Some of the opening crowd at Michael Jon Gallery’s first show in Detroit.

The Michael Jon Gallery has touched down in the New Center neighborhood, bolstering Detroit’s art scene with this sister gallery to a namesake in Miami, Florida. Gallery partner and co-director Alan Gutierrez describes the opening of this show while simultaneously closing the Miami season as a way of symbolically presenting Detroit as MJG’s site for supplemental programming, and the shows literally share work by five Miami-based artists, with the Detroit opening featuring the work of 13 other artists as well.

Untitled (slide) by Michelle Grabner and Brad Killam.

Gutierrez says, “The simultaneity of the show [also] enforces the idea of two spaces with our singular mission.”

Untitled Still Life (I STILL HATE MONDAYS), by Amanda Ross-Ho.

The works on display in Miami, according to Gutierrez, are “solid works, but also present themselves as these kinds of ‘vessels,’ or sites of potentiality.” As the artists make the migration to Detroit, there is a literal and theoretical “filling in,” which serves to progress the pieces that began in Miami. A refreshing perspective on Detroit, perhaps, for a city that is often characterized as a “blank slate,” much to the dismay of the existing communities that have thrived and struggled here for years, decades, generations.

Untitled, by Scott Reeder, gains fidelity and readability as you draw in closer (detail on left).

Likewise, the closer you get to Figure 2 by Kelly Akashi, the deeper it becomes.

What does this “filling in” consist of? Certainly the emerging signature of one school of Detroit-centric artwork: found object assemblage-turned-sculpture. Untitled (slide) by Michelle Grabner and Brad Killam, is a remarkably aesthetic vortex of odd materials, hanging in delicate balance just inside the show’s entryway. Untitled Still Life (I STILL HATE MONDAYS) is a neatly contained moment in time, assembled by Amanda Ross-Ho. Figure 2, by Kelly Akashi seems easy enough to absorb at first, but gains in complexity the longer you look; as does Untitled by Scott Reeder, which elevates uncooked alphabet soup to a galactic effect.

Head by Siebren Versteeg.

Perhaps the most intriguing of these filled “vessels,” which include live mushrooms, recombined concrete baguettes, and other provocatively biological source materials, is Head by Siebren Versteeg, who has layered internet-connected computer program output to blend seamlessly with the sticker-bedecked frame of a 19” CRT monitor, creating an effective portrait of the slightly-pre-millenial mind.

A great first shot fired off by Michael Jon Gallery. Welcome to Detroit; let’s see what your flagship season of “supplemental programming” will bring!

Michael Jon Gallery (Detroit): 611 W Philadelphia St., Detroit; 312-388-4483; michaeljongallery.com