Beautiful”
Revolution Gallery23257 Woodward
Ferndale, MI 48220
248.541.3444
http://www.revolutn.com/
Tues-Sat 11-6
April 16 – May 28, 2005

The first thing one’s attention is drawn to upon entering “So Beautiful” are Ann Arbor artist Thomas Rapai’s large, bright, expressive paintings of birds. While at first they come off as fairly realistic, extended viewing reveals them to be a bit cartoony or just plain odd in appearance, forcedly composed on blank backgrounds.

Perplexed a bit, we might turn our attention to ceramic objects perched on pedestals near the paintings. The work of Canadian artist Leopold Foulem, these have the immediate appearance of functional pottery – vases perhaps; closer inspection shows them to exist as purely sculptural – decorative. What look to be lids or openings are in fact seamlessly sealed – these were never intended to be functional. Adorned with tightly rendered images of birds and flora, these speak to the decorative arts of a past period and kitsch mantel objects of recent years.

Foulem’s objects status as mantel pieces not functional allows us to step back and take in the paintings again. These aren’t paintings of birds at all, but rather paintings of ceramic hummels. The arrangement, the lack of background, all show these as the property of a ceramics collector, pieces that might be right at home alongside something like Foulem’s ceramics.

So back once again to the ceramics and their decorative floral patterns. They mimic nature as pretty. One vase-form rises up, a blue rose arrangement fills the shape where real flowers would extend from such a vase were it functional. Both Foulem and Rapai play with the artifice of nature, seeking not to copy it, so much as to remark on the copying of it. Foulem mimics nature and functional sculpture, forging a territory all his own.

In Revolution’s second gallery, Albert G. Richards’ x-ray photographs of flowers hang along one wall. Unlike the previous works, these don’t look at the outer beauty of nature, but the underlying structure and form, in the tradition set forth by D’Arcy Thompson in his seminal text, “On Growth and Form.” Like Thompson’s work, Richards takes a visual look at the relationship between biology and functional design. It’s another chapter in the ongoing discussion of the mathematics of nature started in classical Greek times. These are both beautiful as observation of form and the pure photographic image.

Throughout both spaces, California artist Sarah Wagner displays plant “skins.” These are accurate representations of the outer forms of healing plants. These are not x-rays revealing the internal, but fabric shells – pattern and form laid bare like line drawings in space. If these suffer, it’s in how to display them so as to offset them from the space itself. Or maybe not. A snake skin discarded in the grass is compelling for its form once we stumble upon it. Perhaps these limp forms ask us to almost trample upon them, before taking a closer look and beginning to imagine the form they from which they are derived. It’s compellingly unique terrain to explore, and offers a rich insight into the form of plants in a similar, yet completely distinct manner as Richards’ photographs.

The artists for “So Beautiful” take a look at the beauty of the perceived appearance of nature and the beauty of the forms of nature. Each work shares a link to the others – each informs and yet is quite dissimilar from the others – making this a cohesive and well thought out exhibition. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

V O P
Voice of the People
Alley Culture

April 22 - May 21, 2005
Hours - Friday & Saturday 3 - 6PM
(Alley south of Willis,
between Trumbull and Lincoln.)
Detroit.
Saturday Film Screenings
NO!art Man April 30 at 6PM
Confronting the Evidence May 7 at 6PM
American Jobs May 14 at 6PM

For this exhibition, Alley Culture tried something different: asked the people to submit their own work. So while there is officially no theme to the show, a definite undercurrent reveals itself throughout. It’s not that every piece is political, but by simply restricting the work to a certain size limitation, this show speaks to what’s on people’s minds. The war may have disappeared from the headlines, but it’s clearly gnawing at us, waiting for the collective consciousness to speak out en masse.

The other unique curatorial aspect of this show, is that not only did the artists self-submit, they also got to hang it themselves (at least the ones in town did.) The result is an interestingly arranged, surprisingly ordered show, with a nice balance and rhythm between the participating artists and their multiple pieces. In short, it works and works well. For those with multiple pieces in the show, these primarily hung horizontally parallel, meaning a mix of folks along the vertical and an alignment along the horizontal. (You could, I suppose thing tic-tac-toe or hitting 3 Bells at the slot machine!)

Rick Vian’s painted landscapes and Christine Hagedorn’s sculptural objects (“mnemonic devices” – maps, pointers, and more) stand out aesthetically. Both offer beauty and quiet – reflective and peaceful creations. Frank English offers up a decidedly Detroit painting, a landscape neatly rendered on discarded plastic containers. Steve Weller’s stenciled pheasant on a city map is equally Detroit as well. Anti-war sentiments are taken up by Jim Puntigam with the face of protest and the ugliness caused by our actions, James Milostan offers up a unique commentary with displays integrating our past, mythology, and present, and Martha Waters shows us the Voice of the People in protest photographs from 1969. Peter Gorfain’s stark woodcut of a man about to be shot 41 times by forces of authority, offers a testament to the dangers of a police state – commentary on the treatment of minorities in times past and the new terror alerts. This is just a taste of what’s inside, not to mention the film offerings to accompany Alley Culture’s springtime exhibition.

Alley Culture is showing an eclectic selection to be sure, but at the same time a cohesive whole. The people have spoken, stop in for a listen. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Matthew Moore
"Michigan Avenue, a Photographic Road Trip, From Detroit to Chicago"
Now until May 13
Focus: HOPE Gallery in the Center for Advanced Technologies
1400 Oakman, Detroit
8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays through May 13
(313)494-4363
http://www.focushope.edu/calendar.htm

"How long the road is. But, for all the time the journey has already taken, how you have needed every second of it in order to learn what the road passes by." ~Dag Hammarskjold

Photographer Matthew Moore offers a visual journey of what a single road (Michigan Avenue) passes by. The photos begin at the urban setting of downtown Detroit move through rural Michigan and arrive back again to the urban, now in Chicago. We not only experience a change in landscape, but an entire spectrum of cultures as we follow this route. Moore describes the project as an attempt to "document something that moved and changed with the earth." He characterizes the journey as having a Zen-like quality, wrapping the more or less straight line of the road traveling from place to place, into a circle, despite its journey, it returns to whence it started.

The word Zen and this sort of road trip brings to mind Robert Pirsig's philosophical explorations while traveling off the beaten path by motorcycle in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," and perhaps more so William Least-Heat Moon's "Blue Highways," where the author made a circuit of the entire country traveling only on the back roads. Moon's journey took him across an America far from the interstates and through the heart of people less touched by the rush of progress. Like Moon, Moore takes a look at something left behind, the road formerly known as U.S. Route 12, once a primary means of travel and development, long since abandoned in favor of the interstates. In the past, we've had ghost towns created by the end of the gold rush and the closing of rail road lines. Now, places and people are left behind with the creation of bigger, better highways.

There's a timelessness to this journey, as on this road, there is no sign of the newest chain restaurant to point out exactly which era the photo was taken. Here in the "in between" places, past and present, urban and rural, blend together. By choosing to work in black and white, Moore accentuates this timeless quality. The medium captures a richness of texture, and the character of the subject is not overwhelmed by the color. For a body of work following a road, this is primarily portraiture - people waiting for the bus, in the barbershop, or working on the farm. Each person depicted with a certain honesty or perhaps innocence - no doubt they are aware their picture is being taken, but Moore seems to have caught them as who they are and not who they are for the camera.

Moore's work is designed to be seen from start to finish, Detroit to Chicago. As such it is best viewed either linearly, as the road itself, or circularly, as Moore's philosophical intent. The gallery space doesn't quite facilitate such viewing, but numbers accompanying each picture help keep the viewer on the road with the artist.

One shot in particular, perhaps encapsulates the journey as a whole. In "Man in window, Dearborn," we see a man behind a store front window. At once this is a portrait of this individual - smoking in an office of stacks of phone books and magazines - while reflected on the glass, superimposed over his figure, is a view of the road. In this country where roads have been shaping our destinies for so long, it is impossible to separate our identities from the roads with which our lives have intertwined. Moore captures the left behind nature of the people as inseparable from that of the road and the environment, yet a people and place still full of vitality.

The final picture, a postscript of sorts, (as we have already arrived in downtown Chicago) captures that resilience and sense of optimism Moore uncovers throughout the work. We see a little girl peeking out over the window sill of the bus she is riding. Even with only her eyes and a few fingers shown, we see her personality and know that her journey down this road and beyond is just beginning. Moore's project gives an important voice to places and people left behind and we can't help but be changed by the journey of viewing it. - Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

For more of Moore's photography, check out his website: http://www.moorephotographs.com/

“Made Here”
Cranbrook Degree Show
2005 Graduate Degree Exhibition of Cranbrook Academy of Art
April 23 through May13, 2005
http://www.cranbrookart.edu/museum/gradshow05.html

The Cranbrook Degree Show is upon us again, and with it the house that Booth and Saarinen built is alive the spectacle of the cutting edge of art and experimentation. With 70 artists all working towards their own unique ends, this is equivalent to 70 separate solo shows – or an entire season of exhibitions for a dozen or so galleries. In truth, although much of what each artist has on display is but a single piece of work, there’s enough thought, energy, and craft worked into each of them as to carry their own show respectively. Accepting that any attempts to sum this up will be woefully inadequate, we can progress.

I had the advantage of seeing this show twice (which still means I missed a lot) – once at the spectacle of the opening, and again with tour and selected audio commentary provided by curator and alum Fabio Fernandez. With the sheer amount of work at hand, mapping this out must have been a logistical nightmare, and thus Fernandez and others responsible for organizing it so coherently should be commended for their work. Even at the chaos that was the opening, the show has been laid out in such a way as to allow each piece to receive its own chance to be seen.

Generally speaking, “Made Here” shows off Cranbrook as the intensive art laboratory that it is – the diversity of work on display is testament to that. At times this means the work drift towards the esoteric – art about art within the realm of the artworld – impressive, but ungraspable. Yet in this exhibition, more often than not these creations sing to those versed in the language or not. As a whole, this show is filled with conceptually and visually engaging work.

As is typical of a graduate exhibition in this place, much is about spectacle and often that means scale. So perhaps this briefest of overviews might begin with the most delicate and quiet of the works. Gayle Lakin’s “Breath Drawing” consists of feathers and string attached to paper, all responding to the viewer’s slightest exhalation – an elegant means of interaction with the art and the artist. Nearby, Jennifer Pellman’s “Clouds,” is an elaborate construction involving the string hanging of molecular-esque models. The physical objects and the shadows interact in a delightfully clever manner. Hyung-Jung Kim’s “Life Vibration” also works with shadows. By drawing with nearly invisible hot glue gun lines on diaphanous layers of tulle (bridal veil netting) which stretches from various spots mounted to the wall, she has created imagery, a girl at a table, a TV, a clock, and more, that appear only in shadow.

There are two built environments on hand – Abigail Anne Newbold’s complete cut away, home and work space, sort of a doll house view of a real space. And Mark Moskovitz’s “Writer’s Cabin” complete with animatronic birds chirping when someone enters the cabin, utilitarian furniture, and more all designed by Moskovitz. Jared Dickey’s office desk which unfolds into a bed is sublime. Completely functional in both its incarnations, this might end up being a must have for those of us who can’t seem to steal ourselves away from our desks.

There are some inroads into the political sphere. Shiva Ahmadi works with the traditional design and coloration of her native Iran, while simultaneously subtly confronting issues of war and oil. This also stands out as one of the few more traditionally constructed and beautifully done paintings on display in this show. Camm Rowland’s “Severed Hands/Wedding Bands” takes on the African diamond industry in this richly illustrative work. It’s an image to spend a lot of time absorbed in, as Rowland has infused every element of the composition with multiple meanings and functions within the overall imagery. Using an involved multi-stepped technique to sculpt in steel plate, Eric Ryser creates a metamorphosis from bomb to butterfly. This attention to craftsmanship is a trademark of all the work in this show. Jeffrey Sturges ventured beyond Cranbrook up Woodward to the city of Highland Park, where he and friends held a free barbeque for the neighborhood, designed a sharp new logo for the downtrodden city, and illuminated the landmark Ford Motor Company headquarters, long since abandoned. This outreach into the larger Detroit community is great to see, and one would like the tremendous resource of creativity and enthusiasm that is Cranbrook to continue to make such endeavors.

Richard Nelipovich’s “Emergent tableware” is a mix of seemingly functional ware, in the branching structures that might be found in our lungs or mathematical models of such things. Robert Brooks not only shows a model of his bridge proposal “Ligature,” but an entire section of said bridge is installed in the gallery. Jaime Alvarez Pico’s “Not; Intentional Love Letters” is a series of almost narrative photos, composed across a long wall. The viewer is asked to figure out what’s happening, perhaps a visual poem to decode.

Fiber artist Emily Keown creates a number of flip books presented on DVD, a merger of low tech of drawing and sewing and the high tech of video presentation. Keown’s contribution points out something true of many artists within the show. Although they may work in a particular department, many, if not all of the artists’ works, leap beyond the boundaries of their specified medium. And the Degree show likely does that one further, as the artists take advantage of the space and the opportunity to leave a lasting impression.

A simple favorite: Tim Hossler’s holds up an old photo of Cranbrook architect Saarinen and Le Corbusier so as to be super-imposed over that same scene (ala Magritte) in Cranbrook of today.

There are so many things that might not be as immediately appreciated, and here Fernandez’ commentary was of benefit. One such example, a gradient colored fabric created by Rowland Ricketts. Ricketts still works on a loom and the colors are derived from that of machine belts. Such intense exploration of materials and themes is another hallmark of the Cranbrook experience and it shows throughout the work.

Did I leave out anyone? Absolutely. There’s so much more to be seen from the sheer impressiveness of Tonya Stewart’s wooden horse forms, the ingenuity of Erik Strom’s TV lit exotic sculptures, and the feeling of vertigo created by the combination of video projected and an actual hole by Ayami Watanabi. This exhibition is a stunning example of what can come of an explosion of creative exploration coupled with intensive professional practice. It’s an inspiration and really something not to be missed. Go and discover each artist for yourself. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Teresa Petersen
"Re-Assembled"
District Arts Gallery
http://www.districtarts.com/
955 S. Eton Street, Birminghan, MI
April 1 - April 30 2005
http://home.usaa.net/~tandandy/teresa/

Detroit artist Teresa Petersen takes her assemblage and collaged works to Birmingham’s District Arts Gallery for a one-woman show. The work consists of nostalgic imagery clipped from old magazines and advertisements interwoven into objects from the past. You could think of it as “garage sale art” – an act of thrift or recycling – but even if all the materials only cost a quarter, this should by no means devalue the work. In fact, appropriation of imagery is at the heart of postmodern practice – fragments of the past being reborn into new works, bringing both some sense of their original identity to contribute to the new meaning being presented. Consider Petersen a visual “ DJ,” mixing together science text illustrations and fashion ads from past eras instead of 45s. And while collage as an art form isn’t terribly tricky to pull off, doing it well is. Petersen not only does it very well, she manifests a recognizable, identifiable identity all her own grooving on a theme of a woman’s identity and the natural world in an environment of consumerism.

Petersen’s way of working is a game of sorts – a game of identity. To reinforce that, many of these works themselves are playable games – from “Matchup” and “Operation” to amalgamations of “Sorry,” “Monopoly,” and others. That the viewer can play with the art is a delight. Viewers can mismatch pieces (to the tune of the warning buzzer) in Operation or pitch bean bags at the assembled scene in the “Combinations Game.” The sense of play balances the deeper issues on hand – the artist is clearly having fun and we are meant to as well. Rather than being hit over the head with social statements, we are enticed to play and thus come to confronting larger questions as well.

The merger of objects and imagery is by no means haphazard as collage can be, but makes for some quite inspired and novel objects. (A note about the construction in general – these come together quite seamlessly. The artist as craftsman has gone to great lengths to integrate the disparate elements into a unified whole which is an essential element of their success.) Petersen has taken a pre-digital alarm clock radio (where the numbers are on rolodex-like cards that flip odometer-esque) and meticulously attached her cutout images to each card’s face. The viewer is allowed to turn the clock dial flipping through countless combinations of images and create one’s own meaning in their juxtaposition. A bra ad next to picture of a mixing bowl, two pert, smartly dressed lasses next to cuddly kittens – meaning is not implied but inferred from what the viewer brings to it.

Throughout the work, Petersen explores women’s roles as they’ve shifted from the past eras from which much of her imagery has been borrowed to today, though by putting the images in wooded, natural environment, she connects the modern woman to some past notion of women as being more in tune to nature. From the Asian practice of binding one’s feet to modern narrow-toed, high heels, the state of women’s feet might stand in (pun unintended) for the shaping of women’s roles more generally speaking as brought about by the consumer-fashion industry. Petersen speaks directly to this fact by showing women’s shoes littering the landscape. The male role is represented here perhaps in the prevalence of mushrooms in the landscape and similarly shaped gaming pieces on the game boards. Petersen extends this game of identity to the personal as well by inserting herself into some of these scenes – often nude and communing with nature ala Snow White. It’s a bold move in an artwork that appears to come from someone who lets old magazines and toys do her talking. But it works. That bit of vulnerability is not over the top or a shock to make the viewer uncomfortable at the intimateness. Rather it adds to the exploration of issues and overall quirky personality infused into the work.

This is a cohesive body of work, yet one that allows for seemingly endless exploration – a truly fertile field for artist and viewer to play with together. Through images of the past, Petersen comments on the future and offers a joyful experience in doing so. – Nick Sousanis

ws@thedetroiter.com

And there’s a lot of unique glass works on display too – including Jennifer Blazina’s glass “envelopes” with black and white photographic images hazily visible through the thick molded glass. These tie in nicely to the nostalgic imagery in Petersen’s work and all of the more object oriented (though at times exotic) glassworks inside are worth a look.

Alex Katz Lecture At CCS
April 14, 2005 7:30pm

Kevin Ewing – special to thedetroiter.com

A native New Yorker, Alex Katz has been a successful figurative and landscape painter for over forty years. He is known for breaking from the mid-century commitment to abstraction by returning to traditional figurative-based and landscape work inflected with a distinctly contemporary emotional coolness melded with an unabashed classical love for beauty. Katz spoke at CCS recently and focused on his personal history and development as an artist from childhood to the present day. Included with the talk was a slide show that functioned less as a structural reference for the monologue and more as a silent, cyclical visual diary of his work through the years.

Katz began the lecture by admitting to being “intimidated” by the concept of the “painter as genius”. This distrust of his perception of what a painter should be led him to concentrate initially on the commercial arts, absorbing a certain compositional clarity and graphic sensibility that has informed his work from the outset.

He stated his belief that the way the viewer perceives a painting visually is quicker than we perceive it intellectually, that our eyes are, in effect, faster than our brains. Comparing his personal art history to contemporary culture he made the analogy that artistic sensibility has moved from what he called morality, or fixed values, as in the critical approach of Clement Greenburg, to law, or a more variable approach to art, making up new structures for art as we proceed forward through time.

Katz referenced an interest in the 1950’s practice of breaking down linear thought as in Jackson Pollock and be-bop jazz, admitting that music and dance were the underlying aesthetics of his work from the outset. He stated that Pollock’s work pushed him to a new, larger world, and inspired him to attempt a more abstract approach to realism. Katz developed a visual shorthand by practicing drawing very quickly from life and has always been aware of an explosive energy within him when he paints. He suggested we must paint from our own temperament, that as a painter he followed his instincts, “having a blast” painting outdoors, finishing paintings in an afternoon. In describing his process, Katz stressed that he has a very predetermined way of working. In order to paint as quickly as he does he had to learn systems, each brush stroke being mapped out in order to attain a sort of immediate, instantaneous perception. He stressed his belief that painting is an application of energy through work.

Regarding content, Katz was adamant that we should paint what we see culturally, through the culture we live in. This corresponded with a belief that the ways things appear are not fixed. For example, he stated that realistic paintings are “only realistic for maybe twenty years, then the work becomes just a painting”, in effect, simply another work of art. Though he readily admitted to being a “sucker for a pretty face”, he has worked to strip out the content of his work, stating that content gets in the way of a certain coolness he is trying to achieve.

Through hearing Alex Katz talk about his life and his work, we get the sense that by limiting his process to a predetermined, planned way of working, he feels free to allow his intuitive vitality and explosive physicality to re-capture, in a more detached, or intellectual way, the sense of immediate energy and urgency he perceives in his subject matter. It is through this dichotomy of a forced structural integrity reigning in an otherwise explosive, expressionistic approach to painting that gives his work its particular detached yet sensual sensibility, as well as its distinctively cool contemporary character.

Kevin Ewing studied art at CCS from 1983 to 1987 and then headed out into the professional world. He has since returned to the world of fine arts and is currently working on his MFA in Painting at WSU where he investigates the human nature of attraction and our aesthetic selectivity.

Pewabic Pottery
http://www.pewabic.com/
March 25 thru May 13
Thomas Hoadley
Harvey Sadow
John Albert Murphy

Founded over a hundred years ago, and in its current location for almost that entire time, Pewabic Pottery's significance in Detroit and beyond is well established. Around town, Pewabic tiles can be found gracing many historic homes in surrounding Indian Village, as well as such public places as the Guardian Building, the Detroit Public Library, and more recently Comerica Park (just to name a few).

In addition to continually creating ceramic tiles and pottery, the pottery offers classes and workshops for adults and children. Visitors can take in a self-guided tour of the facility or visit their Museum Store to purchase Pewabic made ceramics or the works of nationally recognized ceramic artists.

While Pewabic has long featured a gallery devoted to fine art ceramics, they've recently made some changes in where different things are located within the building to bring a greater focus on this aspect of the various things the pottery offers. Once downstairs, the gallery has migrated up the stairs into three distinct rooms, the East, West, and Stratton Galleries, and all the ceramic wares have all been moved downstairs. The current exhibition sees the work of Thomas Hoadley, Harvey Sadow, and John Albert Murphy.

Hoadley works in the Nerikomi tradition (a Japanese technique involving the marbling of colored clays) to make his thin-walled organic shaped pots. The forms are bowls, but bowls with the undulating structure to their walls that looks as if it might have evolved in response to soft undersea currents. The surfaces are split into multiple regions adorned with distinct patterns and color. Think of a multi-colored country map, curled up into a bowl shape. The regions shift from the grey white marbling to deep reds - wood grain like to black and white fingerprint whorls (or perhaps topographic mappings) to solid gold leaf. Perhaps the intentional incongruity of the sections speaks to our current age of instant media. Hoadley captures in one of our oldest art forms, the ability to change channels. Don't love gold leaf? Turn the piece and there's something else to enjoy. By weaving these together in a continuous form, he perhaps tries to make some sense of it, while creating an attractive object at the same time.

John Albert Murphy's work, like Hoadley's, offers even thinner forms to take on the organic vessel forms in slipcast porcelain. The thinness gives the feeling of flower petals or eggshells, and in fact some pieces are petal-like with vessels within vessels, and at their heart a single egg. Their surfaces are marked with pure black and white patterns, either stripes or grids, meticulously applied. Some contain gold-luster insides or the eggs similarly coated in gold. The gold serves as a mirror and the promise of a jewel within the outer form. The sharpness of black and white, especially in clay, along with the richness of gold make for a delightful blend.

Harvey Sadow presents the most traditional vessels on display, smoothly rounded forms with but small openings at their tops. Loose, Eastern brush marks decorate their outer surfaces. While at first glance they appear somewhat earthy, moving around them reveals a surprising amount of color. Sadow describes the work as looking for calm and balance, and these are that - stoic yet playful, quiet yet quite active. Through the combination of the marking and color, the solid forms almost take flight.

These three artists display that even this ancient art form still has a lot of surprises to offer visually, just as this hundred year old Detroit landmark keeps offering new reasons to be involved in the world of ceramics. Whether you're in the mood for the artistic potential of clay forms, unique housewares, the knowledge and support to craft your own works, or just a bit of Detroit history, stop in to Pewabic Pottery. You'll be glad you did. - Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

Poor Man and Pryncess
Poor Man’s Art Collective/Pryncess wsg Zada
227 Iron Street/Nikki Lofts

Of late I’ve been to a number of one night (or weekend) art exhibitions. The people behind these events realize that the majority of visitors to a gallery come to the opening, with a trickle of attendees in the following weeks. They thus maximize their time in the space (never having to maintain it during non-peak times) thereby making use of non-traditional spaces as art galleries. Empty out a loft, a house (see last month’s feature on Commonwealth gallery)and you’ve created a warm environment for people to gather around art.

The “Poor Man’s Art Collective” held its second show (a salon style affair) this past tax day and subsequent weekend, and featured works at prices that even those hit hard by the tax man could weather. The ubiquitous Jack Johnson occupied the space’s second floor, offering up yet another permutation of his constantly evolving art-self. This time out he’s splashing color on canvas in surprisingly clean fashion – think egg whites drizzled onto a pan, quickly forming neat, curved lines. Even in the abstract, Johnson found a way to interject his humor and personality. Like Johnson, co-founder Mychal Noir worked with spattered paint, building layer upon layer of different palettes, creating atmospheric compositions. Kenya Vinson abandoned paint altogether, using decorative sequins to create a multitude of attractive, personal and symbolic imagery.

Poor Man founder Geno, offered up vibrant, unique abstract compositions, also not of paint, but of wood coated in torn and cut colored paper all under a layer of polyurethane. (Rendering them virtually unphotographable!) The paper and plastic coating combine to provide surprisingly warm, rich color. The color, combined with the balanced composition, of primitive, organic forms make these truly striking pieces. These not only come as wall pieces, but are turned into nicely crafted and attractive coffee table tops as well. Geno’s entire body of work was eye catching and quite pleasing.

The next night, over in Greektown’s Nikki lofts, Pryncess Red Warrior StyleZ got her solo act going. This show demonstrated both the advantages and the troubles of staging an exhibition at a non-gallery space: to say the least, the lighting was not intended for displaying things on the walls after dark. This is on hand kind of a downer, but on the other hand, it meant every visitor got a personalized candlelit (!) tour of the art work. (One could argue that in fact the candlelight brings out a greater richness to the artworks warm tones – a warm incandescent light might mask.) Pryncess’ primary body of work is wood relief done with chainsaw. The abstract organic, interlocking forms she creates interact with both the grain of the wood (at times enhanced by intentional burning) and the vivid hues she has applied. A second body of work, paper on wood under varnish of sorts, is reminiscent of Geno’s. The buttery texture created by her process complements the reliefs nicely. Pryncess then uses the new surface to draw and write upon. At times the drawing tends towards the realistic, and here that attention to accuracy bogs the viewer down a bit. When her marks go towards the primitive, iconic, and stylized, they are strong, and the viewer can enjoy them for what they are as with the relief forms.

Occupying the windowsill spaces of this gallery, artist Zada showed off her surreal drawings. Obsessively rendered, these fanciful, playful creations allowed her hand to have as much imagination as her mind. It’s a plentiful area for her to explore, and one looks forward to her continuing down that path.

(A past review of Pryncess, click here )

Both shows, for one night at least, offered a true feeling of community, and the power for art to bring people together. Look for the next place these artists will show off their works. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com

MONA
Going Dutch: new photography from the Netherlands
April 16 through May 21
12-6pm Thursday through Saturday
http://www.detroitmona.com/

First off, let’s dispense with the whole issue of identity surrounding Jef Bourgeau’s Museum of New Art. Who’s exactly responsible for what, I really can’t say. What we can say with some degree of certainty is that Bourgeau has created an unsettling, unique installation of sorts, perhaps with the help of other artists (some of which may even be from Holland) but perhaps not. That said, it’s difficult to not think about what is going on here, but you’ll be happier if you can leave it at that and just enjoy the work for what it is. It’s also worth noting that MONA has taken up a new space formerly inhabited by Habatat Galleries, which is offering a layout much more conducive to showing work, as was done in Bourgeau’s previous Book Building space.

Perhaps the most engaging work currently on display (which is apparently not the first time it’s been on display here, though many of the other works are brand new to the gallery) is attributed to one Stig Elklund. Through photography, video, and installation this artist, while certainly presenting a particular aesthetic, more so evokes a distinct mood - primarily one of nostalgia and dread rolled into one. In an end room, a collection of Elklund’s photographs line the walls, with a large doll’s house seated in one corner. A sign (or Bourgeau’s audible reminder) instructs the visitor to shut the door and turn off the lights. Doing so reveals that the already ethereal and haunting photography has been printed so as to have the whites glow in the dark. This may seem a bit gimmicky, but it works in the context of the room (and really I wish I hadn’t gone in alone.) Peering into the doll’s house reveals a scene of a antique looking bedroom, complete with poster bed, flowing drapery, and frail woman beneath the bed’s thin sheets. The soft focus of the photos, the operatic music playing, all wind together to seal the mood (and making me open the door.)

Directly outside the enclosed room, Elklund displays an inspiringly creative video of the repetitious emptying of a bucket of water. The motion of the bucket is in synch with the sounds of waves crashing on the beach. It’s quite clever in its simplicity, and as disconcerting as the haunted room, but in a lighthearted way.

There’s a lot more photography to see as well. As the title of the show states, we’re in for a look at Dutch life from Dutch photographers. The digitally enhanced prints of one Lottie Dodd, although covered in frustratingly cracked shell, standout. In the group portion of the show, the Dutch offer snapshots of everyday life - old and young, sexy and mundane. They are grouped in such a way as to allow the viewer to draw connections between the disparate images, where perhaps there was none at all.

At MoNA, no doubt little is as it seems, as Bourgeau plays the game of art and identity, and keeps the viewer just a little bit unsettled in the process. - Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetoiter.com

Center Galleries: “Threefold,”
Matthew Hanna, Megan Parry, Christian Tedeschi
March 19 – April 30, 2005

(By Christina Hill special to thedetroiter.com. Updated with pictures.)

Spring pastels are arriving late to decorate Detroit’s dreary landscape -- such an endless winter -- but for a blast of strong color there is plenty at Center Galleries’ current show, “Threefold.” The exhibition presents the work of three artists, disparate in media and message, which nevertheless combines here marvelously: Matthew Hanna (ceramic and mixed-media collages), Megan Parry (painting), and Christian Tedeschi (sculpture from found objects with applied plastics). Gallery director Michelle Perron has performed magic in her inspired installation by first choosing and then beautifully combining the work of artists she has long admired. She has transformed the gallery into a wonderland of sorts: a fabulous yin/yang assault on the senses by means of the smack of contrasting colors – walls of orange, raspberry and purplish-blue – and the violent conflict of different shapes, textures, materials, and artistic attitudes that nevertheless are mysteriously compatible and pleasing in their odd harmony.

The gallery’s floor space is filled with several pieces by Tedeschi, who has a background in ceramics but has traveled light-years beyond the norm with his latest conceptual body of work based on the forces of nature. He covers common objects, “Chair” for example, with a sticky orange silicon material that has produced long, icky tendrils on the floor suggestive of insect feelers or the encroachment of man-eating plants. Tedeschi’s process transforms these quotidian pieces into – to appropriate the title of a David Bowie album from 1980 -- “Scary Monsters.” The artist’s “mad scientist” persona is further reinforced by “Organ on Palette,” the hideous shape of which suggests a very large seabird disfigured distressingly by an oil-spill, a creature pathetically trapped in dripping, gooey black muck unable to open his wings and certainly about to die. Is Tedeschi the twenty-first century reincarnation of George Ohr, “the mad potter of Biloxi,” whose ceramic vessels from one hundred years ago suggested organic deformation and Frankenstein-like genetic experiments gone awry?

Yet, by contrast (which is what this exhibit exhibits so well), Tedeschi also spins plastic onto discarded washing machine parts creating luscious pink and white cotton candy-like objects that pose seductively on tabletops. These look quite delicate and have a confectionary texture, like taffy pulled to its most brittle limit. Of this group, his “Agitator” pieces (literally made from that part) suggest to me, and not in a bad way, attempts by children in crafts class to make pink Christmas trees, once in vogue. They fall far short of perfection being too spiky, flattened, disfigured, and odd; most important, the tips of the trees failed to materialize. In the “Agitator Spray” works, Tedeschi has transformed the machines’ tubs into objects that suggest elegantly gift-wrapped pieces (although the centers are hollow), with tops of dainty floral-like sprays standing in for bows. The bodies of the pieces have sinuous folds and ripples, dents and bulges, that simulate (for our unmitigated pleasure) the beauty of human skin or luxurious textiles. Another interpretation might consider the pieces as fairytale crowns for giants such as the elephant Babar and his queen, Celeste. Or, because they seem so edible, somewhat misshapened but delectable, cakes.

Buttressing Tedeschi’s pieces on one of the gallery’s walls is a series of paintings by Megan Parry -- trapazoid-shaped canvases comprised of violently uncompromising hard-edged geometric wedge shapes. These, such as “Arlequino,” provide a fascinating contrast, and also a serendipitously complementary color scheme, to the organic and (seemingly) haphazard nature of Tedeschi’s work. Parry’s sophisicated, deliberative color combinations are mostly unexpected: red, pink, and black, or yellow, brown, green, and blue. In one work she softens the sharpness of the wedges of color by the addition on the surface of the sweet shapes of young moons, applied as if decals. Interest is added to other paintings by means of infinite varieties of patterns and shapes.

Many of her pieces, such as “Il Sole Mio,” are done with spray paint on heavily textured canvas and the fuzziness of the application conjures up planetary imagery: exploding stars, glowing orbs, and intricate galaxies in the night sky. In “Bobetta,” a lavender double-sided noose vies with intricate, “feminine” gem-like shapes for our attention. Her decision to employ both hard-edges and blurry imagery in a single piece demonstrates her inclination to be both whimsical and strong: more contrasts. Yet, her dark side reconciles with Tedeschi’s monstrous pieces, and her out-of-focus dot shapes connect well to Tedeschi’s organic plastic dribbles, giving the installation an overall congruency of contrasts and similarities that is quite intriguing.

The ceramic slabs shown by Matthew Hanna against the purplish-blue gallery wall are idiosyncratic constructions (or collages) loaded up with odd bits of kitsch, touristy memorabilia collected from his travels: plastic peanuts and chicken feet, ceramic cows, cheap Madonna statues, lumberjacks, and replicas of antebellum Southern gentleman like Colonel Sanders. He also adds pieces of saw blades and steering wheels of ships -- all very manly stuff. While these pieces take some getting used to -- Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum! -- they certainly come from the Jeff Koons’ school which fetishized and immortalized objects long associated with bad taste and popular culture. (I once purchased a painted plaster rabbit from a rural display of such creatures for my son, a Koon’s fan, thinking that since I couldn’t afford the real things – those having been transformed by the mystery of the art market into expensive high art -- it replicated the sensibility of the concept while costing hundreds of thousands of dollars less!)

Perron hasn’t, however, simply tossed in these somewhat “crude” works by Hanna if compared to the intellectual-based work by the other two artists, hoping against hope that they might somehow “work.” It demonstrates her brilliant eye that Perron recognized the conflicting components in Hanna’s art which connects him to the other work and com