city-inspired and found object work by 19 artists
Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit
Through June ??, 2007

This year’s permutation of “Urban Alchemy”, “Artifacts Transformed” is just that, artifacts, relics, junk if you will, remade, repurposed, reconstituted, transformed, transmogrified into objects of beauty, of meaning. Those practicing this act of alchemy, this process of transformation, might be characterized with a single word: “Hopeful.”

This common linkage between those assembled is such a Detroit phenomenon – it’s more than simply making use of found materials from the city. It’s that sensitivity to sift through the debris, reach one’s hand down deep and pick up something most would call “junk.” Yet in their hands, through their eyes, they don’t see it as such at all, but instead as something laden with possibilities past and future. It’s work alive with memory, bringing to mind the cliché, “Memory is the power to gather roses in winter.” Here in Detroit’s lingering winter, these artists have constructed beauty from the ruins of its past.

Many work assemblage or three-dimensional collage style, creating composite structures from objects, images, and the like. Vito Valdez almost haphazardly jams together table legs, paint stirrers, and other “scraps” of wood, to make altar pieces, animated creatures, all in which the identity of the parts are subsumed within the new creation. On another end of the spectrum are works like those of Mark Esse – serene, contemplative forms, which carry the former life of the parts into their new existence. An object made from an old fence has the feeling of that structure in its reconfigured form.

With Jean Wilson’s and Jack Summers’ works, parts are collaged together, retaining their distinctiveness, with meaning created through the juxtapositions. Teresa Petersen’s collages applied to found objects develop her own vocabulary, and quite whole imaginary realm. For this show, she even reuses the scraps from what she’s cut her imagery from as stencils to apply silhouettes to objects.

Sandra Cardew fashions found materials in Frankenstein-like fashion, into little anthropomorphic creatures and often as well as the realms that they inhabit. These odd little creations might be at home in the drawings of Edward Gorey – unsettling and delightful all at once.

Anne Fracassa uses found objects as her canvas – capturing through her soulful paintings a feel for this town full of abandoned hulking shells on chunks of brick. As many preserve the old, Gail mally-mack often degrades her materials, letting them weather, age, deteriorate – integrating that whole process of degradation become a part of the work.

Scott Hocking truly uses the found in its purest form – often doing nothing to his finds, but to recast them, recontextualize them as objects of art. To take that most ubiquitous of phrases – “it is what it is,” it’s simply that now we’re looking at it differently. His strength is to take in relics from a new vantage point and help his audience start to see the beauty in decay. Here we see a heavy rusted door, with deep scratches across the painted surface, rust growing through it. This is an aerial view of our earth shaped by weather, the dynamic landscape.

All these artists display a strongly environmentally conscious aspect – both in terms of reusing materials, but often in terms of their subject matter as well. Frank English makes plaster casts from our “disposables” – in this case plastic food containers – and they become surfaces to paint landscapes endangered by these and other products of the encroachment of suburban lifestyle. Environmentally consciousness is a step towards more social consciousness, which is evident in the work of Valdez and lies at the heart of Eric Mesko’s work. Here old boards and doors serve as a kiosk for political posters he’s created from collage – all speaking to art’s role to raise awareness through medium and message.

Mike Richison stands out more than a bit, diverging from the weathered wood and rust materials, as his sculptural assemblages are made of bright primary colored pieces of plastic. These are found objects of a different sort, parts for children’s toy vehicles and the like. At first it seems like an odd inclusion, but perhaps as our construction materials move away from steel and wood, and increasingly more of the world becomes plastic, this is what the found object artists of tomorrow will be working with. We won’t live in the “Rust Belt” but the “plastic loop.” Regardless, the splash of color makes for a nice contrast.

And there are many more to take in here, working in related veins, but all with their distinct signature on the work. There are even functional objects, taking on a new function from their original purpose. As a whole, the works in this show bring to mind the very first piece I wrote when we launched thedetroiter.com, about an exhibition which also occurred in this space (then “detroit contemporary.”) I wrote that it, “epitomizes this spirit of Detroit art: the creativity to transform something derelict, into something living, perhaps even something beautiful.” And furthermore, “art can create change in our environment and our selves. Come be a part of it and watch Detroit bloom.”

Those words ring true as true today as they did then. There’s a lot of hope on display in this house and in the hearts of those who create possibility and beauty out of dereliction and decay. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com