March 27, 2018: Your Arts & Culture Adventure Picks
This post is a part of a series of posts curating adventurous arts and culture experiences in Southeast Michigan. Sign up for email updates (choose “Arts & Culture Adventures” list).
UMS Wallace Blogging Fellow Amanda Krugliak is an artist, curator, and arts administrator best known for performance and conceptual experiential installations, most notably as curator at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities since 2007.
I’m still patiently waiting for crocuses to be in full bloom, and I’ve been reminded yet again this year that things never quite turn out the way you expected. I’m never going to be an heiress, its official. Alert the media… and I’m not sure I still believe in the American Dream.
But I’ve reminded too, of the power of the People, their great ideas, and how many of them are right here right now. There are so many extraordinary happenings in your town…things to see, places to go, a melody that opens you up. After a long winter and a road full of pot- holes, Place is what you make it. So, turn off the space heater and the nature channel, tumbleweeds are so “yesterday.” Swap those slippers for Chelsea boots, and venture out! Because Why Not….
56th Annual Ann Arbor Film Festival
March 20-25
Ann Arbor
The Ann Arbor Film Festival is truly one of the greatest happenings every year, anywhere. 56 years old, it’s still quirky, smart, engaging, offbeat, inspiring, and inventive. It continues to bring together visual thinkers from across the globe, along with our own eclectic like- minded visionaries, all gloriously gathering in style to celebrate experimental film.
Under the leadership of Director Leslie Raymond and Associate Director of Programs Katie Mc Gowan, the offerings this year surpass expectations in their relevance, and innovation. In addition to the sublime experience of viewing so many wonderful films in competition, and attending all of the celebrations and goings on during the week, the festival offers special new programs this year well worth citing: Memories of Disintegrations: Ibero-American Experimental Film, explores Spanish and Portuguese-language films on Video8, Super *, 16mm, Super 35mm, and VHS. Black Radical Imagination showcases films that explore racial identities beyond the restrictive boundaries and limitations often prescribed to people of color. These challenging programs extend our understanding and reach, and are representative of the bold spirit of this long running avant-garde festival. Also note a special screening of The Big House, a documentary about our own grand stadium and the labor behind the scenes that goes into the sports spectacle…from cooks to snipers. Also this year, don’t miss multi-media works Off the screen in venues across town—among them Lily Baldwin and Peter Rose// Room 2435 North Quad UM, Razan AlSalah and Radical Democracy//Ann Arbor Art Center; and Matt Wilken// Arbor Brewing Company.
TALK: Simone Brown + Danielle Dean in Conversation
March 29, 7 pm
MOCAD, Detroit
Sociologist Simone Browne’s acclaimed book Dark Matters: On Surveillance of Blackness examines surveillance in relation to the history of transatlantic slavery and its afterlives. These themes informed in part by Browne’s research are central to Danielle Dean’s multimedia installation TrueRedRuin on view at MOCAD. This conversation between them explores the different ways that scholarship and artistic practice can overlap, dovetail, igniting critical dialogs and raising social consciousness in the process.
Exercising the Eye: The Gertrude Kasle Collection
March 10-July 22,
Alfred Taubman Gallery, UMMA, Ann Arbor
This lyrical exhibition celebrates Gertrude Kasle (1917-2016), who was a key figure in the formation of Detroit’s contemporary art community in the 1960’s and 70’s. Like other strong minded maverick women of her generation in the arts, she wanted to provide her Midwestern community with a venue in which to experience cutting edge art from centers like NYC. Yet, she also wanted to support and exhibit regional artists, so that the work of both groups could be included in that visual and critical conversation. This surprising and disarming show, which includes the work of Phillip Guston, Jane Hammond, Robert Rauchenberg, Jasper Johns, among others, captures the particular tenor of that era…the imagination, the drive of the gallerist, and the exciting way artists were connected in their inquiries. Don’t miss the incredible paintings by Grace Hartigan, with superb color and gesture that are as fresh today as in 1974. And make sure to take home a vintage poster from the original shows produced by the Kasle Gallery, which you can purchase in the gift store for a song. Now that’s a great day.
Romare Bearden
N’NAMDI center for contemporary art, Detroit
This exhibition offers an opportunity to see the works of acclaimed artist Romare Bearden, whose collages and paintings are iconic. He has influenced so many young artists who came after in regards to story, directness, use of color, and deliberateness of stroke and design. Bearden was a multidisciplinary artist ahead of the curve, interested in the intersection, influence and overlay of music, visual art, history, performance, literature, and culture. Above all, he was a humanist, genuine in his passion for the world and those in it, past, present and future tied together like a daisy chain.
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February 21, 2018: Your Arts & Culture Adventure Picks
This post is a part of a series of posts curating adventurous arts and culture experiences in Southeast Michigan. Sign up for email updates (choose “Arts & Culture Adventures” list).
UMS Wallace Blogging Fellow Amanda Krugliak is an artist, curator, and arts administrator best known for performance and conceptual experiential installations, most notably as curator at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities since 2007.
It’s nearly the end of the shortest month after a long winter haul….It’s time for the big thaw…puddles instead of drifts, easing up on that mortal fear of falling….because just when you were ready to throw in that proverbial towel… someone sends you an anonymous Valentine, or you watch Romeo and Juliet in the Detroit Opera House and you were in awe just to be there, or you hear a new song that stays with you all day, and it becomes absolutely clear that you can never hold back spring.
14: A Night Of Teatro and Dialogue
February 22, 7-9pm
Lydia Mendelssohn Theater, Ann Arbor
The U-M Department of Theatre and Drama presents the play 14, written and directed by Assistant Professor José Casas. The work is inspired by a true-life event in which a smuggler abandoned 30 Mexicans crossing the desert near Yuma AZ, resulting in 14 deaths in the group from dehydration. The play is based on the interviews and public accounts of Arizona residents, reflecting their different attitudes towards issues of undocumented immigration and their different versions of the truth. There will be a talk back with the cast and community members at the end of the performance. A reception will follow in the Henderson Room at the Michigan League. Free, no tickets required.
56th Ann Arbor Film Festival 2018 Poster Release Event
February 24, 10am – 12pm
Ann Arbor Art Center
Wahoo! The Ann Arbor Film Festival, now in its 56th year, is one of those extraordinary happenings that make you feel like one of the luckiest people on the planet just to live in this smart and creative place. Under the insightful and steadfast leadership of Leslie Raymond, and the fresh and innovative programming of Katie Grace McGowan, the 56th Ann Arbor Film Festival upcoming in March is not to be missed. Join them for the release of this year’s poster, the scoop on this year’s upcoming programs, a cup of jo, baked goods and great company.
Women’s Improv Jam
March 7, 7:30-9:30pm
Pointless Brew, 3014 Packard St, Ann Arbor
Well, thanks to my super cool and talented friend Joe L., (you know who you are) I am kept abreast of those new and interesting things going on that might be under my radar. This whole idea sounds terrific….drinking artisanal beer and partaking in various forms of improv, either as a participant or a watcher, with the whole irresistible mystique of a “barely has a name on the door” kind of place. I’m in. This particular jam invites women, trans, and/or non-binary to join in for this recurring short-form improv. It doesn’t matter whether you are new to this or a pro, all levels welcome, with a safe, supportive and inclusive environment. Just pay what you can, and yeah tell ’em Joe sent you.
Michele Oka Doner – Fluent in the Language of Dreams
Now through May 5
Wasserman Projects, Detroit
What a great opportunity to see a solo exhibition of renowned artist Michele Oka Doner, who spent her formative years as a young artist in both Detroit and Ann Arbor (a U-M alum); a time of new worlds colliding with artists like Charles McGhee, George Manupelli (founder of the Ann Arbor Film Festival), gallerist Gertrude Kasle, and physicist Lloyd Cross (co-creator of the first holograms–an experiment for which Doner’s sculpture was appropriated) . This exhibition revisits, for the first time, the large scale floor installation Pages I and II, which she created almost 40 years ago for her first solo museum show in 1978 at the Detroit Institute of Arts. In retrospect and moving forward, the exhibition considers this seminal work as it pertains to the evolution of her dynamic artistic practice rooted in natural forms and breaking new ground.
Parlor Talk: Carlos Nielbock
February 28, 6-8pm
Urban Consulate, 4735 Cass Ave.
As part of its continuing stand-out programming which offers insightful, compelling, and critical conversations that bring community together in a town hall type format , the Urban Consulate hosts Detroit artist and master craftsman Carlos Nielbock, to consider how a community creates more opportunity for non-college bound youth in Detroit, as the city’s economy revitalizes. Nielbock benefited himself from opportunities to apply his metalworking skills, (part of his now 30 year career in the trades, ) and he would like to help create opportunities for others like himself who aren’t following a path of higher education.
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January 13, 2018: Your Arts & Culture Adventure Picks
This post is a part of a series of posts curating adventurous arts and culture experiences in Southeast Michigan. Sign up for email updates (choose “Arts & Culture Adventures” list).
UMS Wallace Blogging Fellow Amanda Krugliak is an artist, curator, and arts administrator best known for performance and conceptual experiential installations, most notably as curator at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities since 2007. Amanda is most recently recognized nationally as co-creator artist/collaborator with Richard Barnes and anthropologist Jason De Leon for “State of Exception,” an exhibition about De Leon’s “Undocumented Migration” project. Her essay about the work of Richard Barnes will be included in the upcoming book “Object Lessons,” about the University of Michigan Collections and Museums, and a collection of her essays will be included in a catalog commemorating the U-M Institute gallery, which will be published in December 2017.
Here we are, the New Year! and the town is covered in a sheet of ice, cold snap. I wear sunglasses in the house, listening to Leonard Cohen. But then, just like the forgotten can of La Croix that explodes in the back of my friend Jen’s car, sometimes all you need is a wake-up call, a bottle rocket, a Sign….to remind you how lucky we are just to be Here.
The State Theatre Marquee by Mark Chalou
State Street, Ann Arbor
Neon Artist/Lighting Designer Mark Chalou’s new renovation of the State Theatre Marquee is nothing short of spectacular, Oscar-worthy. Just stand under the glow and bask. Chalou is an artist who understands the notion of Place, cities and towns, haunts and watering holes …his signs inhabit them. Raised in Detroit, with more than thirty years in his practice, his work is authentic, innovative, and requires no museum frame job, street becomes gallery. He carefully researches historic motifs for context, and sketches out his many revisions over time, ultimately re-inventing the way we see things in the process, from once familiar to new again. Remember to look up, and check out other stand out Chalou monikers here and in Detroit: Cafe Zola, Zingerman’s Roadhouse, Adventura, Eastern Market Brewery.
Learn more about the renovation here.
Making Home
Through June 6
Detroit Institute of the Arts
DIA assistant curators of Contemporary Art Taylor Renee Aldridge and Lucy Mensah make their museum
Abelardo Morrell’s photograph Laura and Brady in the Shadow of Our House/ from Making Home.
curatorial debut with this incredibly smart and insightful exhibition. Culled from the DIA’s permanent collection, the exhibition includes works on paper, photographs, as well as installation works, all offering concepts and perceptions of home, both reassuring and still searching, resonant in complexity and the universal longing for a place we belong. The exhibition’s reach offers the opportunity to see the work of a wide range of artists such as Tyree Guyton, Clinton Snyder, Charles McGee, Jane Hammond, Carlos Diaz, Lorna Simpson and Joanne Leonard among others. The exhibition bodes well for exciting and provocative future endeavors from these dynamic new curators with sensitivity to where they stand, and a futuristic gaze.
Through June 6, entry included with regular admission/Detroit Institute of Arts/5200 Woodward Ave.
Also, in conjunction with the exhibition, the Detroit Film Theatre offers a series about Home.
Homegoing: A Conversation with Yaa Gyasi
February 6
7-8:30 PM
Rackham Auditorium, Ann Arbor
A few days into the future, but put it on your calendar…not to be missed.
The work of Yaa Gyasi has proven deeply relevant for many of us questioning our identities, journeys, and exact locations at this tumultuous pivot in history. Gyasi’s novel also served as inspiration for curators Aldridge and Mensah when crafting their recent exhibition Making Home (noted above)
Gyasi was born in Ghana in 1989, raised in Huntsville, Alabama, and is a graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Gyasi’s extraordinary novel Homegoing follows the parallel paths of two half-sisters and their descendants through eight generations: from the Gold Coast to the plantations of Mississippi, from the American Civil War to Jazz Age Harlem. Though the sisters never meet, their journeys dovetail through a series of narratives that emerge like short stories, interconnected.
Alexis Rockman/ The Great Lakes Cycle
January 27-April 29
Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids
Off of our usual squirrel track, but this is a show worth the trip, and not to be missed.
Rockman is an art star, an icon, a fixture in NYC, a presence internationally. His work is both out of this world, yet a real life imperative, conjuring up sublime painted and drawn images that also serve as beacons and omens, bringing attention to the impact climate change, globalization, invasive species, mass agriculture and urban sprawl on our environment and ecosystems.
This multifaceted project was initiated in 2013 when artist Alexis Rockman embarked on a research tour of the Great Lakes region. The centerpiece of the exhibition is a suite of five mural-sized paintings which explore separate themes that emerged during Rockman’s travels.
Make a day of it.
New York Times article about the project.
Helado Negro, Cuco + Lido Pimenta
February 19
8 PM
Museum Of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit
MOCAD is magic when it comes to avant-garde musical performances. The space lends itself to taking chances, out on a limb, yet you always feel a strong sense of community, the energy that comes from a gathering in the best sense.
Cuco is a Los Angeles based artist making synth experimental music. Helado Negro is a music and performance artist, alter ego/alias for artist Roberto Carlos Lange, whose song lyrics are consistently bilingual in English and Spanish. His work is daring, yet soulful, expressive and introspective. His fourth LP Double Youth released in 2014 garnered acclaim with Pitchfork naming it “the boldest and most intricate Helado Negro work to date.” His practice includes work in Computer Art and Animation, worked video, sculpture, sound and performance. Lange has worked on projects with numerous artists including Sufjan Stevens, Julianna Barwick (as Ombre), Mikael Jorgensen (of Wilco), Guillermo Scott Herren (of Prefuse 73), Mouse on Mars, and sculptor David Ellis.
Lido Pimienta is a Colombian-Canadian musician and human rights advocate whose music incorporates a variety of styles and influences, including traditional indigenous and Afro-Colombian musical styles and contemporary synthpop and electronic music.
Art Detroit/ Second Saturday
January 13
12-6 PM
Detroit
How fantastic, to spend the afternoon in Detroit, moseying from one gallery to another, talking about art, asking 
the difficult questions, offering up disparate opinions, drinking too much coffee, who knows… it just might change your mind about a few things, or you just might fall in love. Stand -outs destinations include David Klein Gallery/Downtown, who represents such “who’s who” terrific artists like Liz Cohen, Mith Cope, Gina Reichert, Scott Hocking, Mario Moore, Corine Vermeulen, Alison Saar etc etc. Currently on view is the work of Lauren Semivan: Door Into the Dark, hauntingly beautiful prints suggestive of psychological landscapes between sleeping and waking; Playground Detroit/Eastern Market, with the last day of the group exhibition COMM[UNITY] , which represents a small cross-section of Detroit’s creative landscape, “bound not by geography or practice, but by an enduring set of shared values and virtues;” Salt and Cedar Letterpress and Signal Return Press, two gems in Detroit that make extraordinary prints both run by two amazing women… Megan O’Connell(Salt and Cedar) and Lynne Avadenka (Signal Return); and Mark Newport at Simone deSousa Gallery /Midtown, whose surprisingly intimate works on fabric explore the vulnerabilities of loose threads, wear andtear, holes that need mending, seams exposed, the doing and undoing of things.
Jim Cherewick Exhibition
Through February 4, Closing Reception February 2
Ferndale District Library, Ferndale
Artist Jim Cherewick is a legend in these parts, reclusive Ypsi artist whose quirky watercolor paintings take you down the rabbit hole, baby. It takes me back to my days in SF, staying up all night, dreaming big, ceiling fan whirring, painting in my kitchen,where music and art were so deeply connected, and individuality fiercely embraced, and (before texting existed) you wrote late night boozy poems about crushes. The work is fresh, authentic, weird, wonderful, and wandering. Raised in Brighton, he’s lived in Ypsi for several years, where he has been featured in art exhibitions, and he spends a good deal of his time writing, recording and touring with the Detroit-based quartet Best Exes.
UMS Wallace Blogging Fellow Amanda Krugliak is an artist, curator, and arts administrator best known for performance and conceptual experiential installations, most notably as curator at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities since 2007. Amanda is most recently recognized nationally as co-creator artist/collaborator with Richard Barnes and anthropologist Jason De Leon for “State of Exception,” an exhibition about De Leon’s “Undocumented Migration” project. Her essay about the work of Richard Barnes will be included in the upcoming book “Object Lessons,” about the University of Michigan Collections and Museums, and a collection of her essays will be included in a catalog commemorating the U-M Institute gallery, which will be published in December 2017.
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November 10, 2017: Your Arts & Culture Adventure Picks
This post is a part of a series of posts curating adventurous arts and culture experiences in Southeast Michigan. Sign up for email updates (choose “Arts & Culture Adventures” list).
UMS Wallace Blogging Fellow Amanda Krugliak is an artist, curator, and arts administrator best known for performance and conceptual experiential installations, most notably as curator at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities since 2007. Amanda is most recently recognized nationally as co-creator artist/collaborator with Richard Barnes and anthropologist Jason De Leon for “State of Exception,” an exhibition about De Leon’s “Undocumented Migration” project. Her essay about the work of Richard Barnes will be included in the upcoming book “Object Lessons,” about the University of Michigan Collections and Museums, and a collection of her essays will be included in a catalog commemorating the U-M Institute gallery, which will be published in December 2017.
Hard to believe we landed here, the first week of November, almost another year. There is no going back, only forward. Soon butter will be molded into the shape of farm animals, turkeys will be stuffed, leftovers will be lauded, and somebody will yell, “Yatzee!” I told my iPhone to call the Ann Arbor YMCA and it started playing the Village People. Even if we can’t exactly go home again, “Young Man, there’s a place you can go, have a good meal, have some fun, no need to be unhappy.” Here’s a line-up to keep you on your toes to the beat and offer sustenance till the holidays overwhelm us.
Susan Goethel Campbell:
Faulty Vision
Nov 4-Dec 16
DAVID KLEIN GALLERY, Detroit
Detroit artist Susan Goethel Campbell continues to investigate, with strong intuitions, our tenuous and complicated relationship to our environment, exploring landscapes organic and manufactured in this new exhibition at the stellar David Klein Gallery. The exhibition morphs into installation, where “[the pairing of architecture and earth becomes the focal point…]” Goethel-Campbell has consistently created work that is complex and challenging intellectually, while at the same, time, visceral and moving in regards to the emotional terrain it delves into, which we ultimately inhabit with the artist in the process.
Wonderland
Through Nov 25
Call (567) 661-7081 for hours and details
Terhune Art Gallery, Owens Community College, Perrysburg, Ohio
A little off of our usual squirrel track, but well worth the shout out and the trip…the exhibition Wonderland brings together a roster of really inventive and unique artists all on my own personal “A” list. Collectively, they design a tactile and visual experiential exhibition that is both playful and adventurous, running the gamut from survivalist skills to hope and reincarnation. Each of these artists is so compelling in their own right, and together, a very likely force.
Dar Williams
Nov 12 at 7:30 pm
The Ark, Ann Arbor
Back in the day, before I returned to Ann Arbor, my super cool folk/rock boyfriend in SF opened for Dar. We sat back in the green room chatting it up, along with her BFF, Joan Baez…wow, now that my friends is a 4 star recommendation. Dar Williams continues to combine great melodies with incredibly smart and moving lyrics, growing into herself over the years like the rest of us, refusing to read the road signs that try and tell us to turn around, or determine when we have arrived. Take advantage of seeing Dar Williams in the intimate setting of the Ark, an institution itself, and bring your daughter, and your son.
Art Demo: Something Old, Something New: An Intro to Mixed Media and Collage
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit
As part of the ongoing series of engaging workshops at the Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit-based visual artist Lucy Cahill, who specializes in illustration and poster design, shows participants how to take images from retro magazines, comics, and other sources and incorporate them as collage elements in entirely new works. Cahill offers a refreshingly contemporary voice in her own work, feeling entirely of the moment, with a nod to the past. Visitors will have the opportunity as part of the experience to make their own collage self-portrait, with guidance from the artist using different media and methods.
Jeanne Bieri: The Way In
Saturdays, Nov 11-25 at 12 noon-6 pm
Artist talk on Nov 18 at 2 pm
Hatch Art, Hamtramck
Jeanne Bier, a 2017 Kresge Artist Fellow, has her first solo exhibition at Hatch, debuting lush and intricate largescale fiber works. Bier combines the mundane with the sublime, sewing together remnants of Army blankets as well as quilt pieces, all part of the artist’s personal collection, with their own significance and stories. The stitching of these two disparate elements become meditative, according to the artist, and serve to find healing and peace amidst turmoil
Alexander Buzzalini and John Charnota:
100 Beavers
Nov 11-Dec 20, 7 -11 pm
Public Pool, Hamtramck
The name alone suggests an inventive, celebratory, irreverent, earnest, and dedicated collaboration. The exhibition intends to “serve as a metaphor for labor and production, as well as the accomplishments and shortcomings that result.”
It is no secret that the Beaver trade played heavily into history and economy of place and culture, including places like Detroit. The auto industry as well played a role in a similar way to shaping the city’s landscape and neighborhoods. And the beaver like the worker played a fundamental role overall. (Stay with me, I’m getting to the point) These conceptual artists work (like beavers) both independently and collaboratively, creating over 100 mixed media paintings and sculptures that make up the exhibition. The exhibition pays homage to a nearly forgotten resource that shaped Detroit, and also takes us through a process that promises to be both prolific and exuberant.
Sarah Innes
Through Nov 29
Bona Sera Café, Ypsilanti
Sarah Innes is an everyday painter, meant in the best sense of the word. Her paintings capture the gesture and energy of the day, her life, and town, the people in them, relationships beyond your cellphone. If you are headed to Ypsilanti, stop into Bona Sera restaurant, get a coffee, cocktail and something delectable from one of my favorite Ypsi haunts, and enjoy the view.
Through November 29th, during restaurant hours: Tuesday-Thursday 11-3, 5-9; Saturday and Sunday 10-3, 5-10; Sunday 10-3.
UMS Wallace Blogging Fellow Amanda Krugliak is an artist, curator, and arts administrator best known for performance and conceptual experiential installations, most notably as curator at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities since 2007. Amanda is most recently recognized nationally as co-creator artist/collaborator with Richard Barnes and anthropologist Jason De Leon for “State of Exception,” an exhibition about De Leon’s “Undocumented Migration” project. Her essay about the work of Richard Barnes will be included in the upcoming book “Object Lessons,” about the University of Michigan Collections and Museums, and a collection of her essays will be included in a catalog commemorating the U-M Institute gallery, which will be published in December 2017.
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October 16, 2017: Your Arts & Culture Adventure Picks
This post is a part of a series of posts curating adventurous arts and culture experiences in Southeast Michigan. Sign up for email updates (choose “Arts & Culture Adventures” list).
UMS Wallace Blogging Fellow Amanda Krugliak is an artist, curator, and arts administrator best known for performance and conceptual experiential installations, most notably as curator at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities since 2007. Amanda is most recently recognized nationally as co-creator artist/collaborator with Richard Barnes and anthropologist Jason De Leon for “State of Exception,” an exhibition about De Leon’s “Undocumented Migration” project. Her essay about the work of Richard Barnes will be included in the upcoming book “Object Lessons,” about the University of Michigan Collections and Museums, and a collection of her essays will be included in a catalog commemorating the U-M Institute gallery, which will be published in December 2017.
I decided to lighten my load and finally parted with a pair of vintage shoes, a thrift store porcelain doll, love letters from 1994…you get the idea.
Before I knew it, an art student retrieved them from my office dumpster, curated me right there on the sidewalk, like a missing person. Words of advice: just let it go. Baby, don’t ever let it go, or you’ll end up as someone’s final project.
It’s October! Where is my bikini? Here are a few picks to ease the anxiety of Global Warming.
Object Lessons
Exhibition
October 13-December 30
Ruthven Building, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
In Object Lessons, a more conceptual exhibition in the old library of the Ruthven Building, University of Michigan scholar Kerstin Brandt and photographer/artist Richard Barnes offer a surprising and intimate look at hidden collections and museums at the University. The room is stripped down to original floors, to add to the sense of traveling through time, and even Ruthven’s desk makes an appearance. Full of taxidermy, photographs, bird’s nests and notebooks, the exhibit offers a trace of our collective history facing brave new worlds.
D-Ciphered: Portraits by Jenny Risher
Now through February 18, 2018
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit
Jenny Risher photographs Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope of Insane Clown Posse in Delray.
In D-Ciphered, Portraits, at the DIA, Jenny Risher’s photographs chronicling the hip-hop scene in Detroit honor the the amazing artists who have been such an influential part of a vibrant movement and also the Detroit community. The vivid portraits capture the energy and power of the people and their music, also serving as a visual record of the history of this influential genre of music.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
October 28 at 10 pm
Michigan Theater, Ann Arbor
The Rocky Horror Picture Show is another nod to the past, still campy and fun, and silly, and a thrill after all these years. What a great way to celebrate Halloween, performance, and our own eccentricities. A Michigan Theater tradition, the cult classic takes you down the rabbit hole with sweethearts Brad and Janet, soon leading to the eerie mansion of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a transvestite mad scientist. What more could a girl ask for on date night? Do your research, bring your props, and get ready to rock.
City of Djinn / Lime Rickey International
October 27 at 8 pm
Trinosophes, Detroit
I love seeing anything at Trinosophes in Detroit, this wonderful place that offers edgy, informed international performance, art, and music in a setting that feels like your best friend’s house party. This month, listen to a great double bill of City of Djinn and Lime Rickey International. City of Djinn out of Chicago creates a sonic tapestry of dark, psychedelic, hypnotic sound that emerges from experimental music and Arabic magam tradition. Lime Rickey International, the “alter ego” of voice artist Leyya Mona Tawil, also explores influences of magam. She creates soundscapes in her charged performances, articulating Arab Experimentalism, and embedded in political sub-narratives. She calls herself aptly a “refugee from the future…full of diasporic aesthetics and resilience.”
Bob Dylan and Mavis Staples
November 1 at 7:30 pm
Fox Theater, Detroit
It is impossible for me to think of anything that would cheer me up more than seeing Bob Dylan and Mavis Staples at the Fox. Both have spent their musical careers combining soul-changing music, with inspiring activism. It just might remind you what you are fighting for. Tickets are still on sale, you can have the glow of just being there for the price of a few lattes, or break the bank and have the night of a lifetime. Either is worth the trip.
The Hinterlands Ensemble
The Radicalization Process
November 2-3 at 8 pm
Play House, Detroit
Richard Newman and Liza Bielby have created a one-of-a-kind performance and installation that goes beyond the boundaries of either, following a time continuum, that undulates, offering an immersive You are There theater experience. You’ll find yourself looking through archives, following instructions that place you in your own performance, and finally into the larger play. The Radicalization Process navigates through forgotten revolutionary histories, investigates radical art and politics, till you are ready to stage a political coup of your own.
Tickets or call 313.454.1756 or email info@thehinterlandsensemble.org
UMS Wallace Blogging Fellow Amanda Krugliak is an artist, curator, and arts administrator best known for performance and conceptual experiential installations, most notably as curator at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities since 2007. Her essay about the work of Richard Barnes will be included in the upcoming book “Object Lessons,” about the University of Michigan Collections and Museums; University Press and the Institute for the Humanities will publish a collection of her essays about art in 2017.
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Announcing 2017-18 Wallace Blogging Fellows
We are proud to announce the 2017-18 UMS Wallace Blogging Fellows
We’re pleased to announce that Hailey Dukes and Amanda Krugliak have been selected as the 2017-18 UMS Wallace Blogging Fellows. The fellowship program, currently in its second year, is intended to expose arts audiences to adventurous arts and cultural opportunities throughout Southeast Michigan.
The fellowship period will take place from September 2016 to April 2017. During this time, fellows will serve as curators who make monthly recommendations about events throughout Southeast Michigan, whether presented by UMS or by other organizations.
Watch for the roundup posts here on the UMS Lobby blog, and via UMS email and social media.
Meet the fellows
Hailey Dukes is a sponge for all things related to art and culture. Originally from Kent, Ohio, this Detroit-based transplant has spent over three years showcasing and highlighting Detroit music art and culture through her work as a Contributing Editor for with Detroit creative arts agency PLAYGROUND DETROIT and Detroit based publication Grand Circus Magazine. She has been in Southeast Michigan for over eight years. With an inherent passion for writing, a social nature, and a personal draw to cultural happenings of all sorts, she has combined her love and interests to promote a bouquet of talent in Detroit while having fun in the process. Hailey is excited to expand her love for showcasing underground arts to the larger region of Southeast Michigan and can’t wait to serve juicy, appetizing and flavorful events to the the UMS readership!
Amanda Krugliak is an artist, curator, arts administrator best known for performance, conceptual experiential installations, most notably curator at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities since 2007, for projects with Mark Dion, CreativeTime, Scott Hocking, Richard Barnes, Nigel Poor, Mark Strandquist, Charlie Atlas, Mary Mattingly, Sonya Clark, Kent Monkman, Mary Sibande, Jen Karady, Shani Peters, Ramiro Gomez Eric, Nina Katchadourian, Eric Bagosian, Paul Dresher Ensemble, and The Cage Trust. Amanda is most recently recognized nationally for co-creator artist/collaborator with Richard Barnes and anthropologist Jason De Leon for State of Exception, an exhibition about De Leon’s Undocumented Migration project. The project was featured in the New York Times Magazine and the New York Times. She has also performed her own material extensively, with her own one-woman show curated at the DIA in 2009. Her essay about the work of Richard Barnes will be included in the upcoming book “Object Lessons,” about the University of Michigan Collections and Museums, University Press, and a collection of her essays will be included in a catalog commemorating the U-M Institute gallery, to be published in December 2017.
About UMS
A recipient of the 2014 National Medal of Arts, UMS (also known as the University Musical Society) contributes to a vibrant cultural community by connecting audiences with performing artists from around the world in uncommon and engaging experiences. One of the oldest performing arts presenters in the country, UMS is an independent non-profit organization affiliated with the University of Michigan, presenting over 70 music, theater, and dance performances by professional touring artists each season, along with over 100 free educational activities. UMS is part of the University of Michigan’s “Victors for Michigan” campaign, reinforcing its commitment to bold artistic leadership, engaged learning through the arts, and access and inclusiveness.
Media Inquiries:
Mallory Shea
734.647.4020
mschirr@umich.edu
September 29, 2017: Your Arts & Culture Adventure Picks
This post is a part of a series of posts curating adventurous arts and culture experiences in Southeast Michigan. Sign up for email updates (choose “Arts & Culture Adventures” list).
UMS Wallace Blogging Fellow Amanda Krugliak is an artist, curator, and arts administrator best known for performance and conceptual experiential installations, most notably as curator at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities since 2007. Amanda is most recently recognized nationally as co-creator artist/collaborator with Richard Barnes and anthropologist Jason De Leon for “State of Exception,” an exhibition about De Leon’s “Undocumented Migration” project. Her essay about the work of Richard Barnes will be included in the upcoming book “Object Lessons,” about the University of Michigan Collections and Museums, and a collection of her essays will be included in a catalog commemorating the U-M Institute gallery, which will be published in December 2017.
Another fall in Ann Arbor, students are back, bicycles and cars are multiplying, people walking and talking are around every corner. You can almost feel it, the momentum, the buzz, the new day. Whatever heartbreak or ennui lingers, it’s time to whack your alarm clock, get out of bed, shake it off, and polish your platforms. Baby, Times, they are a changin’.
The Moth: Creepy
October 3
6:30 doors open, 7:30 stories begin
Circus Bar, Ann Arbor
How cool is it to be able to be part of The Moth in your own backyard? Whether you are sitting comfortably in the audience with a cold beer waiting to hear a story, or chomping at the bit waiting to tell one like your life depends on it, The Moth Ann Arbor remains one of the very best Small Town/Big City experiences. If you want to sign up to present, put your name in the hat, the odds are pretty good. Whether you are a teller or a listener, it’s great to feel connected to your fellow humans; you just might become a regular. This month’s theme is aptly named Creepy. Start talking to yourself in that mirror. Get there early, and buy your tickets online soon, it’s always a sold-out house.
Outrage! The Art of Protest
October 6-27
Opening reception, October 6- 10 pm
Gallery 22 North, Ypsilanti
Because things are as scary out there as any cliché you ever saw in a horror movie from Psycho to Bride of Chucky, to I was a Teenage Werewolf… Gallery 22 North, a relatively new and hip contemporary space in Ypsilanti presents the work of Michigan artists exercising their freedom of expression. Through a wide range of media and perspectives, the show embraces creativity along with critical inquiry as a way to effect real change.
Arthur Jafa:
Love is the Message, The Message is Death
Offsite MOCAD video installation
September 21 – October 22
Fridays from 1-7 pm, Saturdays from 12-5 pm
1086 Bellevue, Detroit, Michigan, or by appointment, call MOCAD
Recently shown in New York, and now a site-specific video installation in Detroit, artist Arthur Jafa’s sublime and timely video installation offers both “a sense of outrage and despair” as well as “flashes of joy,” says New Yorker Magazine.
The installation combines clips from a variety of sources creating a panoramic collage representing what it means to be black in America in 2017. MOCAD gets it right, showing the work as a site-specific installation in Detroit, in a building on Bellevue located near MLK High School adding to its resonance and. The work on location embraces and unites community, and includes clips of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Barack Obama, Nina Simone, LeBron James, as well as images of church soloists, police harassments, and senseless tragedies. MOCAD offers a challenging series of public programs to accompany the installation.
Jason Ferguson’s One-Man (freak) show
Through October 21
Public Pool Art Space,
3309 Caniff, Hamtramick
The Nature of Being, replication of the artist’s skeleton.
If you are looking to feed the existential beast inside of you, take a visit to Public Pool to see new work by artist Jason J Ferguson. Ferguson’s projects over the years, from rooms of a house reimagined as carnival rides to the textbook dissection of shoes and armchairs, explore the familiar in an eerie and unsettling way, turning creature comfort on its ear. The artist re-examines what we think we know to the realm of the uncanny and absurd. In One-man (freak) show, Ferguson explores identity and mortality, and includes in the show a 3D printed replica of his own skeleton based upon MRI and CT scans taken in a University of Michigan laboratory. Through bodily replication, he perhaps searches for the exact location of the soul, and finds inherent folly in the process.
Radicaldemocracy, a digital archive and exhibition
Ongoing and open 24 hours a day
The best thing about the digital world is that “Aaaha” moment, “Eureka,” finding something really cool to look at, read and tinker with, revisit, even just sitting at the coffee shop with your latte or in your living room at 2 am in your jammies. Ann Arbor born and well- travelled, savvy artist/designer David Olson has compiled and launched RadicalDemocracy, a visitor friendly archive/exhibition/digital treasure box of historic documents, quotes, posters, ideas, and conversations that embraces the power of the people and our long history of engagement and activism to insure democracy and protect human rights. The archive is completely downloadable, free, open source, and includes links to grass roots opportunities, movements, and gatherings happening now, documented in real time. Check it out!
Two Conversations on Post-Truth
Thursday, October 5, Alternate Facts
6:30 reception and 7 pm Dialogue
The Jam Handy, 2900 E.Grand Blvd, Detroit
Friday, October 6, The Lie That Tells the Truth
6:30 reception and 7 pm Dialogue
Woods Cathedral, 1945 Webb Street, Detroit
Culture Lab is a knockout arts organization that engages world-class artists, designers, and architects in a series of thoughtful discussions. These provocative conversations forge new connections between creative thinkers in Detroit and internationally. They also breed more rigorous discourse because of the unique combination of ideas, perspectives, and experiences of those involved playing off one another, informing us from all sides.
This month’s s offers an incredible star power lineup of visitors including artist Edgar Arceneaux and Mel Chin, artist and writer Coco Fusco, and critic Hilton Alsa among others. Each night is a different mix and promises challenging investigation and interplay about the post-truth morass we are in, and innovative solutions to build ourselves a lifeline.
UMS Wallace Blogging Fellow Amanda Krugliak is an artist, curator, and arts administrator best known for performance and conceptual experiential installations, most notably as curator at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities since 2007. Her essay about the work of Richard Barnes will be included in the upcoming book “Object Lessons,” about the University of Michigan Collections and Museums; University Press and the Institute for the Humanities will publish a collection of her essays about art in 2017.
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