don't miss tonight...
yup, it's supposed to be that dark....don't miss this in the shuffle tonight:BLACK & BLACK
Featuring:
Dana Bell
Sara Blakeman
Jef Bourgeau
Davin Brainard
Mike Connelly
Ronald Cornelissen
Jamie Easter
Dion Fischer
Matt Gordon
John Olson
Taormina Brothers
Suzanne Walters
Saturday, September 15, 2007
6-11 pm
UFO FACTORY,
1345 Division, Detroit
(Eastern Market)
posted by art blogs are fun at 11:28 AM
17 Comments:
building 4 third floor
MOCAD's best show so far. Kicked butt. Big crowd. Loud music. Great art.
the mocad exhibition was terrible. what a joke. I havent been so disappointed in a long time. makes me feel like not pursuing art.
thanks mocad
thanks idiot curator
And there you have it, detroitarts in a delightfully succinct nutshell. "It was great and the music was loud." "It sucked big time. I'm gonna give up art because of this show." God, I love this blog. Best thing to happen to the Detroit art community since thedetroiter.com and Motor City.
I'll add here that if the best that can be said for the new MoCAD show is that there was a big crowd and the music was loud, I'm glad I took a pass on the opening in favor of putting in a 16 hour marathon studio session of my own. I break out in a rash in any huge crowd of hipsters. Plenty of time to see the show without the crowd, the only way to really see anything except... people who are probably way cooler than you.
I wonder what it would take to get Ann to keep the blog going long distance by remote control or something? Maybe we could send her cookies. And beer. Lots of beer.
only it wasn't so much a crowd of "hipsters" and "cooler than thou" kids, it was more ... um ... detroit.
The work in this show rocks! Thank you, mocad, for bring in this stuff we can't see here.
mocad show was shit. another tired, boring theme poorly executed.
WHERE ARE REAL CURATORS ANYMORE?!
but it was art. and in an art-starved town, even this stale, sorry, fly-infested drink of drity, muddy water will fool people into thinking it is "refreshing."
did anyone check out "black & black" at ufo factory ?
pics coming of ufo and mocad :)
did anyone check out the "telephone" show at johanson charles? and does anyone know when they're open?
yeah, the telephone show was pretty bad...I took some pics but it didn't make the cut when posting. at one point a group of people came out and sang
a cappella and then did a little diddy about suicide.
sorry.
The UFO Factory ... isn't it funny how Davin Brainard and Dionn Fisher curate themsleves into the art shows each time? Must be nice ...
ann, were you at the same telephone show that i was? I thought the show (with a few exceptions) was pretty strong overall. yes, the music was bad, and the work might have benefitted from a cleaner space, but the concept made for a lot of fun work. its too bad you didn't post any images--it was one of the stronger openings of the evening.
the telephone show was lame and boring. that same insular clique of cool kids masturbating themselves and one another to an audience they only know how to try to speak down to.
but we're not buying their bullshit anymore. they lord over a dead town. have fun with that.
Hello,
My name is Ben Hernandez. I work in some capacity at MOCAD (programming music series, helping install shows, putting up mics and projecting videos). I also co-curated the exhibit Telephone.
I am writing, not because some of you fine folks did not enjoy the show. It is entirely your right to like or dislike whatever it is you choose to pay attention to. I am flattered that anyone pays attention enough to even state his or her opinion. It was a game, a fun exercise amongst a group a semi-friends and relative strangers. It turned out as it did well out of the control of myself or any single person in the show.
I must say I really enjoy this particular criticism of the show
“yes, the music was bad, and the work might have benefitted [sic] from a cleaner space, but …”
That’s a very interesting observation … that did come up. I have come to the conclusion that things are what they are, that’s the nature of this beast we call Detroit, I guess.
I am instead writing because some of you have spoken ill of people who do not deserve to be spoken of in such a manner in a public forum.
I myself would not resort to name calling in such a passive aggressive manner over the Internet. I have made that mistake before with someone I did not know and it got out of hand (if said person is reading, I apologize to no end, I have regretted it to this day). In your [Jim] case it is certainly distasteful that you have chosen to speak ill of someone you do not know while hiding behind a veil of anonymity.
Whether or not any person in the Phone Game enjoys the act of masturbation they do not deserve to be pigeonholed as
"insular clique of cool kids masturbating themselves and one another to an audience they only know how to try to speak down to."
I could understand why you may want to put Graem and myself in such an unseemly position, as we both have public faces and I know how spiteful people can be towards those who choose to be active participants in anything creative. I do not understand however how you could possibly lump someone like Maurice Greenia, who is the nicest, most innocuous guy, approachable guy around. Sure he’s a weird oddball, but he’s hardly a person who could be considered part of an “insular clique of cool kids”. He’s a grown man of 40+ years! Nor could you include Frank Pahl, another really nice guy, approachable, funny and an arguable genius (as well as a grown man in his 40’s well outside of the world of insular hip-kid tactics).
I am, in my own way, close to many of the people in the show and I know for a fact that more than half of them did not know each other before this show. They hardly constitute a clique “lording over” the city. That is a bizarre assessment. I would be interested to know whether or not you actually know anyone in the show personally. I feel that if you were to take a moment to become familiar with anyone in the show as a person, instead of judging them from afar, you may find that they are all really good people who have a sincere interest in art and partaking in art events. Is that so wrong? People constantly scream out, on this blog, for more local art, art events and such. Yet when a group of individuals actually try and be active, you resent them just for their presence. Judging them simply as “hipsters”. That seems so backwards and inane to me. Some of the people in the Telephone show are so incredibly shy and reclusive it seems crazy to think anyone would even have a reason to have an opinion about them personally. Do you really know Brian Pitman? Or Nick Jones? Or Mary Beth Carolan? Or Carrie Morris? Doubtful as they are all genuinely anonymous people.
Perhaps this is the provincialism that seems to have become a recurrent theme on this series of postings. It seems that it is likely that many of you will disregard me. Many will probably tear my arguments apart, quoting small sections of this letter to use to further decide that they dislike me for who they imagine I am. You also seem to have chosen to dislike and judge Matthew Higgs from a distance as he is the big hotshot NYC curator guy. It seems that it comes across as strikingly provincial to dislike an exotic stranger from the big out-of-town city. We don't take kindly to strangers around these parts! I myself initially assumed that Mr. Higgs was an incurable academic. Too hopelessly into his New York-iness to be able to identify with or to be interested in lowly Detroiters.
To Detroit’s credit it seems the provincial attitude that Detroiters cultivate so nicely seems to, in it’s most palatable incarnations, stem from a sincere admiration for this town’s intense contrasts and deep seeded idiosyncrasies. Personally I find it [Detroit] frustrating, maddening and beautiful for all of the same reasons. As it turned out Mr. Higgs, having been raised in Manchester, could really identify and appreciate Detroit. I learned that he sincerely attempted to speak to the community in the only way he knew how, through the works of artists, with whom he had worked for years, that he felt could speak to the city in some way.
I was assigned the duty of showing him and some others around town the evening before the show. I was not excited because of all of the above stated preconceived notions. All I could do was show them the town as I knew it. We went to the Chill n Mingle, saw the Frustrations (but failed to see the Mahonies or Holy Shit!, sorry’s all around). We spoke of the city extensively and they appreciated Detroit on a genuine level as the home of obvious freedom otherwise unattainable in many other contemporary American cities. He was very interested in seeing some Detroit art but was only in town for 1 full day and 2 half day so there wasn’t time to until after the opening. I happen to know that they did view some local art, and he took great effort to view the art of an artist working in Detroit. We spoke about the inclusion of Detroit artists in the show and he said he would need to spend more time getting to know what Detroit art was before he could justify curating an exhibit of Detroit art. I am paraphrasing his words and must say that this account should not be counted as definitive, but my general feeling is that he is really quite curious about Detroit, it’s art and it’s music.
I do not know Ms. Gordon and am not addressing her directly. I am not an avid partaker in the blog-oshphere but I am savvy enough to realize that it’s the very few who view this blog who speak with such vitriol. It is not my place to make qualitative assessments about art shows, or groups of individuals. Nor I am I trying to defend individual art pieces against the attitudes of individuals. I am able to speak critically of MOCAD, but, I am equally inclined to defend it’s existence as refreshing in the face of the Detroit I have known in my years as an active participant in it’s art and music scenes. I am addressing directly the few lone, anonymous voices when I say that I find it unconscionable that you would draw such negative assumptions about a group of people you clearly do not know in the slightest. Worse yet that you would then turn around and publicly present your opinion as some kind of public sentiment in such a brassy and childish manner.
Oh and by the way
Johanson Charles is open
Tue - Fri 4:30pm - 7pm
Sat 10am-5pm
until
Sept 29th
cheers!
Congratulations. I am amazed with the caliber of the knowledge offered. I hope that you keep up with the great work done.
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