Liz Cohen, Eric Crosley & the Politics of the Self | Lecture and Reading Accompany Artist’s Latest Exhibition

Bloomfield Hills, Mich., Feb. 9, 2016 -- On February 28, 2016, Liz Cohen and Eric Crosley will present the combined lecture and reading, "Liz Cohen, Eric Crosley & the Politics of the Self," at 4pm at Cranbrook Art Museum. Liz Cohen is an Artist-in-Residence and Head of the Photography Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art. Her solo exhibition, Him, a project by Liz Cohen, is currently on display at Cranbrook Art Museum through March 6, 2016. Liz Cohen’s artistic practice is rooted in both photography and performance. She is perhaps best known for her project BODYWORK, in which the artist adopted both gender roles—the auto mechanic and the show car model—of low-rider custom car culture. The exhibition launches a new body of work for Cohen that draws from her continued interest in exhibitionism and acts of belonging. Her point of departure is an ongoing collaborative research project with Eric Crosley, a ...

Andrew Blauvelt interview | SLICE Ann Arbor

Andrew Blauvelt serves as director of the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a position he assumed in September 2015. In this role, Andrew oversees the Museum’s collection, exhibition, and education programs. Prior to this, he served as senior curator of architecture and design at the Walker Art Center, a contemporary arts museum in Minneapolis, Minnesota. During his tenure there, he also served as chief executive overseeing the design, marketing, public relations, education, and new media departments. A graphic designer for more than 25 years, Andrew has received over 100 design awards, including the 2009 National Design Award for Corporate Achievement for his work at the Walker, the first non-profit to win the award joining the ranks of Nike, Apple, and Target. While at the Walker, Andrew curated numerous exhibitions, including Strangely Familiar: Design and Everyday Life (2003) and Some Assembly Required: Contemporary Prefabricated Houses (2005), and with Ellen ...

Tagged: Andrew Blauvelt

Liz Cohen | Downtown

Part photographer and part performance artist, Liz Cohen uses both mind and body to focus on issues of transformation and belonging while also heading up the photography program at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills. "Generally, I tend to focus on issues around belonging and acceptance because those are big human issues that we all face," she said. "In all of my work, there is an examination of belonging and what it means to be in or out of a group, or what it is to be left out when you have something to offer. My work has also dealt with radical transformation and modification." Amongst Cohen's work is a decade-long project titled, "Bodywork," in which Cohen transformed an East German automobile into a Chevrolet El Camino. To complete the project, Cohen apprenticed in an auto shop and learned how to reconstruct the vehicle into a custom lowrider. At the ...

Tagged: Liz Cohen

Cranbrook celebrates city, art and feminism with new series | C & G Newspapers

BLOOMFIELD HILLS — Last year, the Cranbrook Art Museum welcomed home a member of its family for a widely acclaimed photography and performance art event. “Nick Cave: Here Hear” connected Cranbrook to the city of Detroit like never before, and now there’s no going back. The museum is in the midst of yet another exhibition, called “The Cranbrook Salon,” which explores the history of salon-style art displays, and to complement that, they’ve arranged a series of salon events with a decidedly Detroit — and even feminist — flare. “The Cranbrook Salon,” according to Curator of Contemporary Art and Design Laura Mott, is a peek into the history of exhibition design, highlighting the salon-hanging technique that dates back to 17th-century Paris and features paintings hung floor-to-ceiling. But in the art world, Mott explained, there’s more than one meaning for the word salon. It’s also a way to describe social gatherings that double as interactive ...

Tagged: Cranbrook Salon, Detroit Bluestockings Crew

“The Cranbrook Salon” Seeds Lively Discussion Among Detroit’s Thinkers | Knight Blog

Women throughout history have gathered for the purposes of discussion, education and communication on subjects that range from the intellectual to the highly personal. Cranbrook Art Museum Curator Laura Mott and Assistant Curator Shelley Selim decided to emphasize this tradition as they assembled “The Cranbrook Salon,” the second of three installations that are surveying and celebrating the permanent collection at Cranbrook’s multiple facilities. The exhibition draws together a multitude of elements for consideration, and is accompanied by a program of active participation executed by a collective known as the Detroit Bluestockings Crew, which was formed specifically to facilitate this series of salons. Aside from Mott and Selim, the Bluestockings Crew is comprised of a compelling cross section of luminary women from Detroit’s art and cultural scene: Maia Asshaq, founder of DittoDitto; Samantha ‘Banks’ Schefman, co-founder of Playground Detroit; Meaghan Barry and Lilian Crum, designers at Unsold Studio; artist Ingrid LaFleur, founder ...

Tagged: Cranbrook Salon, Detroit Bluestockings Crew, Exhibition

“Artist Nick Cave Embraced Detroit, And We Hugged Him Back” |Detroit Free Press

The art world often can be too esoteric, too insular, too out there to capture the attention of any sizable swath of the public. But that’s no such problem for Nick Cave. Beginning this summer, the Chicago artist was the subject of a sprawling, months-long exhibit centered at the Cranbrook Art Museum. The “Here Hear” presentation did everything we might expect of the arts. It was aesthetically dazzling. It was provocative. It was thoughtful. It had big, even confrontational, ideas in mind. But it wasn’t protected behind a glass case, or adorned with DO NOT TOUCH signs. In fact, it was more like a joyful embrace. And gosh darn if Detroit didn’t embrace it right back. Largely composed of Cave’s trademark Soundsuits – outsized, dramatic costumes built of a wide array of materials, from twigs to ostentatious fabrics – the Cranbrook installation was a mesmerizing sight, and worthy of celebration and contemplation on ...

Mark Stryker’s Top Ten in the Detroit Free Press

[…] "Nick Cave: Here Hear," Cranbrook Art Museum, June: Contemporary art is rarely as much fun as Nick Cave's Soundsuits, his hybrid, full-body creations that sit at the intersection of art, fashion, sculpture, assemblage, installation and social critique. Still, Cave's homecoming — he is a Cranbrook alum — reminded you that the eye-candy comes with sharp observations about race and gender, especially notable in a gallery where an affecting suit named for Trayvon Martin was surrounded by sculptures fashioned from racist objects like lawn jockeys found at second-hand shops. Beyond the exhibition itself, Cave took his art directly to the people via a string of dance-based performances in Detroit, linking the suburban Cranbrook museum directly to urban life.

“Nick Cave: Here Hear” Named Second-Best Exhibition in Country

Photo by Sarah Rose Sharp/Hyperallergic"Nick Cave: Here Hear" was recently named the second-best exhibition in the country by Hyperallergic, the online arts magazine. The news was also covered by the Detroit Metro Times and the Knight Foundation.

“Nick Cave: Here Hear” Review | Art Forum

The Nick Cave: Here Hear exhibition at Cranbrook Museum of Art is reviewed by Matthew Biro in the December 2015 issue of Art Forum. "[...]the Cranbrook Art Museum presented a powerful demonstration of Cave's incisive take on the current sociopolitical climate, while simultaneously evidencing his efforts to assemble alternative communities."

Treasure: Cranbrook exhibit spotlights Pewabic’s legacy | The Detroit News

Santa came a little early last week when I had the opportunity to preview the encyclopedic exhibition of Pewabic Pottery opening Saturday at Cranbrook. One of the largest private collections in the nation, “Simple Forms, Stunning Glazes” features the 117-piece collection of Gerald W. McNeely, recently donated to Cranbrook by the New York-based collector. I toured the luminous exhibition with director of the Center for Collections and Research’s Gregory Wittkopp and collections fellow Stefanie Dlugosz-Acton, who curated the exhibition. Both shared their thoughts about the collection and exhibition with Trash or Treasure readers. Who is Gerald McNeely? Why did he collect Pewabic? GW: Gerald McNeely lives in New York City, where he studied painting and drawing at the Cooper Union, developed a career working as a graphic designer and commercial illustrator, and socialized in a circle of artists that included Andy Warhol. Although he considers himself a New Yorker, he was born ...

Tagged: Mary Chase Stratton, Pewabic