Cranbrook Academy of Art Graduate Degree Exhibition to Open at Cranbrook Art Museum on April 17

BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MICH., March 17, 2016 — The 2016 Graduate Degree Exhibition of Cranbrook Academy of Art opens to the public on April 17, and will showcase work from more than 80 graduating Cranbrook Academy of Art students. The exhibition features pieces that are the culmination of two years of studio work from a diverse group of students who are poised to become tomorrow’s creative leaders. The exhibition will run from April 17 – May 15, 2016 at Cranbrook Art Museum.A special ArtMembers’ Opening Reception will be held on April 16 from 6-8pm. Memberships may be purchased in advance via our website or at the door that evening.The exhibition will fill nearly the entire 15,000 square feet of Cranbrook Art Museum and surrounding grounds. This year, the Academy’s entire Architecture Department will install their work outside of the Museum in a series of seven interactive displays designed to allow viewers to discover, enter and experience each piece.This exhibition is the most diverse offered all year as it showcases work from the Academy’s 10 departments – 2D and 3D Design, Architecture, Ceramics, Fiber, Metalsmithing, Painting, Photography, Print Media, and Sculpture.

OPEN(STUDIOS) Returns
On May 1, visitors can tour the Academy’s private studio spaces at our fifth annual OPEN(STUDIOS) event. This is the only time of the year when the public is invited inside the private studio spaces of today’s emerging artists and designers. Student artists and faculty from each of the Academy’s 10 departments will be on hand to discuss their work and show off their creative spaces. Student art will be for sale.OPEN(STUDIOS) is a FREE event and includes admission to Cranbrook Art Museum and Cranbrook Institute of Science. Visitors must register in the tent outside of the Museum or at the Museum front desk.

OPEN(STUDIOS)
May 1, 1 – 5pm
FREE. No strollers in the studios, and children must be accompanied at all times. Admission to Cranbrook Art Museum, Cranbrook Institute of Science is included. Event will be held rain or shine.The 2016 Graduate Degree Exhibition of Cranbrook Academy of Art and OPEN(STUDIOS) are sponsored by Mercedes-Benz Financial Services as part of their ongoing commitment to supporting emerging artists of all ages.

Opening in June

Ira Cohen “Jimi Hendrix,” 1968
Color photograph from the Mylar Chamber.
Courtesy Ira Cohen Archive, LLC

Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia
June 18 – October 9, 2016
Opening Reception: June 17, 2016

Organized by the Walker Art Center and assembled with the assistance of the Berkeley Art Museum/ Pacific Film Archive, Hippie Modernism examines the intersections of art, architecture, and design with the counterculture of the 1960s and early 1970s. Loosely organized around Timothy Leary’s famous mantra, “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out,” the exhibition charts the evolution of the period, from pharmacological, technological, and spiritual means to expand consciousness and alter one’s perception of reality, to the foment of a publishing revolution that sought to create new networks of like-minded people and raise popular awareness to some of the era’s greatest social and political struggles, to new ways of refusing mainstream society in favor of ecological awareness, the democratization of tools and technologies, and a more communal survival.

Presenting a broad range of art forms and artifacts of the era, Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia features experimental furniture, alternative living structures, immersive and participatory media environments and alternative publishing, ephemera and experimental film. Bringing into dramatic relief the limits of Western society’s progress, the exhibition explores one of the most vibrant and inventive periods of the not-too-distant past, one that still resonates within culture today.