an evening with art
There are a few openings this FRIDAY, two of which will be on Wayne State University Campus: Shrinking Cities? Wayne State Responds. Wayne State University’s Elaine L. Jacob Gallery will present the exhibition Shrinking Cities ?: Wayne State University Responds from January 26 through March 16, 2007. Featuring new collaborative works by faculty and graduate students, the WSU show is a response to the internationally touring exhibition similarly titled Shrinking Cities to be featured concurrently at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Detroit (MOCAD) and Cranbrook Art Museum.
Re-examining the premise of the touring Shrinking Cities exhibition at MOCAD and Cranbrook, the WSU show centers on humanistic and positive aspects of urban Detroit. Through aesthetically and conceptually strong art, Shrinking Cities ?: Wayne State University Responds advocates social, political and economic realities that are optimistic and centered on individual experience. WSU exhibition organizers, WSU Professors Evan Larson, Pam DeLaura and Adrian Hatfield have selected works that emphasize the human side of the urban experience by sharing affirming stories of Detroit and its remarkable people.
The exhibition features individual and collaborative installation projects that invite viewer interaction. Works include the Detroit Windsor Journal Project by Ben Good and Alana Bartol; a multi-level project by Ericia Bartels-Dawkins entitled The Motor City Rosary; Stephen William Schudlich’s Urban Village; Corktown Summer 2006 a series by Bernard Brooks; the Composite Urban Dwellings (Triptych) by Kristen Gallerneaux; and A Personal Family Lineage: Memory-Mapping by Emily Linn; and the collaborative Catherine Ferguson Academy Project organized by Pam DeLaura and JenClare Gawaran.
“Viewers will be invited to participate, either through using their bodies to navigate a forest of journal entries or to move objects to create an idealized urban environment,” explains exhibition co-organizer DeLaura, “or simply by viewing and feeling reverence for the ideas and hopes expressed in the complex multi-layered art inspired by students from the Catherine Ferguson Academy”.
“Detroit is a living city with an ongoing story of fortitude and ingenious problem solving” adds Larson. “Shrinking Cities ?: Wayne State University Responds will offer a small sampling of the many people, places and ideas in play, and it will provide a catalyst for conversation and new thinking on the issues facing the city of Detroit. Through the projects in this exhibition we hope to involve the public and collaboratively illuminate a pathway to Detroit’s future. We hope people will visit the exhibition and contribute their own presence to the vibrant energy of Detroit.”
Opening reception will be held in the Elaine L. Jacob gallery Friday, January 26th from 5 to 8pm.
and the Master Fine Arts students Thesis Exhibition (this is the first of 3 i think)
The Community Arts Gallery is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition MFA I Thesis Exhibition featuring the works of Ben Good, Emily Linn and Nick Jones. This exhibition will be on display from January 26-February 23, 2007. After completing the Master of Fine Arts degree program at Wayne State University (WSU), Good, Linn and Jones are exhibiting works that will sum up their graduate experience. Good and Jones are graduates of the painting program, and Linn, a graduate of the photography program, offer fine examples of the teachings of WSU. Their thoughtful works together demonstrate why WSU has one of the finest graduate programs in Michigan! Please join us for the opening reception, taking place on Friday, January 26th from 5 to 8p.m. in the gallery. This event is free and open to the public.
not on the same night, but very close, MOCAD will have their Shrinking Cities show: http://www.mocadetroit.org/
with lectures and discussions.
SHRINKING CITIES
February 3 - April 1, 2007
Opening reception: February 2, 6 - 9 pm
Shrinking Cities, a project by Germany's Federal Cultural Foundation, the Kulturstiftung des Bundes, explores a form of urban development that has become a global phenomenon. Starting in 2002, local teams were commissioned in Detroit (USA), Manchester/Liverpool (Britain), Ivanovo (Russia), and Halle/Leipzig (Germany) to investigate and document processes of urban shrinking. In more than fifty exhibition contributions, artists, architects, filmmakers, journalists, culture experts, and sociologists reveal and illuminate the changing realities of these cities.
One goal of the project is to develop a better understanding of how and why population and business in these cities have declined. Another goal is to recognize ways such change can help us understand and approach contemporary urban issues. The exhibit examines both the positive and negative side effects of urban decline, and also offers the opportunity for new ideas (including an international ideas competition) to be presented.
Shrinking Cities had its world premiere in Berlin, August, 2004, at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art. Since this time it has traveled to the Contemporary Art Museums in Halle and Leipzig Germany, and is being scheduled to visit New York, Tokyo, Moscow and Liverpool among others.
The Shrinking Cities exhibit will make its U.S. debut in Detroit February, 2007, co-sponsored by MOCAD and Cranbrook Art Museum. A bus will be available to take viewers to both venues. This collaborative venture presents, among other things, a unique opportunity to explore the multiple and often complex relationships between city and suburb. The German Federal Cultural Foundation is a major sponsor in bringing the exhibition to Detroit.
For more on Shrinking Cities visit http://www.shrinkingcities.com
Cranbrook will also be co-hosting a Shrinking Cities show of their own
Shrinking Cities
February 3, 2007-April 1, 2007
Members’ Opening: February 2, 2007
Main, Center and Wainger Galleries
Cities, not unlike Detroit, are shrinking all over the world! In the exhibition Shrinking Cities, a project sponsored by Germany’s Federal Cultural Foundation, more than 100 architects, academics and artists including more than twenty artists currently based in Michigan, investigate recent developments in the cities of Detroit, Ivanovo, Manchester / Liverpool and Halle / Leipzig. Shrinking Cities introduces the theme of urban shrinkage as a global phenomenon, showing its effects on the respective local situations, and providing insight into possible options for action. The goal of the exhibition, however, is not to mourn the demise of the city, but rather to bring fresh perspectives to the job of revitalizing them. While Shrinking Cities contradicts the image, familiar since the Industrial Revolution, of the "boomtown," a big city characterized by constant economic and demographic growth, the project encourages a reconsideration not only of traditional ideas of the city, but also of the future development of the modern metropolis.
Shrinking Cities is a project created by Germany’s Federal Cultural Foundation (the Kulturstiftung des Bundes) in cooperation with the Project Office Philipp Oswalt, the Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig, the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation and the architecture magazine archplus. Shrinking Cities is sponsored by the German Federal Cultural Foundation. Cranbrook Art Museum and the newly founded Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) will serve as partner institutions and co-hosts for Shrinking Cities.
see you there!