Ash Arder is a transdisciplinary, researched-focused artist from Flint, Michigan whose work investigates ecological and industrial systems, especially in consideration of the power dynamics between humans, machines, and the natural world. Her practice illuminates moments of intimacy, tenderness, and connection within industrial spaces. She transforms recognizable objects like hardhats and car parts into sculptural forms that contrast the hard, cold bodies of mechanical tools with the soft, warm bodies of the humans that deploy them.Arder is a 2018 graduate of the Fiber Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art, and Flesh Tones is the artist’s first solo museum exhibition and the second installment of Cranbrook Art Museum’s Fresh Paint series, which highlights new work from Detroit-area artists. Through deeply personal family narratives, Arder’s practice explores the impact and legacy of the automotive industry in southeastern Michigan. The departure point for Flesh Tones is a photograph of her late parents celebrating her baby shower ...
Tagged: Ash Arder, Cranbrook Art Museum
Read MoreCarl Toth: Reordering Fictions examines various bodies of work that the artist created over his more than forty-year career, from early black and white photography to his pioneering work in alternative photographic techniques. Through his interest in torquing reality, Toth sought to expand the field of photography through his exploration of the SX-70 Polaroid camera and his adoption of the photocopier as his camera lens of choice. Toth’s intricate use of collage and photomontage resulted in masterful compositions of complex still-life tableaux, toeing the line between representation and abstraction. Carl Toth (1947–2022) served as Artist-in-Residence and Head of the Photography Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art from 1972 until 2007, shaping generations of students. Toth brought a personal interest in literature and literary theory to the Academy at a time when such ideas were just beginning to redirect the medium. The title, Reordering Fictions, is derived from a quote by the ...
Tagged: 2023, Carl Toth, Cranbrook Art Museum, Kat Goffnett, Photography
Read MoreSkilled Labor: Black Realism in Detroit focuses on a local community of artists that have developed expert skills in drawing and painting, and, through deft hands, explore the representation of the Black body in both personal and cultural contexts. Rejecting the monolithic nature under which the Black body is frequently conceived and popularly imagined, Skilled Labor illustrates the range, depth, nuance, and variety of Black life through each artist’s unique approach to figuration. The exhibition features a spectrum of lived experiences—joy, intimacy, reverie, danger, tension—through this artistic lens. Collectively, these artists are undertaking the laborious task of art historical and cultural rethinking through acts of representation.“Skilled labor” refers to highly trained, experienced individuals who complete complex mental or physical tasks with expertise. The term poetically speaks to these Detroit artists that perform a durational and technically proficient approach to artmaking. Skilled labor is also a rigorous intellectual process that these ...
Tagged: 2023, Cranbrook Art Museum, Laura Mott
Read More“Cranbrook on the Green” opens to the public on May 24, 2023Family playing the Bertoia Bronze hole at Cranbrook on the Green, Summer 2022. Photo by PD Rearick.Bloomfield Hills, Mich., April 18, 2023 -- Cranbrook Art Museum is pleased to announce that it is bringing back its artist-designed miniature golf course for the 2023 summer season by popular demand – with the addition of two new holes!Members of the Cranbrook community (students, alumni, past and present faculty and staff) were asked to submit ideas for new hole designs that were inspired by a Cranbrook site, story, or alumni. All submissions were reviewed by a blind jury, who selected two new concepts. The winning concepts are:New Hole 1: Glassy GreenCranbrook Academy of Art student Katie Mongoven was inspired by the windows of the Cranbrook Dining Hall on the Cranbrook campus of Cranbrook Kingswood Upper School. Designed by Eliel Saarinen in 1929 each window ...
Tagged: 2023, Cranbrook Art Museum, Press Release
Read MoreExhibition Dates: June 17, 2023–September 24, 2023 ArtMember Preview: June 16, 2023Travels to High Museum of Art in Atlanta and Museum of Arts and Design in New York City in late 2023–2024Clockwise from top left: (1) Sonya Clark with Beaded Prayers Project, 1999–present. (2) Hair Craft Project Hairstyles, 2014. (3) Participant in Reconstruction Exercise, 2019. Installation view: The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Courtesy of the artist. (4) Sonya Clark at work on Finding Freedom, 2019-20. (5) Finding Freedom, 2019-20. Installation view: Phillips Museum of Art at Franklin & Marshall College. Courtesy of the artist. (6) Participant in The Healing Memorial project in Detroit, 2020. Bloomfield Hills, Mich., Feb. 15, 2023 – This summer, Cranbrook Art Museum will debut the new exhibition Sonya Clark: We Are Each Other, a mid-career survey of the pioneering fiber artist that will bring together her large-scale community-centered and participatory projects for the first time. It opens at Cranbrook Art Museum on June 17, ...
Tagged: 2023, Andrew Blauvelt, Cranbrook Art Museum, Laura Mott
Read MoreCranbrook Educational Community is pleased to announce Cranbrook Art Museum has been approved by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to receive a Grants for Arts Projects award of $50,000. This funding will help support the research and curation of an upcoming exhibition examining Cuban mid-twentieth-century design. The grant is one of 1,251 Grants for Arts Projects awards totaling nearly $28.8 million that were announced by the NEA last week as part of its first round of fiscal year 2023 grants. “The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support arts projects in communities nationwide,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “Projects such as this one with Cranbrook Art Museum strengthen arts and cultural ecosystems, provide equitable opportunities for arts participation and practice, and contribute to the health of our communities and our economy." “We are grateful for the continued support of the NEA,” said Laura Mott, Chief Curator of Cranbrook Art Museum. “This funding ...
Tagged: 2022, Cranbrook Art Museum, Laura Mott
Read MoreTagged: 2022, Cranbrook Art Museum, Scott Hocking
Read MoreTagged: 2022, Andrew Blauvelt, Bakpak Durden, Cranbrook Art Museum, James Benjamin Franklin, Scott Hocking
Read MoreSonya Clark: We Are Each Other is a mid-career survey of the artist’s work with a focus on her community-centered and participatory projects. Over her twenty-five-year career, Clark has been committed to issues of history, race, and reconciliation. Clark often undertakes this exploration through everyday fiber materials—hair, flags, found fabric—and craft practices. In Clark’s work, craft and community are intertwined, and the resulting projects facilitate new collective encounters across racial, gender, and socioeconomic divisions. The ethos of her participatory work is embedded in the title We Are Each Other. It is inspired by the poem about civil rights activist Paul Robeson (1971) by Gwendolyn Brooks, which ends with the phrase: “we are each other’s harvest: we are each other’s business: we are each other’s magnitude and bond.”In the Hair Craft Project, for example, Clark collaborated with hairstylists to use the hair on her own head as a canvas to highlight ...
Tagged: 2023, Cranbrook Art Museum, Laura Mott, Sonya Clark
Read MoreTagged: 2022, Bakpak Durden, Cranbrook Art Museum, Laura Mott
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