Canvas detroit

292 Pages·2014·29.927 MB·English

by  Christian, Nichole;Pincus, Julie

Canvas Detroit

JULIE PINCUS | NICHOLE CHRISTIAN
A Painted Turtle book
Detroit, Michigan
© 2014 by Wayne State University Press, Detroit,
Michigan 48201. All rights reserved. No part of this
book may be reproduced without formal permission.
Printed in Canada.
18 17 16 15 14 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN 978-0-8143-4023-3 (jacketed cloth)
ISBN 978-0-8143-3880-3 (e-book)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013950445
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following
for their generous financial support of this volume:
The Leonard and Harriette Simons
Endowed Family Fund
Lois and Avern Cohn
Mandell & Madeleine Berman Foundation
Walter Ohlmann
Broder & Sachse Real Estate Services, Inc.
Mary Lou Zieve
Ellen Kahn
Nancy and Bud Liebler
Ruth Rattner
Frontispiece: An artwork RIGHT: Artwork by Tyree
painted in late 2012 by Guyton at the Heidelberg
Raman, a Grand River Project, Detroit. Circles
Creative Corridor artist. are a recurring theme for
Guyton and grace the
house he grew up in on
Heidelberg Street as well
as abandoned buildings
throughout the city.
With photographs by: Ben Bunk;
Billyvoo; Brett Carson; Halima Cassells;
Michael Chung; Mitch Cope; Steve Coy;
Becks Davis; Ron English, Greg Fadell;
James Fassinger; Jerome Ferretti; Geoff
George; R. H. Hensleigh; Scott Hocking;
Judith Hoffman; Gregory Holm; Miru Kim;
Paul Kotula Projects; Dave Krieger; Eno
Laget; David Lewinsky; Nicole MacDonald;
Garrett MacLean; Hubert Massey; Jason
Matthews; Bridget Michael; Catie Newell;
Max Ortiz; Julie Pincus; PD Rearick;
Yvette Rock; Sal Rodriguez; Tod Seelie;
Robert Sestock; Rebecca Solano;
Tom Stoye; Ifoma Stubbs; Mark
Trupiano; Corine Vermeulen;
and Graem Whyte.

Contents
VIII...................................................Preface Ron English.......................................... 128
1.............................................Introduction Greg Fadell.......................................... 136
Marion Jackson
Jerome Ferretti....................................142
8.........How Detroit Got Its Groove Back
Michael H. Hodges Five Fellows.........................................146
12....................................The Alley Project Ellie Abrons...............................148
18.....................................................Banksy Meredith Miller.........................150
22.................Matthew Barney, Alchemist Thom Moran..............................152
Rebecca R. Hart Catie Newell..............................154
28.......................................................BASK Rosalyne Shieh.........................156
32.................................................Ben Bunk Tyree Guyton........................................158
36......................................Halima Cassells Scott Hocking......................................168
40..............................................Katie Craig Judith Hoffman....................................176
44........................................ Cupcake Girls Gregory Holm and
Matthew Radune..................................180
48.......Detroit: City of Loss and Wonder
Linda Yablonsky Hygienic Dress League.......................188
52....................................................... Dabls Kevin Joy...............................................194
Design 99 and Power House Productions: Eno Laget.............................................202
60...........Mitch Cope and Gina Reichert Nicole MacDonald..............................208
Design 99 and Power House Productions:
66..........................Ride It Sculpture Park Hubert Massey.....................................214
Catie Newell.........................................220
Design 99 and Power House Productions
with Graem Whyte: Object Orange.....................................224
68......................................Squash House
Popps Packing: Graem Whyte and
Design 99: The Juxtapoz & Power House Faina Lerman.......................................228
Productions Residencies
70........................Monica Canilao Yvette Rock..........................................232
76...Richard Colman and Retna John Sauvé...........................................238
LEFT: A time- 84..................................Saelee Oh Veronika Scott.....................................242
lsaepqsuee pnhceo toof 88........................................Swoon Robert Sestock...................................248
BanA SasKs ecrmeabtliangge 94...................................Ben Wolf Kobie Solomon...................................256
depicting the
letter “D” for 98............Detroit Beautification Project Theatre Bizarre...................................260
Detroit in an
empty shipping 112.......................................DLECTRICITY Katie Yamasaki....................................270
bay in Eastern
Market. (Photos: 124.........................Art and Public Places Index......................................................274
Sal Rodriguez) John Gallagher
VII
Preface
Julie Pincus:
As an art crimson stenciled with golden pigeons,
student at the University of Michigan, I or walruses frolicking in a blue-green sea.
was fascinated by Detroit and began The art was transformative: a fortress
trolling its streets for photographs. This became a graphic beauty; an abandoned
was in the eighties, and even then the apartment building, an aquarium.
city was in distress, but I still enjoyed
poking around places like Brush Park with I was onto something! But what it was
its stately mansions, many of which were wouldn’t be revealed until a year or two
already in disrepair. Even in the midst of later, when a critical mass of interventions
this decline, I remember seeing signs of had been achieved. Soon more artworks
hope in the poverty and wondering how were springing up all over the city. Articles
people managed to keep their spirits about buildings completely festooned
up when there was so much working to with mirrors, or guerrilla branding
undermine them.  experiments cropping up on the walls of
old hotels or office buildings appeared
In the years that followed, many of my in national publications. Many artists
generation fled metropolitan Detroit since who had come from afar or who were
it held little promise of work. It was not here all along were using Detroit as their
until 2007 when I was working on a canvas, and their work was astonishing.
monograph about Marcus Belgrave for
the Kresge Foundation that I was drawn The attraction to Detroit was simple.
to photograph Detroit again, this time in It was vast, affordable, and there was
search of icons like the Spirit of Detroit, virtually nobody to stop artists from
Motown, and the Noguchi fountain. The creating moments of sheer brilliance
city was in even worse shape and the out of the distress. Grant money began
mayor promised to raze the abandoned flowing into the artists’ hands, and they
houses mushrooming across its landscape responded in the best way they knew
in an attempt to erase evidence of blight. how—they transformed it into beauty.
It was in this unlikely climate I became Far-flung pockets of Detroit were coming
obsessed with Detroit, and soon a theme to life, thanks to the artists, who were
to my photographs emerged. I was behaving like pioneers, and doing the
chronicling folk art graphics, beautiful heavy lifting that the broken city couldn’t.
old signage, and funky icons, like an While downtown was being gentrified by
enormous cow on top of a defunct ice billionaires, the artists were tackling por-
cream shop. I even came across antique tions of the city that many saw as dismal.
advertising for cigars, which remained
untouched due to its remote location. I was hooked, and it became an obsession
to locate as much artwork as I could;
I thought I had the makings of a book, but to track down one elusive artist after
soon learned that books about the despair another. I was sometimes rebuffed, but
of this once-great city had already been more often welcomed with open arms.
done. What intrigued the publisher, On the following pages are the fruits of
however, was something altogether these artist’s considerable labors. Detroit
different, and a theme I had failed to is once again the land of opportunity and
discern and now embrace. Where buildings It is my hope that this book will convey
were boarded up, weathered surfaces the rich art movement that is rapidly
here and there started sporting artwork transforming the city from beleaguered
of striking originality. I would turn a to triumphant. Nobody knows where
corner, only to spy a bright painting in this will lead, but one thing is certain: in
VIII