2016

Andy Warhol: Empire

Empire is the 1964 film by Andy Warhol that consists of eight hours and 24 minutes of continuous slow motion footage of the Empire State Building in New York City. The presentation at Cranbrook Art Museum will show in in Wainger Gallery, and relate to Lou Reed, Metal Machine Trio: The Creation of the Universe. According to Director of Cranbrook Academy of Art and Art Museum Christopher Scoates, Warhol’s Empire shares Reed’s rejection of conventional time. Like Warhol’s film, Reed’s Metal Machine Music relied heavily on sustained or repeated motifs (in this case sound, not images) to produce a work that relied on duration and the concept of time to experience the complete work. Warhol projected the film at a slower rate than it had been filmed, producing a repeated and sustained— almost hypnotic—“visual pitch” or “drone,” much like Reed’s Metal Machine Music.

John Glick: A Legacy in Clay

Exhibitions John Glick

John Glick is a people’s potter. In a career spanning over five decades, the ceramist has remained committed to the art and craft of functional vessels and their incorporation into the rituals of daily life. John Glick: A Legacy in Clay is the first major exhibition and publication to survey the immense range of ceramic vessels, tableware, and sculpture that has made Glick one of today’s premier figures in American studio pottery. Mounted as the artist closes his historic Plum Tree Pottery in Farmington Hills, Michigan, the exhibition will include nearly 200 pieces representing all phases of his work, from the early vessels and tableware dating to Glick’s time as a student at Cranbrook Academy of Art (MFA in Ceramics, 1962), to his conceptual ceramic sculptures from the last decades. The exhibition and accompanying catalogue are part of the John Glick Legacy Project, which also encompasses the placement of the ...

Him, a project by Liz Cohen

Liz Cohen’s artistic practice is rooted in both photography and performance, and she is perhaps best known for her immersive, ten-year project BODYWORK, which explored low-rider and custom car culture. This exhibition launches a new body of work that draws from her continued interest in exhibitionism, subcultures, and acts of belonging. Her point of departure is an ongoing collaborative research project with a self-described eunuch, who has undergone radical surgical transformations. Cohen will utilize classic documentary tools—interviews, photographs, and video—that will then be drastically altered into textile, sculptural, and image-based forms. Liz Cohen has been the Artist-in-Residence and Head of the Photography Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art since 2008. Lecture LIZ COHEN, ERIC CROSLEY, & THE POLITICS OF THE SELF February 28, 2016 4:00pm Liz Cohen, Artist-in-Residence and Head of Photography, Cranbrook Academy of Art Eric Crosley, Artist and Poet Please join us for a special lecture by Liz Cohen, Artist-in-Residence and Head of the ...

Lou Reed, Metal Machine Trio: The Creation of the Universe

Lou Reed

Cranbrook Art Museum will present the audio installation of Metal Machine Trio: The Creation of the Universe, a live ambisonic 3-D sound installation inspired by Lou Reed's controversial 1975 double album Metal Machine Music. Originally presented by the University Art Museum, California State University Long Beach (UAM, CSULB) in 2012, where Lou Reed worked in collaboration with the acoustic specialists at the Arup Engineering SoundLab in New York, Reed was able to recreate, for museum visitors, this groundbreaking composition from exactly the same acoustic perspective he had while performing it onstage. The installation at Cranbrook Art Museum will use twelve loudspeakers in an ambisonic arrangement to create a fully immersive sound experience. The live recording of Metal Machine Trio: The Creation of the Universe took place at the Blender Theatre in New York in 2009. The improvising trio included Lou Reed, Ulrich Krieger and Sarth Calhoun. Metal Machine Trio Musicians Lou Reed - ...

Read Image, See Text

Read Image, See Text is an exhibition that explores the various creative approaches to the artist book—an artistic structure that often is a playful investigation of the verbal and visual, the tactile and legible. Within the exhibition, the communicative value of the book is complemented or subverted by design, concept, or objecthood. The exhibition will feature sculpture and print works that explore the aesthetics of language and artist books by contemporary artists and designers, including selections from the collections of Cranbrook Art Museum and the Cranbrook Academy of Art Library. The title of the exhibition Read Image, See Text, is taken from an iconic poster titled See/Read by former Artist-in-Residence and Co-Head of the Design Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art, Katherine McCoy. Two areas within the exhibition will celebrate Detroit and Cranbrook-related artists, featuring books that can all be handled by viewers. Artists and Publishers included in Read Image, See ...