Above: “Mumbo Jumbo” at Public Pool. Photos by Rosie Sharp. “Remember to serve your own loas.” That’s the advice given to a couple of the central characters in Ishmael Reed’s intensely discursive work of literary collage, “Mumbo Jumbo.” Not incidentally, “Mumbo Jumbo” is also the title of the most recent show at Public Pool in […]
Article · March 29, 2016 by Rosie Sharp
Above: Desiree Cooper’s grandson Jax joins her onstage during her reading. Photos by Rosie Sharp. Detroit’s literary scene is booming. Last week, two local authors held book launches for work that touches deeply on some of the most difficult and most real parts of being human, being black and being female: Desiree Cooper debuted a […]
Article · March 22, 2016 by Rosie Sharp
Above: “Untitled (Pillow Princess),” detail view. Photos by Rosie Sharp. 2013 Detroit Knight Arts Challenge winner Hatch is a collective in Hamtramck, Mich. that brings together the work of many artists, each with different perspectives and approaches. The latest is the work of Kasper Ray O’Brien, whose solo installation, “Show Me Love,” might be termed […]
Article · March 17, 2016 by Rosie Sharp
Above: A set of paintings by Henry Crissman and Hamilton Poe, on display at Trinosophes. Photos by Rosie Sharp. At Trinosophes, a Knight Arts Challenge winner in Detroit, Feb. 23 marked the opening of “Self-Titled 2: (954)785-8492.5.” A collaborative project by artists Henry Crissman and Hamilton Poe, the exhibit will remain on display through the […]
Article · March 9, 2016 by Rosie Sharp
Above: The evening’s curator, Matthew Piper. Photo courtesy Michael Francois Soucisse. On Feb. 29, arts writer and lover-of-dance Matthew Piper marked the occasion with “Leap Night!”–a lovely collection of short dance films that were screened at Play House in Detroit. A former Knight Arts blogger, Piper makes it a point to note that he is […]
Article · March 2, 2016 by Rosie Sharp
Above: A performance of “Habanera,” one of the most popular songs from “Carmen.” Founded in New Jersey in 2011 by Danielle Wright, Opera Modo is Detroit’s newest operatic institution. This weekend was the opening of “Carmen,” Opera Modo’s fifth production since moving to Detroit in 2013. Made possible by a Knight Arts Challenge grant, the […]
Article · February 22, 2016 by Rosie Sharp
Above: A three-work series by Howard Kottler that explores the relationship between artist and muse, on display courtesy of Paul Kotula Projects. Photos by Rosie Sharp. If the title to the ceramics show guest curated by Anders Ruhwald for the main gallery at Pewabic in Detroit sounds a little on the hippie side, that’s because […]
Article · February 22, 2016 by Rosie Sharp
Above: “Untitled” (2014) by Adrian Hatfield. Photos by Rosie Sharp. The most thematically powerful aspect of “Chimera,” a two-person show featuring work by Adrian Hatfield and Amy Sacksteder, is not the way each artist amalgamates media or imagery, but the rather seamless and literal blending together of these two separate bodies of work, creating a […]
Article · February 9, 2016 by Rosie Sharp
Kurt Novak, self-portrait. All photos courtesy of the artist and Wayne State University Art Collection. Perhaps the greatest challenge of every portrait photographer is the imperative to capture a subject in a single image. Humans are complex creatures, and the sense that we might be reduced to a single take seems fairly reductionist. How clever, […]
Article · February 2, 2016 by Rosie Sharp
Above: The “Detroit Little Library Originals” exhibit will run at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit’s Mobile Homestead through April 24. If you build, they will read. That seems to be the underlying conceit of the Little Free Library movement, founded in 2009 in Hudson, Wis., by a man named Todd Bol. Since his first […]
Article · January 29, 2016 by Rosie Sharp
Above: 826michigan staff member Courtney Randolph working with a student at Roberto Clemente Academy in Detroit. Photo courtesy of 826michigan. For the last decade, 826michigan has operated the Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair in Ann Arbor, Mich.—just one in a network of locations across the state and country whose humorously nonsensical business facades front […]
Article · January 19, 2016 by Rosie Sharp