When architect Eliel Saarinen moved to the US and designed Cranbrook, he brought his Finnish heritage with him.
Author Archives: Janet Tyson
Janet Tyson is an independent art historian, critic and artist. She lives and works in a semi-rural part of Michigan for about nine months a year, and in London for about three months a year.
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A Multisensory Installation Inspired by the Humble Honeybee
Wolfgang Buttress’s “The Hive” is an environment designed to amplify public awareness of the critical situation of bees.
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Recognizing the Contributions of Regionalism at the Turn of the 20th Century
INDIANAPOLIS — In the mid-1970s, when my new, Hoosier husband first took me to visit Indianapolis, the city seemed haunted by the ghosts of middlebrow culture.
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In a City with Polluted Water, Flint’s Artists and Cultural Organizations Help Cope with the Crisis
FLINT, Mich. — When President Obama visited Flint a few weeks ago and took note of peoples’ feisty attitude, I was relieved to have my own perceptions echoed by someone I trust, who probably has spent about as much — or more accurately, as little — time in the city as I have.
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Three Museums Come Together to Tell a History of African American Art
MUSKEGON, Mich. — Common Ground, the Muskegon Museum of Art’s current exhibition of African American art, combines works from three regional Michigan collections: the Muskegon museum, the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, and the Flint Institute of Arts.
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Witty Mashups Without Meaning
KALAMAZOO, Mich. — Jiha Moon’s colorful mixed-media works are in the collections of the Asia Society in New York and the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, among other US institutions.
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Imperialism and Its Discontents at Tate Britain
LONDON — Artist and Empire contains something for everyone, ranging from fierce pride to loathing, as well as everything in between.
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Suspended Glass Sculptures Visualize Cities’ Population Booms
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — It might seem like a leap, using gorgeous studio glass objects to convey potentially alarming data about population growth, but Norwood Viviano pulls the two together very persuasively.
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An Exhibition Ponders (and Perpetuates) the Hierarchy Between “Art” and “Craft”
LONDON — Losing the Compass, at White Cube in London’s Mason’s Yard, aspires to critique geographical, aesthetic, and other sorts of hierarchies.
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An Oblivious but Ambitious Artistic Intervention in White
LONDON — white, Edmund de Waal’s intervention at the Royal Academy (RA) library, is a wonder.
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Saturnine Portraits Somewhere Between Damascus and Berlin
LONDON — Pictures by the Damascus-born, Berlin-based artist Marwan Kassab-Bachi are neither Arab nor European, Syrian nor German, but occupy the liminal space that diasporic people find themselves in.
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An Encounter with Kara Walker’s Poignantly American Work in the UK
LONDON — Kara Walker’s Go to Hell or Atlanta, Whichever Comes First is a powerful, nuanced visual rant.