“I Cancel All My Works at Death”: art of James Lee Byars by Triple Candie and the MOCAD.

Friday, February 7th marked the opening of several new exhibits within the winter season for the MOCAD (a Knight Arts grantee). The headliner is a pseudo-retrospective of Detroit-native performance and conceptual artist James Lee Byars, “I Cancel All My Works at Death.” The paradox of this exhibit is captured even in the title; James Lee Byars consciously eschewed object-based outcomes in his art, prizing the conceptual idea behind artworks above all. Byars’ pieces were sparsely documented and left behind little in the way of actual artifact, and the title of the exhibit—a statement he famously made in 1996, a year before his death—would suggest that he considered his conceptual property to die with him.

Art historian Peter Nesbett impersonates Byars in a video on display in the exhibit.

The “artifacts” on display in the exhibit have been meticulously constructed by Triple Candie and the MOCAD.

Byars often employed costumes as an element in his practice, which seemed to evolve spontaneously and undocumented into much of his daily life.

During the opening, a visitor was seen speaking on the phone…with whom?

What, then, is on display at MOCAD? The installation has been staged and assembled by Triple Candie, art historians and curators Shelly Bancroft and Peter Nesbett, who identify their primary purpose to explore alternative exhibition-making, in conjunction with MOCAD Senior Adjunct Curator Jens Hoffmann. If ideas are the foundational currency of Byars’ work, the MOCAD installation—which includes a timeline of works, a staged “interview” with Nesbett auditioning to play the role of James Lee Byars, various live performance “happenings” (which included the near arrest of Detroit performer Torri Ashford, who staged a mock-protest outside the opening) and various installation elements fabricated in-house by the MOCAD’s deep talent pool—seems to suggest that once an idea is in the world, perhaps it takes on a life of its own. Regardless, the exhibit is highly conceptual, and sure to be the subject of debate on the nature of art and purview of idea. Congrats to the MOCAD for a challenging offering.

A wall eulogizes Byars, posting his obituaries from many major newspapers, as well as noting its absence from his hometown Detroit Free Press.

Two more exhibits opened on Friday as well—”State of Exception,” an intense exhibit created by Richard Barnes and Amanda Krugilak, which centers around a wall of backpacks salvaged from the no-man’s-zone that constitutes the most trafficked border crossing point between the U.S. and Mexico. The wall of backpacks is unsettling, and draws out a mélange of emotions often present when objects stand in for people. To take the exhibit darkly, each dusty, abandoned backpack—some of them adorned with children’s motifs, one most ironically featuring Dora the Explorer—represent some number of lost lives, in the way a room full of shoes stands at the Holocaust Museum. Taken less tragically, the wall of backpacks might be seen more like coins in a fountain, representing the hopes, dreams and chance taken by those who attempt to navigate this desert in search of a new opportunity.

“State of Exception,” a powerful installation in the second gallery.

The floor, like the exhibit, is vertigo-inspiring.

In the DEPE Space area, “Tabernacle: A Metamorphic Healing Module” by artist and healer Sameer Reddy. The tabernacle, “offers visitors the chance to participate in a self-actualized performance, which contains the possibility of a transcendental experience.” The artist was also on hand, performing healings while dressed as a golden Buddha.

Visitors can kneel to offer prayers to the boxes, before entering the inner sanctum.

Enlightenment awaits!

Artist and healer Sameer Reddy.

The artist himself was on hand (left, in costume) to perform healings.

A wonderful winter program from the MOCAD, challenging the borders of our comprehension and nudging us, as always, toward a higher perception of the universe.

MOCAD: 4454 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-832-6622; www.mocadetroit.org