Art
Crafting South African Identities Through Fashion
An exhibition at Western Michigan University examines how South African artists are using fashion as a way to either portray individuality or represent communities in their work.
Sarah Rose Sharp
Sarah Rose Sharp is a Detroit-based writer, activist, and multimedia artist. She is primarily concerned with the experiences of making and engaging with art, and researching the state of contemporary art in postindustrial and redeveloping cities.
Art
A Photographer of Unsettlingly Mundane, Lynchian Images
Roe Ethridge combines a commercial photography practice with his personal life to create diquieting images.
Books
Paintings of a Homegrown Black Superhero
A great deal of art leverages mystique by processing experience through varying layers of abstraction. The N-Word, a new collection of paintings by the artist Peter Williams — published by Rotland Press and with contributions by writers Lynn Crawford and Bill Harris — does the opposite: it lays out a response to
Art
An Immigrant’s Dual Identity Manifested as a Divided Exhibition
HAMTRAMCK, Mich. — Like many an immigrant’s tale, Osman Khan’s ambitious installation work begins with a journey.
Art
Analyzing 50 Years of American Political Advertising
I Approve This Message: Decoding Political Ads is dedicated to the granular dissection of the visual semiotics and rhetorical stylings of political advertising.
Art
When Art and Design Got High on Hippie Utopianism
BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. — Sometimes, taking a wider view of art history can create a more expansive curatorial vision.
Art
Coping with a Conference About Art, Ritual, and Grieving
DETROIT — Despite the conference featuring some of the Detroit’s leading thinkers and most innovative practitioners discussing a compelling topic — the intersection of art and ritual — I felt deeply ambivalent about attending.
Art
Totemic Tributes to the Obscured History of a Detroit Neighborhood
DETROIT — The history of the former municipality of Fairview is written in its streets.
Art
The Disturbing Personal Archive of a Former Detroit Policeman
TOLEDO, OH — It's impossible to consider the content of Beautiful Pig, a collection of works by artist Ben Schonberger, as wholly separate from the scourge of police and state-sanctioned violence against people of color.
Art
After Flint Water Crisis, Police Murders, and More, Midwestern Artists Get Mad
TOLEDO, Ohio — Midwesterners are many things, but they aren’t, as a rule, complainers.
Opinion
End of the Line for Detroit's Iconic Outdoor Art Installation, the Heidelberg Project
DETROIT — It is difficult for a young artist to think about her legacy.
Art
Three Artists Blur the Line Between Art and Play
DETROIT — It's an art world convention for conceptual art to be disruptive, or at least leave the viewer feeling unsettled, somewhat uncomfortable.