Monumental Color: Cecily Brown, Sam Gilliam, and Joan Mitchell brings together significant artworks by three quintessential abstract artists. Through the performance series Monumental Connection, featured artists engage in dialogue with performers whose work resonates with Sam Gilliam’s love for jazz, Joan Mitchell’s lifelong connection to poetry, and the frenetic physicality of Cecily Brown’s paintings.
Joan Mitchell (1925-1992) was a leading Abstract Expressionist painter active in the New York School of painters and poets. She was celebrated for her adept use of color, evoking the natural world. A published poet at the age of 10, Mitchell grew up studying literature closely throughout her life, despite her commitment to abstraction in her canvases. Mitchell refused legibility, often working on multiple panels which she arranged and rearranged.
As part of Monumental Connection, this poetry reading is presented in partnership with Three Fold, a local nonprofit arts journal. The evening brings together New York–based poet Eléna Rivera, whose work with Three Fold has engaged the paintings of Joan Mitchell, and Detroit-based poet Chris Tysh for a program of readings in dialogue with art and place.
Eléna Rivera was born in Mexico City, raised in Paris, France, and is based in New York City. Rivera has a particular connection to Mitchell, as she already published poems for Joan Mitchell’s work in Three Fold. She is the author of several poetry collections, including Arrangements with Peter Hughes (2022), Epic Series (2020), Scaffolding (2017), and The Perforated Map (2011). She received a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship in Translation, and was a recent recipient of fellowships from MacDowell (2020), Trelex Paris Poetry Residency (2019) and the SHOEN Foundation (2016).
Chris Tysh is a poet, playwright, and author of twelve books. She holds fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts and The Kresge Foundation, as well as a Murray Jackson Creative Scholar in the Arts Award from Wayne State University where she teaches writing. She is the poetry editor of Three Fold, and lives in Detroit, Michigan.
This event is free with museum admission.
Tagged:
