Cranbrook Art Museum Curator Shelley Selim Gives Bertoia Jewelry Lecture at Knoll New York | Knoll

Cranbrook Art Museum Curator Shelley Selim presented a lecture on the jewelry of Harry Bertoia at the Knoll New York Showroom on September 30. The talk was a companion program to the current exhibition "BENT, CAST & FORGED: THE JEWELRY OF HARRY BERTOIA," on view at Cranbrook Art Museum through November 29. It is one of a series of events and programs this year surrounding the CENTENNIAL of Harry Bertoia's birth, hosted at Knoll showrooms in MILAN, NEW YORK and LONDON. The exhibition is the first of its kind devoted entirely to Harry Bertoia's jewelry designs, and it has an appropriate venue; Bertoia was a student at Cranbrook Academy, and, as Selim discussed, his work took on a different confidence, maturity and focus while he studied there. In the lecture, Selim explored the origins and development of Bertoia's famously prolific investigations of organic and natural forms, movement, light, sound and metal materials, ...

Uniquely Detroit: Nick Cave’s Sound Suits | WDIV-Detroit

Cranbrook Art Museum Director Greg Wittkopp discusses Nick Cave's Hear Hear project, with footage of the Heard•Detroit rehearsal and performance.

Experiencing Architecture Through ‘Hippie Modernism’ and Retrospectives | New York Times

In 1965, four artists bought seven acres in southeastern Colorado, intending to make live-in works of art. Their communal project came to be known as Drop City, where residents lived in zonohedron domes of their own creation, sometimes constructed of automobile roofs and other scavenged materials. One dome, made of a fluorescent-painted lattice filled in with Mylar panels, made the trip east in 1968 to the Brooklyn Museum, filled with a five-foot-wide, round, spinning, “collaborative” work of art — “The Ultimate Painting” — that changed composition when illuminated by strobe lights. After the show closed, both dome and painting were lost — but this fall they will re-emerge in Minneapolis, at the Walker Art Center’s new exhibition, “Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia.”Opening Oct. 24, it features a re-creation of the Drop City dome and painting by members of the original commune, along with other full-scale installations that will suggest the ...

Nick Cave’s ‘Soundsuits’ Hit Detroit | Women’s Wear Daily

DETROIT — Can art help invigorate Detroit? Nick Cave, who considers himself a messenger first and artist second, thinks so. Cave, the performance artist best known for his vibrant soundsuits that have been cited for inspiring the collections of designers like Kenzo and reside in the homes of celebrity art collectors like Jay Z and Beyoncé, says the timing was right for “Here Hear,” his current and longest-running solo exhibit at Cranbrook Art Museum in Detroit, which closes Oct. 11. “They invited me to do the exhibit. I said I would only do it if I could do some outreach work in Detroit. It all happened to be at the same time. It happened with Detroit being on the map,” says Cave, a graduate of Cranbrook Academy of Art and professor of fashion design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. “There’s a shift happening in Detroit with the artists ...

Cranbrook Academy of Art and Art Museum Announce Leadership Changes

Andrew Blauvelt Named Director of Cranbrook Art Museum Gregory Wittkopp Assumes Leadership in Expanded Role as Director of the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research Scott Winter Named Director of Development of Cranbrook Academy of Art and Museum Bloomfield Hills, Mich., Aug. 26, 2015 – Christopher Scoates, the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Director of Cranbrook Academy of Art and Art Museum, announced a series of leadership changes today at both the Cranbrook Academy of Art and Art Museum. Gregory Wittkopp has held the dual role of Director of Cranbrook Art Museum and the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research since 2011. In order to focus his full-time attention on the Center, he will step down from his position at Cranbrook Art Museum next month. Andrew Blauvelt, a 1988 graduate of Cranbrook Academy of Art’s Design Department, will become the new Director of Cranbrook Art Museum. Blauvelt is currently the Senior Curator, Design, Research, and Publishing, at ...

Tagged: Andrew Blauvelt, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research, Gregory Wittkopp, Scott Winter

Gregory Wittkopp Named Full-Time Director of the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research

Bloomfield Hills, Mich., Aug. 25, 2015 – - Following the successful run of recent exhibitions at Cranbrook Art Museum, including Nick Cave: Here Hear, Cranbrook has announced that Gregory Wittkopp will assume leadership of the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research, becoming the Center’s first full-time Director in September. This move is a natural evolution of Greg’s work at Cranbrook, given that, for the past 30 years, his career has focused on stewarding Cranbrook’s collections and architecture. Wittkopp has held the dual role of Director of Cranbrook Art Museum and the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research since 2011. In order to focus his full-time attention on the Center, he will step down from his position at Cranbrook Art Museum next month. An announcement on his replacement at Cranbrook Art Museum is forthcoming. Under his leadership, the Museum conceived and completed its 2007-2011 renovation and construction project that included the addition of ...

Tagged: Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research, Gregory Wittkopp

#LOVEMYCITY: DETROIT | Shinola

As part of our #LoveMyCity campaign, we’ve been asking creators and influencers all across America to tell us what makes their towns so special, by using the hashtag #LoveMyCity. Pride, we feel, is something that drives culture, style, and, for us, it’s the lifeblood of a maker and manufacturer. And while Nick Cave isn’t from southeast Michigan — Detroit, the artist says, “gave him his soul” as a performer. It’s a hot day in August; Nick Cave and his creative partner, Bob Faust, have met us at the entrance to the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, MI, to tour Cave’s 7,000-square-foot solo exhibition and performance program, Here Hear. It’s hours before the final performance of Here Hear’s live dance series, Dance Lab, the museum installation is coming to a close October 11th, and Cave is feeling nostalgic. “We feel we’re reintroducing Detroit to Detroit,” says Cave. “Because at these events we’re ...

A Summery Splash of Color: Art abounds around metro Detroit to wrap up season | C & G Newspapers

METRO DETROIT — Looking for a way to entertain the family during these last few days of summer vacation? We’ve got you covered. Across metro Detroit, galleries and museums are hosting events and exhibitions to entertain and educate visitors of all ages. Just in time to bid farewell to summer, Cranbrook Art Museum is getting ready to celebrate the close of its Michigan-made exhibit, “Designing Summer: Objects of Escape.” According to Shelley Selim, assistant curator of the Jeanne and Ralph Graham Collections at Cranbrook, the show highlights the tradition of outdoor fun in Michigan during the summer. “It all sort of materialized when we received a gift of 20 picnic posters designed by Steve Fryholm, who graduated from the (Cranbrook Academy of Art) and worked for Herman Miller,” she said. “(The posters) advertise the annual company picnic; they’re beautiful and incredibly graphic images of summer picnic food like sweet corn, grilled chicken, fruit salad ...

Tagged: Designing Summer, Exhibitions, Michigan, Shelley Selim

“Designing Summer: Objects of Escape” featured on Ixiti.com

Whether along one of the Great Lakes, any of the numerous inland lakes, or the Detroit Riverfront, it is an undeniable fact that Michiganders spend their summer by the water. Going Up North is a standard phrase, and an even more common occurrence, whether for a long weekend or a week’s vacation. These locations epitomize the summer goal of escape, of leaving one’s cares (and responsibilities) behind. Designing Summer: Objects of Escape at the Cranbrook Art Museum through August 30th traces the evolution of the modern concept of summer vacations in Michigan, and how many of the objects that contribute to this notion of leisure time have their roots in Michigan. Beginning in the 1950s, a road trip or a visit to a state park was an easy means of escape. Exhibition curator Shelley Selim notes that the mid-century “was a period when Americans had an unprecedented amount of leisure time ...

Tagged: Designing Summer, Exhibition, Michigan, Pipsan Saarinan, Shelley Selim

14 Top Mid Century Modern Homes You Can Tour | In Collect

Designed by the highly influential architect Eliel Saarinen in the 1920s, this Art Deco masterpiece sits on the campus of the Cranbrook Art Museum. From 1930 through 1950, the structure served as the home and studio of Saarinen, Cranbrook’s first resident architect and the Cranbrook Academy of Art’s inaugural president and head of the Architecture Department, and his wife Loja, the first head of the Academy’s Weaving Department. Today, museum visitors can take staff-guided tours (offered May through October) of the residence, which features impeccably restored interiors outfitted with the Saarinens’ original furnishings, including Eliel’s delicately-veneered furniture and Loja’s magnificent textiles as well as early furniture designs by their son Eero Saarinen.

Tagged: Eliel Saarinen, Saarinen House, Tours