Jason Reed, owner/operator of Start Gallery. Taste in art is such a personal matter, often the best one can do as an art and culture blogger is to attempt to provide some kind of context for art through the frame of one’s own perspective. The subject of fan art can be a bit sticky; it […]

Mike Kelley’s Mobile Homestead sits adjacent to the MOCAD, clearly visible from Woodward and Canfield. The highly anticipated “Mobile Homestead” by artist Mike Kelley opened on Saturday, becoming the first permanent exhibit at the MOCAD (a Knight Arts grantee). The project was conceived in 2010, and executed as a scale replica of Kelley’s childhood home […]

Objects more able than they appear: “blue bench, pick it fence, and foot lamp” by REAL OK DESIGN. This Saturday, May 11, promises to be an extravaganza of household objects made art, as Public Pool hosts the closing of “Able Objects,” sculpture by Real OK Design (a.k.a. artist Aaron Blendowski), with an interactive appearance by Blendowski to demonstrate […]

Mary Fortuna’s “She Towers Above.” The BBAC presents the work of Mary Fortuna. There is a pervasive feeling when encountering the work of Metro Detroit artist Mary Fortuna, currently on display in the Robinson Gallery at the Birmingham-Bloomfield Art Center, of intense personal mythology at work. Fortuna’s exhibition, “She Towers Above,” which opened Friday, May […]

“Let’s Don’t Take No Chance” will be on display at 2739 Edwin through May 25th, with an artist talk at 6 p.m. on closing night.Upon entering the scene at 2739 Edwin Gallery, I was immediately gripped by a kind of nervous energy, invoked by “Let’s Don’t Take No Chance,” a collection of sculptural pieces by […]

Hair Wars Detroit. Without question, hair is a major issue. Mainstream hair culture still suffers along under the terribly retrograde, double-bind of a beauty standard that dictates a woman must spend a lot of time on her hair to make it look as good as possible, while also pretending to have achieved this look effortlessly. […]

On Saturday, April 20th, Jason Havernaas, the newest resident at the Institute for Neo Connotative Action (INCA) in the historic New Center district, gave an artist talk on his life and work. Much of his work, which evolved from photographic portraits to video shorts, centers around his upbringing within an international network of structured communities […]

Rayya Elias, brilliant soul, Detroit native (by way of Syria) and author of Harley Loco. By way of introducing us to her good friend Rayya Elias, moderator Elizabeth Gilbert (author of the international best-seller Eat, Pray, Love and numerous other works of fiction and nonfiction) spoke of her own introduction to Elias as a referral to […]

Imogen Binnie, reading from her new novel Nevada. There were a couple of difficult distinctions to be made during the reading of trans-women’s literature held at Traffic Jam & Snug restaurant on Tuesday. The performance by lead reader Imogen Binne, on tour in support of her novel, Nevada, made it impossible to distinguish between the […]

Baldauf introduced her film at the DFT with a few brief words. Following the Friday night DFT screening of the short film Frames for the People: A City of Halos, I had a chance to talk with Corrie Baldauf, a 2011 Kresge Fellow in Visual Arts and co-creator of the piece with filmmakers Stephen and […]

The packed crowd at the Art X opening ceremonies at MOCAD. The art grants offered by the Kresge Foundation have supported the careers of some of Detroit’s most dynamic artists, helping to bring them to prominence and thus shape the landscape of arts in the city. Art X 2013 is a retrospective of the previous […]