Freedom makes for great education. That’s the foundational principle of the Hamtramck Free School, a groundbreaking educational organization that has been offering materials and learning opportunities to anyone who shows up with a desire to learn, or teach. Co-founded by Michael Brown, a philosopher and Michigan State University Ph.D candidate; unstoppable culture magnet Steve Panton […]

“Untitled” by Don Staes. Of the diverse exhibitions at Public Pool, a common theme emerges that strikes to the core of this blogger’s particular art fancies. Foremost, a tendency to create interactive art experiences, which democratize the process of artmaking and art appreciation—in marked contrast to the rarefied nature of the prototypical fine art venue. […]

Tai’s playful approach to artmaking is apparent in this “Conveniently placed stack of postcards.” Tai avails himself of a photo opportunity in the “waiting room” of his “office.” The very title of Cedric Tai’s solo show at Re:View Contemporary Gallery, “We Need More _________!” gets you thinking from the start. Do we need more sand […]

“SCRAP-A-HOUSE” (formerly known as Write-A-House). The crowd at Popp’s Packing before Mitchell Cope’s artist talk. On Saturday, March 22nd, Popps Packing hosted an artist talk by Mitchell Cope, whose current exhibition, ZEN AND THE ART OF GARBAGE HUNTING AND THE PROTECTORS OF THE REFUSE, has been extended through March 29th. The premise of this  work, backed […]

Through Sunday, March 23rd, the Freep Film Festival will be screening films at both the Fillmore Detroit and the Detroit Film Theatre (located at the Detroit Institute of Arts). The festival, sponsored by Detroit’s hometown newspaper, the Detroit Free Press, began with a Thursday night showing of Packard: The Last Shift (see trailer, above), a retrospective […]

Organizer Kim Hunter introduces readers at a previous Woodward Line Poetry event. As Detroit shakes off a record-worst winter, new voices can be heard within the usual springtime chorus of robins, pheasants and snowmelt, carried in by a rising tide of literary events and venues. On Tuesday, March 11, Motor City Stories, a Detroit storytelling […]

The opening night crowd at START Gallery. START Gallery has invoked some primal powers with its newest collection, Armageddon Beachparty & Co., a collaborative body of work created by husband-and-wife pair who go by Motu & Kozma (respectively). Kozma, of Motu & Kozma, one half the husband-and-wife team behind Armageddon Beachparty & Co. Creating pieces […]

A casual Sunday for the DSO still embodies consummate professionalism. It is always an enlightening experience to see artists alive in their medium. As someone relatively unschooled in the finer points of orchestral performance and composition, the EarShot readings of new work by African-American composers—which took place in an exhibition open to the public at […]

On Sunday, March 9th at 3 p.m., the Detroit Symphony Orchestra will partner with EarShot, a nationwide network for classical composer development, to launch their first-ever new music readings for African-American composers, in a free show open to the public. Readings—which are similar to the kind of table reading the cast might do before beginning a […]

Youth SOUP drew an all-ages crowd on Sunday, March 2nd. Detroit SOUP hosted a Citywide SOUP on Sunday, March 2nd, featuring all youth projects, selected by the Youth SOUP board to compete for the SOUP pot. Even up against the final throes of a never-ending winter—Detroit’s harshest in 50 years—and the Oscars, SOUP got a […]

Detroit takes to the road this month, with Culturefix Gallery on Manhattan’s Lower East Side playing host to “Emergency Nothing,” a group exhibition featuring the art, culture and aesthetic universe of Detroit’s monthly nightlife staple, Haute to Death.” “Emergency Nothing” delivers Detroit style to New York’s doorstep. The exhibit, which opened on February 20th and runs through […]