I thought I was on vacation.

CRANBROOK SIGHTING #3 Sighter: Chad Alligood Sighted: Daniel Libeskind’s World Trade Center site, 2003- Location: New York City Date:  January 3, 2013 Over the recent holiday, I spent a glorious week in New York City, where I had lived for three years before accepting my position at Cranbrook. During my stay, I caught up with good friends and former colleagues, revisited old stomping grounds, and reconnected with important burritos of my past (El Centro in Hell’s Kitchen). Of course, as a museum professional and art historian, I also reveled in the sheer breadth of art experiences available to denizens of Gotham. At Ann Hamilton’s installation at the Park Armory, I swung on a giant swing in the company of pigeons and robed monklike actors. At the divine Ferdinand Hodler show at Neue Galerie, I faced the artist’s unflinching, obsessive portraits of his dying lover and muse. And at the Rosemarie Trockel retrospective at the New ...

Tagged: Architecture, Chad Alligood, Daniel Libeskind, New York City, New York, NY, NY, World Trade Center

“Magic in the Museum” | Visit Detroit

It feels a little like being in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. Our tour group is shuffling through the ground floor of the Cranbrook Art Museum when we come to a massive, curved steel door. Gregory Wittkopp, the director of the Cranbrook Art Museum who could give Mr. Wonka a run for his money in the charisma department, pauses in front. “It starts with this curious wall,” he said with a grin, punching in a code and sliding the steel mass to one side. We walk down a flight of stairs and down a long industriallooking hall filled with shipping crates, which hold the latest exhibit pieces that have arrived at the museum. “This is one of the moments we hope has a little drama to it,” said Wittkopp, disappearing down a corner and fl ipping on a light switch to reveal a collection of Pewabic pottery from one of the nation’s ...

Tagged: Uncategorized

“From Here to There: Alec Soth’s America” Draws Critical Acclaim

The Detroit Free Press takes a look at metro Detroit's art exhibitions to go see this holiday season. Of the current Alec Soth exhibition at Cranbrook Art Museum, writer Mark Stryker says, "It's a diverse and impressive body of work, including a printed newspaper that meditates on themes of community, and it's a good example of the savvy kinds of collaboration that Cranbrook facilitates between leading artists and the next generation."

A Tale of Two Paintings – Cranbrook and the University of Michigan

At the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research, we spend a lot of time thinking about ourselves.  That sounds self-centered, but it’s the nature of the job – we uncover connections between different areas of Cranbrook, building historical and cultural relationships that help us to better preserve Cranbrook history and shape its future.  Cranbrook doesn’t exist in a vacuum, though, which is why it’s important for us to take a step back and look at the larger Cranbrook connections out there in the world.   And really, what better place to start than 18th-century Canada? I know that sounds crazy, but run with me on this.  In 1759 the British war hero General Wolfe was killed at the Battle of Quebec City on the Plains of Abraham, a battle which the British won.  Posthumously celebrated as one of the great British military leaders, General Wolfe and his heroic death were immortalized in ...

Tagged: Benjamin West, Painting, Shoshana Resnikoff, University of Michigan

HuffPost Detroit Takes a Closer Look at Soo Sunny Park and Alec Soth

In an upcoming exhibition, two artists document place and transform space, with work that captures individualized moments of the American landscape and experience. Soo Sunny Park’s installation “SSVT (South Stafford, Vermont) Vapor Slide (2007)” and “From Here to There: Alec Soth’s America” open at the Cranbrook Art Museum Saturday, running through March 30, 2013. Though the two artists approach their work from different backgrounds and with entirely different styles, there are certain commonalities, Cranbrook Art Museum Director Greg Wittkopp said. “You experience the Alec Soth show, it’s all … two-dimensional work for the most part, and then suddenly you walk down this tight, narrow corridor and you’re in the middle of “SSVT Vapor Slide,” this exhibition that just consumes you … that defines and consumes space. So on the one hand, they’re completely different,” Wittkopp said. “On the other hand, though, Alec Soth’s work is very much about the particularity of place,” he said, ...

Getting “T-Square” All Square

CRANBROOK SIGHTING #2 Sighter: Chad Alligood Sighted: Tony Rosenthal, T-Square, 1975-76 Location: Detroit, MI Date:  September 24, 2012 Monday morning, 9 a.m. On a typical Monday at this time, I’m settling in to my sweet Knoll-designed desk in our newly-renovated office space at the museum. “Settling in” for me means checking my calendar and email, guzzling Diet Coke, and chowing down on granola bars. But this is no typical Monday: I stepped out of the car with my three museum colleagues into a gritty, industrial corridor on Detroit’s East Side—worlds away from the meticulously manicured lawns and bubbling fountains of Cranbrook’s campus. This is the setting for Venus Bronze Works, a local firm specializing in the conservation and restoration of outdoor sculpture. Giorgio Gikas, the founder and president of Venus, met us in his massive, hangar-like space to examine and discuss his ongoing conservation of T-Square (1975-1976), a large-scale outdoor steel sculpture by Tony Rosenthal (1914-2009) ...

Tagged: Chad Alligood, Conservation, Detroit, MI, MI, Sculpture, Tony Rosenthal

Zoltan Sepeshy’s Mural on Beaver Island

CRANBROOK SIGHTING #1 Sighter: Gregory Wittkopp Sighted: Zoltan Sepeshy, Hauling in the Nets, 1940 Location: Beaver Island, MI Date: August 18, 2012"Dad, have we ever gone on a vacation without visiting a museum?” My daughter, who now is a college Junior, asked me that question some ten or twelve years ago. While I don’t remember where we were when she asked the question, I do remember the answer:  “Probably not.” So here I am on vacation on Beaver Island, a relatively remote island in the middle of northern Lake Michigan, writing my first blog entry for Cranbrook Art Museum. And yes, my daughter and I are in a museum, the island’s Maritime Museum, sitting in front of a large mural by none other than Cranbrook Academy of Art’s second president, Zoltan Sepeshy. To get an idea of how incongruous this Cranbrook “sighting” really is, you need to get a sense of the context. While quite large ...

Tagged: Beaver Island, Gregory Wittkopp, Mural, Painting, Zoltan Sepeshy

George Nelson Retrospective at Cranbrook Art Museum | Contract Magazine

On June 16, the first comprehensive retrospective of the work of George Nelson opened at the Cranbrook Art Museum, in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. "George Nelson: Architect | Writer | Designer | Teacher" first opened in Germany in September of 2008 at the Vitra Design Museum, marking what would have the American designer's 100th birthday. The exhibition then traveled to Spain before landing state-side at the Oklahoma Art Center in the winter of 2011, moving along to San Antonio and Seattle before arriving at the legendary design institution's newly renovated gallery space in Michigan (Contract, June 2012). Greg Wittkopp, director of the Cranbrook Art Museum, experienced the exhibition in its first incarnation in Germany and knew immediately it would fit well in Michigan. "People come to Cranbrook to see this exhibit, and it just feels at home here," he recently told Contract. "We have a great space for work that deals with ...

New Cranbrook Art Museum Lighting System Featured in Architectural Lighting Magazine

The innovative new lighting system on display at the renovated Cranbrook Art Museum is praised as a restoration of Eliel Saarinen’s original vision for the space in the June issue of Architectural Lighting magazine. The SmithGroupJJR oversaw the project, referencing Saarinen’s blueprints and construction documents to install lighting in the coffered ceilings that is in line with Saarinen’s original design to make the ceiling seem “lit from within.” SmithGroupJJR installed flexible, state-of-the art LED lighting, keeping with Saarinen’s tradition of showcasing a lighting system ahead of its time.

“The Anchor Art Museums in and of Detroit” | Art21

Because of its solid foundation, I am confident that Detroit will have a renaissance in the arts (among other fields). This confidence springs from a community of art enthusiasts who invested heavily in cultural institutions. Images of abandoned buildings steal a lot of the headlines, but the media often fails to balance those images with images of the gilded and ornate buildings that house Detroit’s cultural treasures: The Michigan Opera House, The Gem Theater, The Masonic Temple, The Fisher Theater, the Fox Theatre, and The Detroit Institute of Arts, among many others. These institutions are as good as or better than they have ever been. Why do cultural institutions thrive in a city that has so many hurdles? Simply put, because of a community that values culture.  Another benefit of Detroit’s strong foundation is the fact that these bedrock institutions educate and inspire future generations of artists and patrons.  There are numerous ...