2019 found us wandering into many more art galleries and shows than in years past. Sometimes it was to show support for a Brain Candy visual artist, sometimes looking for future Brain Candy visual artists, and sometimes out of general curiosity. We actually wandered into enough to have a top ten list of favorite shows, plus some that just missed out, among out travels this year.
Honorable mention: The Arab Migration at Black Box Gallery; Somewhere Else at Hatch Art (mainly due to the inclusion of artist Samah Kthar, but also found our liking the work of Sanda Cook quite a bit as well); Bruegel's "The Wedding Dance" Revealed at the DIA
10) Despite It All We Never Learn - photographs by Kenny Karpov at M. Contemporary Art
Photos from four years Karpov spent in the Mediterranean Sea working with NGOs to rescue and help immigrants fleeing across the Sea to ideally better locations. The pictures range from those that appear to have been captured in a split second versus those where the people in the shots are well aware that Karpov is taking the photos. Our weak experience with the visual arts is going to lead to one reading the word powerful frequently from here through number one but it's the first word that comes to mind. It was difficult to walk through this exhibit and not feel for those not only in the position of fleeing for something hopefully better but for those helping as well; being around these situations even getting the occasional boost from aiding somebody still must take a toll.
9) Humble and Human - paintings and sculptures from the Impressionist Era from the collection of Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. at the Detroit Institute of Arts
Hard not to be blown away here--over three full rooms of art from the impressionist era including a room that not only held four van Gogh's, but also some of Cezanne's work while other rooms saw works from Monet, Renoir, etc. Having the varying van Gogh's next to each other on one wall the way the exhibit lined them up was really interesting to slowly work our way down the wall--seeing the different color styles, the different textures and so on. It's an exhibit we walked through five or six times during its stay.
8) Black Bottom Street View - a collection of photographs at the Detroit Public Library
This area of Detroit, where African-Americans that came up from the South resided, owned and ran businesses, and created what sounds like the best entertainment district maybe in the country at the time, was levelled under the guise of urban renewal, though that seems to be a spit shine claim. Just prior to the area being torn down, surveyors were out taking photos of everything and Emily Kutil found these photos in the library's Burton Historical Collection. The collection was maneuvered and dug through in a way that the library set up the neighborhood again--via photos one could walk the streets of Black Bottom--looking in either direction and seeing the homes, the storefronts, the churches and more. It was a fascinating trip through history, one that seems more and more sordid with every read about it. The youngest came with us and was pretty amazed both at the area itself, but also how they set the exhibition up.
7) Bridge Gallery Opening - paintings by Richard Halprin at the Detroit Shipping Company
Catching the opening of this was great as it meant beyond meeting Richard and seeing his wonderful work, we also were entertained by the music of Michelle Held, Ryan Trager, Emily Rose, and another or two local musicians. We liked the way Halprin's work stood out compared to others we'd seen. His style is almost an elongation to what one would expect, especially with his paintings of people. And the usage of wood as his 'canvas' and framing the paintings himself by not painting to the edges is something that might help keep the costs of his work more reasonable to some collectors. His usage of color and topics were both extremely interesting to us.
6) Distilled - paintings by Senghor Reid at M. Contemporary Art
Reid's work is meant to show the patterns of water, especially in larger settings. There's a hope that these works will get viewers to begin to pay more attention to this valuable natural resource and to think of how to work with it in the best manner possible. The colors are on the darker end of the spectrum with many blues and some incredible purple variations that had us staring at a couple of the works for long stretches at a time.
5) Sit Down Somewhere - paintings by Sydney G. James at Playground Detroit
We didn't get out to many openings this year, but can't imagine many were as big or bigger than this one. We'd been to a crowded Playground Detroit maybe a month earlier for a concert and when we showed up for this, there were people standing in front of the gallery front, and we had to park a solid block further away than the previous visit. It was well beyond wall-to-wall people inside the gallery. They were allowing just enough space to see the vast majority of the works on the walls, but another visit a week or so later allowed for a much better chance to see everything. Everything about James' paintings seemed BIG even the smaller works. The colors were popping, the faces all but appeared three dimensional. The topical matter was powerful Black women and her depictions of them verified that fact.
4) The Art of Weeping - ink on paper drawings by Mary Hazboun at the Arab American National Museum
We wandered into the museum a few weeks back after seeing something about this exhibit somewhere (no idea where we caught wind of it). We had the museum to ourselves for a good 60 minutes that we were there and while we spent some time looking at other things, we spent the majority of our time, probably 45 minutes, reviewing these drawings. The description of the exhibit says it all: "A series of drawings based on the artist’s lived experiences under occupation in Palestine, highlighting the multilayered traumas of women of color and their resistance against the intersecting systems of oppression manifested in the military machine, the patriarchal society and forced migration." You can see the pain and trauma in the faces of the women and/or children (or both) in Hazboun's drawings. We've since purchased a print of one of the works and have eyes on a few others and hope to get back to the exhibit at least once more before it leaves in late January.
3) American Ornithology - lead on paper drawings by Rashaun Rucker at M. Contemporary Art
The description of this exhibit was up on the far wall as we walked into the gallery so we crossed and read it: "Rashaun Rucker’s series, American Ornithology, compares the life of a creature many of us see every day — the Rock Pigeon — to the identity and, in many ways, stereotypes of black men in America. The Rock Pigeon is one of the few birds that doesn't migrate, while also being considered a strong flyer. Brought to this country by Europeans in the 1600s, they lack the migration gene, and when removed from their environment, usually return home. That sense of displacement and lack of the gene manifests itself in one of many forms of conditioning. As with black men or others from the diaspora, when taken from ones place of origin, and subsequently assigned a certain station within society, this generates a belief that you are only permissible in certain spaces designed or designated for you. You have effectively been placed in a coop. The pigeon, when taken from its environment, usually returns home because of its familiarity with that ecosystem." Apologies in advance but powerful is the best description we had here. We spent a long time in the gallery that afternoon and were bummed by the fact that the day of the Artist's talk (moderated by the great Scheherazade Washington Parrish) was one we were out of town. The drawings are fantastic and impressively detailed to the point of it being a wonderful exhibit without the background--but seeing the work with Rucker's description behind it made the works that much more.
2) This Must Be the Place - paintings by Ellen Rutt via Playground Detroit presented at The Eightfold Collective
We were fortunate enough to catch this exhibit for the Artist Statement, making the work a bit more interactive, which seems appropriate for this grouping of Rutt's work as her involvement with the paintings was more interactive than we think of painting to be. The talk began with a short video or two showing Rutt, out in the world, with her canvases and some materials in a backpack. She'd do things like run into a street and place the canvas down, paint it, and get back to the sidewalk; put the canvas up against a tree and spray paint it, getting portions of the shape of the tree to appear on the canvas; wander through acres of fields looking for locations to do similar work. The project is a huge look at the environment and climate issues and done so by participating with the environment and climate during the work. Having Rutt walk through and explain many of the pieces and the work it took to get them made added greatly to the enjoyment of this exhibit.
1) Uncurated Self - paintings by Linda Ward and Waleed Johnson and work by Jen Fitzpatrick at Hatch Art
We mainly went to see Linda Ward's work. We had been made aware of her 500 Portraits project and had her as a future Brain Candy visual artist and had gone to her studio on an Open Night a few months earlier and came to see the newer works. One nearly entire wall lined up with her works in rows from earlier numbered paintings on up through the end from left to right. It was interesting going from left to right and seeing how some things changed in her choices of colors and the styles that she varied each grouping with. Bonus that we liked the others' works as well, especially the 3 or 4 paintings by Johnson. He was able to get a look as close to three dimensional in painting as we've encountered. He will (very) soon be a visual artist at Brain Candy as well.
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