Cranbrook’s ‘Hippie Modernism’ is up for two more weeks, and you have to go | Detroit Metro Times

Cranbrook Art Museum's delightful mounting of the Walker's exhibition "Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia" is up until October 9. You absolutely have to go. If you have even the most passing interest in the more radical leanings of the 1960s counterculture, visit! At least once. I spent a few hours there the other week, and was blown away by its scope. I can't wait to return. It looks like a great time to visit will be the show's final day, on Sunday, Oct. 9, for a three hour symposium called 'Free Radicals' which examines the show's themes. A bit of the wall text is a little reductive and even silly (as is the way that the show is divided into three sections based on Timothy Leary's infamous maxim). But, so what! The sheer volume of work here on and by fringe architectural co-ops like Archigram and Super Superstudio, or the ...

When Art and Design Got High on Hippie Utopianism | Hyperallergic

BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. — Sometimes, taking a wider view of art history can create a more expansive curatorial vision. Previously the senior curator of Design, Research, and Publishing, and later the curator of Architecture and Design at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Andrew Blauvelt developed a wider take on which elements of cultural production contribute to art movements. He brought this perspective to Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia, an exhibition that was five years in-the-making before it expanded into the Walker’s 14,000 square-foot floor plan in 2015. Hippie Modernism (with the exception of a few artworks) is now at the Cranbrook Art Museum, following on Blauvelt’s heels in his new appointment as the director of the museum. The exhibition offers a fascinating look at the merging of hippie values with a modern design sensibility and how it sparked unique cultural production far outside the highly commoditized art market ...

Tagged: Andrew Blauvelt

Cranbrook Museum unveils Edward Gorey artworks | Oakland Press

As the director of library and academic resources for the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Judy Dyki’s duties include surveying gifts potential donors offer the library. One such recent gift from an alumnus, who graduated from Cranbrook back in the 1960s and asked not to be identified, ultimately led to a new exhibit opening in the Cranbrook Art Museum’s Lower Gallery today (Sunday, Sept. 18). It features work from Edward Gorey, an artist who had a major influence on American popular culture in the five decades before his death in 2000. “The collector used to live near the Gotham Book Store in New York, that was into promoting Gorey’s career,” Dyki says. For years, the alumnus, who now lives in Bloomfield Hills, carefully assembled a collection of the books Gorey published in small quantities in New York. “He had a lot of first editions,” she says. “(The donor) bought in part so he could ...

Tagged: Cranbrook Academy of Art Library, Judy Dyki

Nick Cave “Here Hear” Featured on PBS’s Art21

On Friday, September 16 the new ART21 special featuring Cranbrook Art Museum's Nick Cave: Here Hear project debuted. Check your local PBS listings or watch online here.

“Unsettled: The Work of Edward Gorey” Opening at Cranbrook Art Museum

Exhibition features artwork and publications from prolific author and illustrator   Bloomfield Hills, Mich., Aug. 30, 2016 — On September 18, Cranbrook Art Museum will open its latest exhibition, Unsettled: The Work of Edward Gorey, on view in the Museum’s deSalle Gallery through March 12, 2017. The exhibition is a collaboration between Cranbrook Art Museum and the Cranbrook Academy of Art Library. Gorey is known for his masterful pen-and-ink drawings that illustrate his captivating books, conjuring a vaguely Edwardian world of handcars, boater hats, and Dickensian children. The exhibition at Cranbrook Art Museum will feature many of Gorey’s classic texts as well as his experiments with the physical structure of the book—split-pages, doubled-books, accordion formats, postcard sets, and miniature books. Also on view are many of Gorey’s illustrations for other authors, such as Samuel Beckett, Edward Lear, John Updike, T.S. Eliot, and H.G. Wells. In addition, Gorey’s work entered the living rooms of millions through ...

Tagged: Andrew Blauvelt, Edward Gorey, Judi Dyki

‘The Truth Booth’ gathers voices and perspectives from across metro Detroit | KnightBlog

Since July 31, the Detroit metro area has been visited by “The Truth Booth,” an ongoing interactive project conceived by Cause Collective, and brought for a two-week intensive visit to Michigan by a $60,000 Knight Arts Challenge grant awarded to the Cranbrook Art Museum. Laura Mott, curator of contemporary art and design at Cranbrook, worked previously with artist Hank Willis Thomas and Cause Collective’s Ryan Alexiev to help get the project on its feet, nearly eight years ago. “We had done a show with Ryan at Mission 17, where I was working,” Mott said. “I met Hank [Willis Thomas] through that. And they were working together already in Cause Collective–‘The Truth Booth’ was an idea they had that was sort of on paper, and I wrote a grant to get funding to build it. And then I moved to Sweden! So I essentially sourced them some seed money to build the ...

Tagged: Cause Collective, Dearborn, Detroit, MI, Flint, Laura Mott, MI

Collective art project in Flint allows residents to speak their mind | WNEM TV 5 Flint

WNEM TV 5 FLINT, MI (WNEM) - You may see an enormous speech bubble around Mid-Michigan. The collective art project arrived from Detroit and will be spending a few nights in the Vehicle City. "It's giving everybody a chance to say what's on their mind," said Daniel Ashbury, Flint resident. He turned his two cents into a piece of art. It was made possible with the Truth Booth, a traveling recording studio. It encourages people to come in and speak their minds. "This is giving the people from the neighborhood the chance to voice some of their opinions about what's going on, especially with the water situation and everything else," Ashbury said. The inflatable gigantic speech bubble will be in Flint through Saturday. On Wednesday it was at the Hispanic Community Center. "An incredible opportunity for people to speak what's on their minds and to be part of a beautiful tapestry of this collection of people's ...

What does the truth mean to you? | NBC 25 News Flint

FLINT, Mich. — The Truth Booth has landed in Flint. It's an inflatable video recording booth, in the shape of a large speech bubble. You head inside, pin on a microphone, push record, and then speak your truth. Yes it's art. That's what organizers say. A Flint woman, Jamzetta Edelen, says she spoke about her hope that investors would bring back Flint. It offers residents a unique opportunity to share their beliefs, their fears, their experiences. It's all to be used to create a 60 foot wide video installation that will be part of an exhibition at Cranbrook Art Museum and in Flint in the fall. It was brought here by the Mott-Warsh Collection and the Cranbrook Art Museum. It's touring the country right now, and will stop for 3 days in Flint. Today it was at the Hispanic Tech Center on Lewis Street on Flint's east side. On Thursday it will be at Hasselbring Community ...

‘Truth Booth’ art exhibit, social experiment comes to Flint | WJRT ABC 12 Flint

FLINT, Mich. (WJRT) -- An art exhibit and social experiment has come to Flint, Michigan this week. The project was started by artists with the Cause Collective. They're currently touring a "Truth Booth" around the country, with hopes of visiting all 50 states by Election Day. Their stop in Michigan will be the longest on the tour. Wednesday's stop was at the Hispanic Technology & Community Center of Greater Flint. People walk in, record their truth and walk out. All of the "truths" recorded inside will be added to a large exhibition that will help us understand how the Detroit and Flint areas define what is real, authentic, valuable or true. The Truth Booth will spend two more days in Flint, heading next to Hasselbring Senior Center and then the MW Gallery. The final exhibit, a huge video installation, will appear at Cranbrook Art Museum in November.

Truth Booth encourages truth telling at AANM |Dearborn Times-Herald

Curious visitors arrived at the Arab American National Museum to share their truth in the Truth Booth art installation Aug. 3. The portable, inflatable booth shaped similar to a cartoon speech bubble with the word “truth” on the outside served as a video recording studio for anyone willing to participate. A project of the Cause Collective, the installation will be traveling to 11 locations in Michigan through Aug. 13 with the hope to reach every state by November. Artists Ryan Alexiev and Jims Ricks founded the booth as a way to give all Americans the ability to speak their minds openly and freely on all issues. “The Cranbrook Art Museum suggested that this museum would be a good location for the truth,” Project Coordinator Sami Giarratani said. “There has been a lot of interest from all type of people who passed by the booth.” During its eight hours set up behind the AANM, 13624 Michigan ...