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 Director's Letter
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It was a hot summer evening late last month when I and sixty other people gathered in Hamtramck's Zussman Park for a walking tour of our Inside|Out art works installed in that city within a city. Inside|Out, sponsored by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, places high quality reproductions of DIA masterpieces into communities around Metro Detroit and in select cities across the state. Interestingly, half the people in attendance were not from Hamtramck. Before starting the tour, I humorously indicated that it was only for residents. I was, of course, pleased to see that art brings people together and attracted individuals beyond Hamtramck. We had nine Inside|Out pieces spread throughout the city, representing artists from three continents: North America, Europe, and Asia. We try to be as diverse as possible in our selection of artworks so we can mirror the communities we visit. In Michigan, Hamtramck is perhaps the epitome of diversity: at least twenty-six languages are spoken, more than four religions are present, and residents come from all over the world (Bosnia, Albania, Bangladesh, Poland, Yemen, Pakistan, among many other places). A particularly apropos place to celebrate June as Immigrant Heritage Month.
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Razi Jafri, left, with DIA Director Salvador Salort-Pons on an Inside|Out walk in Hamtramck.
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Walking and talking about art and life with the people of Hamtramck and beyond was simply a pleasure. I am also an immigrant--from Spain--and I felt like a fish
in water during the tour. Many participants had questions and comments about the works on view. The conversation became very rich, fostering an opportunity to learn a multiplicity of perspectives---one of the benefits of diversity. We stopped in front of a reproduction of a Mughal painting, and I asked a young man whom I had just met, Razi, from India, to help me out with his comments about the painting. How lucky we are to have great local expertise. We were able to establish a good dynamic and informative dialogue with our fellow "tourists."
After more than an hour walking in the summer heat, the tour ended up at an ice cream social organized by our friends from the city at the Hamtramck Historical Museum. The walking art tour, engaging conversations, and exposure to an incredible community has been one of the most meaningful experiences I have had since I moved to the United States. After exploring the Inside|Out pieces, you are all welcome to come and visit the DIA to see the works of art in the flesh, so to speak, using your free tri-county admission. In the meantime, the DIA will continue to reach out beyond the museum's walls. We are more than a museum; we strive to facilitate a dialogue, improve understanding among our communities, and elevate the unifying power of diversity within the framework of our extraordinary world-class collection. Please remember, the DIA has something for everyone, from Hamtramck and beyond.
Salvador Salort-Pons
Director
Detroit Institute of Arts
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Exhibitions THE OPEN ROAD
Photography and the American Road Trip Through September 11
Special Exhibitions Central Galleries
Before photographer
Stephen Shore could undertake a road trip, he needed to learn to drive. He grew up in Manhattan, where many residents don't need or even want cars, and there is no need to learn to drive. Unlike most of the artists included in this exhibition, he was a relative late comer to the genre.
When he did get behind the wheel, he said it was a liberating experience. "I could get into a car...and I could just go for days. It was the sense of freedom and independence that I loved. I found that after a few days of driving...and watching with attention as this world kept passing by, I entered a kind of meditative state. My mind became quiet, and I became very focused."
Many road trips followed as he crisscrossed the country photographing the scenes around him. "I would be in a flat nowhere place of the earth," he said, "and every now and then, I would walk outside or be driving down a road, and the light would hit something and for a few minutes, the place would be transformed."
Visitors can share their favorite American road trip memories on social media using the hashtag #DIAOpenRoad. The DIA will be hosting a photo contest on Instagram and creating a summer road trip
playlist on Spotify to accompany the exhibition. Contest rules will be listed on
dia.org later this month.
This exhibition is organized by Aperture Foundation, New York, David Campany and Denise Wolff, curators, and is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Above:
U.S. 97, South of Klamath Falls, Oregon, July 21, 1973 (printed 2016), chromogenic print; Stephen Shore, American.
© Stephen Shore, 303 Gallery, New York
Back to top GUEST OF HONOR
Gallery of the Louvre Through September 18
[Gallery Location]
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Top:
The Court of Death, 1820, oil on canvas; Rembrandt Peale, American. Gift of George H. Scripps
Above:
Gallery of the Louvre, 1931-33, oil on canvas; Samuel F. B. Morse, American. Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection, 1992.51
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Just as today, viewers in the early 1800s liked action and drama in their visual representations. This put Samuel F. B. Morse at a distinct disadvantage when he sent his painting
Gallery of the Louvre out on tour as a money making venture.
Morse was one of a number of enterprising American artists who created large-scale history paintings for public display, charging admission fees, usually twenty-five cents per person, to cover the cost of the exhibitions. It was also a means for artists to share their artistic vision with the public. Morse eschewed dramatic subject matter for an idealized compilation of old masters hanging in the Louvre as a way to expose American audiences to European art history. But his goals did not appeal to mass audiences and the proposed tour ended after stops in New York and New Haven.
Among the more successful such tours was that of Rembrandt Peale's
The Court of Death, hanging in the DIA gallery opposite
Gallery of the Louvre.
The Court of Death offered viewers a scene of vice and virtue on a grand scale, with the figure of Death front and center. While Morse's painting is large at about 6 by 9 feet, it is dwarfed by
The Court of Death, which is more than 11 by 23 feet, another contributing factor to the latter's success.
Gallery of the Louvre is on loan from the
Terra Foundaton for American Art
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Detroit Film Theatre
Raiders: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made and the fan film itself grace the DFT July schedule, along with a film based on a "sort of true" story that is so unbelievable you'll think it's total fiction.
Thirty-five years ago, three 11-year-old Mississippi friends became obsessed with Steven Spielberg's
Raiders of the Lost Ark. They embarked on an ambitious dream project: a shot-for-shot, handcrafted remake of
Raiders, which they worked on over the course of the next seven years. They nearly finished their project, but were stopped by the scene in which Indiana Jones fights with a burly Nazi near an airplane. The scene's explosions were too tough for them to recreate, so the project was set aside until twenty years later, when the friends, now in their forties, reunited to complete their masterpiece.
The resulting
Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation (above) received one public showing and achieved legendary status among movie enthusiasts. who had gotten wind of the project. The documentary on the making of the adaptation, showing at the DFT on Saturday, July 9, at 3: p.m. is the story of those now-adult kids, who refused to give up their passion, creative vision, and love for their all-time favorite movie. Following the film, there will be a Q&A session with two of the remake's creators via Skype.
Be sure to come back on Sunday, July 10, at 4:30 p.m. for the screening of the now-complete, two-and-a-half hour passion project itself:
Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation.
Inventive, fun and endlessly fascinating,
Nuts! (left) recounts the unbelievable but based on the "sort-of-true" story of
John Romulus Brinkley, a real Kansas doctor who in 1917 claimed that he discovered a cure for impotence by using one of the most
surprising surgical procedures of all time. Mixing animated reenactments, interviews, archival footage, and a narrator whose veracity you may--rightly or wrongly--believe to be suspect,
Nuts! traces Brinkley's rise from poverty to the heights of celebrity, wealth, and influence.
For more DFT information, including dates and times, or to purchase tickets, click
here.
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Concert of Colors The Concert of Colors has the whole world in its bands. This annual diversity-themed music festival, celebrating the many cultures found in southeast Michigan, returns to the DIA for the sixth straight year with musical events Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, July 15, 16, and 17. In addition to the live performances, the movie Finding Fela, the story of musician Fela Anikulapo Kuti's life and social and political importance, is also on the schedule.
On Friday, July 15 at 6 p.m., Dos Santos Anti-Beat Orquesta (left), a Chicago-based jam band of musicians from the realms of jazz, R&B, Mexican folk, punk, and salsa, show off their specialty, the Mexican cumbia, a dance and music style embracing the traditions of African-descended people of Latin America and Native American and European instruments and dance steps. Detroit dance instructors introduce the audience to cumbia's rhythm and movements. Beginners are welcome at this all-ages event.
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At 9:45 p.m., the DFT shows the documentary Finding Fela (left), the story of African musician and activist Fela Kuti, who pioneered the Afrobeat sound, merging American R&B and funk with Nigerian and Ghanaian traditions. He used this new sound to express his revolutionary political opinions about the dictatorial Nigerian government of the 1970s and 1980s, promoting Pan Africanist politics to the world. Kuti's musical output and influence waned in the 1990s, but in the past decade a resurgence of interest in his work culminated in the Broadway hit Fela! The music continues on Saturday, July 16, with multimedia artist John Sims, who created Afro-Dixie Remix in response to the song "Dixie," the de facto national anthem of the Confederacy during the Civil War. Sims's interpretations features spiritual, jazz, funk, calypso, samba, soul, R&B, hip hop, and blues renditions of the song. The Detroit listening party includes collaborations with Detroit-area writers and musicians.
In the closing event on Sunday, July 17, Mexican artist Astrid Hadad (left), who sees herself as a singer, costume designer, cabaret performer, and political provocateur, takes the stage at 7:30 p.m. She combines ranchero, bolero, rumba, and rock with extravagant costumes that are like portable sets, which have become a hallmark of her performances. All concerts are free and held outdoors, weather permitting. The film is also free and shown in the DFT auditorium. Back to top |
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Awesome Fun Puppet shows, an animation club movie, and an old-fashioned hoedown are on the schedule for Detroit Institute of Awesome weekends this month.
On Saturday, July 9, and Sunday, July 10, at 2 p.m., the whole family can spend the afternoon in the Big Top with Luigi Bullooney's Circus Menagerie (left), a show featuring Jesse Mooney-Bullock's specialized hand puppets dexterously performing amazing feats. Following the show, held on the museum's North Lawn, weather permitting, kids can meet the puppets and create circus-character masks of their own.
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| Photo: Paul Van Der Blom |
Also on Sunday, July 10, the Corn Potato String Band (left) keeps old-time fiddle and banjo music alive and well in Detroit in two all-ages shows featuring driving fiddle tunes and harmonious singing. The group's members are champion fiddlers and also play banjo, guitar, bass, and mandolin, covering many different old-time styles, including ballads, hoedowns, country rags, and Southern gospel. Performances are at 1 and 3 p.m.
Only Yesterday (left), July's DFT Animation Club feature, is the story of Taeko, a young woman who has lived her whole life in Tokyo but decides to visit her relatives in the countryside. As the train travels through the night, memories flood back of her younger years and she soon begins to revisit her childhood dreams. The movie plays Saturday, July 16, and Sunday, July 17, at 2 p.m.
Puppets return the weekend of July 30 and 31, at 2 p.m., with Puppet Kabob's The Snowflake Man (left). Puppeteer Sarah Frechette combines art, science, and little-known pieces of American history to magical effect in this show featuring intricately designed Czech-style marionettes, pop-up book scenery, and a whimsical sense of humor. After the performance, audience members can create their own pop-up theater. Every DIA Awesome weekend includes family-friendly guided tours, art-making workshops and, on Sundays, drawing in the galleries. Back to top |
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News and Notes Art and Authors
The world of stolen artworks is the topic for this month's Art and Authors book discussion group. Robert K. Wittman, founder of the FBI's Art Crime Team, details his exploits recovering irreplaceable art and antiquities in his book Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures. In addition to talking about the book, participants tour relevant galleries. The book is available in the Museum Shop. The discussion and tour, held both Friday and Saturday, July 22 and 23 at 10:30 a.m., is free with museum admissions, but advance registration is required. Call 313.833.4005 for more information or click here. In the Shop
If you're going to be hitting the open road this summer, let the Museum Shop help you along with a number of items related to the exhibition of the same name. A number of cameras are available to document your journey and several books, including the exhibition catalogue, The Open Road: Photography and the American Road Trip, as well as volumes dedicated to individual photographers included in the exhibition, will provide you with inspiration. And to avoid the inevitable "Are we there yet?" questions from the younger set, there are travel games, from the Family Road Trip Box of Questions to Travel Bingo. July 19 is Edgar Degas's birthday (born that day in 1834) and the museum shops offers a number of appropriately themed items, including sculpture, note cards, and magnets, to help you mark the day. Back to top |
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| Detroit Institute of Arts
5200 Woodward Avenue
Detroit, Michigan 48202
www.dia.org
313.833.7900 Comments or questions about the newsletter? Please contact us: [email protected] ADMISSION
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$ 6 youth (6-17)
The museum is free for members and residents of Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb Counties
Contact the Membership HelpLine at
313.833.7971 or [email protected] For group sales (15 or more) contact 313.833.1292 or dia.org/grouptours
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HOURS
Museum
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Tue, Wed, Thur 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
Fri 9 a.m.-10 p.m.
Sat, Sun 10 a.m.-5 p.m. PARKING
Lighted, secure self-parking is available in the museum parking lot, between John R and Brush behind the museum, for $7. |
CaféDIA
313.833.7966
Tue, Wed, Thur 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.
Fri 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m., 4-9 p.m.
Sat, Sun 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Kresge Court
Tue, Wed, Thur 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
Fri 9 a.m.-9:30 p.m.
Sat., Sun 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Museum Shop
313.833.7944 or [email protected]
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